Hessian Robin Decorations

I love this time of year when I search on Pinterest and get inspired to make Christmas decorations.  The other day I came across a great idea for making robins and gave this a go this weekend.

I already had everything I needed in my crafty stash, some hessian, jute thread, red felt and black beads and used my Die'sire metal dies to cut the shapes needed.

These have worked out really well and I don't know whether to keep them for myself or sell them!

Pinapple

This pineapple was made for a friend's daughter who is nuts about pineapples.

There were a few video ideas on YouTube but I went for a free pattern from this website, YarnPlaza.com.  The pattern is available here.

I used yarn by Scheepjes, Catona for the leaves and Chalista for the body.

Speckled Bird Decoration

I came across some rather gorgeous festive christmas makes in the Simply Crochet magazine this month and couldn't resist making this lovely speckled bird.  

I didn't have any Scheepjes Catona yarn so I made this up using some of the Stylecraft Special DK.

The pattern was very easy to follow and I made it within a few days.

Jack's Chain Quilt

I was very much inspired to make this quilt looking blanket when I saw it posted in Pinterest.  I tracked the pattern down on Ravelry and it was produced by Atty Van Norel.  You can obtain it from her Ravelry Store if you too are inspirect to make it here.

I used Stylecraft Special DK matching the colours to a painting I have recently purchased to hang in our lounge.

The pattern was well written and easy to follow.  When it came to joining, I found the simplest method was to use my stitch markers and pin a row of motifs together with these before stitching any together.  This enabled me to ensure that I didn't have any two of the same colour or shape within the same circle or adjoining circle.  Having said that I did have one or two mishaps and had to take a few apart!  I soon released not to sew in the ends until the very end then it made it easier to undo.  

I made a lap size blanket and it is now draped over the back of the armchair.  This blanket took approx 6 weeks to make, on and off.

Asterflora Shawl

I recently bought a sleeveless evening dress from Boohoo to wear to an evening wedding reception and had been pondering on what to wear with it just in case the evening was a bit on the chilly side.

After the success of making one shawl, I decided to make another one using a pattern I had for the Asterflora Shawl by Amy O'Neill Houck.  Full video tutorial and instructions are available on www.BluePrint.com, a website dedicated to learning new skills.

I already had this lovely multi coloured yarn from King Cole called Riot so it was just a case of getting to grips with the pattern and making up the shawl.  This is work in progress.  I stopped to take a photo of the yarn because it reminded me of a pineapple as it was unravelling.


It didn't take too long to get into a stride and within a week I soon had the shawl made.  Here is the finished shawl after I have blocked it. 

And another with the dress that I intend to wear it with.

Summer Shawl

My front garden is a riot of colour at the moment so today's post is a Summer Shawl.  This is a free pattern that was written by  Nadia Fuad of Yarn Utopia. It was very easy to follow the instructions and there is a YouTube video to accompany this for anyone who is a visual learner.

This particular type of shawl can be made to any length you want as you start from the neck and work outwards.  This means you can stop when you have the desired length.

I used Lion Brand Yarn - Mandala "Spirit" as I adore the colours and wanted a shawl that changed colour every couple of rows.  I needed just over one mandala and I used a size 4mm crochet hook.  

Here is the finished result.  It is lovely and snug to wear.

Bolster cushion cover

I have had this bolster cushion for several years so it is not surprising that it is looking a little shabby now!

I couldn't bear to part with it as it gives me much needed back support when sitting on the sofa in the evenings, so I set about making a new cover for it.

Having just started making the Havana crochet blanket I learned a new crocheting technique and thought I would try this out and make myself a new cover.

There is a pattern repeat every 12th stitch which makes the design stand out.  The rows are crocheted using the single crochet stitch which is worked in the back loop only.  This leaves a horizontal stitch visible at the front of the fabric.  The horizontal stitch gives you something to get your hook around to make a treble in the row below, every 12th stitch.  This is what forms the pattern.

I began with 60 stitches + 3.  60 is divisible by 12 five times so I have 5 pattern repeats.  One of the additional stitches is required for the turning chain leaving me with two additional stitches.  These are needed either end of the piece of work and don't count when working up the pattern.  I worked a single crochet in them but through both loops.

After making the piece the appropriate length I then hand stitched a zip in place.  First I turned the work inside out and joined the seams either end leaving a gap for the zip.  Then I pinned the zip in place and hand stitched this in using embroidery thread.

Now for the end pieces.  These needed a circular piece of work large enough to fit the circumference of the roll shaped cover.

This is how I made them:

I made an adjustable ring and crocheted 10 trebles into the ring.   Throughout the rows the turning chain counted as a stitch made up of 3 chains.

Row 2:  Start with a turning chain. Crochet 19 trebles (2 in each stitch) total 20 stitches which includes turning chain.

Row 3: Turning chain followed by 2 treble in next stitch, (*I treble in next stitch, 2 treble in next stitch) *Repeat to end of round. (I, V). Total 30 stitches.

Row 4: Turning chain followed by 1 treble in next stitch, 2 treble in next stitch, (*1 treble in next two stitches, 2 treble in next stitch). *Repeat to end of round. (I, I, V). Total 40 stitches.

Row 5: Turning chain followed by 1 treble in next stitch, 1, treble in next stitch, 2 treble in next stitch, (*1 treble in next three stitches,  1 treble in next 2 treble in next stitch). *Repeat to end of round. (I, I, I, V). Total 50 stitches.

Row 6: Turning chain followed by 1 treble in next three stitches, 2 treble in next stitch, (*1 treble in next four stitches, 2 treble in next stitch). *Repeat to end of round. (I, I, I, I, V). Total 60 stitches.

 I finished off the pieces with one row of single crochet which I would use to attach the pieces to the main piece.  

I then folded the circles in half and put stitch markers top and bottom.  I then re-folded and added more stitch markers until I had 8 stitch markers in place.  I did the same with the tube shaped cover.  This made it easy to then pin the two together.  They were a perfect fit so I sewed them together.  All the tail ends were left on the inside of the work. I worked with the cushion cover inside out when attaching the ends and when finished, turned it the right way around.  This is what is looks like.

I am really pleased with the results.  If you think it looks good, post your comments below as it would be lovely to get some feedback.

Grey Blanket by The Patchwork Heart

I fell in love the colours of the grey blanket posted on Patchwork Heart's website made up from using Stylecraft DK in lovely bright colours of spice, parchment, meadow, petrol, silver, lime, storm blue, mocha, grey, denim and graphite.  I added my own twist by switching pistachio for denim.  

To avoid duplicating the squares with the same colours I created a spreadsheet and worked out a pattern for the colours.  By using  the "CountIf" feature in Excel I could then see how many occurences I had of the different colours and also balance this out over the rounds.  

I joined all the squares together as I worked the last round in grey and did the wave pattern on the final round of the edge.  

Here are some photos of my work as I went along.

Thinking about the layout of the finished squares back in January. 

Following this I individually soaked each square and laid out on a frame to shape them as they dried.

In March I started joining the squares beginning with row 1 working left to right.  

I joined the second square to the first after I have crocheted around three sides of the first square.  This first square will be in the top left corner.  I follow this process for all the squares in the row until I got to the last square. When I worked the final square in the row, I just worked the two edges.  

Row 2 - Working from right to left, I began joining the first square in the row directly beneath the last one I worked in the row above.  After two rows of joins are completed I worked a row of trebles across the entire row (left to right) so that the joining began on the third row from right to left.

You can find out more about joining as you go from this blog site page.

After all the rows were joined I completed the edging where the joining had not included the edging on the other three sides. Following this I did a number of rows to give it a border and then finished it off with a wave edging.

The blanket was soaked and laid out to dry to let the yarn settle into place.  It's now complete and ready for sale.

Here is the finished product, Enjoy xxx

My First Top Down Crocheted Jumper

My love of card making, which incidentally, hasn’t fallen out of favour, is currently on the back boiler.  This is because I have made that many cards, that I simply do not know what to do with them all! The downside of this is that I simply do not have anything to post on my blog on a regular basis.  Still the upside is that I have been saving lots of money by not buying any craft materials so I am financially better off!

Since my lasting posting I have been working on a few crochet projects.  It is strange that before I get one completed I am inspired by something else and before I know it I am beginning a new project!  In fact at one point I had three blankets, a cardigan and a jumper on the go.  I even have my eye on another project I want to make.

The unfinished cardigan is being made from a “tried and tested” pattern I got from Craftsy which comes with a tutorial.  This will be the third cardigan I have made with this pattern, this time in blue and again, using Lion Brand Wool Eaze yarn.  Being able to re-use a pattern like this makes the Craftsy class good value for money.  I have made all the elements and it just needs joining together.  Before joining the sleeves to the body I have made pattern pieces from the parts.  I am interested in developing my own clothing and having pattern pieces will be helpful.  Hence the delay in getting this one completed.

The Grey blanket I am working on is nearing completion so I shall write about that very soon.  I also have a blanket on the go as a present for my mum but there is no hurry for this as it doesn’t’ need to be ready until September and the third blanket which I recently started is the Hooked and Locked CAL blanket.  This is my first dapple into filet crochet.  I can't wait to share this with you too!

The news today is to share my completed jumper. The story is that I brought the yarn some time ago then couldn’t find the pattern that it was for.  I have learned that when I buy yarn in advance of a project to keep everything together! 

Working a pattern top down was a new experience for me.  I looked at top down patterns for jumpers and didn’t find it easy to follow the instructions so I attempted this solo.   The advantage of working this way is that you don’t end up with seams to sew together.   Loosely based on the patterns I discovered, I developed the pattern to my own specification and made up the design as follows:

I am really pleased with the outcome.  I know it isn’t perfect but it looks great and the yarn I used, Drops Air, is super soft and light weight.

Well, what do you think?  

Ski Hat

You know what it's like when you see something crocheted and you fall in love with the pattern and you just have to have it?  This happened to me this week. I had just finished making my amigurumi mouse and still had  three other works in progress when a friend at work showed me a photo of her latest make.  She had made a ski hat and it looked fantastic.  I liked it so much I just had to get hold of the pattern and try it myself.

When I studied the pattern I realised that I was going to learn three new stitch techniques so I had to get out some yarn and watch a few YouTube videos to get to grips with these new stitches before I could begin.

The first stitch is called the Diamond Stitch.  It is working front post double trebles to create the relief pattern of diamonds.  I have been keen to learn more about relief work and had dabbled with cabling before but found it quite difficult and so needed something to ease me into it.  Fortunately this video on YouTube posted by Hopeful Honey was easy to follow:

The second stitch was really easy.  It is creating an effect by working in the back loop (the third loop only) of an hdc stitch.  Usually you have two loops at the top of the stitch but there is a third one created when you make a hdc stitch and it sits behind the two you are more familiar with.  This stitch is particularly useful to create a ribbing effect.

The third stitch is called the Crab Stitch which is a reverse stitch.  Normally we work from left to right but in this instance we are working backwards to crochet this stitch by placing our hook into the stitch to right of the hook, yarning over, pulling through to reveal two loops on the hook.  Then repositioning the hook in your hand by twisting it round so it is easy to yarn over again and pulling through two loops on the hook.  Bella Coco demonstrates how easy it is to create this stitch on YouTube:

As I had some spare yarn I thought I would give this a go using Lion Brand Wool-Ease in Oxford Grey and Seaspray as I wanted a two tone effect.

I spent a couple of evenings making the hat and then the finishing touches of the pom pom and ties were made this morning.

Here is the finished result.  Let me know if you like it by commenting on my post.

If you are interested in making this design yourself you can find all the information you need by visiting Kirsten Holloway Designs Blog here  My special thanks to Kirsten for her generosity in sharing this pattern.