Bluebird mobile...

At last, I have finished Mary's mobile! It is on its way to the other side of the planet!

There seemed to be a lot of things that prevented me from finishing this project, but it is done and I am glad it is on its way.

It was fun to do - I think the birds are so sweet.  It is made using Debbie Bliss Rialto Aran.

I used Anchor tapestry wool for the little flowers - the selection of colours is huge, so if you're looking for something small and in a particular colour, it's a good option.  I find buying yellow yarn really difficult for some reason...

Here it is hanging in my conservatory.  Bon voyage, bluebirds.

One week, ten things...

• Apologies for not getting round to sharing a bit of borrowed beauty...

...while my parents are staying with me, I have been enjoying the blooms of my Mum's orchids which are residing in my conservatory... there are frilly ones...

...spotty ones...

...yellow ones...

...and white ones.  They seem to be thriving at the moment

• My day at St Mary's went really well.  I would even go as far as saying that I enjoyed it.  I mean, I don't often get the chance to talk about Tom much anymore, so it was more than welcome as far as I'm concerned.  I spoke to my counsellor today and the feed-back she has received was really positive about my contribution to the lecture.  The Registrars were so nice and they asked me lots of questions - some of which were quite challenging.  I'm happy to do it again in spite of feeling absolutely exhausted by the time I got home.

• Better late than never, but I have continued to do my 365 Days project over at Flickr and so here is my mosaic for February.

• I have a new favourite chocolate bar.  It has proved to be elusive, but one of my lovely friends tracked a bar down in Surrey and posted it to me!

• 
  
  I also forgot to mention the craft table we did at an Indulgence evening.  I didn't sell One Single Thing!  Never mind.  We managed to get some dates for proper craft fairs!  I didn't really get round to making that much so I'm not as disappointed as I might have been.  I was surprised that anyone could resist this cute pram toy!

• 
  
  I need to finish hand-quilting Max's quilt.  I'm half way through and would really like to get it done this week as I am impatient to start my next one!

• 
  
  I have discovered Spoonflower.  Dangerous territory.  Believe me.

• Continuing in the forgetful way that has become the norm at the moment, I also forgot to mention the discovery of the most wonderful haberdashery in Frome, Somerset.  I spent a lovely while browsing through fabrics, buttons and trimmings.

• Pip has a new girlfriend.  Meet Daisy...

...she has the most expressive ears!  I have a request to make her a jumper - she's a shivery little thing!  Unfortunately, she is not mine.  She belongs to another of my lovely friends.

• I have almost finished my giveaway amigurumi.  I'm hoping to post it out at the end of the week.

Deadline...

I'm not used to working to a deadline anymore.  I have tried really hard not to let it stress me out too much.

Tomorrow evening, I have a table at a fund-raising evening in Warwickshire, with my friend.  A table to try and sell some things I have been making.

I had grand plans to have a really good assortment of items to sell but my time has been taken up with goodness knows what.  So, I am taking along a few bits of crochet and some fabric-y bits that I have made out of all the scrap materials from my quilt-making.  I have tried to photograph it as I go, but to be honest, the light is so dull it's been hard to capture the colours.

Perhaps tomorrow I can get some better pictures...  Perhaps, I'll even sell something!

*****

I am going to do some more training tonight at Helen House.  Things have been moving forward in this area for me lately and when I get a chance I will post about some things that I am now involved in.  As ever, I have many balls in the air.  Hopefully next week, I can get myself more organised and finish some projects that have had to sit on the back burner for a while. 

A thank you...

As a little thank you for all the wonderful comments for my first attempt at NaBloPoMo, I am going to have a little giveaway!

I will leave it open for one week, so will draw a winner on Monday 8th February 2010.  To enter just leave me a comment on this post, making sure you leave me some contact details especially if you are a 'noreply-comment@blogger.com' commenter!

I will make the winner an amigurumi of their choice, so just click on my amigurumi link on my sidebar and make your selection and let me know in your comment.  If you like something from my new book that I posted about here, don't be shy - I'd love to make something (anything!) from there.

Squeal...

That's the noise I made when I opened up my Amazon box on delivery this afternoon!  It was followed by some more... and some more...

I ordered these books two weeks ago and have found Amazon to be unusually slow in delivering them for some reason.  Especially considering they were all in stock.

I've had such a busy day today I've only been able to glance through Amigurumi Two! briefly, but I liked what I saw. 

How impossibly cute are these peas nestled in a pod?  Knowing where to start is going to be a tough one.  I want to make one of everything.

And look at this amazing mobile.  I have a christening to go to in a couple of weeks - do you think it would make a good gift?

And, DottyCookie, look at these!  They definitely need  to be made.  Like now.  Like more than one!

I think I need to get this week done and dusted before I start on these books.  I wonder if I have the will-power to let them be until the weekend...

Fat-free cupcakes...

My love of cupcakes doesn't end in the kitchen.  My crochet gifts that were given out at Christmas started some crochet envy amongst certain members of my family, and it seemed that one item of crochet cuteness wasn't enough.  Before I could clear away the remains of our dinner, my pattern books were being sorted through, yarn selected from my stash and lists being made of more things to make.

This little cupcake came from this book. The great thing about them is that you can have as many as you like and you won't put on a pound!

Not crackers...

I've so enjoyed having time at home this year to get stuck into making loads of hand-made gifts for Christmas. Perhaps this is my vocation. It seems the more I make, the more I want to make and my brain is fit to burst.

One thing I find a complete waste of money is Christmas crackers. Every year we seem to spend a fortune on nice ones, only for me to be left with a little pile of stuff that came out of them to oohs and aahhs but actually, stuff no-one really wanted! Nobody likes to wear the hat - in fact my one never fits me! I've even had a 2 pint jug of gravy being spilt all over the table (and my poor Mum) in a display of strength needed to pull the cracker apart!

SO, this year I thought I would do little table gifts for everyone instead. I'm a glutton for punishment, see.

I have to say, I was inspired by this irresistible book.

The boys in my family WILL have my crochet! No2 gave his seal of approval and said I should surprise him with one. I made them into key rings so they could hang them on their school bags! And all the materials came from my stash, so no cost to me other than my time.

Then there came the girls. I could have gone mad and made every single item in this book (maybe one day I will) but I was also dying to make these hearts from Owlishly.


Again, I added a keyring and decorated them with some buttons from my jar. Crochet fascinates me still; it seems there is no end to the things you can create.
Then onto the adults...


Way back in the summer I grabbed some skeins of gorgeous Debbie Bliss Pure Silk in the John Lewis sale. Rather than buy several of one colour, I bought just one skein of several colours. I wish you could put your hand in and feel how wonderfully soft this yarn is.

Then, I saw this little beauty and I knew just what to use it for.

That's the ladies sorted. I have to confess to being stumped as to what to get for the menfolk and have resorted to a scratch card. Of course, if any of them win, I will have half!
Come back tomorrow to see the boxes I've made to put them all in!

Dino boys...

On one of my excursions around Ravelry, I came across Owlishly. I fell in love at first sight!

I knew 2 boys who would love Luke in the Dinosaur Suit for Christmas.

Both made from yarn from my stash. In different colours so they don't get muddled up, of course!

I know the boys are going to love them! When they visit, they go round my house collecting up all my hand-made things to show me!

I'm developing quite a passion for dinosaur crochet...

Here come the girls...

Just a quick post to share some more crochet!

Having been monopolised by the onset of boys all through the summer, I had a nice excuse and a break from blue, with a birthday present for my friend's daughter. She's not really a girlie-girl, so what could be better than pink dinosaurs?

The triceratops is made with Rowan Big Wool using a whopping 7mm hook and the stegasaurus is using hand-dyed malabrigo worsted weight yarn that I bought in Loop a while back.

Patterns from here. Apparently, she loves them!

Prehistoric crochet...

The last of the baby gifts is done. It's a herbivore...

...something a bit more unusual for baby boy #3, methinks. I have just discovered PlanetJune. June has some amazing amigurumi patterns and I just couldn't resist this little dinosaur collection. I have been converted to the magic ring and as June says, I will never go back to the usual methods of working in the round, be it in amigurumi or granny squares. Try it - it's brilliant.

I down-sized him a little bit by using Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino on a 3mm hook and he measures about 6" long from nose to tail - just right for little hands. All boys love dinosaurs, right? Stegosaurus is my personal favourite and there have been some pretty major dinosaur obsessions in this household over the years...

I need to get him out of my garden!

From one extreme to the other...

For some time I have been deliberating about starting a big crochet project. Big as in blanket size. In this post, I was still undecided, but now the decision has been made and the winner is a Babette Blanket.

I knew that I wanted to use Debbie Bliss Eco Yarn, as I loved the colour palette and I love working with cotton. It's a fairly heavyweight yarn and I'm using a 3.5mm hook, so it's quite compact and will be heavy but cosy, I hope.

The Babette looks like a patchwork quilt and that is exactly how it is made. You make panels of squares then put them together, logcabin-like. I'm only using 10 colours, whereas the pattern really uses 17, so I substituted my colours on the key, repeating all of them except 3 (red/green/brown) and it is such good fun seeing how the squares work out by just following the key instead of fussily deciding which colour to use next. I've mentioned before that I struggle with random so this is the perfect way out of what I know would be hours wasted faffing about thinking about the colours and whether they were balanced and equal.

I started off by making the 2 big 12-round squares to see how the colours worked together.

Then I got cracking on the panels in order so that I can join them together and watch it grow. It's addictive, let me tell you.

I wanted a project like this to keep on the back burner to come back to between smaller projects, but I've made a good start at it and my wrist is actually sore from hooking! I will post Babette's progress through the summer...

***

At the other end of the crochet spectrum is this:

When I was in the Cotton Patch a while back looking for fabrics for my red/turquoise quilt, I spotted a drawer full of these lovely embroidery threads. When I see colour en masse, the temptation is too much and I came home wondering what I could use it for.

Then I had the brainwave of trying to downsize some of my amigurumi by substituting this thread for the usual dk yarn that I use.

So, I placed an order for a selection of colours and played around to find the right size hook - 1.5mm - to get the crochet tight enough not to let any stuffing escape. I chose one of my favourite patterns... And look! A tiny head is made!

Fiddly but fun! I can only work on this in daylight (maybe I need to get an eyetest...) as the stitches are impossibly small and in black it's even harder to see them. But isn't he cute? I can't show you how much smaller he is than the original as he doesn't live here anymore, but he's about an inch and a half tall (or small?!).

Now there's something you don't see often - a penguin amongst succulents!

I think I may have OCD. Obsessive Crochet Disorder. I've now got a bee in my bonnet over this yarn - it's gorgeous, take my word for it, and the colours? Delicious.

Snow inspired...

Remember the snow? It's funny how quickly you forget things once they've passed. And such a fuss at the time!

When uni was cancelled for The Whole Week, our tutors posted tasks for us to keep busy with while we were at home. My art tutor asked us to be inspired by the snow...maybe use it as a material... Not quite, but I did have some wool waiting to be used...

I'd had enough of it by the time the request was made, but I was inspired to make someone who actually quite likes snow...

He didn't mind sitting out amongst it! He's not quite finished in this picture - I hadn't sewn his wings on - but the snow started to melt!

He's been re-homed with his new owner, and re-named - MacArthur - and I hear he is behaving himself now that the snow has disappeared...

Ahh, still in love with amigurumi...