Tag Archives: crochet

Dolly Peg Dolls for Handmade Monday

It’s Handmade Monday again, isn’t it scary how the weeks fly by? Even though I’ve spent time having fun with two small boys last week, I still have a few handmade things to share with you, as I’m still beavering away making for the Pick’n’Mix Makers Market in just over 3 weeks time.

I really, really don’t like it when the clocks go back. I’m sitting here looking at the gloom outside, and it isn’t half past four yet! a few people suggested that the extra hour in bed is a compensation, but it only happens the once and not in a house where the body clocks of children and animals are still running on the old time. So it was out of bed at 6.30 for CeeBeebies and Henry/Higgins breakfast!

Added to which the boys went home this morning so it’s very quiet as well as gloomy so I have been SO appreciative of all the lovely links for Reasons to be Cheerful, thank you very much. And if you are feeling a bit like me, pay a few bloggy visits and say hello!

Anyway, this week we went to a windswept beach to do a bit of charging about…

To a mini funfair to do a bit of flying around…

To the cinema for some 3D magic…

… to Bewilderwood for some Halloween spookiness…

Topped off with a trip to Norwich Castle for some more half term fun.

And I bet you’re wondering where the dolly pegs come in!

Well they’re here…

Happy little ladies decorated with needlefelt and yarn, crochet fleece and buttons.

I’ve had such fun making them, and although they’re perfect for hanging on the Christmas tree, they could keep you company all year round, hanging on a door knob, a pin board, or the dressing table mirror.

So they might be hanging around, but I haven’t been!

As usual there is a link to Wendy of 1st Unique Gifts, who kindly hosts Handmade Monday each week, and there you can visit all the other makers to see what they’ve been up to! Have fun, and see you soon x

This Way…or That Way?

I’m rather hoping with your help I can find out a little something I’ve pondered on off and on for years. Nothing major, just a little curiosity.

I think I’ve mentioned the Knit and Stitch Group I started a couple of years ago in our little village. It started off at my place, outgrew the parking spaces, moved to the larger home of another member and out grew that and we’ve ended up in our new, quite swish, straw bale Village Hall. If you look at the picture on the link you can see the round Meeting Room where we now get together every month. Last night we had the best attendance yet!

We didn’t want to limit to a ‘Stitch and Bitch’ type knitting group, we embrace stitches of all sorts, knitting and crochet, needlepoint and cross stitch, patchwork and applique. We are pretty cosy in our round room, and very nearly lift the roof off with our nattering – in fact last night the Yoga teacher had to put her head round the door to shush us so they could get into their ‘cool down’ zone…. woops!

We had a crochet class last night as quite a few members were keen to learn, or brush up their skills and this is where my question comes in. I have taught knitting over the years, and although I am left handed I knit in just the same way as right handed people so it’s never been a problem. But crochet is a different matter. I just don’t do it like anyone else I know. I was taught by my left-handed grandmother, I don’t know who taught her. So it was left to Claire the Crochet Queen to impart her knowledge to the group. However, I have found that if someone struggles with the conventional method, my way seems to work. My solitary pupil was going great guns the unconventional way by the end of the evening. The thing is, it doesn’t actually look any different to the ‘real thing’ and seems so much more logical.

So, I’d love to know if anyone else does it my way..is anyone else weird like me?!

This is the ‘proper’ way…

…the left hand holds the work and the left index finger feeds the yarn round the hook.

For the life of me I can’t do that , I get in such a tangle. Inexplicably my grandmother’s ‘left-handed’ way does everything with the right hand, holding the yarn as in knitting…

I can’t be the only one, can I?

I love to find out!

And we had a new member last night, the lovely Gabriella Buckingham, who blogs here, sells here, and learns to crochet in a straw bale building!

Aah, I’ve spotted a small dog, hinting that it must be time for , whisper it, w.a.l.k.i.e.s. and by the look of the gathering clouds, I’d better do it quickly…

Looking forward to your comments!

P.S. I’ve just found out I’ve been nominated for the Dorset Cereals Little Blog Award! It would be SO lovely if you could vote for me, there’s a voting button at the top of the right hand side bar. Thank you so much x

More Hearts…More Pompoms…

Hello!!! Is it Thursday already? This week is galloping by. Firstly, because I know you’ll want to know, Henry is still doing nicely. The medication has been finished, and as I write he is snoring contentedly, in his bed. This is a relief, as when he first came back the only place he wanted to be if he couldn’t have a warm lap was a warm keyboard.

The only little cloud on the horizon is the visit to vet next Monday for the removal of the stitches. This will probably require the entire squad of nurses and maybe one or two brave volunteers from the waiting room as he will NOT be a happy bunny!

Oh, and some hair restorer…

His tummy was shaved for the ultrasound, his head was shaved for the spinal tap, patches were shaved on his legs for the drips, and his throat was shaved for the operation. Thank goodness it’s summer, I don’t think he’s be happy in a jumper, however beautifully knitted!

But pompoms, I hear you cry, you said there were pompoms!

There are SO many pompoms! I found this wonderful gadget…

Do you remember the Heart and Pompom bunting…

…which I made in January?

I still love it, but I made the pompoms with a little gadget which my mum had given me because she wasn’t very happy with her results. Well, I tried really hard with it, and made so many pompoms using up my leftovers…

but they were never as firm and fluffy as I wanted them to be.

Now I have found this gadget…

…and it is wonderful! The smallest sized one makes a beautifully firm pompom in just few minutes and it is so compulsive I had to pack the gadgets up and put them away as there was a danger that my entire stash would be used up!

The solution was to make a larger version of the Heart and Pompom Bunting – the tutorial for that is here. I just worked the last row in the pattern in the main colour and added an extra row in the contrast colour to make the hearts bigger and made the joining chain slightly longer between the hearts so I could use slightly bigger pompoms.

Would you like to see?

It was hard to find the best way to show you. When I hung it up inside I realised how much my house needs redecorating, and the light wasn’t right so here it is outside the studio…

There’s actually a bit too much light here, it rather bleaches the colours, but I’m not going to complain about sunshine! (If you can’t find the pompom maker locally I got mine from Clothkits thank you, Kaye!)

Now we have another sunshiny day I’d better get out into the garden. All the strong wind over the last couple of days has blown my little plastic greenhouse and flowerpots all over the garden. (Higgins has done his best to round things up but the toothmarks are a problem…)

Talking of Higgins, he’s rather had the spotlight taken off him with recent events but if you were wondering…he’s fine…

You see…?

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Lifting the Gloom with Hearts and Pompom Bunting….

We really need something a little cheerful at the moment don’t we? January is such a gloomy month. Higgins and I went for a ‘squelch’ this afternoon and although it quite mild, it was what my Mother calls a Tupperware box day, and no one’s taken the lid off.

But, the days are getting longer(by about one and a half minutes a day apparently) and I have little daffodils bursting into bloom in front of me as I type.

I was really lucky to receive a lovely gift at Christmas, a beautiful jug which I have been coveting for about five years. Do you remember this post when I was given a pretty little mug for my birthday? Well my clever Daughter-in-law tracked down the very jug I have been hankering after all this time from the same designer, Gabriella Miller.

And I’ve found the little notebook I mentioned in the other post, where I had expressed my desire to have some Gabriella Miller pieces as well as all sorts of useful notes and pictures.

However, I’ve been working on something to cheer up the gloom, and the bareness left now the Christmas decorations have been consigned to the attic for another year. I’ve been playing around with a crochet hook and the yarns left from the cushion and blanket project which are a real splash of colour in themselves. And with February round the corner, and Valentine’s Day there are hearts, and I still love the pompoms so I thought Hearts and Pompom Bunting…

I’ve been fiddling around with the pattern and written it down which I’m really proud of because I got so excited about the whole process, and the prettiness of all the colours. I’ll do a few photos as soon as possible to turn it into a tutorial if you think you’d like make your own version but in the meantime, want to see some more?

(By the way, do you like the cup, saucer and plate on the top shelf? Another Christmas present which I love!)

And finally, bringing all the cheeriness together… Planet Penny Hearts and Pompom Bunting

A cheerful note on which to start the weekend! Have a lovely one, I hope the sun shines for you. See you soon x

Ed to add: You can find the pattern for this bunting here…

Frogging…

When I mentioned ‘frogging’ to a friend the other day I was met by a blank stare. However, when I then said ‘Rippit, Rippit’ the blank stare turned to enlightenment, and sympathy.

There’s been a lot of ripping involved with my latest cushion. It’s not that I haven’t knitted fair isle before, but I’ve not had a palette of seventeen colours, and I wasn’t changing the background colours as well as the pattern colours. I’m blaming Kaffe Fassett and his book Pattern Library. I think he has a special sort of brain that doesn’t get boggled, because boggled my own brain certainly became.

The crochet cushions are the same back and front, but I didn’t think my sanity would last long enough to knit both sides, so I dug out some needlecord in a really pretty blue and some gorgeous red wooden buttons which I think work well.

Too late I noticed I’ve got the nap of the needlecord running both ways which makes one side darker than the other, but I’ve decided it’s a design feature!

So, would you like to see it? Here’s a little hint…

…and another…

This is the reverse side!

…and that’s quite pretty too, but here is the finished article…

I have two more little cushion pads left so I’m having a ponder about what I do next. There are the lovely grandala ideas over on Crochet with Raymond, I could do Lucy’s granny stripe, zigzags might be fun…

In the mean time I have been resting my eyes from all that colour with some pristine white cotton crochet, another bunting experiment. I have resisted so far because I’ve seen lots of other versions of crochet bunting but I deliberately didn’t look too closely at anyone else’s so I could invent my own take on it. So far, I’m liking it…

Well it must be time to finish blogging, if only because Henry the cat has come to sit on the keyboard and I can only access some of the keys. Have a lovely weekend…x

Compensations of the Season

Last year the Virginia Creeper was a solitary, spindly strand struggling to stay clinging to the wall. I was a little brutal and trimmed it back to door height during the winter and it’s done so well over the summer, despite being torn off in the wind several times. Now it is truly glorious, and I have high hopes of it spreading really well next year, and hiding the join between the old house wall and the extension.

I was a bit premature in a previous post when I said how well the sunflowers had withstood the wind and went outside to find one drooping miserably over the fence. Never mind, it’s all looking pretty good in a vase.

I’ve been playing around with my basket of Stylecraft Special DK and working on a cushion assortment to compliment the crochet blanket. Ikea came up trumps – again – on my last visit with small cushions, 30cms, for a ridiculous price, something like 79p a piece! I managed to hold back though and only got six.

My first two have been a colour experiment. A cool one…

…and a warm one.

I’m happy with how they look…

…and the quality controller is testing them as I write!

There’s another cushion in the making but for now I’ve got to persuade Higgins it’s time for walkies, just as he’s decided it’s time to get comfy…