Photo Challenge Tuesday – Flower

Just a quick post to share this lovely challenge that I came across whilst browsing blogs both new and old. Isn’t it great to discover some thing new? I have followed Nanacathy for some time and have joined her in a previous photo challenge called Friday Fences, it was so obscure I just couldn’t resist, but that was way back in 2013.

My recent browsing led me to Wild Daffodil where the new photo challenge is housed, well actually it is only new to me, and now you of course, as it ran all of last year too. Basically you are provided with a theme and on the first tuesday of every month you post your contribution then leave a link to your post in the comments on Wild Daffodil’s blog post.

The blossom image above is not a new image but one that I have shared on a previous post here it’s right at the end of the post, not totally realted to the woolly content apart from being pink. It was just that it is my favouite tree in our garden, it only blossoms for about 3 weeks in a year and creates a whole lot of sweeping up once the blossoms fall but it is incredably beautiful for those 3 short weeks.

The photo above is more weeds than flowers and mostly dead at that, but rather beatiful in my eyes nevertheless. Anyway a friend once said to me that a weed is merely an uncultivated flower so on that note it does qualify, I will leave you to make up your own mind.

My last entry is a woolly one, I couldn’t resist as creating with yarn is what I love to do most, a very simple Sunflower.

So don’t think about just join the photo party visit Wild Daffodil  now!

Baby Blanket Centre Squares

Baby Blanket Centre Squares

Pretty in Pink Baby Blanket

and Little Boy Blues Baby Blanket

I have been asked many times for the pattern for the squares in the centre of these baby blankets and have been very pleased to share via email upon request. I have had the pattern written up for ages so I thought why not create a post to share the joy that I had in making them.

I hope the pattern is clear but if you have any questions just let me know

Centre Square Pattern

1. Chain 6 slip stitch into the first stitch to make a ring.
2. Chain 1 (counts as first dc) c 15 into the ring, slip stitch into the first chain made, 16 sts.
3. 4 chain, 3trtog into same st to make the first petal cluster, 3ch, miss next dc,

*tr 4 tog, 3 ch, miss next dc**  repeat from * to ** 6 more times, 8 petal clusters formed.

4. Slip stitch into the next 3 ch space, 1ch, 1 dc in same space, * 2ch, (3htr, 3ch, 3htr0 into next 3 ch space, 2 ch, 1 dc in next 3ch space, rep from * 3 times more, omitting dc at the end of the last repeat, slip stitch into first dc.

The final round is trebles and I think you will be able to follow that from the images. Any questions please let me know and I will be happy to help if I can.

Crochet Work Basket

Crochet Work Basket.

I love it, I get so much pleasure from putting away my latest project in it’s special work basket.

It was hard work on my wrists using yarn this thick, well cotton actually, but it was worth it.

It started with a simple circle to create the base, this image doesn’t actually show quite how thick the cotton is but the hook is a size 11 so that may give you an idea!

With perseverance and regular breaks for my wrist it grew taller, I love the pattern created by simple switches from single crochet to half treble crochet and working into back loops only. So effective.

When I felt it was tall enough it was time to break for the handles by replacing the stitches with a chain ready to stitch over on the following round.

I have wanted to make myself a work basket for ages and finally got around to it!

You can make your own work basket using this link to the pattern.

Happy hooking my friends.

 

 

Baby Blanket for a Little Man

 

Baby Blanket for  a little boy.

baby-blanket-complete-9

My lovely daughter called and asked if I could make a blanket for the Christening of her friends baby, “of course” said I “when is it”, “next week” says Miss A.

I said I would love to make something. But within a week? Although I would say that I am not one to be easily deterred from a woolly challenge it would be unlikely to be ready in time for the christening date. We agreed that that would be ok and I have to confess that I was delighted to be given a reason to start this pattern, I have been eyeing it up for quite a while and wasted no time in getting started.

Baby Blanket 1.jpg

I wanted it to be bright and cheery so went for a mix of blues and turquoise with white to give the patches a lift, the soft teddy bearish brown added an nice earthy tone to pull it all together.

baby-blanket-progress-2

I just love laying the squares out as you go to mark your progress deriving great pleasure from seeing them all laid out once complete and ready for joining.

baby-blanket-ready-to-join-3

Just to give you a closer view of the different blocks used to create this baby blanket, the heart is made separately then stitched into place in the centre of this simple crochet square.

baby-blanket-heart-square-4

The Catherine Wheel pattern is employed for the one of the rectangle squares. I love the motion you feel with this one.

baby-blanket-square-5

A simple extention to the heart square base using treble crochet stitches.

baby-blanket-square-6

The simple Shell pattern, the only single colour block used.

baby-blanket-shell-pattern-7

The teddy bear brown surrounds and joins each block together and is also used to frame the simple trebble crochet border before the lacy edging is applied.

baby-blanket-edging-8

And then, it’s finished. Ready to wrap itself around a special little man!

baby-blanket-complete-10

I do so love making blankets and this was such a pleasure I have no hessitation in recommending the pattern from a book I have used many times, Baby Crochet by Lois Daykin.

ps. I am going to ask Mama if I can share the photo of the little chap laid on his new blanket, what this space!

Is it a Tea Cosy or is it a Hat?

A friend, actually it is a friends sister, works with children and her trademark is hats, she tells me she has a whole range of them from funky to funny. It all started a few Christmases ago when she wore a santa hat for work, it caused such amusement that she has been collecting hats ever since.

It started with this colourful stripy Ripple Tea Cosy.

Anyway this lovely (slightly crazy lady) saw this Tea Cosy and asked me if I could make her a hat in the same style. Well it does look rather like a hat doesn’t it?

Easy peasy.

That’s what I thought, that is until I sat down to make it! The Tea Cosy is made in two halves but I thought the hat would look better with just one join, sounds simple enough, just add the number of stitches and off you go. But when I tried to put the cosy on as a hat it was a little on the tight side so  the hat would need to be bigger.

That’s when it took a bit more thinking about, to get the right size and the pattern to join in a continual zig zag. I do find it quite taxing to work these things out, it all makes sense on paper but then in practice………not always so.

I have been trying to find some software for crochet pattern writing but sadly have yet to find anything that works well. If anyone knows of anything I would love to hear from you.

In the meantime I will be delivering the hat this weekend, I hope she likes it.

 

Baby Jacket and Teddy Booties

These Teddy Booties are a favourite I have made before several times. Much as I have enjoyed doing the yarn bombing it has been so nice to have the time to make something just because I felt like it, no themes. I do so love these boots.

And this little wrap around style jacket is great for baby boys or girls. You can just imagine a chubby little babe cosily clad in this cute jacket and bootee set and ready for cuddles.

They are both from a book that I love Baby Crochet by Lois Daykin. It is full of toys, hats and bibs to make, even a long colourful snake. Take a peek and see what you think.

Charity Yarn Bombing 2015 – Part 1

 

For those who followed the project last year you will know we are a small GP surgery on the beautiful coast of North Yorkshire. We have a group of patients and friends of the surgery who love crafting with yarn, following the sucess of the yarn bombing last year we ran the event for 2015 following a similar format for but with some new themes.

Dinosaur Park

I had my doubts about including dinosaurs anticipating it would be limiting in terms of patterns, couldn’t have been more wrong as you can see.

We had quite a few knitted prehistoric deliveries both large and small.

Lots of dino’s for our park in a variety of sizes from the miniature 4-6 inch creations above that patients brought in. To the rather large Stan the Stegosaurus who you may have seen in a previous post where I shared the working progress of creating this colouful prehistoric creaature.

And Monty the Diplodocus.

Teddy Bear’s Picnic

This was one of my favourite pieces, you can see from the size of the raffle ticket just how tiny these little teddies are, they sat on their little picnic blanket contemplating their miniature sandwiches and cakes throughout the weekend. As I am sure you can imagine they were one of the first items to receive a bid.

There was an array of little woolly bears and teddy toys gathered in the picnic corner to share in the knitted and crochet cakes, biscuits and sanwiches including Mrs Baker Bear sat on the chair with piping bag in hand to finish off the last bun.

Rollo the african flower bear settled down amongst the log pile for a snooze after devouring his fill of the picnic.

To sit alongside the picnicing bears we had a stand (ok and yarn bomed step ladder) laden with tea cosies.

These were a very popular contribution to the event, it must be in celebration of the great british brew!

Down on the Farm

One of our group particularly requested we include a Farm theme this year, she had a new book by Sarah Keen that she was dying to try and we were so pleased with results, you can almost hear those little piggies snorting.

Our Parctice Nurse managed to aquire a hay bale for us to display our farmyard creatures, I was thrilled but my lovely hubby was less so as I used his car to collect it! Four weeks on and he has just about got the last of the straw removed from his car boot.

A patient kindly donated this gorgeous african flower horse, I believe it is from the Heidi Bears pattern but sadly the donator remains anonymous so I cannot be sure.

We also had a gathering of owls nestling in the bushes casting their wise eyes over the weekend proceedings.

And in the hedgerow below gathered a collection of bunnies and other creatures.

And birds simply sat on the fence watching the world go by.

 

I don’t want to bore you so will call this post part 1, I will continue working on compiling the other half of the images to post early next week. I am working tomorrow as we are open for our first Flu clinic, it is always a bit crazy at this time of the year when everyone wants to get their vaccination done early to protect against catching a flu bug!

 

 

Beautiful Fern Leaves from Tajana

During our preparations for this years yarnbombing we would get together in the waiting room at the surgery every Saturday morning to share the latest makes and additions to our event. Everyone was overjoyed by these gorgeously colourful fern leaves kindly sent by Tajana from Tatie’s World.

Such lovely vibrant colours and different sizes stiffened and ready for displays. True to a delicate fern shape these are the larger size, I love the turquoise blue, it is so striking, Such delicate work so neatly executed.

Thank you Tajana, you are so very kind and most generous to send these beautiful leaves.

If you haven’t seen any of Tajana’s work I recommend a visit to her blog on the above link. Photos of the yarn bombing event will follow soon.

Mandala For Wink “A Creative Being”

I know many of you joined the 2014 CAL with Wink and shared my sadness upon hearing of her stuggles with life and her final decision to bring it to a close.

She was such a talent and an inspiration to so many of us, her blog called A Creative Being has such an apt title, it is brimming with gorgeous projects, even if you are not a crafter you are sure to be impressed by the colourful creations. It was a pleasure to pick up on this opportunity to show some hooky respect and pay tribute using one of Wink’s Mandala designs.

I thought it would be quite fitting to use some of the remaining cotton yarn left over from the blanket made for my closest friend following the CAL on A Creative Being. All the patterns for each week are available to download so if you wanted to make a blanket.

If you would like to make a mandala too to help raise awareness of depression you can read more about it here from crochet concupiscence.

Crochet Cat Inspiration

We have been donated oodles of yarn for the yarn bombing this year so a huge thanks to all our patients for their support. From the stashes that have been brought in these two felines have been created.
The inspiration came from a pattern bought on Etsy, I loved the mixture of knitting and crochet on the original pattern but sadly my execution was less satisfactory so I ended up adapting the knitted parts for crochet.

The pink pussy cat was first off the hook and was such a pleasure I just couldn’t resist making another.

Unfortunately I was not able to find the pattern again as Etsy is displaying ‘pattern not available’ but the link is below just in case. It is possible that our internet that is playing up this evening and you may be able to access the pattern if you want to make your own kitties at some point.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/59420476/crazy-cat-crochet-knitting-pattern