Ollie the Octopus

Since taking up sewing again and crochet I always say that I'll make gifts for friends and family but somehow never do.  It was my husband's niece's birthday a couple of months ago.  I started on a poncho for her that got put aside after the design started to go awry and it looked like it would be another gift that never made it out of my head. Then I started looking through my old magazines and I found a supplement called "Creative Crochet" that came with an issue of Making Magazine, which had a pattern for a cute little octopus. Perfect!

I made the tentacles multi-coloured and gave it a yellow mop of hair instead of a hat, and Ollie was born.

And I'm happy to report that Ollie is no longer in my possession. Gift gifted!


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Pretty Things - Embroidered Piano Stool

While we were on holiday in the New Forest I saw this needlework piano stool in a coffee shop.

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Thrify Thursday - Craft Books

Every now and again when I pass a charity shop, I like to pop in and see what craft books they have on offer.  So far I've spent about £10 on books and patterns, never spending more than £1 on a single item.  My latest find is "The Colour Library Book of Creative Needlecrafts".

It's an absolute treasure trove of techniques, stitches and designs covering Knitting, Crochet, Embroidery, Patchwork, Applique and Quilting, and all for only 50p!!!

I was especially interested in the Crochet and Embroidery sections, and those alone would have been worth the original price of £15.95.

While the clothes patterns are a very dated (it was published in 1987), the home projects and motifs are still relevant or could easily be adapted to be made more up-to-date.

There's enough in here to keep me busy for years!

Fairy Tales and Dressing Up

A couple of weeks ago it was quite busy at little boy's school.  It was St. David's day in Wales on Thursday 1st so the kids were invited to make a fairy-tale character to be entered into a competition as part of the festivities, plus two non-uniform days on Wednesday and Thursday when the kids were supposed to wear Welsh dress (or clothes/costumes associated wtih Wales), and then on Friday they were supposed to dress up as their favourite book character for World Book Day. Phew!

So the weekend was dedicated to making a model of Jack and the Beanstalk.  The cardboard tube from the middle of a roll of wrapping paper would serve as the beanstalk, with leaves cut out from green card and Jack made from a toilet roll tube with a tissue paper head.  It turned out beautifully (forgive the poor photo), and apart from some help with cutting and sticking, it was mostly done by 4yo himself.  I especially like the look on Jack's face.  He won first prize don't you know :-D

The Welsh dress turned out to be more tricky than I expected.  All the shops were full of cute little outfits for girls, with the only option for boys seeming to be rugby shirts.  Apparently there is no such thing as traditional Welsh dress for men, so I ended up buying a rugby shirt.  I also decided to make a red waistcoat with a crocheted leek brooch as a second outfit because I knew that there was no way said rugby shirt would stay clean for two days, but I only got as far as cutting the waistcoast pieces and making the base of the leek! Oh well, never mind.  Perhaps I'll get them finished in time for next year...

Part of the reason that I didn't make the waistcoat was because I also decided to make a costume for my son to wear for the school's celebaration of World Book Day.  We decided on Captain Barnacles from the Octonauts.  Now, I have dabbled in dressmaking, but I'm no seamstress and despite not having a pattern I somehow convinced myself that it would be a quick job to whip up some bottoms using a really great quick method that I found in this tutorial, and a short-cut top by tracing around an existing long-sleeved t-shirt, but it didn't quite turn out that way! In the end not only did I make the top with separate sleeves, I also added a zip to the front and a collar.  All without a pattern! I came dangerously close to staying up all night, but managed to get at least a little sleep after I decided to ditch the hat and to make the compass and badge out of card and not fabric.  Here's what I was aiming for:

And this is the result:

It isn't perfect - some of the raw edges aren't finished, I forgot to iron a few of the seams, and the collar could have been fitted better to hide the top of the zip. In fact you'd be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss was about. But to me it's great achievement and I'm really pleased with how it turned out.  My son on the other hand was much less impressed and sulked for the entire morning after I presented him with the outfit, refusing to wear it.  In hindsight the leggings were probably a little snug, and jersey was probably not the most suitable material for the weather but I was gutted that he didn't like it.  As a compromise he went to school in jogging bottoms and wore the top.

Despite the challenges, I really enjoyed the process. I'm so pleased that I was able to create a pattern (of sorts) and construct a garment. But if you ever hear me say "I'll make something quickly. It'll be a piece of cake..." again, slap me! Hard!

Granny A Day - Week 8

I'm still generating squares to go towards the baby blanket enlargement project so I won't bother posting any pics of them this time.  I did however do something with the red, white and blue squares that I posted about before.  I edged the squares in strips of 3 with a round each of red, white and blue in double crochet, then sewed the four strips together to get a very nifty-looking (even if I do say so myself) baby scarf.  I know - a finished project!!  So, ta-dah...

If I need to lengthen and/or widen the scarf then I can just make up additional 3-square strips and sew them on seamlessly.

Granny A Day - Week 7

I'm still behind with the Granny A Day challenge. I reckon by 15 squares. But although I don't have completed squares I do at least have 15 middles.

I still hope to catch up, but I'm finding it hard to find the time to do something with the squares that I've already made as well as making new squares. I am making progress putting together the red, white and blue squares though, but more on that later...

Thrifty Thursday - Storage Box

Last week I found this lovely box at the charity shop for just £1.50. It's made of card and covered in thick, textured paper. The stickers on the bottom say it originally contained note sheets and envelopes, made in Scotland by Waverley. I thought it would make a good storage box for my yarn.

Pretty Things - Porcelain Pincushion

I'm not usually one for dainty porcelain tea cups but I saw this pincushion and fell in love with it. There's a tutorial on how to make it in a Sewing Savvy Newsletter on the Clotilde website. If I can find just the right cup and saucer, I might just have to make one for myself.

Granny A Day - Week 5

Well, I have to admit that I've fallen a little behind with my Granny A Day squares. But I managed to make 6 more red, white and blue squares, which will be joined to the others to make a little scarf for baby boy.

Speaking of baby boy, he's grown too big for the Moses basket and we've had to get the cot out :(  The blanket that I made for him is way too small for it though so I'm going to undo the edging and add additional squares to make the blanket more cot-sized. I'm going to need 183! Better get cracking then...

My First Crochet Blanket

I decided to crochet a baby blanket last July, a month or so before I was due to give birth. I didn't actually finish it until October!

I'd made a few test squares, several flowers and a couple of hats up until then, but this would be my first big crochet project.  I found a lovely pattern for the blanket in a library book - "Easy Crochet 50 Projects for Fashion and Home" by Family Circle.  The choice of colours happened accidentally as they were all I could find in the shop at the time, but in the end worked out really well. It's a little on the small side, but is a good size for the crib and is lovely and warm.