FO Tuesday (because if I wait until Friday I’ll forget)

The Mandalorian bandwagon has been out, done its rounds, and got back to the station, so of course I chose now to jump on it.  One of The Fiancé’s nieces loves baby Yoda and she had a birthday on Saturday. I mentioned that I could crochet one in time, and he came out with possibly the silliest thing he’s said to me so far: “do you have the yarn?”

Do I have the yarn??  I probably have enough yarn in my stash to make a Death Star, the whole crew, and a 3D landscape to display it in.  Of course I had the exact colours I needed and he turned out suuuuuuper cute.

I will definitely not be making any more though; he’s smaller than my hand, and my amigurumi is very tight, so the sewing together was not a fun experience. But hey, I made a baby Yoda that stands up on its own and the recipient loves it so I’m happy!

Hannah

xXx

Advertisement

WIP Wednesday 25.11.20

Current WIP count: 8

It recently came to my attention that there is less than a week of November left. ARGH!

My friend’s little girl has a birthday at the beginning of December, and I was always planning to make her a jumper, so I started a Good Old Raglan (Rav link) immediately.

It doesn’t look like much yet. I’ve got loads of spangly yarn in different colours so I’m planning some big, chunky stripes from blue to purple to pink. Keep your fingers crossed that it works out as I’m imagining.

Hannah

xXx

Catch the sun

Since we’ve actually had some sunshine recently, I decided to have a play with one of my birthday presents from last year – a dragon sun catcher.

It came with its own set of paints of course, but Mum knows me well and bought me a set of extra colours to play with.

Here’s my finished dragon hanging in the window to catch some rays.

There was a lot of paint left over and it would be a terrible waste to just throw it away, so I did a bit of experimenting.

I taped down some clingfilm and greaseproof paper, and made some designs with the leftover paint.

Neither turned out exactly as I imagined, but I still like them so fingers crossed they actually peel off the backings in the morning. We shall see!

Hannah

xXx

Sock it to me Monday – the birthday edition

It’s odd having a birthday in lockdown. I was never planning to go to my parents house for my birthday, but the thought of not being able to keeps making me cry.

BUT there are also good things. My boyfriend is here with me and he made my favourite meal. My parents sent up my presents so I still had some to open. And the sun is shining for once so I had a nice government-approved walk this afternoon, with some public doodling

Anyway, socks are why we’re here and this is what my sock currently looks like:

I can’t help trying it on every few rows and so far it all fits! I’m really hoping it won’t be too long now til I have a finished sock. Then the second one will go faster, right?

Hannah

xXx

At last!

A WIP crossed off my list!!

I found myself with some unexpected free time on Saturday, so I decided to simplify my plan for the Lego blanket and just get it finished.

As you can see it doesn’t have a ring of bricks around the edge as I planned, and the border is just two rounds of single crochet rather than a continuation of the bobble stitches, so it’s not quite what I envisioned.

BUT it is undeniably a Lego blanket, I managed to hand it over on my friend’s actual birthday, and most importantly he loved it! I’m counting it as a success.

Man it feels good to get something finished at last. Let’s see what else I can cross off this week.

Hannah

xXx

WIP Wednesday 15.05.19

Current WIP count: siiiiiiiiiix

I could’ve sworn it was my birthday just the other day, how are we halfway through May already??

The following may not look like a photo-worthy moment to most people, but it had me doing a little dance (well, I was sitting down so it was really more of a wiggle) because the seemingly endless rounds of straight knitting are finally over!

This here is one round of 2×2 ribbing and it’s going okay so far. I even remembered to switch to smaller needles before I started.

As is becoming standard for me, that’s all I have to show for this week. BUT next week will definitely, honestly, really be more interesting because the date is coming up on one of my birthday presents: a workshop at Toft!

I’ve wanted to try a Toft kit for ages so I’m suuuuper excited! Plus it’s down South and my Dad will be driving so I’ll have lots of travel time to work on my other WIPs as well. Finally.

What’s everyone else working on?

Hannah

xXx

2019 Birthday Presents

I didn’t get much yarn for my birthday. I thought I’d got none at all, but then my Aunty came later in the day with four skeins of cotton and an amigurumi book.

Maybe people thought (rightly so) that I’m still working through the 30 skeins I got for my last birthday so I didn’t need any more!

However, I did get quite a few other crafty presents.

I’m particularly excited to try this needle felt unicorn kit.

It’s got a polystyrene base that you felt onto, which I’ve never tried before, so that should be interesting.

There’s a sun catcher that Mum said she got because I love dragons.

Lots of papercraft goodies including a little crochet stamp!

Even something for my baking.

This looks so much simpler than painting different colours onto the side of a piping bag as I’ve been doing for years.

So I’ve got plenty of goodies to play with over the coming weeks. I might even share the results if they don’t go horribly wrong!

Hannah

xXx

Brick by brick

When me and my siblings were younger, Dad used to lay a duvet down on the floor and empty out two crates of Lego onto it. We would sit on that duvet for hours at a time, building and deconstructing and rebuilding over and over again. My favourite was making a house with the bricks in proper bricklaying formation, with one red and yellow window that opened and clicked shut.

So there’s always been a strong connection in my mind; when I see Lego I think of my dad. Of course I had to translate that into crochet. I present for your viewing pleasure one finished Lego blanket.

This project is particularly special to me (aside from the fact that I made it for my dad) because it’s entirely of my own devising. I designed the bricks, I created the layout, I worked out the border. It’s all mine! I mean I’ve designed things before obviously, but nothing on this scale.

It’s made of 198 individual bricks, joined with the magical mattress stitch. I even included some little half bricks.

The border is an extension of the brick pattern, to try to make it look like one of those big base pieces I always used to build my Lego houses on.

As much as possible I used up bits and bobs of acrylic from my stash so it’s difficult to say exactly how many skeins went into making it. They were apparently all chunky yarns, but the thickness varied so widely that I had to double up with some of them.

One day I’m going to make another one using just one yarn brand, and oh how easy that will be!

Stats:

Size – 90cm x 150cm

Yarn – Paintbox Simply Chunky, Hayfield Bonus Chunky, unknown deep-stash

Material – 100% acrylic

Hook size – 5.5mm and 6mm

Stitches – hdc and bobble stitch

Hannah

xXx

WIP Wednesday 20.03.19

Current WIP count: 6

I finally got time at the weekend to start joining some Lego bricks together. And ran into trouble almost immediately, as all these ‘chunky’ yarns are vastly different when it comes to thickness so my bricks aren’t all the same size.

I’m making do, but it definitely doesn’t look quite as I imagined and I’m not sure there’s enough blocking in the world to fix it. At least this is for my dad so he’s contractually obligated to love it 😉

This is almost 2/3 done, not including the border. Saturday is the deadline and I’ve got another 3-hour train journey on Friday night that I can dedicate to it, so I’m pretty confident I’ll have a finished blanket ready to go on time. Still, keep your fingers crossed for me!

All the other WIPs are calling to me so I’m looking forward to getting this blanket done and dusted and getting back to them. I admit I did knit a few stitches of my Flax Light on Sunday – after a whole day of sewing bricks together I just needed to do something different for a wee bit!

What’s everyone else working on? Let me know in the comments!

Hannah

xXx

WIP Wednesday 13.03.19

Current WIP count: 6

I’m fairly certain I could now crochet a Lego brick in my sleep.

Stacks of crochet lego bricks

This is 120 bricks. I created some wiggle room in the design so I either need 107 or 66 more to complete the blanket.

Once I get enough time (AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ahem) I’m going to make a start on joining them together, because I just can’t do the production-line style of making things. I’m not quite sick of the sight of bricks yet, but I’m definitely getting twitchy – if I try forcing myself to make them all before starting to join them, then the whole project is going to end up abandoned in a corner for six years.

A snippet of the layout design

The good news is I’m now going to see my parents the weekend after my Dad’s birthday, and he doesn’t mind waiting so I can take the blanket with me instead of having to post it before his birthday. That gives me an extra 4 days! With my current track record of getting Royal Mail to deliver my parcels on time, it’ll probably get there faster if I take it myself anyway.

It’s quite strange being a monogamous crocheter for once. Don’t think I’ll take it up permanently. What’s everyone else working on? Have you got some variety in your makes this week? Let me know in the comments!

Hannah

xXx

WIP Wednesday 06.03.19

Current WIP count: 6

With the baby blankets done and dusted, I can now focus on my dad’s birthday present. It’s going to be a Lego blanket, using lots and lots of these ‘bricks’ (which are really difficult to photograph!).

Crochet lego brick

 

 

Crochet lego brick close up

 

 

I figured out how to make them myself, which I’m quite proud of.

On Sunday I had a 3-hour train journey and I was hoping to spend the whole time crocheting, but I’m a total dingbat and packed the wrong hook size so I couldn’t do anything. Basically I just took my yarn on a field trip.

It did give me an excuse for a proper reading session though – silver lining!

So I’m nowhere near as far along with the blanket as I hoped to be at this point and I can’t guarantee it’ll be finished in time, which would be a shame.

But I’m not admitting defeat yet. There’s a fairly clear weekend coming up and I’m going to spend most of it crocheting.

Wish me luck!

Hannah

xXx

52 card pick up

For my birthday this year I received this cardmaking kit:

It was a very thoughtful present. I do love making cards and I got it in plenty of time to make them for this Christmas.

But.

I didn’t really like it.

My aesthetic is vivid colours, simple lines, and minimalist embellishments.

But this kit has busy, busy papers in quite muted colours, and the embellishments contain possibly my least favourite thing ever: cutesy vintage.

No judgement, I know there are people in the world who find these adorable. I’m just not one of them.

Now, I’ve written before about Jess Crafts videos where she uses one paper pad to make lots of cards. Example here. After watching a few of those I had the thought that if I whack out cards like that, I can use up the kit and maybe sell the end results. Because it’s a birthday present so I can’t just give it away unused.

So I chopped all the papers into backgrounds, squares, and strips

Then went to it, churning out cards like I never have before. It’s quite freeing having all those pieces ready to assemble, and not having to think and plan a unique card every time. And it turns out I actually quite like some of them!

Another life lesson for me; don’t dismiss something outright just because you don’t like some aspects of it.

Hannah

xXx