Summer fete fun!

Even more felt things.

For four weeks I’ve been making things. OK, I know I always make things but this time I’ve been making things with a specific purpose. A month ago I was asked if I fancied having a stall at the school’s summer fete. I thought “why not?” Hopefully I’ll get to sell a few things and help towards raising money for the school. Sounds alright. I enjoyed doing a similar thing last Christmas. That was my first time doing such a thing and I found out that I really enjoyed myself!

My main concern this time is that I have no idea about the kind of things people might like at this time of year. Christmas is easy as everyone is always up for buying a new decoration (or two) for the tree. Summer? Not got a clue. I might have misjudged this but I’ve gone for a little bit of everything. It’s a learning experience and I’ll find out a lot, I’m sure.

Collection of crochet blankets.I’ve said previously that I don’t think this is the sort of event for selling baby blankets but I’m taking some anyway. You never know. By the way, these blankets have been made over a period of a few months not just churned out in the last four weeks!

Lots of felt brooches and keyrings.

There will be loads of felt designs. They’re all my own designs. I’ve got either brooches or keyrings. I think the owls are my favourite.. or the fish. And the cats!  The cherries look fabulously kitsch! I think I love them all.

Handmade crafts

I’ve got some random makes too. Leftovers from playing/experimenting. I really like the rose brooches. They’re aran alpaca with wool felt leaves. The rose is Attic 24’s May Rose.

Crochet hearts with roses.

Speaking of Attic 24, these are the May roses used on a sweet crochet heart. Have a look here for the original inspiration.

crochet hearts and flowers

Someone has already asked that I put one of these aside for them so I do hope that that’s a good omen for the rest of them.

crochet roses and bows

It would appear that I’ve got a thing about these May roses, I’ve used them for hair slides too (not many though as I know that there is another stall that’ll be there, selling hairclips and I don’t want to tread on any toes ;p ). For the crochet bows I started with a pattern from Nicki Trench’s Geek Chic Crochet but it was too big and taking far too long to make a single bow. I cheated by using less stitches and using quicker stitches too. For some reason I find trebles much easier and less fiddly than half trebles. Most of these are made using scraps that were left over from blanket making. There’s a lot of merino stuff and the pastel coloured ones are a merino yarn mixed with cashmere. It’s lovely stuff to work with.

crochet hearts. Keyrings.

Puff hearts are from Planet June. Very cute.

pile of blankets

There’s something about a pile of blankets that I love. It’s a good job too, I have a mountain of crochet blankets in my house. And that’s the ones that are here to stay. I’m not going to mention the ones I was supposed to put on Etsy six months ago.

Crochet ripple blanket

This one will be finished by the weekend. Just in time.  There are so many more things I wish I had time to make. It seems that I have just about run out of time. However, I would like to point out that this really isn’t everything that I’ve made over the last month. I might share some other things on Instagram too. There will be loads more…

Little crochet coasters

You’ll just have to come and see me to find out what else there is. I might look like a misery guts but I’m honestly not (I do suffer from Bitchy Resting Face though), so if you’re at the school fete in Ottery st Mary this Saturday, come over and say hello! I think it’s 12-3pm. Thanks very much. X

 

 

 

Crafty Bits and Bobs: Catching up on where I’m at.

crochet mandalas

I was tempted to write a post about the garden today but I’m behind on my crafty gubbins so it might be more pertinent to blog about that instead. It feels like it’s been a while too.

I think a lot of my time has been taken up with my addiction to Instagram. I’ve been taking part in a month long mission of posting crochet makes everyday. It has become an obsession and I possibly need to chill out a bit . It’s called the Lazy Daisy Jones Hook Up (#ldjhookup) I found her blog via this too and it’s a wonderful place, full of colour and inspiration. It has encouraged me to get my craft on and make some stuff rather than fart about on the computer. However, the downside is the IG addiction. One bit of tech to another but at least I’m making stuff too. And what do I care?! I flippin’ love it all.

crochet flowers

Some of the themes meant I had to whip something up quickly as I didn’t have anything around the house. Some of my pictures have been tenuous to say the least. The mandalas were made a couple of nights ago [top left is a pattern from the fabulous book, Boho Crochet and the other two are found here] and the flowers [also from Boho Crochet] were last week. It’s fun!

green mesh crochet bag

On the side, I’m making this. More another day!

new fabric

Over the Easter holidays we were in Totnes. I love the shops in Totnes, there are some truly lovely places. I only bought a few fat quarters and some buttons. I almost bought some wool but there weren’t enough balls of it for the project I have in mind. I had also intended to buy shed loads more fabric but I didn’t fall in love with as much of it as I imagined was going to happen. Come on, I was totally willing to go on a spending spree! Ugh.

green buttons

Love this Liberty print. I wanted to buy swathes of it but stuck to a small amount as I know that I’m not ready to ruin that much Liberty fabric on my dodgy sewing skills.

blue buttons

I’ve got plans for the fabrics but not the buttons.

greenish buttons

It all came from different shops. There are a few dotted around that are craft related.

red buttons

Buying these buttons meant I had to get my (Hendricks) button tin out.

my button tin

It’s only half full here but it’s usually buttony all the way to the top.

rainbow buttons

I even attempted a rainbow thing but got bored (this is only half of my buttons. I’m sad enough that the rest are bagged up into different categories: big, small, multiples, colourways etc). I tried again another day but was interupted by cat and kids. Everyone loves buttons it seems.

favourite buttons.

These are some of the fancier buttons I’ve got. I think I need to re-evaluate this mini off-shoot collection. I’ve got some more favourites/fancy ones that can be added and a few that need to be taken away. But, you know, that’s for when I’m desperate. I honestly don’t know if I’m enough of a button geek to go that far but, yeah, there’s a chance I might be.

Anyway, that’s it for now. As I said I have plans for the fabric and hopefully I’ll get me machine out this weekend. I’m also surrounded by lots of crochet squares that are being blocked for a new project. Everything is alright.

Gah, I almost forgot!  I celebrated my first Etsy sale on Sunday! I was so very happy. SO thank you to my lovely customer! It has spurred me on and I’d better get some more stuff in the shop now I know I can do this thing.  XXX

I link up here:

www.mrscraftyb.co.uk

 

 

Little crochet flower pattern

bunch of little crochet flowers

I’ve noticed that I have shared quite a few things I’ve made from other people’s patterns on here  but there hasn’t been much that, has come directly from my own brain. Sooo I am going to rectify that now and share a pattern that I’ve come up with myself.

It’s a pattern for some little flowers. I’m sure there are lots of similar ones out there but this one is nice because I created it for my friend’s daughter. She wanted some hair clips with crochet flowers and this is what I came up with.  There are two sizes because the first one I made was  just a bit too big to stick on a hair clip so I down sized it. I don’t remember if I took photographs of the orginal flowers I made, it was about two years ago!

bunch of crochet flowers

Please excuse me if the pattern doesn’t work, I’ve never done this properly before. My note book has words and pictures that I can just about decipher, translating that has been…interesting…

For both of these I used a 3mm hook and Stylecraft Special DK. I’ve written the pattern in UK terms.

Small flower pattern.

Chain (ch) 6 and join with a slip stitch (ss).

Round 1.

Ch3, 1trb into the ring (counts as 1 pair of spokes). (Ch5, 2trb into ring) x5. Ch5 and join with a ss to the top of the ch3.  [6 petals]. Fasten off (Fo).

joining round 2 crochet flower

Round 2.

Join new colour with a ss in between a pair of spokes. Into each 5ch sp (space) make 6dc. Ss in between each pair of spokes. Join with a ss to the first ss. Fo and sew in ends.

little crochet flower

Extra small flower pattern.

Ch5 and join with a ss.

Round  1.

Ch2, 1 half treble (htr)into ring (counts as 1 pair of spokes). (Ch3, 2htr) x4. Ch3 and join with ss to the top of the ch2. [5petals]. Fo.

small little crochet flower

Round 2.

Join new colour with a ss in between a pair of spokes. Into each 3ch sp make 4dc. Ss in between each pair of spokes. Join with a ss to the first ss. Fo and sew in ends.

With the help of a glue gun just wodge these on a hair clip. I can see lots of them together on a head band too or do whatever you like with them!

lots of crochet flowers

There, my first pattern. I do have more that I’m going to blog about including one that I am completely in love with that, is very cute indeed. I want to see if I’ve got this one right before I get over excited though. I’d love to hear what people think but please don’t hate it!!