crochet mandala Archives - Zeens and Roger

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.

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!

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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:

I’ve spent years being inspired by other bloggers work. It became something I really wanted to do too. It looked fun and it looked like a good way to keep on track of what I was doing creatively. I was lazy and procrastinatey and used several excellent excuses as to why I hadn’t just done it. I’m still so new to it all, but if I had started when I first I had the notion then I would have been being bloggy for six or seven years by now! In my head, I have been doing it for six years or seven years. I’ve spent much time taking pictures of crafty projects and each time I’ve thought that maybe they would end up as a blog post. So, I’m going to put up some pictures of work that was done in the six months prior to hitting Publish for the first time. (I was going to write a post about yeasterday’s [relevant unwitting typo, that applies] kitchen endeavours but that was such a disaster that I need a few days to recover :/).

I went through a mandala phase. These two are both Made in K Town using Rico Creative Cotton. Cheap cotton, very splitty, lovely colours. This has led me towards doilies, which I still need to make more of. Soon.

I made my eldest boy an Attic 24 Ripple for his bed. It’s Stylecraft Special. Everyone loves a bit of Stylecraft rippling.

The boy chose the colours. So off I went. It was reasonably speedy once the first few rows were out the way. A repeating colour pattern was a weeny bit boring though. Next time, it’s random colours, like it’s supposed to be.

I made teeny niece the mini version for her dolly. I didn’t use the same pattern. This version has more ripples so looks better scaled down. It’s actually adapted from a cushion cover pattern from Cute and Easy Crochet by Nicki Trench. When I say “adapted” I mean “added a few more rows”. The edging, I think is the one that was on the Granny Stripe made by Lucy at Attic 24.

This one was a special request for a baby blanket. My Sister in Law chose the colours. It’s Stylecraft alpaca DK. The blocks were from 200 Crochet Blocks by Jan Eaton. Don’t go thinking that all the blocks end with the same stitch count though. They really don’t. Hmm. I really liked how this one turned out but I only blocked the edge (which is from Edie Eckman’s Crochet Borders book) and not the individual squares. Next time, I will try super hard to block stuff.

One of the quickest little blankets ever. It was so much fun. The squares were done in a few days and it was the first time I used a continuous-join-as you-go. This was for a baby girl born in early spring. I’d make one of these again for sure. It was inspired by a picture I saw on Pinterest and it led me to Katie’s Kitchen.

There are six handmade things in the picture above. Six! I am responsible for five of them but the cream knitted blanket is a Mother in Law job. Three blankets, two cushions and a dolly. Huzzah.

Sewing has been worked on too. I’m better than I was but there is definitely room for improvement too. Having said that, the cherry blossom needlecase is one of my favourite felty sewn things I’ve done.

And a Mermaid’s purse! Well, another needlecase… She was lovely to make. After Christmas I plan on making more of these sorts of things and giving them a go on Etsy. I’m not entirely sure what the demand is for needlecases and such, I guess I’ll find out. I will obviously shout very loudly on here if these sorts of things head towards my Etsy shop.

Phew, I feel a bit better now. I’m off to have yesterdays’ leftovers for lunch, which thankfully, taste better than the experience that I had in the kitchen.

Tag: crochet mandala

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

I made stuff pre-blog too; pretending to be a crafting blogger. When you’re not. Yet.