stylecraft special dk Archives

Amigurumi Easter Egg! Free Crochet Pattern.

March 8, 2016January 4, 2023amigurumi, crafty, crochet, free pattern45 Comments

Easter Eggs

Chocolate Easter Eggs are my favorite sort of chocolate. Mini eggs and creme eggs are both very good reasons to look forward to Easter but neither truly beat a large Cadbury’s Dairy Milk (or other Cadbury) egg that has been put in the fridge for at least two hours so that it cracks and crunches as you bite it.

When I was little I used to drink milk out of half a chocolate egg, I thought it was fancy. The other half used to get crumbed into a mug and ruined with hot water to make some kind of bad hot chocolate (not so fancy). I don’t waste it like that now, I shovel it in my face whilst hiding behind the fridge door. Mostly I hide because the chocolate doesn’t belong to me. When I’ve finished mine I’m then stealing from the children. Anyway, I shall move on…

Nearly as good as the chocolate thing are crocheted versions. I am here to celebrate Easter with a little bit of amigurumi style eggs. I came up with the pattern for these at Christmas. I was trying to design a Father Christmas head/hat combo but whatever shape I tried looked like an egg. I binned the FC idea but out of it came these so I can’t complain. That’s the thing about designing. Through mistakes and fails, come good things! I guess that’s the creative process, right?

I think they’re cute and I hope you like them too.

They did look quite nice sitting up by themselves. The children like throwing them around and I know the cat would too if she could get her paws on them.

It’s rather telling that I don’t have any egg cups and I had to use shot glasses.

Amigurumi Easter Egg Pattern

As with most amigurumi patterns, the pattern is written in US terms.

I used Stylecraft Special DK and a 3mm hook. I even found a use for the shade, Duck Egg!

Round 1: 6sc into a Magic Ring.
Round 2: 1 Inc in each stitch around. [12].
Round 3: 1 sc in next stitch, 1 inc in next. Repeat around [18].
Round 4: Sc around. [18]
Round 5: 1sc in next 2 st, 1 inc in next. Repeat around. [24].
Round 6-7: Sc around [24]
Round 8: 1 sc in next 3 st, 1 inc in next. Repeat around [30].
Round 9-15: Sc around. [30]
Round 16: 1 sc in next 3 st, 1 dec. Repeat around. [24].
Round 17: 1 sc in next 2 st, 1 dec. Repeat around. [18].
Round 18: 1sc in next st, 1 dec. Repeat around [12].

Fasten off leaving a long tail. Stuff firmly. Using a darning needle thread through the front loops only. Pull tight to close the hole. Stitch in and out a few times to fully secure and then snip the end neatly.

(Go HERE to see what I’ve done with the pattern for 2018!!)

Embroider your Easter Eggs

Decorating is relatively quick and easy. With a darning needle, I went in through the bottom of each egg and then made french knots for the flower centres and a few chain stitches for petals and leaves. With a poke and a prod from the darning needle, the snipped ends can be hidden inside. Hey presto!

Please don’t be frightened of the embroidery. I show you how I do it in the video tutorial (link just below). I have very little experience of needle work and just make it up as I go along. If I can do that then so can you, I promise!

I also tried a few different styles over the following years too.

YouTube Video Tutorial

EDIT: For 2017 I’ve added a video tutorial on YouTube, which also includes how to decorate with pretty embroidery. Please go here! Cheers.

This is an amigurumi Easter Egg pattern I’ve designed and belongs to me. It can be used to make decorations for yourself or for gifts for friends and family but please not for mass production. Thanks very much. Feel free to say hello and you can even follow my blog to get more patterns and, dare I say, inspiration. Cheers!

Happy Easter!!

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Crochet Circles in a Square Blanket.

February 5, 2016September 12, 2017blanket, crochet, free pattern25 Comments

A few days ago I had a nice comment about one of my blankets that I’d used as a backdrop for another project. Every once in a while the blanket just happens to appear here on the blog somewhere, usually in the background of a random photo.

[Check out my more colourful version Here]

It was lovely to hear from the person behind 365 days handmade (I see lots of crochet goes on there!). She had noticed the blanket and it got me thinking. I decided that I should write a post about it. I don’t have much I want to share this week so it’s an ideal opportunity to talk about an old thing.

I’ve taken lots of pictures of the blanket and I will just bung them up as I blather on about how I made it.

I remember the picture that made me want to make it. I haven’t seen the picture for a couple of years and now that I see it again… well, it’s miles better than mine…poo. The person who made it has a (now defunct) blog called Crochet with Raymond. It’s still up and has lots of beautiful woolly things.

I was making it three years ago, I was pregnant with my youngest boy and I really wanted it to be finished by the time he arrived. I remember staring at it whilst I was in labour, feeling annoyed that the border still had two rows to go.

I chose colours similar to the original, I used Stylecraft Special DK because that is what they sell at the shop down the road. I use Stylecraft for the majority of my projects but I want to try something new – any suggestions?

There are ten colours: Lipstick, Fondant, Pomegranate, Cloud, Sherbet, Aster, Meadow, Clematis, Wisteria and Cream. Lots of balls of cream were used, maybe 8 or 9 and then I think it was just one of each of the others but I really don’t remember.

I didn’t use an existing pattern, I made it up. It was easy enough to do but I reckon it’s probably the same as other patterns out there. I’ll quickly write down what I think I did (using UK terms):

With a 4mm hook ch4 and join with a slip stitch.

Round 1: Ch4 (counts as 1trb and 1ch), *1trb into the ring and ch1* repeat around from*. [12 stitches]. Join with a slip stitch to the 3rd ch. Fasten off (I think fastening off and then joining the new colour with a slip stitch looks much better than other ways of colour changing- didn’t do that here though).

Round 2: Join new colour. Ch2, 1htrb, ch1. *2trbtogether in each chain space, ch1. Repeat around from*. [12 trbtogether]. Join with a slip stitch to the top of the first 2ch. Fasten off.

Round 3: Join new colour. Ch3 (counts as first stitch). 2trb into chain space. ch1. *3trb into next chain space, ch1. Repeat around from.* Join with a slip stitch to the top of the first 3ch. [12 clusters].

Once I had lots of circles I crocheted them all together using Attic 24’s method of joining as you go. I think it’s this that creates the decorative pattern in the corners, which is one of my favourite things about this blanket. Using this method still means lots of ends to sew in, I’ve since sacrificed pretty corners in favour of the continuous join method, it stops all the dreaded ends. Looking at the picture above, I see that the stitches in the corners of each square have triple trebles rather than trebles.

Anyway, I think that’s it. The border is just going round and round with clusters and the final round is a variation of the bobble edge from Attic 24 (thanks again!) but with slip stitches between them. There are either 2 or 3 slip stitches between each bobble.

Mostly it’s screwed up on the sofa and the children wrap themselves in it whilst they watch the telly after school!

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My Spice of Life Crochet Blanket.

February 2, 2016July 20, 2018blanket, crochet, free pattern22 Comments

Started three Sundays ago, I sewed in the last end of the Spice of Life blanket on Saturday night.

I didn’t know where this blanket would end up for the first few days of making. Then all of a sudden I knew it would make a great birthday present for my Nanna and Grandad. They both had their 90th birthdays in January and on Sunday we had a lovely family birthday party.

Stylecraft Special DK is the yarn. I loved the Spice of Life Rico colours that you can buy as a pack for making the blanket but I couldn’t justify spending any more money on yarny things when I had loads stashed away already. I only needed to buy a couple of balls to make up the colour palette, which consisted of: Cloud blue, Storm blue, Cream, Lemon, Mocha, Lipstick, Emperor, Fondant, Shrimp, Kelly Green, Lobelia, Petrol and Spring Green.

I looked at the original Spice of Life blanket and matched the colours as closely as I could. My eyes tell me that the Stylecraft colours are a lot more vivd and bright than the Rico stuff (not that I’ve seen the Rico in real life). I downloaded the pattern from Ravelry via Cherry Heart (one of my favourite blogs) and off I went. I went wrong a couple of times and had to do some unravelling. There were a couple of other mistakes I made without undoing it. I am hoping that they go unnoticed.

I had to crochet in the car on the way to Southampton (about 2 hours from home). And I added the final row of the border at my mum’s house. I tried several times to get a good photo of the finished blanket but the weather was grey to the extreme. Rainy, cloudy skies and one hundred year old windows did not help.

I put the pictures in a collage rather than spread the dismal grey. The blanket is actually one of the brightest I’ve ever made. I’m glad it was for a present for some old people, their eyes are rubbish.

Above is a painting of my hands as they sew in the ends of the blanket last Friday. My artist friend is painting my portrait! I’m finding the process lots of fun. I’ve said she can paint me any way she wants. Unfortunately, that means she wants me to take my clothes off. That certainly isn’t going to happen in February. Too cold. Anyway, more about that another day.

This week I’m trying out some very basic knitting next. Hone my skills and all that.

A Super Quick Granny Square Blanket.

January 18, 2016January 18, 2016blanket, crochet23 Comments

This is my Itchy Fingers blanket. Between more purposeful projects I still want to have something on the go otherwise I get itchy fingers. Also, I want to experiment with what I’ve got and see if clashy colours go together, stuff like that.

I’ve got a ridiculous amount of Stylecraft Special hidden in the cupboard under the stairs. I am determined to get this down to whatever might be seen as an acceptable minimum. Just enough so I don’t get totally embarrassed when people see the mounds of yarn stuffed in that small space.

I’ve no idea why I had half these colours. Some of them are particularly lurid. Or maybe it’s just the specific combo I’ve forced them into. Denim and Plum look lovely most of the time but I have managed to recreate the colour palette of a 1970’s vomitty shag pile. Actually, I quite like it.

I turned it at each round to stop the twist. I am not sure how I feel about mixing wrong sides with right. I am quite discriminating about the wrong side of crochet being on display but people who don’t crochet don’t seem to notice that there are right/wrong sides. I guess I should let that particular misgiving go. It didn’t look so bad.

The full list of colours, should you wish to make it (not sure why you would) are as follows:

Pomegrante, Aspen, Spice, Denim, Apricot, Plum and Gold.

It has gone back in the cupboard under the stairs where it takes up more room than the yarn did.

Next up is a basic granny triangle shawl. I finished it on Friday but I need to sort out the pattern and write it down. It is super duper warm in this freezing weather. This morning I woke up to a flurry of”likes” on Instagram for the finished article. Brought a smile to my tired 5.40am face.

New crochet for January and a finished blanket.

January 8, 2016January 14, 2016blanket, crochet13 Comments

As soon as I’d completed all those Christmas makes I thought maybe I should take a crafty break. I would read all the books I haven’t read because I’ve been doing crochet or sewing. Well, I couldn’t just stop, that would be daft. But I read a book last week and finished one the week before so at least I’ve managed to mix it up a bit.

I got a new bag for Christmas! I’ve been saying it’s a jelly bag. I think that’s what they’re called. It’s no good for crochet hooks but it looks good. I had one when I was little. I probably had several when I was little. There might have been a sky blue one. My new one is holding my latest project. A bog standard granny square blanket. It’s one of many recent baby blankets that is helping to use up my stash. The colours are an odd mix but hopefully someone will like them together.

Once I’ve finished the big granny square I will be moving on to a shawl. Nothing fancy, I’m thinking a plain granny triangle. I’ve got Drops Lima, which I think is the DK version of Drops Nepal. The colours and feel are very similar. I bought it because it was on sale.

I’ve also gathered what I need to make a Spice of Life blanket. I’m going to use Stylecraft Special and I’ve tried to match the colours of the Rico stuff that is used in the original pattern. Mostly I had this hidden in the cupboard already. I’m getting concerned about how much surplus wool I have (at least I’m trying to reduce it).

I finished a different blanket at some point after Christmas. A corner to corner blanket. I just googled Corner to Corner crochet blanket and chose a free Ravelry download.

I used Sirdar Snuggly Baby Bamboo DK in Pixie green and a mustard colour which doesn’t have a name on the label. This stuff does not go far, so once the green was gone I needed to add the big mustard border to get it to a decent size. Originally it was going to be two baby blankets, now it’s one! I had enough green to add (UK) dc’s all the way around the edge to create a neat foundation for the border.

The border is just a load of (UK) trebles and a scalloped edge. Each scallop has 5 trbs with 7trbs for the corners. It’s very drapey and got a good weight to it. I really quite like it.

By the way, I’ve plastered myself on many areas of the internet. Check out my other places…

Facebook

Instagram

Ravelry

Lastly, for the rest of this week there is a chance that I might also try and remember how to knit. It hasn’t gone well so far. I can’t remember if I ever knew how to actually cast on. I think Nanna always did that for me and then would pass me the needles to do the rest. I should sort that out.

The Petal Patch Harmony Blanket.

November 11, 2015blanket, crochet16 Comments

Decide to get out a woolly blanket and the cat will appear from nowhere. Trying to take pictures of a woolly blanket is even worse. 70% of the pictures I took of this blanket had cat in them. I eventually gave up.

I’ve put it somewhere safe in case she tries it on again. She has claimed too many of my blankets.

Anyway, I’m pleased to say that I’ve finished the blanket and it looks lovely. I’m quite tempted to keep it as another blanket for the living room but it isn’t really big enough. I stopped making squares for it when I thought it wouldn’t go with the rest of the room. It turns out that, actually it probably would look quite nice. I’m taking it to a Christmas/craft fayre at the end of the month to see if someone buys it…

I really enjoyed making the squares. They are the Petal Patch Motif by Betsy Makes and the colour scheme is basically nicked from Attic 24’s Harmony blanket plus a few balls of Parchment and a smattering of Grape (it’s all Stylecraft Special DK). To give a nod to both of these pilferings I am calling the blanket Petal Patch Harmony. Blankets have names these days.

It’s slightly squashed where the cat abused it. I should probably give it a wash before trying to put it up for sale.

Many of these pictures are very samey but it takes too much time, dithering about which ones to use. May as well use them all.

Once again, I used the Continuous Join As You Go. Next time I’ll move on to a new technique. Not because I don’t like this one (I actually really like it) but because I want to learn something new. I’ve seen a few different ones about that I want to try. Just need to decide which to do first.

It’s a good size for the sofa or maybe a toddler bed. It also works well draped, with nonchalance, over a chair. Perhaps I should aim for one blanket per item of furniture; I can casually arrange blankets everywhere. You’ll never find the cat again.

The border is from Edie Eckman’s Around the Corner, Crochet Borders. Number 27. I cheated and skipped every two stitches, not every other. I did it that way so I wouldn’t have to make as many stitches. I can see that it is a ever so slightly stretched but that’s the punishment I get for being cheaty. I did the same thing on the Fireplace blanket and got a way with it more because I tinkered with the pattern. I get told off a lot for not following the recipe.

Here it is, complete. It looks smaller here than in real life. Real life tells me it measures 95x125cm. 63 squares.

Main colour is parchment and I can’t remember if I used three or four balls. The rest of the colours are most definitely less than a ball each. I used: clematis, lavender, lime, meadow, plum, sage, storm, pale rose, turquoise, violet, cloud, petrol, grape, raspberry, parma and aster. Hope I haven’t missed any out… Right, onto the next project!

Sewing curtains, re-homing a crochet blanket and enjoying summer.

July 23, 2015July 23, 2015blanket, crochet, flowers, garden, outside, sewing6 Comments

Last week I said I wasn’t allowed to buy any more fabric…. I have….

Half a tonne of it. Lots of it. Loads. I’m making curtains, it’s totally legit. When I said I wasn’t allowed to buy any more fabric I had forgotten that I’d planned new curtains. It was not an impulse purchase but a careful, well thought out one. I started on the first curtain the other night but was scuppered by having bought the wrong header tape. I blame IKEA, I don’t think they do the normal header tape anymore and it wasn’t for normal curtains, it was weird. Anyway, by the time the replacement stuff we ordered from Ebay turns up, I’ll have hopefully sorted out all of the other curtains ready for the tape. I can’t wait to have new curtains!

I got a request from a friend on Monday night asking if I had a spare baby blanket they could have to give as a present for someone. Actually, I had three from leftover experiments. This is the one they chose. Unfortunately, it wasn’t actually finished. Thankfully I’d sewn in the ends already. However, it had no border so I had to quickly whizz around it a few times and find a pretty edge that would suit a baby girl. This is the blanket.

It was initially going to be for a baby I knew but once I’d almost finished, I decided it wouldn’t suit said baby and stored it away with all the other abandoned projects. Poor blanket. Luckily, someone else saw the potential in it and asked if they could have it. Yes. Good.

There isn’t a pattern for it, it’s just a basic granny stripe mixed in with a variety of doubles, half trebles and trebles in a random order. I used Stylecraft Special DK. I quite liked it once it had its border added. The border was inspired by various different patterns I’ve seen around. It’s a bit hotchpotch.

The garden is getting pretty again after its June lull. It makes me ponder what I need to do for next year, to ensure I have colour in more places. I’ve noticed that the greenfly have come to party on my Sweet Peas.

My six year old and I went outside this morning and snipped all the Sweet Peas and some Lavender to make posies for his teachers. It’s the last day of school today. I shook off the greenfly before he handed them over.

There is loads of Borage in the herb bed, I didn’t realise it was such a prolific self seeder. There are so many plants. It’s managed to travel to some other parts of the garden too. I’m going to have to keep on top of that.

The bees flipping love it. It would make me feel guilty if I took too much of it out. I’m going to have to keep it to one part of the garden but still make sure the bees have enough to keep their tummies full.

Bees are also having a great time in the Nasturtiums. I’ve spotted more bumble bees here as opposed to the honey bees on the Borage. I don’t know any other type of bees. I could well be mixing my bees.

I’ll soon be running the risk of repeating myself with the garden pics. I’ll need to look at past blog posts to remind myself of my blatherings.

Here, another one of Borage! I put them in ice cubes last year. Looked absolutely nothing like those pictures you see on Pinterest.

Little crochet flower pattern

July 3, 2015crochet, crochet flower, flowers, free pattern12 Comments

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!

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).

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.

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.

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!

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!!

The blanket that took a very long time to make

June 24, 2015June 24, 2015blanket, crochet10 Comments

At last I have finished and it turns out it’s not that big. I had thought it was going to be just a bit smaller than a single bed size but it’s probably a third of that. I also thought I’d made somewhere over 100 circles but when it came to getting them all together, there weren’t that many.

I think some circles went missing, or I completely miscounted. It is only 8×11 , which is rubbish. Seriously, I was expecting more. But there is that feeling of having completed a job that means when you are wrong you really don’t want to keep on going. So I gave up on doing any more, and I’m glad I did because as I wrote in this post, I had do redo some anyway. In the end, it turned out I only had to make two extra circles as I forced the other ones to fit with some jiggery pokery (they were on the edge where it wouldn’t make such a difference). If you look closely you can spot some really bad crochet.

I’ve taken a ridiculous amount of photographs of it but none of them show the actual colours. I’m not sure how to rectify this, so I’ve given up chasing the perfect photo. The pictures I’ve taken on my phone do it more justice. I think I’ll put those on my facebook page, which is over there on the right!

I was originally inspired the colours of Meg and Mog books. I’d been reading the books to my youngest [2] and I kept thinking that the colours would make a nice bright blanket. I remember drawing Meg and Mog pictures when I was at primary school.

I had a surplus of green yarn in my stash from some abandoned idea. That ended up being the main colour just because. I then got started, which was in April or thereabouts.

I didn’t really pay close attention when I was actually picking out the balls of wool so the end product doesn’t really look like it has anything to do with Meg or Mog.

It’s incredibly bright in real life. It’s all Stylecraft Special DK as that is what they sell in the shop down the road. The pattern for the circles comes via Tiny Tin Bird. It is by Priscilla Hewit and I printed out the PDF a couple of years ago with the intention of doing something blankety with it then. I didn’t get round to it until this year. It’s the slowest thing I’ve worked on, probably ever. I think it’s due to not liking it very much! It’s the colours not the pattern. I’m not sure. It’ll come camping with us in a couple of weeks and I won’t mind of it gets scuffed up.

For the edging I gave up on finding something new and used one I have used quite a lot; Attic 24’s bobble shell edging but with three slip stitches between each bobble to have a little gap between them.

In the mean time, I’ve got a couple of small things on the go and another blanket I want to make.

crafting projects await.

June 4, 2015June 24, 2015blanket, crochet, sewing5 Comments

These are things that I am supposed to be working on but really, they’re just sitting on the shelf waiting. I will finish them soon. Other things I’m more interested in have taken over.

I’ve completed the worst bit of the latest blanket; sewing in the ends. I am useless at crocheting over them as I go and sometimes you can see them in the finished product anyway.

It’s enormously satisfying to see them in a nice pile once the nasty bit is over.

I laid out the circles in an order that would do (there’s no point in overly fussing about this) and got started. I use the photo to make sure I keep on track. I also have a stack of each row high up on a book shelf, out of reach of the kids.

I’ve only used this technique once before. Crocheting in a continuous join. I found a great tutorial at babylovebrand.net via Pinterest. I couldn’t work it out on my own. I gave a half hearted attempt to design a method myself but meh, it was too much hard work. It’s fabulous that people share this kind of thing. It’s been a huge help.

I got about two rows in when I realised my mistake. I had made what I thought was all of the centre circles when I decided I wanted some green too. So, I quickly worked up about 10 green centres and went on my merry way with the rest of the rounds. When I came across the first of the green centred circles I thought it was one off, but no. It turns out, all the green centred circles have only 15 spoke thingies, not 16. Bum. I’m going to have to make them again. Don’t want to.

This is a sewing project I have waiting. It’s all cut out but I haven’t started it yet because I want to put a magnetic clasp doodah on it and I never have before. New things wait until I find the patience to give them my full attention. I know that it’ll be wonky. I know. I’m a slapdash sewer. Anyway, it looks like a lovely project and it’s another Pinterest find from thinkliz.com. I’m making the big version.

This is a project that has been waiting a long time. I bought the pattern about two years ago. Last month I found some fabric and finally cut out the pattern pieces. Once again, It’s waiting, sitting on the shelf waiting to be made because I should probably try to adjust the pieces so it’ll fit me. I love sewing but I don’t remember the last time I made an actual dress. It was probably when I was a teenager. The fabric is from Fabricland, I bought it when I went to Southampton.

You can follow me on Pinterest if you want to! And Facebook, which is over there on the right!