On my hook- Tunisian Crochet cowl. WIP Wednesday.

So, this week I have been mostly working on a Tunisian Crochet Cowl. The free gift this month with Simply Crochet magazine was a 6mm Tunisian crochet hook and a pattern book. Some of these  patterns are looking quite tempting, particularly a couple of cute colourful cushion cover. Only drawback? I don't know how to 'Tunisian Crochet'. :-(

Never mind- onwards and upwards! If I can teach myself to crochet I can teach myself Tunisian! After a few false starts I got my head around Tunisian Simple Stitch. I fumbled through this on my own with written instructions but there is a nice clear video on Tunisian Simple crochet on YouTube from Free Crochet Videos-do please pop along to the blog to check it out along with a nice clear picture tutorial.

After having a delve into my stash and coming up with a couple of balls of Stylecraft Vision Dk in redcurrant which is a nice self-striping pink shade (unfortunately now discontinued) I decided to whip up some kind scarf/cowl- so that's where I'm at on this #wipwednesday. I will post a pic once completed. :-)

So, what are you working on at the moment?

Lolly 

x

Crochet Rock covers- a super quick cute crochet project.

Whilst meandering around Pinterest I came upon this cute crochet project from onechurchillsgreen.typepad.com, and it made me think about a rock that we have had on display in our living room for a number of years.

This is the rock in question:

Doesn't look very interesting right? But what makes our little rock different is that my Husband and I found it whilst walking on a beach many moons ago (11-12 years ago? A long time anyway.. :) ) And what made this rather boring looking rock special enough to pick up and keep for all these years is that it is in fact two rocks.. well, two halves of one rock that still fit together perfectly, and the romantics that we are have kept it, because we are two halves of one rock that fit together perfectly. 

Ok, enough of that... bleurgh :-p

So with the post from onechurchillsgreen as inspiration I grabbed a hook, a couple of oddments of dk yarn and whipped up a couple of crochet covers. 

I didn't use a pattern, I just went with the flow, making chains and doing a variety of single and double crochet stitches until I came up with a lacy pattern that pleased me. I happy with the two slightly different patterns, one like a sea urchin and one with a flowery pattern.

The underside of the rocks have a mesh pattern on them to hold it in place, again I just did a variety of chain and single crochet stitches until it held securely in place and then fastened off.

And here are my rocks on display on my fireplace.

A little more interesting to look at than before and it probably took me a total of 15 minutes to whip up.

Have you made any quick and satisfying projects?

L x

A day in the workshop with Lucy

It's been two weeks since I last posted and really it's because the time has just flown by! I've been back at work after a period of illness and to add to the fun I've had the most awful cold that has just dragged on and on for the last two weeks.

Today is about a lovely workshop I attended at the beginning of February with the lovely Lucy from the Attic24 blog.



It was the first workshop Lucy has done, and also the first crochet workshop I have attended. It was a nice small group of 8 ladies, some travelling from as far away as Scotland and Wales. I had a lot shorter journey from Leeds to Skipton! Despite the weather being grey, windy and awfully wet we all had a good time (at least I did, I'm sure all the other's did too!) and were suprisingly quiet as we all concentrated so hard on the pattern. In fact, now I think about it, the drenching I received on the walk back to the train station and the damp cold journey home might have had a hand in my stinking cold!

The project we were working on was the wonderfully cute Bower Bird. I know Lucy is working on a tutorial for the Bower Bird and I'm sure she'll share it on the blog as soon as she can. Here is her Post including her workshop- you can just see my hands on the left of the picture and my crochet hook roll!

We all finished our birds and had a little bag of goodies to take home to finish our bower including a nice little bag of lavender so we could make our next little birdy into a lavender bird. I haven't made another bird yet but that lavender sure smells amazing! Here are our little birdies all lined up.



Mine is the teeny tiny bird! I was the slowest that day because I was concentrating so hard on being perfect and being absolutely 100% perfect on my count and I crocheted so tight Birdy is half the size of everyone elses! Never mind- he is small but perfectly formed!



Here is Lucy taking a pic of our birdies and one of me having a geeky 'look-I'm-with-Lucy-and-she's -faaamous!' moment.

I must say I found Lucy to be lovely, friendly and welcoming (not that I expected otherwise) and the cafe that her workshop is above does the most aaaammmaaaazing Rocky Road. Yum Yum. If you are ever in Skipton check out Cooper's Cafe Bar- you walk past it on the way to the town centre from the train station.

I haven't, as yet, finished my bower. I'm not 100% sure I don't want to make another bird in brighter colours. I'm happy with my purple and green bird, but I'm  not sure if he would look a little lost in a colourful bower. If I do, I'll turn Birdy into a little individual hanging ornament.

Today we had a hint of sunshine so I literally ran out into the garden a took a few pics of Birdy perching on my climbing rose. 

So here he is: 

Hope you all have a lovely week.

L x 

Yarn wrapped tealight holders

Today I thought I would share with you a way I have been upcycling/recycling some glass candle holders wich have run out into nice colourful yarny tealight holders. They are super simple and quick, you may well get your fingers a bit sticky but that's really the extent of the hardship involved!

First find a jar you want to wrap with yarn. This is a Yankee Candle which has burned all the way down to the end leavig only it's waxy residue.

 

Then you need to clean out your empty jar:

You will need some PVA glue or Mod Podge or similar, a brush and some left over yarn. I used a self striping DK weight yarn and PVA glue.

Paint some glue on your glass jar. You need enough to stick the yarn to the glass and to the yarn above it so it sits tightly together, but not so much that it's all squidgy and oozing out between the yarn and running down the sides. I find it best to paint a bit of glue on at a time, wrap the yarn around and keep 'nudging' the yarn up so it sitting all snug together and not leaving lots of gaps.

Keep wrapping and nudging all the way down to the end. Snip the end of the yarn. Make sure your yarn end is glued down securely and leave to dry. Overnight is best.

And that's it all finished. Isn't that easy? The jars I had have lids so, to give them a little face lift to match their new yarny exteriors, I crocheted little motifs in the same yarn. I used the free patterns for 'Teeny Tiny Flowers' and 'Teeny Tiny Hearts' from Attic24. They were just the right size to fit on the glass lids.

A good blob of glue and voila!

When everything is dry add some tealights and light 'em up! I like the way the candles glow through the colours of the yarn.

As you can see from my pic you don't have to stop at jars for tealights. I used the same yarn to wrap an empty, cleaned out beer bottle and now it can be used for flowers.

What will you be wrapping?

L x

My happy crafty day

Hi again. I thought today I'd share with you the lovely day I had yesterday pottering around the house and getting a couple of crafty projects done. It was very satisfying all in all.

I'm very pleased to have finished some crochet fingerless gloves. This is only the second pair of gloves I've made and my first were really basic so I was really happy with these which use two different stitches (back loop double stitch and extended double uk terms) to create a ribbed band and a different pattern on the main body to create interest and I added a couple of little buttons on the cuff.

 

The pattern for these can be found here at CROCHETDREAMS or on Ravelry. There is also a pattern that matches for boot cuffs which I'm sure I'll make up at some point. The pattern is simple and relatively quick to make up (the pattern says two hours for the gloves but it took me about 4 hours for both gloves. Maybe I'm a fairly slow crotcheter, or maybe it's because I watch TV at the same time ;-) )

The second thing I got done yesterday around finishing the gloves was giving a couple of frames a shabby chic makeover. Inspired by the progress on my mirror at the weekend I pulled out a pair of cheap black plastic photo frames I bought from the Pound Shop recently in order to give them a makeover (for anyone from the US reading this the Pound Shop is sort of equivelent to your Dollar Store) Here they are:

Not too attractive I think you'll agree. I liked the vintage style detailing around the edge but black plastic? Yuk. There is nowhere these would go anywhere in my house. First I gave them a coat of the ivory chalk paint I had left over from the weekend. It had been in an airtight container but had got a little drier and thicker. This may be a problem for some projects but I liked the texture that it gave, like old plaster. Here they are after one coat of paint:

Not bad but some of the black was still showing through so I let it dry a while and then added a second coat.

Much better. I didn't want to 'distress' the frame by scuffing away any of the ivory paint as I didn't want any of the black to show through so to pick out some the detail I very lightly sponged on a pale lilac colour. I mixed together my own colour by mixing up some 'powder purple' coloured chalk paint (which was a little too bright to look vintage in my opinion) and then added in some of the ivory.

 I hope that you can see the purple on your monitor.. it's not showing up so well on mine and I have tried my hardest to get a picture in good light. It is very soft and subtle though.

And here is a nice picture of the finished frames. Quite a change from the nasty black plastic. I am so pleased with them and can't wait to find the right pictures to put into them. They will eventually go into our bedroom as I am working towards a Shabby Chic makeover of the whole bedroom in the summer time. :-)

Thank you for reading. If you have liked this post please leave me a little comment to say hi!

L x 

Exciting times

Really excited  as I have managed to book a place on a crochet workshop with Lucy from Attic24 next Saturday! Eeeee! (excited squeeky noises) I think places have gone fast but if you check the post HERE you can see the wonderful project she will be teaching. Can't wait to make my own birdie and post pics.

I've also got a couple of projects lined up for 'shabby chic-ing'. I hope you will forgive my less than perfect pictures. I was waiting for a day with 'good light' but have been disappointed with the Yorkshire weather of late. I'm afraid 'good' light has been a little hard to come by. In fact light of any kind has been somewhat rationed. Now clouds and rain we've had a-plenty, but what's new there?

Anyway, back to my upcoming projects. First is a brass ornate dressing table mirror I purchased from Ebay. The seller described it as 'in excellent condition for it's age- just needs a good clean' so when it arrived I was a little surprised to find that the mirror and its backing where held in place by blue tack. In the second pic you can see the mirror out of the mirror frame. This, whilst annoying, is not the end of the world as it makes it easier for cleaning and painting. So, plans for the mirror are:

1) Give it a really good clean so it actually looks like brass again.
2) Paint it with a creamy colour chalk paint and then gently remove some so that the brass shows through on the ornate pattern. Clear wax to seal
3) Decoupage mirror back with a vintage style paper and then find a way to reattach mirror and back firmly. Some kind of resin/glue type thing. I need to investigate more the best glue to do this.

I also have the brass candle holder. This needs a good clean although it is in better condition than the mirror. This is also going to get chalk painted and rubbed off a little to let the brass show through in places and then wax seal.

That's all for now, I'll take some progress pics as I work on them so you can watch the transformation.

L x

That difficult first post.

So, here it is. That most awkward of things. The First Post. Da da daaaa. (Imagine that in a sort of impending doom, sense of menace tone. You got it? Ok. Onwards)

I must confess that I've spent almost 24 hours trying to decide what to write here and eventually decided to just drop myself in and start swimming. Or is that sinking? Definitely doggy paddling at least.

So, who am I and what is this all about?

My name is Laura and I live in Leeds in the UK with my husband and our 2 cats.

My husband and I at Christmas time. Obviously. We don't wear Santa hats all year 'round.

Our cat Harold. Look at those eyes. 'Why don't you give me treats? Don't you love me???'

Our other cat Tippy in a crochet cat sack I made for her. By the radiator. Cosy

I am what I would class as one of life's Enthusiastic Amateur Crafter's. I like making things. All sorts of different things.

My husband says I have a short attention span and I'm always flitting from one hobby to the next, and to some extent that's true. I'll find a new hobby and I will persue it almost obsessively for a few months, and then I'll find a new obsession..and the cycle will begin again. However, I never forget those old crafts which have fallen by the wayside. My craft stash is wide and varied. I often pop back and dabble with something I've played with before, and I do have one or two WIPs I could really do with picking up again..

So this blog, my blog, is all about my Enthusiastic Amateur Crafting. What new craft I am passionately persuing. What tutorials I am using and craft blogs I'm reading. What works. What doesn't. My results both good, bad and ugly and maybe..just maybe..my own tutorials.

The final goal: I'd really like to find that one craft I love above all others. The one I really feel 'This is it, this is the one I am best at. This is the one which I can complete most professionally' Then, I'd really like to have my own craft stall at a fair- then I can become an Enthusiastic Amateur Professional Crafter! (Can you be an amateur professional? Does that even make sense? Well that's the goal!)

If you've made it all the way to the end here maybe you could leave me a comment. Are you a EAC? Maybe there is a blog or craft you would like to recommend. Please, say hi!

L x

Oh, I almost forgot- Purple Lolly. It's quite simple. Purple is my favourite colour as you will see, I'm sure, and Lolly is a nickname my husband gave me. Simples. :)