Cosy country gal!

Now that she's a country gal my dear friend needed a proper warm hat. I had made this for myself but over-estimated the size (I do have a teeny wee heed) but it fits her perfectly, and obviously my purple obsession is catching now that I can adorn others in my favourite colours!!

Bag or is it a Hat?

I was going to see an old friend for her 40th recently and having a long overdue night away. I was so excited about the prospect of the night away though that I completley forgot to get her a pressie-hey presto I quickly got hooking and made this cute bag. I doubled the yarns to get a thicker almost felted feel to it and also was surprised at how easy it was to fashion the button hole style handle. I got the pattern from my Encyclopaedia of Crochet book and it's worked really well. Of course my friend loved it, another completely unique pressie-hoorah! Still couldn't convince my daughter that it wasn't a hat!

Gorgeous new feet!

Booties were one of the first thing I made after I'd learned to do granny squares. It's a bit of a challange initially following the pattern and making sure they are both the same!! I made these beautiful soft pale blue ones in baby soft cotton with bamboo. By all reports and by my expereince they actually do stay on, which is a hard 'feat' (sorry) to acheive. My NCT mate came on a lovely outing to Crystal palace to see the dinosaurs and brought her very new lil chap who was able to model his new booties immediately and stayed warm and cosy all day despite the rain and rubbish weather-even though it's June!!!

Crocheted Garden!

These are a few pictures of the amazing crocheted and knitted garden I saw being exhibited at Bournemouth Library. It was incredible and was inspired by the plasticine garden at Chelsea last year. Apparently 1500 people contributed- I loved it SOOO inspiring. Lots of food for thought!

My daughter the model!

Much better than a dummy,although a bit big for hr Isabella loves being my model. Here are 2 hats I made using quite different patterns. The first uses a granny square style with a gorgeous self changing yarn which bizzarely changed colours with the rows-quite a fluke! The second one is made from cotton with the pretty flower discs crocheted around the edge. Took quite a while but worth the effort as it creates a lovely effect.

Only 1 sqaure to go!

It's always good to get someone else's eye to help work out how best to put the squares together. I was initially only looking at the colours and patterns but also so important to think about the tones of the different colours as my husband pointed out-and it's made a real difference-much more striking. This is for Isabella's blanket which she asked me to make. Have been trying to decide how to sew together and I think I'm going to do with dark navy joining wool so it has a real contrast.

Mesh daisy hat

This was fun to make and looks great with the addition of the daisy, perfect summer hat!

More granny squares

Granny squares are so easy to make. I was asked by a friend to teach her how to crochet so as I found it easiest to start with a granny square I taught her in about 2 hours the beginnings of one. I then turned the ones I made into a dolls blanket!

Girls who lunch!

Here are my niece and daughter lunching at a barge in little Venice before going to see a show on the Puppet Theatre. I was obviously feeling very proud of my little crocheted girls showing off my creations!

My daughters new blanket!

This has been a labour of love and it's probably taken approximately 3 months to complete. I didn't work on this exclusively as I usually have at least 3 or 4 different things on the go at any one time. I bought an amazing squares book which has over 200 different types of squares in so I just started making them and this is the result! She has it on her bed and it looks fabulous-she loves it!

Colourful beanie

Beany hats are fun to make and you can use any colours. For this one I mixed in some sparkly bobbly yarn and it created a great colourful texture for my 13 year old neice. I actually made this one while in hospital again with my youngest daughter who had bronchiolitis. It was a relief to have my crochet with me as I just had to be there for her but in the first few days she was so floppy and sleepy so there wasn't much to do. Luckily she recovered really well.

Penguin madness

My oldest daughter is quite into penguins to say the least so I simply had to make this! How cute.