Tag Archives: crochet

Sheep everywhere

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Quite a while ago I was trying out some new crochet stitches and came across the popcorn stitch. It was actually easier to do and easier to vary than I thought it might be.  I thought it looked really tricky until I tried it! It’s actually quite effective in a number of ways and I’ve used it in lots of makes.

It works quite well as an edging on hats such as my baby Santa hat. I’ve also made it to create a Christmas snowball tea cosy. The pink hat is one that I made for my little girl. I mixed popcorn stitches in with various others to give a textured look to the hat.

One of the things I do like to use it for is making woolly sheep!

I’m starting to collect quite a flock of them now. I’ve got tea cosies, mug cosies and toilet roll covers. They just look so cute!

I’m trying to decide what sort of sheep to make next. Any suggestions?

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Quirky Christmas toilet roll holders

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Now that Halloween is finished, I think I can start to talk about Christmas…

I make a lot of quirky crochet items, but there’s one thing that I really enjoy doing – that’s the toilet roll dolls and toilet roll holders. I really enjoy the challenge of coming up with ways to crochet things based around the bog standard toilet roll.

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How about this little fella?

It’s a Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer toilet roll cover. Oh course, you could see that already!

So, he’s the first of my Christmas toilet roll covers. I think he will look fantastic hiding away that spare toilet roll over the Christmas period. He’ll add a little bit of quirky Christmas cheer to the smallest room in the house 🙂

I’m guessing a Santa toilet roll cover and a snowman toilet roll cover will be next on my Christmas crochet list 🙂

Unicorns and rainbows

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The little girls still loves the Minions (and her hat) but she’s also started to fall in love with unicorns and My Little Pony. She kind of gets them all mixed up and also sometimes refers to them as Ubercorns – like the Go Jetters. Yes, she also loves the Go Jetters and we have to dance to the theme music whenever it comes on the telly.

Anyway, I thought I’d have a go at making some sort of unicorn and see what it turned out like.

I quite like making my quirky and geeky little toilet roll covers so I thought I’d start there first. I also had some nice DK Smoothie yarn that looked like it might make a nice rainbow effect.

unicorn

It’s only part way through at the moment. I’ve tried some slightly different ‘cute’ eyes and used some Kam snaps to finish them off (the pupils). I think I need to move the golden horn down a little bit and I’m currently crocheting some multicoloured spirals for his mane.

It’s starting to come along though.

I’m trying to keep it out of the way of my little girl for the moment in case she tries to cram it on her head!

What do you think?

 

Minions everywhere!

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p1030929I made this minion toilet roll cover a little while ago.

Now, my little girl has recently started to love the minions. She spotted the toilet roll cover when I looking through my things for another toilet roll cover that I’d had an order for. She was convinced it was a hat. Obviously too small for her to wear as a hat 🙂 I tried to explain with was to put on a toilet roll, but she wasn’t convinced by my explanation….

minions

Anyway, she kept asking about the ‘minions hat’ so I thought I’d better have a look at making one for her.

This weekend I finally got around to it. She was pretty interested in the process and could tell it was going to be a minion even before I’d finished the basic part of the hat.

I managed to get it finished in time for her to wear it to see the lights switched on in our town centre, in Penarth.

What do you think of the finished hat?

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She loved it – not the ride though – she screamed to get off after it had been round 3 times. They had to stop the ride for her… Hey, ho, that’s pre-schoolers for you 🙂

Dr Who must be back on the telly!

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I haven’t watched the new Dr Who yet, but I can tell it’s back on the telly. My orders for my Dr Who series have started to ramp up!

At the moment I make a hot water bottle cosy (with the hot water bottle), a mobile phone cosy and a kindle/tablet cover. All crocheted. I like making them, but they are probably one of the fiddliest items that I make – there are lots of separate bits and pieces that need adding on plus some lettering. These and the zombies things probably take the most concentration but look pretty cool when finished 🙂

I’ve been toying with the idea of making a toilet roll cover too. I think it could work quite nicely. Once I’ve finished my current orders I think I’ll give it a go.

Anything else that you’d like to see me make in the TARDIS style?

Tangled wool solution – recycled, fantastic, elastic bands!

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I have finally found a good use for something that I avidly save rather than throwing away… OK, I don’t like to throw things away. Fact. I buy spring onions from the local supermarket and they always have a blue elastic band holding them together. I always, always save these little elastic bands. My kitchen rammel draw is full of the little things. It’s handy to have elastic bands at hand, but I have lots of them!

I’ve used them occasionally in crochet, if I need some elastic. But there are still lots of them, just sitting there, looking for a new purpose.

Zombie tea cosyToday I had some free time so decided to have a bit of a tidy up. I have a box in which I store my almost finished/just started projects. So if I’ve just sold a zombie tea cosy, then I’ll start to make up a new one, so its all ready to go when the next person wants to give one of my little zombies a new home. The problem is, I very often get side-tracked, either by a new order, or something else I’d just like to try out… yes, you’ve guessed it – this box is bursting at the seams and has lots of wool in there. Lots of little bits of wool that I use for finishing off.

Because I keep stuffing things in there, then rummaging around for some half-finished piece of work, the bits of wool continuously get tangled. It’s annoying.

Well I sorted it out today. Moved out the wool I’m not actually using and put it in one of the wool boxes and then attempted to tackled the ‘tangle’. Basically it’s lots of those small balls of wool. All tangled together. Again.

Wool boxSo, this is where I had the light bulb moment. I popped one of my fantastic elastic bands around each the little balls. Job’s a good ‘un. The wool isn’t tangled, and I get to use something that I felt like I was hoarding because I couldn’t bear to throw stuff away that should be useful 🙂

Oh, there are still quite a few of these elastic bands left, so I either find another use, of just simply buy more wool…

Quick crochet – baby bunny blankies

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I don’t have quite as much time to spend on new crochet projects at the moment so I’ve been trying to think of some new things to try that don’t take me too much time.

Crochet baby blanketsI quite like the ‘growth’ of blankets, either doing round and round of granny stitch or by making lots of little granny squares and then crocheting or sewing them together. I’ve also been liking doing a spot of amigurumi over the last 18 months, but it can be quite fiddly doing some of the smaller bits and needs a biggish stretch of time to concentrate and count rows.

Crochet amigurumi rabbitI’ve also been using my sewing machine quite a bit more and have been making some taggy blankies – as per my previous post on this – taggy obsessions.

I thought I might try to combine these so decided to crochet some baby comfort blankies with bunnies in one corner.

I managed to work a couple up pretty quickly, doing the blanket bit during the evening when I don’t have to concentrate too much and then the bunnies during the day when my little girl was having her short naps.

A friend recently had a baby, so I thought one might make a nice gift for her, and the other one has now gone into my Etsy shop.

What do you think? I think he has quite a cheeky little face 🙂

 

Crochet rag doll project

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Crocheted toysOver the years, I’ve crocheted a lot of different things – some with better success than others. I’m not very good at following patterns and tend to look at a few patterns and then pretty much make it up on the fly. A bit like my cooking really…

Anyway, as a child my mum knitted me a sort of rag doll for Christmas one year. I used to love the doll. All soft and raggedy. I had the idea that I’d try to make one for my little girl.

I spent a bit of time googling patterns and looking on Ravelry and Etsy. I couldn’t really see exactly what I was looking for. I wanted something all loose limbed and without one of those prettied up faces.

I settled on a freebie pattern but not long after I’d started, it just didn’t seem to be working, so I did what I usually do and started to make it up. Yeah, I know that takes longer really, but I get something more like I originally wanted.

Well, saying that she didn’t end up being quite as I intended, but hey she doesn’t look too bad! The hair was a whole different matter, so I think I’ll write about that in a different installment, but let’s just say she has plenty of it!

I did make some little shoes to match the dress, but they already seem to have gone missing…

Taggy obsessions – a baby sewing project

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My little girl is obsessed with all things taggy – tags on clothes, bits of ribbons, bits of string, cables and even stray bits of cotton on clothes. She can’t find any taggy on any toy, even in her sleep. Every new item is turned and turned around until she finds its taggy. Every day her toys get a ‘taggy inspection’.

It inspired me to try my hand at some little taggy comforters. These are the results of my efforts!

They have worked out quite nicely. I have made one side in a soft fleece and the other side in a bright cotton.

taggy blanketI’m always loosing things so I thought it would be a good idea to use my new Kam snapper and create a little strap so the taggy can be attached to a pram or bag. I actually made the little straps myself from the matching cotton rather than use a ribbon – I think it looks pretty cool (and it’s a bit more sturdy).

For the taggies I used a mixture of textures as it all about the texture for babies! Soft fleece on one side and bright cotton on the other. There are different widths of ribbons and some velvet, plus I crocheted some pieces like twists and knots. Lots of things to be twirled around in little fingers 🙂

For extra safety (and neat freakness) I top-stitched the blankies too. It also helps them lay nice and flat.

My sewing machine also does embroidery so I’m thinking I might have a go at doing some personalised ones next – when I get a spare moment or too from tidying away all the toys after my little girl has finished her daily taggy inspection!

Crochet Doll Toilet Roll Cover

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I get more requests and click-throughs on this website and my Etsy site for this one thing – crochet toilet roll dolls!

I first started making them quite a while ago and blogged about how it was impossible to find a good pattern. That started me on making my own pattern for these retro dolls. I’ve been making the dolls and selling them on my Etsy site and various vintage and craft fairs for a while. They are always popular. I make them in all sorts of custom colours!

I’m constantly asked where I got the pattern and the dolls from. Well, I’ve finally got around to writing the pattern up. It’s now available for immediate PDF download on my Etsy shop. Happy crocheting!

I might eventually get around to writing up a few more of my patterns… maybe it will be the zombies next 🙂