Christmas Table Runner

Hi,

   I hope you have all had a lovely Christmas and are looking forward to a wonderful new year.

I have had a few projects on the go in the run up to Christmas.  I thought I would share my table runner project with you.  I had a look around and found this pattern on Ravelry  - A Starburst Table Runner by Coats Design Team.   I picked a lovely bright red cotton from the DMC Petra range with a metalic cotton for the edging.

The runner was made up of these gorgeous star squares which were then joined as the runner grew. 

I used the metallic thread to add a bit of sparkle for the edging of the runner.

It soon made up and was a straight forward pattern to follow.  I think the basic pattern could be used for other things too such as scarves, etc.

It matched beautifully with my table cloth with the red berry pattern and made a great centre to the table over the Christmas festivities.

On to my next project now...

Bye for now

Von xxx

Bauble Magic!

Well, it is most definitely that busy time of the year and working in a school you can imagine it is particularly busy!  These last few weeks I have managed to get all the Christmas present shopping done and cards written.  The house is duly decorated too and looks fab too!

My Christmas wreathes that I have made in previous years are up and my lovely Christmas carousel is out.

 I love these, there is a lovely stall at the Hobby craft Show at the NEC in Birmingham that sells these every year.  I would really love another.

I have been fascinated this year by the making of crochet baubles and have loved looking at these on people's blogs and Instagram feeds.  Well, I couldn't resist and had to have a go.  I found a fab tutorial on Kaleidoscopecity and had a try.  My first attempts were not hugely successful and I quickly realised I should have read the tutorial properly and used cottons not a standard DK!  Note to self:- fully read instructions!

Anyway I had another go but still found that my bauble wasn't quite right and looked a bit like a barrel!

 After a quick chat with Kaleidoscopecity and following her advice I managed to tighten my tension and cracked it!

I tried a few colour combinations - silver and blues and red, green and gold.  See the results below:-

I then had a try using a Granny Circle approach which created a slightly different bauble in the silver and blues.

I have some of these on my Etsy shop.   Well, back to wrapping some presents....

Bye for now

Von xxx

Blanket Ta Dah!

Hi,

     I have finally finished my fabric and crochet combined blanket.  I have been trying to think of a name for it and decided on simply Rosie due to the lovely flower print in the fabric.  I have spent most of my evenings this week working on the edging and have found it is a long way round the blanket.

  I  have joined the squares using the invisible join and you can see the edging well on this corner shot of the blanket.  I used the edging from the 'All Shawl' design by Doris Chan.

Here is another close up of the squares.  I really love the flower print on this material.

It fits beautifully as a throw on a single bed... 

Or as a throw for the living room...

This has been a big project but it has been a pleasure to make and I already have another project in mind.  I have put this on my Etsy shop now so it is available to buy.

Bye for now

Von xx

Fusion Blanket

Hi,

     I have been working on this blanket for a long time now.  It has been a long process hand sewing the fabric squares and then crocheting the edges to make them into squares.

              I have created 88 squares and have been busy joining these using a slip stitch join over the last few weekends.  

           I have finished this now and spent a lovely couple of weekends sewing in all the ends(aaagh!).  That is done now so I am ready to start on the border for the blanket.  I have been busy researching some ideas for this and knew I wanted a deep border but with a delicate finish.  I have managed to fin exactly the edging I am after on Ravelry.  It is from a super edging on an "All Shawl" by Doris Chan.

So this is my next task.....

I will show some finished photos soon....I hope.

Bye for now

Von xx

A Bank Holiday Walk

Hi,

   I hope you all had a lovely Bank Holiday weekend those of you in the UK.  We didn't go away but I have had a super weekend at home.  I went on a girly shop with some of the ladies in my family on Saturday and then had a quiet day around the house yesterday.

   Today we decided to take the dogs for a walk around one of our local parks that we visit Pooley Country Park.  It has a lovely woodland walk and you can stroll along the canal too.  So we did a circular walk heading towards the woods,

 

then past the lake,

until we came to the canal.

    It was just what we needed on a such a gorgeous afternoon and once home it was a good cuppa in the garden and out came the crochet.  

    My daughter loves Sloths and from our recent visit to Toft she had eyed up the Sloth pattern that I had got as an added extra from buying my Edwards Menagerie book direct from the shop.  So I was 'strongly encouraged' to make Harriet the Sloth for her.

    She absolutely loves him but has decided it is not a 'Harriet' and has called 'him' Keith instead.

Sorry Toft!  My son has now jumped on the bandwagon and has requested the Elephant so I think that will be my next project.

Bye for now

Von x

A Visit to TOFT

Hi,

    We decided to take a visit to the TOFT Alpaca Shop in Dunchurch this week.  I was really excited to see the Alpacas and have a lovely peruse around the shop.  When we arrived we opted for a short walk to take a look at some of the Alpacas in the grounds.  It was a lovely day so we enjoyed the gentle stroll through the TOFT grounds and down to Draycote Water Reservoir.  There were plenty of young Alpacas in the fields and we stood for a while watching them eat and play.

We had a short walk around the edge of Draycote Water which looked wonderful in the sunshine.  It is definitely worth a walk around or you could even cycle round too.

 We had a great time exploring inside the shop and my daughter, Heather, fell in love with one of the hats on display so ended up buying the wool and an Alpaca pom pom.  This was a knitting pattern and as I am not as skilled in knitting Heather has asked her Nan for a bit of help with this.  I bought the popular crochet book "Edwards Menagerie" which I love and because I bought it direct from the shop I received an additional ten patterns.  I must say that the staff at TOFT are fantastic and can not do enough to help.  We had some lovely chats with the staff whilst we were there.  There is a cafe on site too so we sat outside in the sunshine with a drink before the journey home.

I would highly recommend a visit but make sure you have some pocket money as you will definitely want to spend in the shop.  I am currently having a little go at creating one of the animals from the book and have made a start on 'Rufus the Lion'.  

I soon made all the body parts and sewed him together. Not sure I quite got the head right but he has become a real hit in our house.

What do you think? I love him.  My daughter has insisted I have a go at the sloth next.

Bye for now

Von x

Crochet Hats - Twit Twooooo!!

Hi,

    During our recent holiday I decided to take a smaller project with me for crochet time in the evenings in our caravan.  I love the cosy feel tucked up in the caravan on the evenings and while the others are watching TV I am more than happy to crochet away.

   The project I took with me this time was inspired by the super crafter Sarah on her blog Repeatcrafterme .  I love love the owl hat pattern she has created and decided to make some of these for my Etsy shop as Sarah is happy for others to create and sell as long as she is noted as the creator(which is quite right - in my opinion).

   I made a small selection of hats using the classic pink and blue as the coordinating colours.  This is a great pattern to follow and I enjoyed the variety within it to make the different elements for the owls.

And here are the finished hats...

 Really pleased with these and I have made a small number of sizes so far.  Take a look on my Etsy site.

Bye for now

Von xxx

Christmas Crochet Stocking

Hi,

   I try every year to be super organised for Christmas, especially working in a school, as it becomes such a manic time.  Although I must confess I do love it!  Out shopping I noticed that the stores were already beginning to add their Christmas stock on to the displays so I set about thinking of Christmas. I have really wanted to have a try at crocheting some Christmas stockings and I managed to find this super pattern on Red Heart.

     

I had come across this fabulous glittery wool and ended up buying quite a stash thinking that it would be for Christmas projects.  So I set about using the Red Heart pattern to create my own stocking.  The first part of the pattern creates the leg of the stocking and I found this quite quick to make up and I think it looks great with the glitter effect( a bit tricky to show in my photos).

I used a lovely dark green to contrast which is a Stylecraft Special DK to create the heel and toe  of the stocking.  I really love the contrast and the two colours really have that Christmassy feel.

I then used a white DK that I had in my stash to crochet the cuff to finish off the stocking.

I think it looks great, especially hung above the fire place - mind it will definitely be moved when that is turned on!!

I have made some more of these and added these on to my Etsy shop.

Bye for now

Von xx