Tag Archives: Crochet

Bury Show 2024

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I managed to enter a few items in this year’s craft competitions, after the traditional last minute decision that I had to make something new to enter into the knitted / crochet baby item class!

It was an early start to walk down to the show grounds, but I made it in plenty of time and entered 7 items into 4 different categories. I really must do some baking for it next year too!

I went home for some breakfast and made some lunch to take back later. Nobody wanted to come with me so I took a more leisurely stroll back to the show, hoping to spot a kingfisher. ( I didn’t) It was pretty cool and drizzly so I went straight back to the craft tent to see how I had got on.

I was thrilled with my placings. Four prizes out of seven entries wasn’t a bad haul at all. There were two third places for my knitted headband (bottom in the above photo) and for my crochet baby comforter – which I had only finished after midnight!

Best of all though were being placed First and Second in the Handmade card competition.

Apparently the pop-up box card was loved by the judges and was considered for best in show! Although that was won for a needle felted picture which was gorgeous.

There were more entries than I’ve seen in the past, which is great for all the crafters. And there were lots of visitors to the tent during the afternoon. So it was a good day all around and I really did need my roast dinner when I got home!

I’m going to aim to make some things for the show much earlier next year as the knitted and crochet items that won obviously took more time than the day before! So next week I shall start thinking about what I can make and getting prepared.

Happy crafting

x

Summer is here!

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Summer seems to have descended on us with gusto! I can’t quite believe the change in weather conditions over the last few days. I hope you are all well and staying hydrated.

I did my stall at the school fair last Friday and it was pretty hot. We were outside and this year there was no gazebo to take shelter under. It was also rather windy, so I rather limited the stock I put on the table as I didn’t fancy spending the time chasing it all around the playground! As is usual for this fair, I sold only a couple of cards and lots more little knitted and crochet creatures.

I was disappointed that I didn’t sell any of my newly crocheted keyrings, but I did sell a few of the bookmarks and I have plenty left over to donate to the Guides fundraising evening in a couple of weeks time.

So whilst it’s been crazy hot for the last couple of days and I’ve been hibernating inside due to the farmer cutting the fields for silage, I’ve also been subjected to the nightmare of pile driving in the site that once was a wildlife haven. It’s awful. I’m still waiting for responses from the local planning dept and the construction company – I think I’d best not hold my breath!

To try to take my mind off the noise and vibrations, I’ve been working on a couple of box cards for orders and trying to decide what to make for Bury Show next weekend. I’m also looking out for some more possibilities for stalls, do let me know if you know of anything locally.

Well I’d better get back to my orders. Have a good day.

Happy crafting

x

(No Parkrun again last weekend – too sneezy)

Post COVID normality?

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Well, this has been a very long time in the writing! It’s been almost two years since I last put pen to paper, while the whole world was in the throes of the first set of lockdowns I think.

It’s been a hard couple of years for everyone in may different ways, and today marks the two-year anniversary of the official start of our first UK lockdown. Similarly to then, I am sat in the garden enjoying some very warm early Spring sunshine. This time though I am being serenaded not by the local birds, but the screeching tones of the local primary school after-school-club children! Why do children feel the need to squeal and scream everything?!

Anyway, it’s been a tough couple of years. I have found it hard to function normally with all my routines thrown into chaos and lots of changes to our lives and freedoms. Like many I have loved the peace and quiet without all the traffic noise; being able to hear the birdsong was absolute bliss for me and a great opportunity to start to identify birds from their song. The chance to spend more time outside was a real tonic particularly as I had had my space invaded by a home-worker and a home-schooler. It’s amazing how stressful it is having your family all under the same roof! And the house felt so small. So the garden has become even more of a refuge than ever before.

Black-cap visitor to the bird feeder

I’ve been thinking about what to write for a while and I had planned to start at New Year! I blinked and now it’s Spring, but better-late-than-never. So what have I been up to crafting wise? I’ve kept up with my facebook page reasonably well and card orders have been pretty steady, so I’ve managed to retain my crafty focus more-or-less. It’s been good to do some crafting for us at home too(lots of face masks and family cards) as this is something I don’t generally do that much of. I had a good read through my last posts in 2020 and what I haven’t done much of is finishing off the enormous pile of unfinished projects. I had every intention of completing them, but I think I just lost my way with the enormity of it. However, I am pleased to say that the pile is somewhat smaller than it was.

Before I go, I thought I’d end with a success. I have spent the last two years crocheting the granny square blanket, started in lockdown and the subject of my last post (http://www.handmadebykatherine.co.uk/2020/06/my-lockdown-blanket/). This was a labour of love and something I thought about submitting to Grayson Perry’s Art Club, but I couldn’t think of a theme that it fitted in. It’s a project I’m pleased I’ve completed but I miss it keeping me warm on the settee watching the TV. It looks great on the bed though and as you can see, the cats rather like it too. This is George’s favourite spot!

Finished blanket adorning the bed

It’s good to be back and I Shall try to keep up with some ramblings more frequently. Do message or comment, I’d love to know how everyone is out there.

Happy crafting

K x

My lockdown blanket

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With all of the sorting out of my crafting stash and completing my works-in-progress, I am finding plenty of yarn ends.  So a few weeks ago I decided to make a lockdown rainbow blanket using up all the these left over bits.  I’ve gone for the simple treble crochet granny square pattern and I am trying to stick to the standard rainbow – Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet – with an addition of Grey and White at the end.

It’s been very therapeutic to do whilst watching my favourite TV shows – particularly The Repair Shop, Sewing Bee and Gardener’s World.  I’m hoping to make it large enough to use as a throw over my bed, so it’s going to take a while.

The problem with trying to stick to the rainbow format is making sure I have an equal number of balls of each colour.  I keep having to stop and go on a hunt for either red or range at the moment!  So I’m going through my WIP bag to finish off a project each time I run out of a colour.  Hopefully this will mean I can kill two birds with one stone, finishing off a WIP as well as using up the leftovers on my blanket.  It does appear that I don’t have much in the red category amongst my projects at present.  I suppose I’d better make a start on some Christmas projects!!

It’s been a lovely project to get out each evening while I’m catching up with myself.  I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the re-run of ‘Pride and Prejudice‘ (Is there really a better way to spend a mid-week evening than watching Colin Firth look smoulderingly at Jennifer Ehle, while crocheting a blanket to warm your legs up?!) Maybe a bar of chocolate and a glass of wine would be welcome additions, but not when I need to concentrate enough to keep the pattern going – I have a tendency to misplace stitches and have to unravel if there’s too much wine involved!!

There’s certainly plenty of work left in the this blanket, so I’m going to have to find another series to work along too – there seem to be fewer and fewer escapist programmes to watch these days.  Although I have got into Tess of the d’Urbevilles over on BBC4.

Any suggestions gratefully received.

Happy crafting

x

Work-in-Progress Progress!

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It’s three months (ish) since we went into lockdown and I have tried to get through the large bag of partly made projects I had hanging around back in March. Twenty items really is too many to have left so long, but I really am all about the knitting / crochet and not the stuffing and sewing.

Having finished the three lockdown lions a few weeks back, I have been steadily working through the other bags and boxes of pieces and my menagerie is growing once again.  Most of the creatures are from kits I’ve had from either Let’s Knit or LGC Knitting and Crochet magazines, and are great for making something a little out of my comfort zone or for little gifts for friends and family.  I have enjoyed making most of them.  I do find that sometimes the instructions can be a little vague – sew legs to body, for instance – so I do make a point of studying as many pictures of the finished articles as possible before committing to the final positions of limbs and features.

So, what have I managed to finish over the last few weeks then?

From LGC Knitting and Crochet magazine, I have made,

Amy the Donkey (design by Hannah Cooper)

Easter Bunny (design by Nicola Valiji)

Safari bear (design by Sarah Louise Read)

and a knitted chick (design by Sachiyo Ishii)

From the Let’s Knit kits, I chose

Sparkle-dash the unicorn (design by Steffi Hochfellner)

And I finally finished an Aldi, So crafty kit of a hippo.

I hope you like them as much as I do.

There is still a way to go, but the pile is steadily reducing which means there is more space in the living room – I actually found my sewing machine this week, which had been buried under two bags of yarn.  So there’s something else to do, hmmm, what to make next……..

Happy crafting

x

Back to School Crochet

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Back to school and all the extra-curricular activities are back on again as well.  So it’s back to dancing class both for Alice and for me, but I’ve decided to carry on working through my draw full of knitting and crochet kits.

As it’s dancing on Saturdays, the next make I’ve chosen is a little ballerina cat from an old issue of LGC Knitting and Crochet magazine.  I am still loving practicing my crochet and I feel like I am beginning to speed up a bit.  Alice is completely cat mad and it was her that really pushed me into making this cat.  I think it might go down quite well with her dancing friends too!

I find that crochet is a great activity for long car journeys, and we had a run down to Bristol to visit the in-laws, so this was the perfect accompaniment. I managed quite a lot on the way down as it was a very bright fine day (for a change).  The kit contains a lovely collection of yarn and I love the combination of pinks with the bright purple.  It’s a lovely weight yarn too and it’s been easy to crochet with.

The kit also came with a white fluffy yarn which I added to the end of the tutu with a double crochet stitch.  The ballet slippers were finished using a strand of light pink yarn and tying them to resemble ribbons.

This has been a fairly simple pattern to work through and I’ve loved adding in my own take on the facial features.  I’ve made the eyes using an embroidered chain stitch which I think matches the other embroidered features.

This little one has now joined my other summer creations.  My shelf is filling up quite nicely now.  I think I’m going to enter the Toymaker of the year competition in LGC magazine too, but my problem now is deciding what to make!  Time to get my thinking cap on!!

Happy crafting
x

Here comes the Chameleon

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I’ve continued to be hooked on crochet this week and having finished the lion I wanted to make something else to ad to my now growing menagerie of summer animal makes. I found a lovely pattern for a colourful chameleon in another back issue of Let’s Get Crafting magazine and he looked too cheerful not to make.

He was designed by the lovely and very talented lady over at Moji Moji Designs. I’ve made a couple of her patterns before (owl purse) but never attempted one of her animal creations. So this was a real test of my improving crochet skills.

I put this over on my facebook page to see if anyone could hazard a guess at what it was going to be, but no-one guessed correctly. Mind you, with just the body to go on, it really could have been anything!!

The yarn colours in the magazine kit are really bright and cheerful but it was a real test for me to keep changing colours every round. I think I managed it ok in the end but there were a couple of times when I had to undo a round or two and start again! It’s not easy changing colour all the time and keeping the yarns from tangling up! As with most of the toy patterns I’ve followed, it is mostly made from double crochet

I’m really enjoying crochet for toy making as it makes a much stronger and thicker fabric than knitting does. This means I am finding the toys much easier to stuff as the stitches are more rigid. Over stuffing is too easy in a knitted toy, so I usually use smaller needles than the pattern suggests.

The official name for this little man is Karma, but I’m not sure he looks very serene. He seems a bit angry to me, but I love him and he looks great on my shelf with his new friends lion and unicorn! I hope I get the chance to make some more friends for them all before we go back to school.

Happy crafting
x

Summer crochet

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After all the baking, I’ve moved back into the realms of toy making.  This time I decided to get the crochet hooks out and found a rather cute little lion project in an old issue of Lets Get Crafting magazine.

My daughter is obsessed with all things feline at the moment, so this seemed like the ideal project for her.

It hasn’t taken me very long to make up, but the stuffing and sewing together of the limbs was a bit fiddly.  I love the mane though and I am going to try and incorporate this new stitch style into some of my other projects in the future.

I love this magazine for all the hints and tips when knitting but particularly for crochet.  I still consider myself a novice crocheter, so any help with new stitches is always welcome.  The patterns in this magazine have helped me learn and practice.

After finishing the lion, I decided to put together all the toys I’ve made using patterns from the LGC magazines.  This is my little selection that I’ve made for Alice over the last couple of years.

It’s nice to see them all together and to compare how I have improved with my amigurumi crochet animals too.  The little blue bird (chirp) was my first ever try at amigurumi and when he sits next to the lion, the difference is quite striking – well I think so.  So much so, that I have sent a copy of this picture to the magazine!.  Fingers crossed it might make it into the next issue.

Not long to go now until the end of the summer break, and I’m now working on a couple more projects to use up some of the yarn stash in the craft room!

Happy crafting
x

New Christmas Traditions – Satsuma Thrifty Christmas Campaign

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Last year I decided to start a new tradition for Christmas. I was fed up of buying the same cheap little chocolate advent calendars year on year, and while my daughter liked them, I could never find anywhere to put them and they just didn’t seem to be very Christmassy. So I started to crochet some little stockings and made them into a perpeptual advent calendar.

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It looked lovely up in the hall last year as a Christmas garland as well as being my daughter’s favourite part of the run up to Christmas. I filled it with individual wrapped chocolates, so it didn’t cost a fortune to fill either.

This year I’m looking round for inexpensive little gifts to fill it with again. At seven (almost eight), my daughter is becoming a little more difficult to please with sweets and chocolates. I’ve bought a couple of selection boxes and will add those to the stockings. I think it’s always nice to see something peeking out of the top of the stocking. But I also want to add something other than sugar loaded treats. The stockings aren’t very big so I can’t go mad with gifts, but I think a couple of packs of her favourite (My Little Pony) Stickers and perhaps one of the mystery bags as a treat for Christmas Eve. She also loves to draw, so I’m going to get a pack of pens and split them up putting a different one in each stocking.

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It’s great to think that this will be a tradition that we can carry on and hopefully she will enjoy the individuality of her calendar. I know I certainly enjoyed making it and have great fun thinking of things to fill it with. And it doesn’t have to cost a lot either. I’m going to stick to a budget of £10 maximum to fill it. Who knows I might even find some of the stocking fillers I put away last year and forgot about!

Now I just need to hang it up high enough that the meddlesome cats don’t attack it!

Not long to go.
x

See mine and other ideas for a savvy Christmas here

More Crochet Snowmen

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Last Christmas, I had a rush on little crochet snowmen. They are very cute, and they were so popular with the dance mums, that I had orders for five more for this Christmas.

So for the last few weeks I’ve been crocheting parts of little snowmen. It has really started to get me in the mood for Christmas. I hope we get a spell of cold weather though. It does seem a bit odd making snowmen when it’s still well above 10 degrees outside!

My first set of snowmen are a for a lovely family with two little girls.  Their favourite colours are pink and purple.  I haven’t come up with any good names for these two yet, but I’m sure the girls will!p1250303

This trio are for two brothers and their younger sister.  One brother’s a Manchester United fan, the other is a Manchester City fan (I don’t fancy being there for football arguments in the future) and their sister is a dancer.

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I love how each one ends up different although the pattern is the same throughout.  It just goes to show how different yarns make things very individual.

I think the most fun I had though was with my jar of buttons while waiting for Alice in her dance class.  Looking for just the right shade of each colour is very important.  I was counting on any of the other Mums loving the buttons too, so we had buttons everywhere and I had to promise to bring them again!

Happy Crafting
x