Yarn – Page 2 – The Craft Room

Crochet Shopping Bag

For my Mum’s birthday this year I made her a crochet shopping bag.

It is made from a pattern in the April 2014 edition of Craftseller magazine. I used cotton yarn to make it, which should make it quite strong and washable.

I hope she likes it!

Hungry Caterpillar Hat

Here is another baby hat that I made in January. This one is a hungry caterpillar hat.

I used several different patterns to make the caterpillar after looking online and not finding one that was exactly what I wanted. I think it turned out really well 🙂

It’s probably about time that I caught up and posted photos of the things I’ve made in the last 6 months. There’s not too many, but there are a few that have been sitting waiting for a while to be shown.

I made this hat back in January, for a friend who was expecting a baby.

She didn’t know if she was expecting a boy or a girl, so I decided to stick to plain white. I used the same pattern as I had made for several of the Christmas hats I’d made, but omitted the corkscrews and replaced them instead with a pompom on top.

Crochet Owl

The sewing machine is still on its round the world cruise, so I’m doing lots of crochet at the moment, in fact I started and finished 4 things in the last week – this must be a record for me!

One of those was a cute little crochet owl. The pattern (found here) was linked to on Facebook, prompting a friend to ask me to make her one.

I copied the exact colouring of one of the example owls in the pattern to make the stripey tummy and think he turned out quite well.

I used Rico Creative Cotton Aran to make it. I like cotton for making toys as it’s a bit more sturdy than wool and acrylic. The eyes are brown safety eyes (which I conclude that the only unsafe part is trying not to injure yourself fastening them on!) and the beak in just stitched on at the end.

Royal Mail did a pretty good job and he arrived the day after he was finished and is now living in his new home in Rugby 🙂

Tardis Hat

We’re back in the UK and it’s a bit chilly!

W has an owl hat I made him, but since it’s a year or so old his head has grown and he needed one a little bigger.

What better for a mini Dr Who fan than a TARDIS hat?!

Even more impressive – I didn’t use a pattern!

I searched online for a pattern, and did find a couple, but not one that I liked enough to buy. So since I’ve made enough hats to know how to make the basic shape, and done enough colour work to know how to change colours I though I might as well just make it without one!

This is the first hat I’ve made in aran yarn, usually I use DK, and it makes it a bit bigger without having to add in extra increases.

There are two sets of windows on the front and the same on the back. The words ‘POLICE BOX’ are only on the front. Really they should be on both, but letters are a pain to do and at least he’ll be able to tell which way round it goes with it like this! There is a white pom pom on the top for the flashing light.

He seems happy with it, he even let me take a few photos of him trying it on!

2013 in pictures

I went looking for photos of all the things I’ve made this year. I found a lot more than I was expecting – I’ve been busy!

Crochet:

Clothes sewing:

Bags, pouches and pencil cases:

Other sewing:

Quilt blocks:

I wonder what I’ll make in 2014?!

Winter Hats For All!

Most of the adults in the family got hats as their Christmas present this year. I made nine hats in total, including the rainbow hat I made for my youngest niece.

The second hat I made was another rainbow hat, but this time in adult rather than baby size:

This one is a bright rainbow, a bit more manly than the pastels:

This one is green and browns – another manly one:

This one is in purples and white. I tried out thicker stripes for this one; they worked well:

And finally for this pattern I made two matching in blue and white stripes – Ipswich Town football colours:

The last two hats I made were novelty hats.

One was a minion:

And the other a red monster:

Everyone’ll be ready for a cold winter 🙂

Crochet Snowflakes

I managed to get a copy of the book ‘100 Snowflakes to Crochet‘ from my local library.

The book looks like this:

I thought it was a great book as each snowflake has a photograph of it, plus written instructions and a diagram.

I made four snowflakes:

I enjoyed making them and look forward to making more next year!

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Christmas Stars

This month’s crochet-along was stars, and Alycia wrote a great photo tutorial on how to make them.

I thought they’d make a great Christmas decoration, and made a set of 8 stars. They were very quick and easy. I made the whole thing in an evening. I chose red and green to make the stars so they’re nice and Christmassy, and a yellowy gold colour for the string to hold them all together, which is just a string of chain stitches that are slip stitched through the top of each star. When I had finished making my stars they were very curly, so I knew I would need to do something to them to keep them straight. I pinned them wrong side up to the ironing board and painted them with a water/pva glue mixture several times.

This morning they were dry and I unpinned them to find nice straight stars 🙂 The glue dries clear (although you can’t see it anyway as it’s on the back) and they’re nice and solid so they won’t curl again. The also have a bit more weight to them now which I think makes them hang nicely. Pretty Christmassy stars 🙂And since it’s 1st December, they’ll be joined later today by the Christmas tree!

Baby Rainbow Hat

I can cross one present off my Christmas list!

This rainbow hat will be for my youngest niece. The pattern is one I found on Etsy. It’s called Tutti Frutti designed by The Hat And I. I made the 6-12 month size.