It’s nearly the end of the second week of the Mandala CAL so I thought I’d share some more pictures. I wish I’d taken a picture after every round as it looks so different after each one is added!
And this is it currently, after 19 rounds (out of 31). It measures 24.5cm across. You can see the little hearts now and the beginnings of the big hearts!
I’m having great fun making it 🙂
This month it’s been mainly about booties, lots and lots of them!
And I also took part in the Valentines charity crochet challenge from Sunset Crochet and made this hearts hat and boot set with hearts 🙂
It’s the end of the month already, and time for the February Crochet-Along link up!
This month we had a choice of three projects, all with a Valentines theme; an envelope, a Danish heart or a cupcake.
I chose to do the Danish heart which is made from a free pattern found here.
I think traditionally you make them in three different sizes, but I have just made the one.
It’s very interesting how starting from two oval shaped pieces you end up with the finished heart. When I was making each individual oval, since they have two slits/gaps in the middle for the weaving, they did look a little odd. It did look a little like I was making some dodgy crochet underwear, and when asked “What are you making?” the answer “It’s a Valentines thing!” did not help at all!!
Comparing my finished heart to the original in the pattern I think my weaving is a little wrong which makes it look like there is more white than red, but I finished it, and it’s something a bit different, and it looks OK 🙂
Tomorrow (or more likely Saturday because of the time difference) we find out what March’s crochet-along pattern is. Come and vote and join in on the Curious Pug blog.
I do like a crochet – along, and this one looks really interesting. The finished article (a mandala) is created using overlay crochet to create patterns.
Before we started we had to select our 4 ombre colours (yes, I did have to go look that word up in the dictionary!) and 2 complimentary colours. I wanted to use colours I already had, so went for cream, yellow, orange, brown as my 4 and green and blue as my 2 complimentary colours.
At the moment I am halfway through round 7 (out of 31). I have done some overlay and surface crochet before, but the needle join method it uses to join each round is something new. I like it, it doesn’t leave the obvious join that slip stitching into the first stitch does.
It’s looking pretty:
Because I’ve used 8-ply cotton with a 3.75mm hook it’s going to be pretty big once it’s done!
I shall post some more pictures once I get a bit further in the pattern 🙂
I’m a few days late as it’s already February! Whilst everyone else was linking up I was still not even half way, and then I got a little side-tracked sorting out my post for the Sew Fab Pattern Sale (which if you’ve just popped over from the crochet-along link up you should soo check out, even if it’s just to enter the givaway 🙂 ).
But finally, I’m done and have photos, so better late than never, here goes!
This month’s project was a pair of slippers and the project is from a blog called Goodknits.
I was tempted to go multi-coloured rainbow stripes like I did with my hat last month, but decided in the end that that would be a little OTT and to stick with the more traditional one colour with a contrasting trim.
They were actually a very quick make. From only having one foot half done when I should have been posting my finished slippers I managed to complete the rest in an evening.
I was also a bit hesitant to make footware, since I have quite wide feet that are apparently slightly larger than the average female, but after some time converting between international shoe sizes (it would be soo much easier if the world used one standard set of sizing for shoes, and clothes for that matter!) it seemed that the pattern ought to fit as it was written without me having to make any alterations to it.
So here they are, my finished slippers: 
The buttons I went out and bought especially as although I have a large tub of buttons, finding two the same that matched my slippers didn’t seem possible!
The only thing I would change would be to add some non-slip stuff to the bottom, but since I would probably only where them when I’m sat down in the evening these are fine as they are for now 🙂
They even got the ultimate seal of approval: “I like your shoes Mummy!”
I’m looking forward to February’s crochet-along – it has a bit of a Valentine’s theme!
After making the tiny baby hats for the 12 Days of Christmas Challenge, I decided to carry on making crochet items for charity. These are the things I made in January:
There’s lots of little tiny hats and little tiny shoes/booties, cocoons, …
… a sewn NICU smock, mini minky ribbon comforters, more hats and booties, …
…a crochet koala, some little trousers and even more hats and booties!
I posted them all in a big box to the Australian Outback Baby Project on Wednesday 🙂
I’m taking part in the monthly Crochet-Along hosted at the The Curious Pug!
This month it’s the slouchie beanie from Little Things Blogged. I didn’t get started right at the beginning of the month, partly because making wooly hats when it’s midsummer and 38 degrees celsius outside just feels wrong, but mainly because I only just finished making all he crafty bits for Christmas on Christmas Eve!
Christmas Day arrived, and with it grey skies, lots of rain and a need for jumpers, socks and wellies (obviously to stop us missing the UK climate!) Perfect time to make a hat then!
I struggled to decide on a colour to use, so decided to use all of them instead – stripes 🙂
I was impressed at how quick it was to make, by lunchtime on boxing day it was done!
If I had time before the end of the month I would make one of these crochet mannequins like Alycia has on her shop – such a cool idea, then I wouldn’t have to model it myself for photos!!
Here is my finished stripey hat 🙂
This post is a bit of an experiment, I am attempting to write it at the beginning of December and tell the computer to publish it on Christmas Day (once presents have been opened). We shall have to wait and see when it appears. So if it’s Christmas Day and it’s now online – woohoo I did it!!
Anyway, I made sets of coasters for 3 people this Christmas, and parcelled them up in sets of 6 to send:
I tried lots of different patterns before I settled on this one – there are several coasters around the house from patterns I attempted and discarded! Finally I decided on this pattern I found on ravelry. Each one is shaped a bit like a flower, and they are made from cotton yarn.
I like looking at them all laid out. Don’t they make a pretty rainbow 🙂
I was looking to join a crochet-along (CAL) and then several came along at once!
The 12 Days of Christmas Charity Challenge was run on Facebook by Sunset Crochet. The idea was to make one little hat each day for twelve days and donate them to your local hospital for the premature babies born and staying in NICU over Christmas. Around the world over 1,500 people signed up to make hats, enough for over 18,000 babies. We were given a set of patterns that had been donated by various designers to choose from to make the hats.
I managed to keep up with making one a day, and at the end of twelve days these were my hats:
I don’t know much about the hospitals here so I searched online and came across the charity Miracle Babies who work with families of premature babies all around the country. They accept donations on behalf of hospitals of knitted/crocheted/sewn items which they pass on to whichever hospital needs them. So I parcelled them up on Monday and posted them.
Then today (Thursday) I received this:
They sent me a certificate for sending them a donation! I wasn’t expecting that, but that’s really nice. I’m going to make them some more things next year 🙂
I need to get a move on to finish all the handmade Christmas presents.
Twice this week I’ve wrapped things up and then remembered I hadn’t taken photos of the things first – doh!
It is soo not the weather to be making hats at the moment, but I’ve finished all three of them – yay!! The patterns are all from etsy (here and here).
First we have another Hootabelle hat…
Second we have a Patchy Puppy hat …
And lastly we have a Hello Kitty hat …
I’ve been making them in between other bits and pieces so they seem to have taken ages to finish. Here they are all together ready to be wrapped and labelled and posted for Christmas 🙂
