Calorie free ice lollies - great for stash busting the yarn mountain

So, when the sun is shining on a lovely bank holiday Monday and I really wanted to do some crochet I knew that working on one of my Mandala Madness blankets would be far too hot to have on my lap.
I needed to come up with something that would use up some of my small balls of scrap yarn that are getting really too small to work with on larger projects and also quick and small so that I could work without getting too hot with the project on my lap.

The inspiration came from the various adverts on the TV and also in the newspapers and magazines. On hot days what could be nicer than tucking into a cold refreshing ice lolly or ice cream. Now that the idea had been planted in my mind I just needed to sort out how to make them. I thought about some of my favourite ones from my childhood and started with the most straight forward. A fairly flat rectangle worked in the round using one main colour with a small section at the bottom to represent the filling of ice cream. I really like how they have come out so wanted to see how they would look using three stripes of even thickness. These ones I stitched on some bugle beads to represent the sprinkles that you can often get on these types of ice lollies.

Once these ones were crocheted I thought that they needed to have some character added to them so cut out some little faces and stitched on a mouth on a couple of them. They look so cute!

The final design was based again on a classic lolly shape from my childhood and again used three colours. This one was the most tricky of them all to do as I needed to work out how to create the three separate steps as well as at the same time changing colour. Luckily it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be and it only needed frogging once. Again they had little faces added to them.

I am so pleased with these little bag charms, especially by just adding a face how this has made them look really cute and added to their appeal. They have been great for stash busting the yarn mountain and also have the added bonus of being better for my waistline than if I had eaten half a dozen ice lollies!

Yarn stash busting, calorie free ice lollies and ice creams.

Mandala Madness - Part 15

So, I haven't posted about the other Mandalas that I have been making since the beginning of the year I have realised. I have been so busy getting the fourth one completed and starting other smaller crochet projects such as socks (which I have discovered I love doing!) and bag charms and phone cases.

Both the white version, that I have been making for my Mum , and the colour change one have both been completed and are waiting on me finding the time to square them off which I cant wait to do as I know it will really change the appearance of them. The black one is still on part 14 as I have finally managed to get the pink wool that I had run out of and my local wool shop had stopped stocking it! I managed to find it but ended up going much further afield but I know that it will be worth it. I just need to get on with it and get it finished before the winter. It seems strange saying that as we are only just getting days of sunshine as we head into summer.

Part 15 has lots of treble clusters which give it a lovely open texture. It did give a strange feel to it as I was doing it as it felt quite loose but at the same time I had to be mindful that the stitches were not too tight. It took a bit of working to make sure I had the tension right. The part ended with one of my favourite stitches, the ruffle stitch. I love how it looks as it leans slightly to one side.

The colour change version although smaller than the double knit versions is growing in size and the whirl is faded out to a very pale grey colour. This has really emphasised the dark grey colour from a few rounds previous. I needed to start the next whirl on the very last round, this has been done in a pale grey colour also. This whirl will again fade into a darker colour. I do like working with the Scheepjes whirls and look forward to the fuzzbuzz and seeing the next colour slowly start to come in and change.

Onto part 16 ..................................

Crochet emoji backpack phone cases

So, you may recall that a few weeks ago I made up a pattern for mini emoji crochet bag charms and the couple that I started out making soon turned into several more. I also had made up a pattern for mini backpack bagcharms. I loved how the mini backpacks were functional as well as decorative. They have a button on the flap at the front that when you undo it there is a tie that can also be undone giving access to the backpack storage space. Just like a real size backpack. I thought that these could come in useful for putting in some loose change for the carpark, a lipstick or even a small toy. Whatever the user wanted to.

It was then suggested to me that the concept of these mini backpacks could be enlarged and become a phone case (one possible use). I really liked enlarging the pattern up and seeing what I could come up with that would be different from the bag charm versions. Several different versions were then "born". I kept on coming back to drawing and making different emoji's and then the idea to combine the two into a new backpack design came to me.

I really like how these have come out and have evolved from the bag charms that they started out as. I did think that were the flap of the backpack is not circular that they might look a bit strange but I don't think it detracts from the overall design. At the same time I also thought that I would see how the watermelon design would look as a phone case as the original are a semi circle and this is a full "circle". I think that this design is also successful.

Having completed the first couple of emoji designs I know that I am not finished with this idea. There are so many more emoji designs out there as I have found out when researching which face deign I want to do next. I cane see me making many more.

Crochet emoji backpack phone cases - plus a watermelon

                                    

Crochet socks anyone?

So, I have been wanting to make a pair of crochet for a long time. More time than I can remember. I have found lots of different patterns that I like but never had the correct wool that the pattern has required. This weekend I decided to take the plunge and visit my local wool shop and see what sock wool they had in stock. I was not disappointed. They had several different colourways in the stylecraft brand, head over heels. I was immediately in love and bought quite a few balls of wool. Oops.

The pattern that I decided to go with was in the magazine "Inside crochet" and was titled Magdelen socks. This was a really easy pattern to follow which was a bonus for a novice like me. I had chosen Stylecraft head over heels wool in the shade of Olympus and I must admit it has worked up really well. there are mistakes in the second sock but unless you look really closely only I would know where they are. I could have frogged back and corrected them but as they are for me and it is such a sunny bank holiday Monday I really couldn't be bothered! I will definitely be making another pair of these in the near future but maybe not when it is the hottest day of the year so far. Happy sunny days.

So, onto the next pair. The choice is which colour to make them in ............