Crochet black cat - a first attempt at amigurumi

So, the weather at the moment is absolutely glorious. It doesn't seem do long ago that we were experiencing stormy weather with high winds, thunderstorms and even snow so the sunshine is a welcome change as it doesn't seem to happen very often and when it does it is gone just as quick as it came.

This weather got me thinking about how whatever the weather it can cause problems for someone. the cold temperatures can effect the elderly especially if they struggle to get out and about and with heating their homes. Although I love the snowy weather the cold effects my mobility with my joints really aching. It is a good excuse though to snuggle up under the latest blanket that I want to be doing! The hot weather also can have its issues with sunburn and sunstroke. I certainly don't like making my blankets in the daytime, preferring to make them in the evening.

I have seen many online posts and pleas recently about this hot weather effecting animals and how we need to make sure that with the ones we look after that they are staying cool enough and hydrated. At the moment I don't have any pets but in the past I have had both dogs and cats. The dogs loved paddling in the sea, although not always the walk to get there. They needed to go early in the day or in the evening when it was cooler for their paws. The cats were able to find shade in the garden under the leaves of the shrubs with plenty of water bowls in the shade too.

This thinking of animals brought back memories of the first amigurumi that I attempted. I cant believe that it was four years ago. My Mum had been in hospital but needed looking after once she came out for the first couple of days. I had seen a pattern in a magazine of a lovely little black cat and I thought that I would have a go to see if I could do it. I was just starting out with my crochet at the time having only even done granny squares before so it would be a case of whether I could advance my skills. It was a perfect project to do whilst looking after my Mum as it was only small sections to complete at a time. My mum also loved seeing how it was coming along.

The finished crochet cat sits on top of one of  my speakers in my craft room, watching over me when I am in there working away. It reminds me of one of my cats that I had years ago who was also black and white. Her favourite place to be would be stretched out along the back of the sofa. I am thrilled with how my little amigurumi cat turned out even if she does look a little sleepy!

Mandala Madness - starting to square the circle

So, the last mandala blanket to get started, out of the four, is going to be the first one that gets squared off. It is a glorious day today with the sun shining brightly. It is also going to get much warmer as the day goes on. The world cup is also on the TV.

I have been putting off starting to square off the blankets. Firstly, I really like how they look as a circle. Secondly, it has been warm and I haven't wanted the heavy weight on my lap so have been doing lots of small crochet pieces - mostly my calorie free bag charm treats. And lastly, I have been really nervous how it will turn out using the colour change wools. Ironically it is the colour change blanket that I have decided to jump straight in and start with.

The instructions are very well written, and although they are by a different designer, it could be from the same one as the stitches are similar and the flow of the pattern is also not out of place. There are 29 rows to be done in order to complete the squaring of although once the corners have gone in on round 14 I can imagine that more or less rows could be done in order to achieve the desired effect. I have done 11 so far but it does give an idea of how the colours are going to blend in. Where the wool is a colour change wool I made the decision to not do one corner at a time and complete it but to do one row at a time on each corner so that the colours are matching as each one blends into the next one. This I am hoping will give some sort of symmetry before the corners get too big and before the straight edges start to come in.

I am really pleased with how they have started to go in and am looking forward to the next stage, finishing them off and starting on the long sides. Its not long to go now before the blanket will be completely finished. I am hoping to get all four done and squared off before winter starts to set in. It seems a long way off having only just had the summer solstice yesterday but we all now how time flies and before you know it summer is over and it is back to those cold long days of winter. I am going to make the most of the warm weather whilst it lasts, even if it does mean trying to crochet the blankets in it!

Mandala Madness - Part 16

So, part 16 saw the shape of the blanket change again. The last round of part 15 had large sections of front post trebles and then smaller sections of ruffle stitches. I love those, they add such texture and add a really touchy feely element as well. They are definitely one of my favourite stitches that I have done.

The first round of this part folds over these long trebles to give a beautiful curved stitch that reminds me of the texture of rope. The next few rounds saw these lovely petal shapes appearing, done again with lots of treble stitches which is great, as the blankets grow quickly in size. Even the one done with the thinner Scheepjes whirl. The colour change with this whirl certainly starts to show towards the end of the part. The light grey colour that is there at the start gets gradually darker towards and the next colour starts to creep in which is a burgundy colour.

The white version has the green colour that is present at the edge of these petals. The back post stitches  that are one in some of the petals, create a ridge where it is folding over a small amount of the previous rounds stitches. I like how this has been done, I think it adds another level of interest.

The blankets are getting so large now, they easily fit on a double bed. The next part sees the spaces that are between the petals getting filled in and smoothing out the perimeter. More of the burgundy colour will also be added to the Scheepjes whirl blanket and this adds another depth to the range of the colours that are already present. I still however need to work on the blanket and get it caught up some more!

Onto part 17 .........................................

Calorie free doughnuts - more stash busting of the yarn mountain

So, after making my calorie free crochet ice lollies the other week I thought about what other types of calorie free food I could come up with a pattern for and crochet.Top of my list was doughnuts. I mean, who can resist a doughnut! Especially mid morning with a nice hot cup of coffee.

Now I had an idea I needed to think about how they would look. I could either do the classic filled doughnut or an iced ring doughnut. For the first ones, I decided that I would go with the iced ring doughnut shape. I may however do the classic filled ones later on but add icing to them. This I thought would be another great little project that could use up some more of the small little balls of yarn that I have left over from other projects. It would also again be great for doing when the weather is hot and I don't want the big blankets on my lap.

Having already done the emoji's I thought that would be a great starting point in working out the pattern. Rather than starting a circle though I started with a chain and worked out from there increasing until the right size and then decreasing until I got back to the starting number of stitches. The icing used the same pattern but only up until the end of the increases.

I am really pleased with how they have come out. I did use two different hook sizes on them to see how they would differ and I think I prefer the one that was made using the smaller hook size as the stiches are more compact and in my opinion, look neater. I love the bugle beads that I have stitched on to look like sprinkles. I did think about using yarn to recreate them and I may do in the future. The last thing I did was to put a face on one of them. I do quite like it but am not one hundred percent sure. I think if I make more I will do a mixture of both styles. I just now need to write the pattern down that I have been working from as at the moment it only exists in my head!

So, now on to the next coffee time treats .......................

Watch this space

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