Slippers

On one of my many trips around the internet looking for patterns to finish off the *seemingly endless* red black and white blanket I'm working on (I'll explain later), I came across a pattern for these cute granny square slippers. My friend's birthday is coming up and I thought they'd make an excellent little gift. I used leftover yarn from the rainbow ripple blanket I did, and they came out looking really pretty...my son liked them too so I made him a pair in his size! The good thing about the pattern is that it's so adaptable, and you can use up scraps in something functional. I like that they were quick to make.

Pattern is from the Purl Bee: www.purlbee.com/granny-square-slippers/

Green and blue square is the toe end, pink and green the heel: multi-coloured squares are the soles.

Just to give you an idea of what they look like on!

Small ones for my boy

The Handcrafted Gift Season has begun...

Yes, it's coming close to Christmas and the time of year I have to really crank out the pressies. There's a whole lot of birthdays coming up in the months before Christmas, then the big event itself, so that doesn't leave much time. Chop chop, snap to it and all that!

This wrap skirt is a birthday gift that needs to get sent today if it's to make it to the recipient in time. I finished it about an hour ago. You wouldn't think a wrap skirt would be too hard, would you? Well in actual fact it isn't really, it's just that I always find taking direction from other people all too hard and end up making things difficult for myself because I just want to do it my way. (Yeah, fight the system! The Man isn't going to hold me down!)

Anyways, it's done and I think it turned out pretty cute. I just love the Japanese style fabric, I'm not sure if you can tell but there's actually metallic gold print for the outlines. I used the pattern (kind of!) from http://www.bigredcouch.com/journal/archives/2007/03/wrap-skirt.html but because I'm not quite sure of the exact size of the person receiving this (she just had a baby but is usually about the same size as me) I made a little bigger than needed to fit me then added 2 darts to the back panel. That way there's enough fabric to let it out if needed, but it's ready to wear if she's about the same size.

There were many a sew/unpick drama in the making of this skirt but I think I finally got it right. I think. Doesn't help that the presser foot doesn't stay up on my sewing machine anymore, which is a worry since I had it replaced once before and the machine is only 12 months old - not sure if I'm too hard on it or it's just a design fault. Ho hum, better take it out to get fixed again!

I'm working on some other crochet stuff too, pics soon...

Working on the Neverending WIP

Last night, I finished the row of neutral colours for this blanket. I'd already finished the row of varigated colours and the warm stripe was one of the first things I'd done! I attached them late last night, and there's only one long row left to do - cool blues, greens and purples for the right side of the blanket (opposite side to the pink/yellow/red long stripe). I'd really just like to have this finished and done with, which means a virtual sweatshop to get that last row done...but I've got a heap of other things I'm working on and I'm at a crossroads with what to do.

Anyway, the latest additions to this blanket are the neutral colours across the top, varigated row along the bottom and the pink/yellow/red etc long stripe down the left side.

Recycle Upcycle

I've not written for a while because I've been working on a few projects that are to be gifts for people who may actually read this, so I'm not going to fill you in on that just yet! Let's just say, the after-Christmas posting is going to be HUGE. We'll leave it at that.

In the meantime, check out the awesome retro shopping bags I made from an old tablecloth. Pretty slick huh? I got 4 from this tablecloth, and I've cut up a vintage Sheridan sheet and got 6 bags from that. They're mostly done, I just lost momentum with them and put them aside for now. I'll get back to them later...for now I just love these ones. Funny, I didn't think much of the tablecloth in it's original form, but love these now they're bags.

Pattern from http://www.morsbags.com

Pocket-sized dragons

A little while ago I had a go at making an amigurumi dragon pattern, which turned out pretty good. In fact, it was pretty popular among my friends and I even made a couple for a quick bit of cash! It also had a good response on Flickr, and so after urgings from Biz I have now written the pattern out and plan to sell it on Etsy. (She's going to test it for me and see if the instructions make sense...) This particular little orange and green guy will be for my nephew's birthday in a few weeks time, I needed to make one to test and perfect the pattern so he's been quite useful. Cute too, don't you think?

Things with faces

A few months ago, my beautiful arty friend Haline gave me a book on making Amigurumi - little crochet toys. It's gorgeous and has given me something else I can crochet besides blankets and scarves! I made a whole lot out of the book, came up with a pattern of my own and raided other people's blogs and craft pages for free patterns too. Yay internet!

I've now sent my 2nd Flickr Amigurumi swap overseas...although I think this may be the last one for a bit. VERY expensive to send the stuff, that's the downfall of living in Australia I suppose. It's a long way to anywhere from here! For this swap I made a cupcake and a mushroom with faces, I reckon they're cute and hopefully the girl I sent them to likes them also.

Cakie and Mushie

This little doughnut guy was made for Biz, for my first Ami swap. He was based on the character from the Wrigley's Extra gum ad - http://www.munkmotion.com/ver4/projectsPage.php?id=00003&img=00052

And, in a not-so-co-incidental co-incidence, the guy who designed this character happens to be friends with the girl who gave me the original Amigurumi book. Oooh freaky! The circle of life, people, the circle of life....

Pink doughnut guy

My other amigurumi pictures can be seen on my Flickr account, there's not enough room here for me to upload them all.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/32075641@N02/sets/

Experiments in Miniatures

I'm doing my second Amigurumi swap on Flickr at the moment. My swap partner has Blythe dolls and I thought it might be cute to crochet a Blythe-sized chocolate cake. The thing is, I've never actually a) crocheted a cake and b) done anything in miniature. So wisely (and without an actual pattern) I had a go at making one anyway. Here's how it went:

Side angle view

Top view

Close up

It turned out all right, but I wasn't happy enough with it to send it off as a gift to someone. So I presented it to my own Blythe petite doll, Ruth. She dug it.

Look at those eyes!!

The hook in the photos isn't the one I used to make the cake, it's just there for perspective. I actually used a size 3mm hook for this one, and some Anchor stranded cotton (the stuff used for cross stitch and embroidery). The beads on top are little coral hearts I bought from a clearance sale at Spotlight about 18 months ago.

When I finish the Amigurumi for the swap I'll post the pics here, along with the other one I did for the first swap with Biz.