Three Small Things – blanket, beanie, curly worm

<<< I bought 2m of this warm brown fleece last winter from Lincraft, thinking I could make myself a skirt or wrap dress which I didn’t end up doing. So the other day I cut it in half, and then one half was cut in half again to make a 80x80cm square. I then edged it with blanket stitch in a contrasting blue cotton. I didn’t do so well when I needed to sew in more thread. I’m sure there is a trick to it, I just don’t know it. This is like the material the blankets are made of, and the nurses hospital are using these not crochet rugs which have been donated. But I don’t think I’ll edge the next one with hand-stitching, I might use my trusty sewing machine instead!

>>> I made up this beanie using the cream yarn from Wangaratta Mill, which is part of the Australian Country Spinners. If I ever sell anything I make, I would prefer to be using locally made yarn, much like this. I used a 4mm hook and the pattern has the ridges at the increases for the 1st 5 rounds. This one has a turned up brim of 3 extra rounds. I call it a “junior fisherman’s hat” because the look of it reminds me of the beanies fishermen wear on their boats on cold, early mornings.

<<< This curly worm I made for a mobile I’m working on. Its a common pattern, I found one at Art of Crochet by Teresa. You just make a chain, then trb 4 times in ea ch. For a contrasting colour, I did a second round in red with 2 dc in ea trbl. You can make these into bookmarks, Christmas decorations, cats’ toys or anything else you can think of. For this one, I used a 4.5mm hook and it just took me a few minutes, so it’s a fun little project to do.

To catch a dream (three small things)

The last two weeks have been surreal to say the least, like a walking dream or day-mare. Some thoughtful soul gave this special beanie to David to give to me, it’s what Thomas was wearing in the photo that was taken on his first day. Someone even printed up the photo so I could have it in my room. I didn’t see Tom until the second day as I left the ICU to go to the maternity ward. I clung to this special little yellow beanie during my stay while I was away from my baby, I even imagined it smelled like him! I give thanks to the person who made and donated the beanie, and to the person who took the photos of Thomas wearing it, and also to the person who thought I might like to keep it when our baby went into the humidicrib and no longer needed to wear a beanie.

While we were in the maternity ward, on the meal tray was a paddle pop stick. We guessed they were meant to be for stirring tea and coffee, which we thought was a waste of wood. Imagine throwing all those not needed paddle pops away? What a waste of trees! So I collected a few and made some into dream catchers to pass the time. When we left the maternity ward and David went home to sleep, I told him to take the brown dream catcher to place above his bed. It is meant to be for good luck in catching your dreams so they can come true. I learnt how to make these from school, you just weave wool in and out, around the sticks.

Summer Drinks "Frangipani" Coasters

This is the last coaster set I’ll do for now. I guess if anyone else wants one, I’ll just get some more cotton and make more! But next time I buy cotton, I’ll get some red, pink and purple so I can get different colour combinations. Below is a photo of the colours I used for this gift giving season.

It’s fun to think of a name, a scene or season to match the colours and vice versa. I have done this last set because these three colours to me say ‘frangipani’ and I had enough of these colours left over. When I lived in Darwin there were a lot of frangipani trees about. They would loose all their leaves in the dry season, which is the north Australian equivalent of winter, but it really doesn’t get very cold at all. Then as the wet season approaches, the trees would become full of flowers and the smell was gorgeous. Most of them were the yellow and white variety, some had a light blush of pink. And very rarely, there was a deep red variety which didn’t seem to grow as thick but had the rich fragrance of a rose and was very special. The blue in this set represents the clear blue skies of the Darwin dry season.

I do not recommended this coaster set for red wine drinkers, as it’s mostly white and yellow. If you spill red wine on these, soak in cool water immediately. Here are some more tips on how to remove red wine stains from cotton.

Next, to make some Christmas decorations and practice baking some home-made treats to share as gifts!

Seasonal Drinks "Summer" & "Autumn" Coasters

These are the first two sets of my Seasonal Drinks coasters!

For these ones, I picked seasonal colours for ‘traditional’ seasons, just due to the ease of what to call them and the colours to choose. Both of these coaster sets have the added bonus of bringing good luck and prosperity to the home due to the circular golden motifs, which represents money and coins.

The colours in my summer set of coasters represent the cool blue of swimming pools, backyard green lawns and lots of orange juice! I found inspiration on google images for Summer colours.

Autumn also had to have some orange, with a little bit of golden and green. Again, I found inspiration on google images, this time for Autumn colours. As often found in collections of Autumn colours, these represent the turning of the leaves from green to golden, to then dull and fall upon the ground, loosing the bright colour as winter approaches …

Coming next – Seasonal Coasters “Winter” & “Spring”

Summer Drinks "Sandy Beach" & "River Boat" Coasters

Here are the second and third sets I’ve made for this Summer Drinks coaster collection, I call these colour combos “Sandy Beach” & “River Boat”.

Sandy Beach is mostly light blue, for the shallow ocean. Sand is the second colour for the beach and white is for the waves. Or maybe it is white for the seagulls and shells?

A simple thing is choosing 3 colours to make a set of coasters, but these have an extra thought and meaning, to help transport the imagination on those hot summer days!

Navy and white are common sailor stripe colours and is the theme of the upholstery on our “River Boat”, and of course it has timber decking!

Washing instructions are ‘Hand wash, do not bleach, dry flat in shade’. Choose the darker coloured coasters when drinking red wine.

Enjoy!

Child's Cotton Sunhat

Because I had to cancel going to craft group today due to the piano repairs, I went to Lincraft yesterday instead. While there, I picked up a pattern book and some cotton for some new projects, including this child’s sunhat, which I finished just this morning.

This is the last of 25 patterns in a book I picked up from Lincraft called ‘cute clothes for kids’ by Sue Whiting. The book looked pretty comprehensive, and I didn’t think it was too expensive, so I grabbed it. Flicking through it, I was reminded how I didn’t make any hats for my sister’s children as they were going back to Darwin and had no need for woollen beanies up there. My sister had suggested I make my niece a sunhat, so now I have given it a go using this pattern. I found some cotton blend at Lincraft, not 100% cotton unfortunately, its a 50% cotton 50% arcylic blend, but I’m very happy with the colours and how they go together.  I chose white, pink, purple and a light brown colour. For this I used a 4mm hook, and I think it took me about 3 hours, it really wasn’t hard to do. The pattern says it fits a 2 to 4 year old.

Now I’m trying to decide if I want to add a big floppy flower to it, or is it better as it is? Luckily, I have some of the cotton left so I can make a flower, or perhaps a matching bag as suggested in the book.

Winter Hat Collection 2010

Here is a gallery of all the hats and beanies I’ve finished so far!

I’m hoping to give some of these to family as gifts, I just don’t know which ones they would like so I hope they can tell me! ❤ ❤ ❤

I have already written on my blog about some of these hats, but I’ll be posting more in future, explaining how I made them, the pattern and washing instructions for the wool.

Simple Brown Handbag

I’ve quickly made up another chocolate-coloured handbag in case my sister doesn’t like the other brown bag I made for her. This is my post for Transformation Thursday at The Shabby Chic Cottage. The materials transformed for this was about 50g of yarn and three buttons. Using a 3.5mm crochet hook it didn’t take long at all, maybe one afternoon.

I was speaking to Jen last week and she mentioned she needed a little handbag just big enough to hold a couple of things so I’ve made another bag a little bigger than the last with a longer handle. This bag has a handle long enough that when on the shoulder the bag will hang down by the waist. I used a simple stitch, instead of the shell stitch I used in the first brown bag which made it a little wonky, so this was quicker to make.

By the way, I found out at the craft group I went to last week that the stitch I’ve been calling ‘double crochet’ is American for the UK stitch called ‘treble crochet’, which is the stitch I used mostly here. I’m thinking I will need to learn both crochet languages so I know the two names for each stitch. There are so many free patterns on the internet that are in American crochet, but my mother and the local craft group use British crochet, so it’s best I know both!

Here’s to hoping my sister likes at least one of these bags!

So MANY Fantastic Ideas at this weeks party, some day I’d really like to try these ones…

• recyled baby clothes made into a child’s quilt @ Mother Lode
• recycled wine corks notice board @ I Can Find The Time
• recycled spice rack craft organiser @ Real Housewife in Minnesota
• child’s number beanbags @ Lemon Tree Creations
• baby wrap if anyone in my life might have a need for that @ Canadian Rhapsody
• recycled old makeup child’s toy @ Simply Designing

Simple Brown Beanie

On the way to my appointment in the city I whipped up this simple beanie on the train. It’s 30 minutes there, another 30 back, plus waiting time, so all up it took less than 2 hours.

When I asked my S.I.L. what colours she’d like the beanies for her children to be she said ‘dark colours’ so I found this nice chocolate colour in my stash and decided to use that for one of them. Washing instructions for the wool is ‘drip dry, non-shrink, colourfast, wash in warm water’, it’s 100% acrylic. For my beanies I start by making 4 to 7 rounds, each round increasing in size, with the 2nd round being 2 for every one, after that every round increases one less stitch than the previous round. Who I’m making it for will decide how many increasing rounds I do. Then I will stop increasing and make rounds the same size until I get to a length recommended by the beanie size chart.

So yes, for those interested in the update, I did catch the train to the city on my own for the first time in a couple of years. Poor David will have to find some other excuse to get time off work now! Yay for me 😛

Cute, Small Brown Handbag

I’m really quite proud of how this turned out in the end, if I do say so myself!

At first I was worried how wonky it was, marrying up the edges evenly was a challenge. But because it was off-centre I was able to place the button enough to the side to appear intentional, and  I think the result is rather cute. I had several cute buttons to choose from as usual, all would match nicely, but I settled on the pearly tan coloured one.

When I told my sister Jenny that I could crochet simple handbags, she said she’d like one in ‘earthy brown colours’, hence why I chose this wool and button. I really hope she likes it because I made it with love and care, although I know it’s highly likely the first thing she’ll say will be to point out an imperfection. But you know sisters can be like that, hey? I used the shell stitch described in my Shell Crochet Pouch post, I just made it larger and added a handle, which was rather easy and fun!