Baby blue

I'm back trying to get busy crocheting and wanted to quickly share this ripple baby blanket I finished at the beginning of Spring... 

Colours from a yarn pack bought for me by my lovely sister. Ripple pattern by Lucy of Attic24. 

Should be keeping a new tiny one warm soon :-)

Over due blogging...

I've been sorting through the photos on the camera and found quite a few photos of things that I wanted to blog about... these two baby hats are from way back before Christmas - ooops!

This handsome little guy is wearing a variation of the stripped hat I made up for Sam 3 years ago.

The hat is so simple to make - it is straight across the top and then worked in rounds in a square shape. For each row you carry the yarn across so no need to rejoin yarn and barely any finishing up at the end. Once you have the size you want then just add two pom poms to each corner and you're done!

I also made another of these stripped baby hats for my little niece and though I really like the colours I much prefer the bold boy hats.

Baby things

Just wanted to share some pretty little baby clothes that I've made for a new member of my family.

This baby dress is one of my favourite things to make - really enjoyable to crochet, works up quickly and always turns out well. Pattern is by Marianne Cant and was published in Inside Crochet Magazine issue 9. Previously blogged about here.

Baby socks were made with what I had left of my lovely Regia Design Line 4 ply yarn - had to improvise my own pattern as I was very tight on yardage. Love how they turned out and hope they just about managed to fit!

White, blue & turquiose

Over the years I've built up an impressive stash of different yarns (mostly acrylic as it's so good for making amigurumi) and because I am fast running out of places to hide it all I've been attempting to do a few 'stash busting' projects to use some of it up.

This cushion for instance is made from the beautiful 'Blooming Flowers cushion' pattern by Lucy of Attic24 and it's a great way to use up some stash. The pattern is simple but works up quickly and is so satisfying to do. I loved seeing this work up and would have kept making it bigger and bigger apart from having a strict time limit that I was working to.

This baby blanket was another stash buster - using the same colours again but this time I chose a pretty circle granny square (another free pattern - this time from Wisecraft) to which I added another row of crochet and did the join as you go method for putting it all together.

Lastly there is this quick baby ball - this time the pattern was in my head - it was worked up in varying sized stripes and I used invisible decreasing to finish it off so there are no noticable holes for the stuffing to peep through.

Ahhh - now I just need to go out and buy some more white and blue yarn :-)

Party preparations - spin balls

While planning party bags I hit the problem of what do I made for the little brothers & sisters who will also be turning up? Most of what I've made so far isn't particular suitable for under 1s so I thought I would give these cute 'spin balls' a try.

These are made from another great free pattern (only available as a Ravelry download though) written by Abigail Gonzalez. The spiralling effect gives a lovely even striping on the ball with no jumps in the colours and these are just the right size for little baby hands to hold.

Baby blue

Two years ago I made a little crochet dress (pattern by Marianne Cant in issue 9 of Inside Crochet) for my new niece and because I loved making it so much I've been desperate to make another. Thankfully I have lots of friends who are also mums so it was only a matter of time for one of those to have another baby, but it did take a while for a little girl to arrive.

While I adore the colours in the yarn I used for my niece's dress I wanted to make something that wasn't pink this time (possibly because I'm suffering from pink overload in the clothes for my own little girl) and choose the 'Skyway' colour way from the Wendy Happy yarn range. The yarn was a joy to work with again - so soft and smooth that it crocheted up really quickly. The colour changes in this colourway were much shorter though which gives a dappled effect and though it is also quite pretty I think I like the striping on my first dress better.

Making this dress up has been a lovely change from all the 'work' crochet I've been busy with. My crochet business "Pretty Crochet Things" is being a little neglected at the moment due to having so much to plan and prepare for right now. I do have lots to share with you including the new finished items, and once I get through an incredibly busy September I'll be sure to show you what I've been so busy with!

Friday book review

"Natural crochet: For babies and toddlers"
by Tina Barrett
ISBN: 978-1861086242

UK crochet terms

This book has been sitting on my computer desk for months now waiting for me to review it - and I've really wanted to do so, there just hasn't been the time. Seeing as the two little ones seem to be sleeping I'll try and write you a quick review now.

The book is beautiful.

The layout is simple with a photo gallery at the start with a few photos of each project model by some pretty adorable looking little ones which if you are at all like me you'll spend a good amount of time cooing at. This book is unusual in that I found most of the projects really appealing and would be very happy to have a go at making all of them. Sadly my own little boy is probably too old to make for now as he is past the largest size this book has patterns for.

The first half of the patterns are for babies and usually have instructions for more than one size, either 0-6 or 6-12, but there are some patterns with just the one size given. Some of my favourites from this section include the hooded cardigan which is particularly lovely and the little matinee jacket that is very similar to the Maisy baby cardigan I made up for my little niece last year

The second half contains the patterns for toddlers and has some really cute jumpers for little boys in which are so much nicer than the boxy crochet patterns you normally get for boys. However as I need to make a present for my soon to be one year old niece I went with the swing jacket pattern and made the version for a 1-2 year old. To achieve the gauge I had to use a 5.5mm hook instead of the 4mm hook that was recommended, however I did get the jacket to match what the finished dimensions were supposed to be. The jacket looked massive though, but as I didn't have a 1-2 year old about to try it on I crossed my fingers and sent it off. Well - it was far too big as I thought, in fact it was a much better fit on my other niece who is 5!

There is a brief techniques guide at the back of the book - but even so this is definitely more for the intermediate/advanced crocheter. I'm not too convinced with the sizing of these garments after the results I got from the coat I made, but I'm tempted to think it was a one off as a good number of other Ravelry users have had lovely results from the other patterns in this book. So I think I'll try another pattern from here next year and I'll let you know more then.

More handmade goodness

Life with baby Emily is pretty hectic so I've still not managed to complete any crafty projects. However, my list of projects to make is getting pretty long now - it isn't helped by seeing all the lovely things that other craft bloggers have been making.

I must find some time this weekend to give these extremely cute felt Halloween decorations a go. I also need to try and make a quick costume for my 3 year old - I'm tempted to try and dress him as a bat, any suggestions for how?

Until I do get something finished I have some more gifted craft goodness to share - my good friend Esther (etsy shop Bunting & Beads) recently sent me a bumper parcel full of crafted goodness. About 6 months ago I challenged her to make me 10 different things for when my little girl was born all using a different craft method. She took me up on the challenge and managed in that time to do just that! My parcel contained the following:

• Two new baby cards, one made with paper craft and the other done with cross stitch

• One little crochet handbag

• One lovely knitted baby hat

• A hand sewn felt elephant toy

• A pair of pretty felt hair clips (made using a Cuttlebug)

• One girly beaded necklace

• One lovely little tapestry stitch needle case for when little Emily gets into crafting in a few years 

• Some very beautiful bunting to decorate her room with

• A gorgeous butterfly mosaic tile

All these lovely hand crafted items have started me thinking - how many different crafts can I do? I'm tempted to try and challenge myself into doing a different craft each week and see how many weeks I can keep it up for... though this may have to wait until I have our home situation more under control!

How many crafts can you do?

 

Our latest arrival

Sorry for the lack of posting recently, I've only just come out of hospital after giving birth to my second little one - baby Emily. Life here at Tea Towers has for this reason been pretty hectic so normal blogging has had to stop while we get ourselves settled in to our new life.

So far I'm loving having little Emily - she is such a sweet little one and seems to be quite a sleeper so hopefully I'll be able to find some time to craft and blog again soon. Until then I have been receiving some very lovely handmade presents from friends and family which I'll be able to share with you all while I get myself back on track.

This beautiful blanket has come from my sister in Wales - look how lovely it is! Liz has only been crocheting for a year but seems to have really taken to it and has produced quite a number of lovely things already (you can check out her blog here).

Baby crochet

While browsing through the freely available patterns listed on Ravelry I came across the pattern for this little beauty (Pink baby sweater by Nélia Botelho).

Seeing as I had a ball of 4 ply wool sitting in my mini craft stash I thought I would give the pattern a go, and I'm so very glad I did. The cardigan is made up in just one piece so no fiddly joining and only 2 ends to work in. The pattern works up in rows and once you get the hang of the increases for the chevrons you can quite happily crochet away anywhere.

I managed to complete the whole cardigan in just 3 days and I'm very pleased with the result. It's a lovely light and lacy little cardigan and will look fantastic layered over whatever baby clothes I choose to put our new little girl in once she arrives.

Does anyone have any other suggestions for crochet girl baby clothes - I have a little Amazon credit left over from my Birthday so would love to invest in a new book if anyone can recommend to me a good one?

So many projects...

...and so little time. There has been some manic crafting going on here at Tea Towers and I've got about 5 different projects on the go right now, but getting anything finished seems to be causing problems.

Take this beautiful baby dress (pattern from Inside Crochet issue 9), making this up was so quick and easy that it fooled me into thinking that I would get through my to-do list in no time. However, trying to make up a pair of matching booties has been a real struggle and has taken me over a week to do - which is quite shocking really when you consider that the dress took me only 4 days to crochet!

To start with I tried out a lovely free pattern that used 4 ply yarn and a size 5mm hook. But using such a large hook with the finer yarn felt very strange to me and I didn't like the loose fabric it created. So I decided that adjusting my 'Simple booties' pattern would be the best option. The adjustments to the original pattern were pretty easy so that isn't what took me the time - no that would be trying to keep a consistent gauge. For some reason recently this has become a bit of a problem for me, not sure why though but I really hope it sorts itself out!

So now I finally have two slightly mismatched booties (due to the colour changes in the Wendy Happy yarn I ended up with two booties in two different colours - well at least they go with the dress!) and though they are very cute I don't feel that they are quite 'finished'. I want to add some sort of extra decoration to make them look more of a pair - any suggestions?

Pretty baby things

I'm starting to make a little progress through some of my UFOs and I thought I would show off the finished baby cardigan that I gave you a sneak peak of a few weeks ago.

The pattern is called "Maisie baby cardigan" designed by Alicia Paulson and available in the book "Vintage crochet". Though I found the pattern clear and easy to follow I was a little disappointed with how much construction was needed - the top half consists of 5 separate parts that need sewing together (including the two separate sleeves that each were worked flat for some reason and then needed sewing up at the end) with the lower skirt then getting crocheted directly onto the finished top half. Because I used a blueish yarn for this cardigan I decided to add a lilac trim to feminise it a little more and I think it ended up working nicely.

To accompany the cardigan I also worked up some simple baby booties this time from the book "Essential crochet" by Erika Knight. The pattern was quick and easy to make up and I love the chunky little flowers that go on the front. I still need to make up little crochet ties for these booties as the soon to be mum has expressed a preference for those as opposed to the ribbons suggested in the pattern.

 As these are all done I've now got a hankering to make some more baby bits and bobs so if you've any favourite patterns that you can recommend I would love to hear about them!

Back in the crochet mood

Thankfully my craft block seems to be clearing and to help get back into the swing gently I decided that crochet was what my hands were wanting to do.

I really love making baby bits, they are so quick and satisfying, just a couple of hours of work and you end up with a gift ready to send to a mum who usually is just as excited about it as you are. The hat shown here is from another "Happy Hooker" pattern, this time part of the Sejia set by Bev Ireland. I had to add an extra increase row in this hat though as my hook size was too small (I really must get round to buying a size 4mm hook one day...) and thus the hat would have turned out tiny. I also just worked the hat in two shades of purple as that's what I had to hand, and I'm glad I did too as it matches the little two tone booties that I also made.

The booties are from "Crochet gifts in a weekend" by Nola Thesis and though I've made up the basic bootie a number of times this is the first time that I've had a go at making the ballet style version. Orinoco the octopus also loves the hat and booties and wanted me to show here how good he looks in them. Sadly I haven't got the energy to make another 6 booties for Orinoco so his other feet have had to go cold.

As well as doing crochet I've also been folding these pretty little stars from some cheap Ikea gift ribbon that I picked up last week. They are fiddly and time consuming but strangely addictive.

These stars are called Frobel stars and I first came across them years ago in an old girls activity book that my mum owns. You are supposed to make them from strips of paper and depending on what thickness you make the strips you end up with a large star or a tiny one. These are smaller than a British 10p piece and now I've made them all I'm not too sure what to do with them... too small really to use on the top of presents. Any suggestions?

Cluster of baby hats

After just a week of frantic crochet I now have 4 pretty little hats for the Save the Children "Knit one save one" appeal. With a little trial and error I did manage to design my own version of the new born hat pattern that was published in Woman's Weekly. In fact - I had so much fun designing the first hat that I also designed a similar second hat (you can find these patterns in the sidebar on the right).

The two patterns for these hats (shown in the photo as the first 3 hats - blue, lilac & pink) should hopefully be error free and are much, much easier to make up than the pattern that I spent a week struggling with. These little hats are now destined to be sent off to my Mum for packaging up with any hats that she and my sister make up. Hopefully they help warm some little newborn heads soon.