New arrivals

Just a quick post to show off a couple of crochet bits that are on their way to yet another new baby (for some reason there seems to have been a baby explosion recently so keep an eye out in case it starts raining babies too).

Orinoco is here again to show off my handiwork, you can see him wearing a deep ribbed crochet hat and some cuffed booties both patterns from the "Crocheted gifts in a weekend" book by Nola Theiss.

The pattern for the hat was meant for an older child but after substituting the chunky yarn for a much finer yarn and using a smaller hook the hat should hopefully fit a newborn okay. The ribbing on this hat is lovely and adds a real thickness and warmth to the hat - this will definitely be a pattern that I try again in the future.

Sadly the bootie pattern wasn't nearly as good. The cuffs were supposed to be knitted so the whole pattern was designed around that and required lots of sewing up of separate pieces. They have also turned out to be a little bit flat looking - not nearly as cute as they did in the book.

Ribbit!

I've recently returned from a lovely 5 day break at a nearby Center Parcs which is the first holiday I've had since becoming a mum. I'm now refreshed and ready to start knuckling down to my Christmas crafting, but before I got started on any of the things I have planned to make as presents I got side tracked by the frog hat pattern in issue 3 of Inside Crochet.

This is a lovely pattern by Jane Bibby with simple instructions that you can use to make a variety of sizes (I'm very tempted to make a large hat for my husband but I don't think he would wear it). My little boy has been out a couple of times today wearing this hat and lots of people have stopped to admire him in it. Now I've made him a hat I should probably do him some matching booties as well though I may have to come up with my own pattern for them as there do not seem to be any that I like online.

During my holiday I did try to get some crafting done in the one evening I had free so I had a go at silk painting, unfortunately it didn't work out quite how I had hoped... I found the outliner hard to apply and was unsure about how much was needed to stop the paint from leaking out of the outline. I also found that I can't draw butterflies freehand so next time I think I'll just stick to tracing someone else's artwork.

The red smear at the bottom is my attempts at ladybirds, also not my best work. I'm hopeful though that I will do better next time with a little more preparation and thought - I may even be able to make a few more Christmas presents from my labours.