Filling out

After only 15 weeks of being pregnant I'm already having real trouble fitting into any of my clothes. None of my trousers fit now - not even my lovely loose hip hugging jeans, and most of my tops are just too short to hide my bump.

Luckily I have a sister who has kindly passed on to me a large box of her maternity clothes. Going through them was great fun - it was like having bought a huge amount of new clothes but not have to spend hours in those tiresome shops. So to thank my wonderful sister I quickly made up this card which uses up two cute miniature pieces of clothing which I saved from an old Birthday card years ago.

I've also done a tiny bit more crochet - finally updating my curious Alien pattern with a good few more foot-os (the feet are the trickest part of this pattern - but hopefully these photos will make things a little clearer).

There are some lovely photos of the little aliens that others have crocheted already up on Ravlry. If you have a Ravelry account then go and have a look here.

Hyperbolic coral submissions

After almost two months of starting my first hyperbolic crochet coral form at the workshop in the Southbank centre I am slightly ashamed to say that I haven't done nearly as much hyperbolic crochet as I had planned. I did finish off two forms which will hopefully make it in time for the first main submission deadline

The red coral on the right here is my favorite - the lovely soft yarn that I got to use from the workshop is a deeper colour than shown in this photo and really does look very pretty. I also think the combination of large loose curves and small tight curves works well and adds interest to the piece.

The workshop did fire me up to try crocheting with plastic - and the quick demonstration of how to cut the bags to make the yarn was really helpful. I dissected about 10 orange Sainsbury's bags to make the coral on the left, and then I trimmed the whole thing with 3 Wing Yip bags. Crocheting with plastic yarn is hard going though, and all the cutting up bags pretty much used up the enthusiasm that I had. Hopefully now I've had a good break I'll be trying some other forms and get a few more submissions in before the exhibition goes live on 10th June.

Some exciting news

I am very happy to announce that I am just gone 3 months pregnant! This has been one of the reasons why I've not been posting as much to this blog as I would like - I've needed to spend any free time sleeping instead of crafting.

However, I still have grand plans to craft lots of cute baby related items, clothes, booties and little blankets so any time that I'm not dosing off on the sofa I will be diligently making pretty things. Like these very sweet little crochet booties from the "Kyuuto! Lacy crochet" book.

I love the look of the projects in this book - such pretty items which look so simple. Sadly the instructions that go with them are hideously complicated - it took me three separate attempts before I successfully finished my first bootie. I love the idea of the clear crochet diagrams, but perhaps because this is thread crochet the detail on the diagrams is really very small and difficult to make out at times, especially with the crochet that is in a round - it is so difficult to make out which row you need to be working. There are also written instructions, but these have obviously been translated from Japanese and are quite basic as they rely heavily on the diagrams to give you all the detail you need.

Lastly - these booties are made in two separate pieces, the sole and the sides which are joined together with the second colour thread at the end. Why on earth would you want to make them this way? Surely you could do them all as one piece and then add a nice colour edge round the bottom which would have exactly the same effect.

I really do love the finished look of these booties - but I can only hope that I have a boy as there is no way on earth that I will go through making these again.

A late blooming poinsettia

You don't normally get the best out of poinsettias in April - but not in my flat... nope, in Jess land time has stood still for a good 4 months.

As you can see I'm still doggedly working my way through a list of UFO's and this is one that I started way back in December but didn't have the heart to finish. Nothing to do with the pattern though (which is freely available on the PlanetJune blog), I made life much harder for myself by deciding that I wanted to make it up in crochet thread and have it as a tree decoration.

In the end I think it was well worth all the effort, I love the chunky 3D nature of this decoration and I can't wait till December to show it off to my friends and family. But for now this will be the last late Christmas decoration that I'll be making up, best move on to some of my other patiently waiting projects.

Pirate slipper

I'm so sorry for the lack of posting recently - I've been in a complete craft slump and I have not made a thing! Hopefully that slump is now on the way out though as I finally got round to patching one of my husband's slippers.

Why does it need a pirate eye patch? Heck, why do the slippers have goggly eyes at all? Well, Rich wanted the eyes, and they have been on there for quite some time, but a while ago he managed to knock one of the eyes off and then got it into his head that it would be cool to have a pirate eye patch for it instead.

Now I'm tempted to do something similar to my slippers...

Hyperbolic crochet - hooray!

On Sunday (16th) myself and my sister Thea made our way through the wind and rain to attend the Hyperbolic crochet workshop being held in the Southbank centre. When we arrived the seats were already mostly full of eager crocheters and we hurried to find ourselves a place before it started.

Margaret Wertheim from the Institute For Figuring (IFF) started the workshop by giving a very interesting talk about how the Chicago and New York hyperbolic crochet coral reefs came about. She started by explaining what hyperbolic space was (which I won't try to do here - but if you are curious then the IFF have got a very good explanation here) and how in 1997 the mathematician Dr Daina Taimina was able to construct the first physical model of it by using crochet. Margaret then went on to describe the the effects of global warming on the great barrier reef in Australia - that the reef was rapidly becoming 'bleached' due to the increase in water temperature and that 1 third of it was already bleached and dying. Next we got to see a number of slides showing the crochet reef exhibitions in America as well as getting to hold and examine a large number of the different crochet coral pieces that Margaret had with her (some of these can be seen in the photo top left).

After Margaret's talk we were all really keen to have a go at making some coral forms and were allowed to help ourselves to the large stash of yarn that Rowan yarn had donated. Many of the attendees were new to crochet but after a fantastic finger crochet demonstration from Inga they too had a go.

Thea and I also got straight into some hyperbolic action with Thea deciding to try a form starting with a circle and I began a form that started with a simple chain. Once everyone had a hook and some yarn we all got straight to work and were completely focused on our crochet - so focused in fact that most people forgot to stop for some tea!

One of the nicest things about this workshop was the chance to meet some of the other crocheters involved in a group like this. One of my fellow crocheters from the Crochet UK yahoo group Susan came over and said hello to me and we had a great chat about crochet and local groups - thanks for saying hi Susan! I also got the chance to meet Inga who has done such amazing crochet work for the Chicago crochet reef (be sure to have a look at some of the magnificent pieces that she has made here)

All in all a fantastic day out and now I'm brimming with excitement about the chance to take part and produce work that be exhibited in the main foyer area at the Royal Festival Hall between 11th June - 17th August. If you want more information about getting involved with this fantastic project then send and email to the UK reef team at: ukreef@southbankcentre.co.uk

Hyperbolic crochet in London

Oh yes - finally, a crochet event in my local area that I can make it along to!

The Southbank centre in London is going to be visited by Margaret Wertheim who will be doing two workshops over the next weekend (15th & 16th March) on creating some of the fantastic hyperbolic crochet reefs. What gets created during these workshops will become part of the larger display and continue touring the world.

This was too exciting for just me to go along to by myself so my sister will be joining me for the Sunday workshop (if we managed to book a place in time) and I'll try to remember to get some photos from the day for my next post.

Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Workshops
Saturday 15, Sunday 16 March 2008
2pm - 5pm

Booking essential as limited places are avaliable - UKreef@southbankcentre.co.uk

More information can be found at http://rockpoolcandy.typepad.com/sculpture/crochet_reef/index.html