Giveaway result

Nigel mark II is finished and eager to get going to his new home - he's already found a comfy jiffy bag for his journey and is now waiting impatiently for me to draw the winner of the giveaway.

So without further ado I shall consult the Random Number Generator for a winner.

Drum roll please...

Post number 4 was Katy who said:

"Wow, that top is very cool. I love the circles on the crocheted part - can't believe you made this yourself! Very Talents.

I am in love with Nigel, very small and sweet - he could sit of my desk at work and bring me a bit of happiness during the day :-)"

Congratulations Katy I'll be in contact to find out your postal address - Nigel is very much looking forward to staying with you and seeing a little bit of the other side of the world! Thanks to everyone who took part in this giveaway, it was lovely to get so many comments and I'm just sorry that I don't have the time to make you each a Nigel. Perhaps this may give some of you the push to try a little crochet now though?

Tiny giveaway

Finally I'm finished with the crochet top of doom! It almost killed me but I've finished and now I have that rather dangerous feeling that I can accomplish anything... So to help stop me starting another horribly complicated project I made up this very cute little guy instead.

Please let me introduce Nigel the elephant. Nigel is a fun loving curious sort of beast who wants to play and explore. He was going to be offered here as a giveaway but sadly my husband saw him first and has laid claim to him.

However, as I enjoyed making him so much I'm itching to make another and if you want to be in with a chance to win him all you have to do is leave me a comment on this post before the end of 23rd June and I'll enter you in the giveaway which will be drawn next week on Wednesday 24th June. Please remember to leave me a way to contact you so that I can let you know if you have won.

If you don't win the giveaway then not to worry - why not try and have a go at making one of these little guys for yourself . The pattern is freely available from the beautiful Roman Sock blog - well worth a good look if you also love wonderfully cute crochet critters :-)

The top of doom is looking pretty good after being finished off and the edging that I put round all the motifs really brings it together and makes it a less delicate piece of work. If you are not detered by my struggles then why not check out the original instructions for this beautiful top on the CrochetMe website

The terrifying UFO

Possibly this top doesn't look too terrifying to you... but when I look at it my heart always skips a beat and I run screaming from the room. Hundreds of loose ends to work in! Hours and hours more work trying to crochet together the motifs on the bottom edge not to mention needing to finish the whole thing off with some sort of single crochet border to give the work a bit more strength.

This top also fills me with guilt every time I look at it, it was meant to be a Birthday present for my sister and is now looking like it is going to be almost a year late. Well I'm trying to be better at working at it when I have a spare moment or too but the work is still going slowly. To try and help me motivate myself into finishing I've made a pact with myself not to start a new project until it is done, which is part of the reason why I've not joined in the SEWN giveaway and made anything for that (the other reason is I really have no idea what to make!). Once this top is done though all bets are off and I'll try to host a giveaway with something cute and homemade - any suggestions?

I've already got another sewing project lined up for when the top of doom is finished and that will be using this lovely fabric from Ikea which my husband picked out. This is to make a custom pillow case to fit his oddly shaped ergonomic Ikea pillow. Not too sure whether I'll try something as complicated as making a specially fitted cover or just stick to a simple case that is a little smaller than the normal sized pillow cases.

This has also been a great week for magazines with me getting a chance to read both issues of the new UK crochet magazine "Inside Crochet" and receiving the new issue of "MixTape" through the post.

Inside Crochet is the new UK crochet magazine, in fact it is the only UK crochet magazine being published at the moment and it is fantastic. For some reason I was unaware of it's existence until a couple of weeks ago when I noticed it on the shelf of my local WHSmiths and I very eagerly picked it up. I held off reading it though until my trip up North to visit the in laws as I was trying to justify spending the £5 but after reading it I thought it was well worth the cost. There are some lovely patterns in there (and a couple of not so great patterns - but really the good to bad ratio is very high) that I can't wait to have a go at, I may even make my first piece of crochet clothing (the top of doom doesn't count as it is embellishment to a shop bought top) from it. The second issue I snapped up as soon as it appeared in the shops and there are even more patterns in there that I like. As well as some lovely patterns there are a number of well written articles - some even by people that I know of from the blogosphere. Hopefully I'll be able to wangle a subscription for my Birthday next month as I really don't want to miss an issue.

MixTape is a little crafting magazine from Australia that features loads of inspiring articles and one or two little craft projects. This issue is the second of my Mother's day present subscription and it made my day when it hit the doormat yesterday morning. I've already almost finished reading through it and there are a number of articles in this issue about Craftivism - doing craft for good causes as well as articles on eco-crafting and crafting with kids. All great stuff well written and in the lovely new all colour format that really brings this little zine to life.

Giveaways

This is just a very, very quick post to let people know about two massive giveaways that are taking place at the moment.

Both Sew Mama Sew and a new site called SEWN are hosting these massive blog giveaways to which there are hundreds of beautiful things being given away.

I've been spending what little free time I have looking round at these blogs and as well as signing up to a good few myself. While doing this I've also discovered a good many new and exciting blogs that I've been adding to the list of blogs that I follow - time very well spent :-)

A quick crochet break

After my struggles with the sewing machine I felt the need to do a little crochet to remind myself that I'm good at one craft at least! So I've been playing around with a new bootie design for my little boy as he is at the tricky in between size where 0-6 months is too small and 6-9 months is too large.

Many strangely shaped and completely undersized/over sized booties later and I finally ended up with a bootie that I'm pleased with (the over sized bootie that I made up would probably have fit a 3 year old - not really sure why I thought it was the right size for my little one... oops!).

These booties are pretty quick and easy to make. They are made up in one piece (strap included) and then just need the ends weaving in and a button adding - easy! The front of the bootie is slightly wider than the back to accommodate my son's wedgey feet.

Not much else to say about these little booties apart from the fact that I really like them and I'm tempted (though not too sure) to write up the pattern properly (also writing a few variations for different sizes) and try selling it on Ravelry. What do you all think? - Would anyone be interested in buying yet another bootie pattern? I'd need to look into baby foot sizing too before deciding on whether it's worth the grief to try and rework my pattern into a number of different sizes.

I've also just finished up this little crochet cosy for my sister's DS lite. After failing to get round to finish off her Birthday present (her Birthday was way back last September...) I felt pretty bad so I whipped this up for her to try and help with some of the guilt. I really must at some point finish off that top for her, though I wish now that I had never started it - uggh! But I will finish it, just not right now okay :-)

Tomorrow we are all headed off up North for my sister-n-law's wedding so best get on with the packing.

Library finds

In recent weeks I've been spending quite a lot of time at my local library with my little one as he seems to enjoy the trip out almost as much as I do. As I now have a bit more time to look round properly I've been noticing more and more things that I never realised this library service offered including a selection of craft magazine to borrow!

The selection of magazines isn't brilliant (unless you are more of a card maker/scrapbooker) but that really isn't the library's fault as this basis towards paper crafts is very noticeable in all newsagents in the UK. They did have this one title "Quick & Crafty!" which I had a good flick through and then borrowed a bunch of back issues. While the majority of projects are paper craft and jewellery making there are a good few other crafts included too; like using polymer clay, cross stitch, and the very occasional knit and crochet patterns. The magazine also comes with a free gift each week for which there are a few projects in each magazine... I wonder what the library staff did with these?

While perusing the craft book section of the library I also came across a few titles that fancied so I grabbed hold of the following two to borrow:

"Simply enchanting crafts" by Lilas Force
ISBN: 978-0715330043

After reading a review of this craft book on another blog I decided that I wanted my own copy - what could be better than some beautiful craft projects with a fairy theme? So when I saw this in the library I was very excited to be able to get a good look at the book before buying my own copy.

Unfortunately it wasn't really what I was expecting it to be... the book is lovely all the photographs are beautifully taken and there are some very pretty things in there. However the projects all seem to be jewellery making with a couple of sewing projects and some recipes at the back. As I don't really do anything with beads myself (more because I just don't have space to start yet another craft than I don't want to - I do!) I found myself feeling a little let down that there really wasn't anything in this book for me.

I would have loved to have seen more variety in the crafts in this book - perhaps more detailed instructions too as these seemed a little basic to me. Otherwise a very lovely book to look at and definitely one for the jewellery makers out there.

"Baby crafts: Unique gifts for new arrivals" by Lynne Farris
ISBN: 978-1564967961

This is a lovely little baby craft book with a good few projects in that I would (if only I had the time) like to have a go at. There are a variety of crafts included in this book including some simple machine sewing, painting, paper craft and a bit of knitting.

My favourite project would probably be the sweater duck toys - such cute little duckies made out of a up-cycled sweater. I also loved the simple idea of adding a small applique to the front of a baby vest to make a more personalised item.

Sweet and simple - well worth a look through if you have a special little someone to make for.

Sew happy :-)

Earlier this year I inherited this lovely sewing machine from one of my mother in laws friends, but I had to wait until recently to receive it as it was waiting for me up in Yorkshire. During that time I've been doing a little sewing machine reading so that I'll at least know some of the basic techniques in theory before I start.

One book that I found really helpful for this is "Bend the rules sewing" which for a newbie like myself is great as it goes through all the basics in a clear and friendly way.

I've also been drooling over "Little stitches for little ones" and "Stitched in time" so now I have huge ambitions for what I want to make but I'm slightly daunted by just how lovely all these projects look and I'm pretty sure that I'm not going to be up to that level of sewing for a good while yet!

For my first sewing machine project I wanted to keep things simple and use fabric that I didn't mind making a mess of. So I cut up an old duvet cover to make a basic drawstring bag which I could fill with my little boy's dirty laundry.

This bag in the photo on the left is my completed bag and took about 6 hours to make (mostly because I completely messed up my first attempt and had to start over - that's what happens when you start sewing before thinking through what you need to do). The hardest parts were doing the casing for the drawstring at the top in a neat way that didn't leave any raw fabric edges, and making the cord itself from a much folded and ironed spare strip of duvet cover fabric.

I'm very happy with how it turned out though the bag does seem a tiny bit bigger than it probably needed to be it does the job.

In other craft related news which I had forgotten to mention until now; I've just started receiving this little craftzine which was a Mother's day present from my lovely husband. After being very disappointed that O'Reilly Craft magazine stopped being published I started scouting around for a different craft related mag that I could subscribe to. I found a mention of this one (Mixtape)on one of the blogs that I follow and I thought I would give it a try - and I'm very glad that I did! This is a lovely little magazine that comes all the way from Australia and is the work of a husband and wife team. The articles are well written and I found them all interesting, and the layout used throughout the mag is just lovely. So if you haven't heard of this craftzine before it really is worth a look - I personally feel that it is 10 times better than the O'Reilly Craft magazine and I can't wait for the next issue to arrive.