crochet

Happiness this week is a dustbuster and a crochet bunny

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Well, what a busy week! You’ll be pleased to know that we are all much better, no more tummy bugs, so a much happier household going in to the beginning of the week 🙂 First of all, the baby booties that I made for my friend’s little boy fit his teeny feet perfectly! It’s funny how quickly you forget how small they are in those first few months, although monkey has always been a big boy with big feet!

I  mentioned in my last post that hubby and I had bought a big jug for the windowsill but didn’t have anything to put in it – well long term is not sorted but in the short term hubby brought home some gorgeous bright coloured flowers for it – so at least it feels a little like spring inside the house – if not remotely like it outside!

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Very lovely and thoughtful of him (although I have to admit my initial gut reaction was one of suspicion and that he was trying to soften some bad news, like having to work away overnight or something silly, but no just a sweet gesture after all :)) and they do look lovely in the kitchen.

My little project for the last week or so has been to make this really cute bunny that I saw in my simply crochet magazine.

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I thought he was just so cute and a perfect little toy for the monkey to chew on. It said in the pattern to use alpaca wool, but well that is pretty expensive. I also know that anything that is for monkey needs to be very easily washable, which I don’t believe alpaca is, and I could easily see the gorgeous bunny becoming quite stained very quickly! So I decided to go for it with some of the acrylic wool I already had. I also didn’t have any brown and was far too impatient to wait until I could get some so decided to go for a multi-coloured blue bunny!

It was quite simple really, mainly double crochets (UK terms) and after learning what a htr2tog was last week I managed to figure out what a dc2tog was quickly enough. My big flaw though seems to be counting, I lose count of stitches so blimming easily and really struggle to get it right after that, so tend to have a bit of interpretation of the pattern. This is fine until you are making a pair of something, such as the ears, which have come out as completely different shapes! hehe ah well, I think it adds to his character, what do you think?

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I also was a bit ummm unorganised with where I was sowing the legs on, so he’s a bit scew-wiff but again I think he looks cute so decided to go with it. Monkey has chewed on him a few times and shaken him around but so far he doesn’t seem anywhere near as pleased with him as I am! hehe

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It’s my birthday coming up in a month or so and it’s one with a zero on the end! A few people have asked what I would like, so have duly created a lovely amazon wishlist, though I really couldn’t think of much I wanted, a few dvds and a portable dustbuster type thing being the highlights. I know that is not very exciting as a birthday present but honestly I spend half my life on my hands and knees wiping up crumbs that if been thrown from the highchair tray or fallen off of the monkey himself, and the other half hovering up where any I have missed have been walked on and spread throughout the house! (Ok slight exaggeration as obviously I manage to squeeze in crochet and blogging too :)) Our hoover is he too and monkey is terrified of the noise so I can only hoover certain parts of the house when he’s asleep, and other parts only at the weekend or sometime daddy is available to otherwise entertain him!

At our weekly visit to the lovely mother in laws I was very touched and surprised when they received a delivery of said dustbuster and said that I couldn’t possibly have it as a birthday present as it is much too boring, but that they wanted me to have it, so they bought it as a present! Like I say, very touched, and almost bought a tear to my eye. Feels a bit sad to get so excited over a dustbuster, but honestly, since becoming a stay at home mummy, anything that makes my life easier really makes such a big difference! And I have to say both hubby and I love it, makes post mealtime clean-ups so much quicker, its quiet and monkey doesn’t mind the noise so yay! Fantastic all-round 🙂

 

Poorly house and crochet baby booties!

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Oh where is spring? Really I am so fed up with all this cold weather, and the germs that come with it! Every time we have a semi nice day it seems to be followed by a week of freezing! Been a bit of a poorly house for the last week or so too, I think I mentioned in my last blog that the monkey had been poorly, and sadly that carried on into the following week, and then I started throwing up too and well not a lot of fun to be had with poorly baby and a poorly mummy! If you work you can take a sick day but it’s not like you can get a sick day when you are a stay at home mum!

So it’s been all hands on deck and luckily my lovely mother in law was very happy to help, which meant daddy could get on at work, and, well, thankfully we are all much better now but we have been looking for some cheering up! We got these lovely Daffodils last weekend and thankfully they have been brightening up the kitchen nicely (and our moods!) although the pollen was so strong!

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Through all of the illness I have been managing to carry on a bit of crochet 🙂 mainly carrying on with granny squares for my blanket project. I am doing quite well but have worked out that for a really decent sized blanket I am going need to make well over a hundred… 11 down so far so it may take me some time! Loving how they look already though!

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As this project is going to take some time, and because I am massively impatient and like to see things finished, I have decided to alternate a bit and do some other small projects in between the granny squares. My lovely mother in law bought me a “Simply Crochet” magazine with some very cute patterns in, including one for these lovely baby booties which I couldn’t resist as they are so cute and as mentioned, we need some cheering up this week!

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Now they say they are for 0-6 months so way too small for Monkey now, but honestly I am not sure they would ever have fit our little one’s feet! A couple of friend’s have had little ones recently though so will see if they fit on their little tootsies. Also I have a friend due at the beginning of April, so I thought that if they go well I may make a little pink pair for part of her baby present 🙂

I started the pattern and all seemed well, although it was getting late when I started them and I seemed completely incapable of counting so I did get a little stressed at points. I mean really, how hard is it to count 9 stitches! hehe but once I got going the sole suddenly appeared, and then I decided it looked a bit like Iggle Piggle’s boat hehe 🙂

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Then came a phrase that completely flummoxed me! htr2tog. Um what? I get the htr bit but not the rest, isn’t 2 tog something to do with duvets? Luckily there is a list of abbreviations at the back of the magazine which said “work 2 half trebles together.” Unfortunately this didn’t make things any clearer to me and after looking through the guide bit of the magazine I was none the wiser and once again turned to my trusty friend that is Google. Seriously what did people do in the days before the internet? There I found out what to do. I don’t kid myself that I am able to describe it very effectively, there are plenty of other people who can explain it perfectly, such as here. 🙂

After that it seemed to quite swimmingly and soon enough I had first one, and then another booty! They are very cute but they are seriously small! So we will see if they actually fit on my friend’s baby’s tootsies!

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Had a lovely weekend with the hubby and now that the daffodils are withered we have realised that our kitchen windowsill needs some brightening up! We have done a lot since we moved in 10 months ago, including having a new kitchen put in, but we haven’t put anything apart from the occasional bunch of flowers on the windowsill and it does need a bit of brightening up.

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So yesterday when we were out buying some buttons for the booties (and some toy stuffing for my next project!) we popped in to our fave little Le Creuset shop. Yes the stuff is expensive but they always have colourful bits and we tend to buy one item at a time to spread the cost and make it fun 🙂 Anyway so to start off our windowsill we bought this lovely Jug! Think we should put something in it, it can be used for flowers of course but they are only temporary so need some ideas for things to go in there if anyone has any??

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We obviously need a few more things on there but it’s a start at least! 🙂

Lovely spring walks and more cute crochet owls

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I have found that one of the keys to becoming a stay at home mum is getting out of the house. I like to get out of the house at least once a day with little monkey so try and fill up his awake hours with visits to friends and relatives. This week some of the people we see regularly are busy, how dare they?! 🙂 hehe So for the sake of my sanity monkey and I have been going for some lovely spring walks. Don’t get me wrong this isn’t anything new, we have also been for lots of lovely autumn walks and winter walks! Thankfully he does enjoy a good walk in his buggy, I think he likes to look around and feel a breeze on his face, although there is a time limit, 40 mins to an hour is the most I will get out of him sitting still!

We are very lucky and live very close to a country park, which is really lovely, but well at a very quick march it takes about 15 mins to walk there on the most direct route, which with there and back considered, doesn’t leave much time to actually do or see anything when we are there! I have tried different routes back but that seems to push the monkey a bit far and he gets very cross by the last leg of the journey. So most of the time we content ourselves with a walk around the local area, which is very nice too and there’s usually lots of dog walkers and other pram pushers about which gives him plenty to look at.

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Today though, with the sun shining I decided to go for it and go to the country park. We took the most direct route and I got some good exercise in marching over there. We had just about enough time for a push on the swings and a go on some of the other toys (that are probs a bit old for him really) and then it was time to head home again. All in all a nice walk though and very mild so did us both good. It may feel like spring but it certainly doesn’t look like spring yet!

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Although we do have a few lovely crocuses popping up in our garden and what looks like the beginnings of daffodils. We only moved here last April and the garden is looking like our next project as we have done a lot of demolition with it but not really made it very pretty yet! Nice to see what is popping up this spring though as it really was just a mess when we moved in!

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Another key to sanity as a stay at home mum is keeping busy and having little projects for myself as well as keeping monkey entertained, and my current project is crochet. After my first crochet owl, which turned out very cute, albeit full of mistakes, I decided to perfect it and at the same time make a little family of owls 🙂 So we have a mummy and daddy (not sure which is which but maybe the pinker one is mummy? Even though that one is bigger than the other… oh how stereotypical of me, it doesn’t really matter does it!?) and then I decided to try and make a baby owl! As  complete novice at crochet this was potentially a bit ambitious of me but I decided to wing it and I did it! One cute baby crochet owl to go with mummy and daddy owl 🙂

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Hubby has raised concerns that we may start to look like crazy owl people soon as we have already have a few other owl shaped things in the house so I have agreed not leave the owls there 🙂 I am starting a crochet granny square patchwork blanket next – more on that coming soon! Oh, I managed to get a picture of lovely mother in laws owl too, and here it is 🙂

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Cute Crochet Owl

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I’ve really been enjoying doing the crochet, I like being able to sit and work away at it in the evenings after Monkey has gone to sleep, while hubby and I watch some trash telly. I also do the odd bit during the day while he naps so housework has definitely been suffering! Oh well! 🙂

But, well, I am an impatient soul and doing the rows backwards and forwards, while very therapeutic, wasn’t really cutting it for me. I mentioned in my last crochet blog that I had found the fabulous site of Bunny Mummy. Now she really is very good at crochet and makes some gorgeous things, one of which being this adorable cute owl, and I couldn’t wait to give it a try! As I am a complete beginner I was very confused by some of the stitches and sought help from my lovely mother in law, but after a bit of explanation from her I was off!

It didn’t start out brilliantly as somehow the first circle I made was completely wonky. I started again and this time it wasn’t wonky but by the time I got to the third round, somewhere along the way I had miscounted and it was a bit skew-wiff and the wrong size.

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Not to be put off I duly started again and woohoo this time I had a correct circle! I carried on, fluffed my way through the new stitches and somehow managed to make something that resembled the pattern I was following. I continued the next night and managed to finish the bodies and eyes, but realised I didn’t have a needle nearly large enough for yarn so had to put it aside. Lovely mother in law is also making an owl and as she is much better at crochet than me she managed to finish hers already! Anyway she lent me a needle(bodkin?) and some wadding for me to put it all together.

The next day we had a lovely visitor in the form of my friend Monika all the way from Switzerland so instead of crocheting the evening was spent eating good food, drinking lovely wine and generally catching up. Although then we had a rough night as Monkey is really not sleeping well at the moment and hubby got a poorly tummy in the middle of the night – end result a very tired little family. Luckily Monika managed to sleep through much of it and wasn’t too disturbed, or I would have felt truly awful!

Monika headed home the next morning, via London to do some shopping, and we had a lovely visit to monkey’s grandparents and I got to see the lovely finished owl! Sadly I didn’t take a picture but will try to snap one over the weekend. After seeing Granny’s lovely owl I was chomping at the bit to finish mine so during Monkey’s afternoon nap the housework was once again cast aside so I could finish my little owly, and here’s the end result! Such a cutey!

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Not perfect by any means, in fact full of mistakes, but well, you can see what it is supposed to be and that’s good enough for me on my first try! Going to make a couple more I think, see if I can perfect it 🙂

Testing my resolve and learning to crochet!

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The monkey has had a cold this week, poor thing, so it hasn’t been the easiest of weeks, with coughing waking him up and throwing routines all out and making him veeery cranky at times. He’s also been going through what seems to be a separation anxiety issue or something, whatever the reason he is hugely clingy at the moment and wants mummy all of the time. Of course happy to give out extra cuddles as he is poorly etc. but well sometimes I feel that there is only so much I can give and I can’t cuddle him alllllll of the time. Poor daddy too as sometimes he only wants mummy. So anyway my resolve has definitely been tested about my decision not to return to work but I have to remind myself that this is just one week and we all feel a bit rubbish and cuddly when we’re poorly.

One morning was particularly trying with lots of tears (from both of us lol) but thankfully my lovely in-laws came to the rescue! We are very fortunate to be very close, both emotionally and geographically with both sides of the family. Hubby’s parents being particularly close, only a few minutes’ walk away. Monkey and I visit them about once a week on average and this week our visit happened to fall on the worst day of the week! Hooray! Monkey loves going there to play with Granny & Granddad, and I love going there so I can have a few minutes rest – and to catch up with them of course hehe.

Now my mother-in law, (I will refer to her as Granny as it sounds much nicer) is very lovely and very clever and has knitted monkey lots and lots of jumpers, cardis , blankets and socks. As mentioned in the intro I can’t knit – in fact I have no clue so I am always hugely impressed by how speedily she is able to create something really lovely! A few days ago Granny introduced me to the lovely blog of Attic 24, (it was Granny who suggested I think about doing one of my own!) where I was blown away by the lovely bright colours of the crochet. Until this point I had never considered trying out crochet myself but Granny offered to show me a bit the next time I was round.

So it was that on this particularly tricky morning, whilst monkey played happily with Granddad, that Granny showed me how to do a treble stitch of crochet!  She had started off with some lovely colourful rows, using a pattern she found on Attic 24, and I then took over – making LOTS of mistakes along the way! Luckily it seems very easy to undo and redo where you have made such a mistake.

Here is a piccy when I came home, She did all of the top rows and then the start of the first yellow rows. Mine is obviously much less neat than hers!

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Few more piccys of my progress

 

Now although the day with monkey did improve, the evening wasn’t particularly fun and I decided to sit and crochet to try and calm my mind and at this point I finished the second row of yellow – hooray – I think I am hooked! (Pardon the pun!)   Unfortunately I messed up the end of the row but didn’t realise this until the next day – booo so I have had to make a slightly unorthodox way of fixing it (I had to tie on a bit more wool –sssh!)

I fluffed my way through this mistake and then had no idea how to start the next colour row so I resorted to the handy helper that is Google and came across a number of fab blogs from crocheters (Is that the right word? Somebody please correct me!) including Bunny Mummy. Bunny Mummy had a very handy tutorial – which is actually about making Granny squares (which I really want to do next by the way) but was enough for me to fluff my way through starting another row – so here we have it, another purple row has begun, yay!

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I am very inconsistent with it I know, some look quite taught, while others are loose – I couldn’t even tell you how I do it different – in fact if anything I seem to be worse at it the more I try and concentrate.  Anywho practice makes perfect as they say so I will keep going with it!

NB Monkey is doing much better now thankfully, still very sniffly but at least he’s sleeping more and so is much less cranky!