Crafty

Cute Christmas Crochet

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Cute Christmas Crochet

Cute Christmas Crochet

This is a post from this time last year, linking up to #TinselTuesdays and #FestiveFridays

I have been uncharacteristically organised for Christmas this year, not sure why but we have been saving in advance (very unusual) and it’s not even December yet and we have bought 99% of our resents for people (unheard of, and bonkers :)) . I’ve obviously just been  in a very Christmassy mood!

Anyway, after the mammoth task that was the Granny Square blanket, I felt that I needed to have a bit of fun with my crochet again, as I know what I can be like for giving up on things! I really enjoyed making some of the cute animals in the spring so thought I should do more of that type of crochet. The kind of crochet where I get quicker results and a feeling of accomplishment. I think I am too impatient for the longer projects at the moment as I just don’t have much time to commit to them.

So the two things combined led to me making some really cute Christmassy crochet animals!

The first is a Penguin, you can find the pattern here. You may have to register to be able to see the pattern but it’s free and no obligations etc. required. Anyway, mine didn’t turn out quite as cute as the picture, so I was slightly disappointed, but everyone else thinks it’s cute, and Monkey loves it so I’m not too disappointed!

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I used some sparkly wool that I was given as a gift to make him feel extra wintery.

I am reeeeally pleased with the reindeer. You can find the pattern for him here. It’s the same website as the penguin so again you have to register. He turned out just as cute as the pic so I am dead chuffed with him 🙂

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What is getting you in the Christmas Mood at the moment?

The Granny Square Blanket is finally finished! (for the moment at least…)

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Sooo, as I have mentioned before, I was getting pretty annoyed with my granny square blanket, which is why it has taken me this long to finish it! But it is done, finito, finally!!

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The border isn’t quite the way I planned or wanted but it is done and I am happy that it is finished.

So, I think the last time I blogged about it, I was frustrated by the waviness of the edge of my blanket and wanted it to be a straight edge. After a bit of a break I decided to embrace the wave. What I had originally wanted was a few rows of straight then a wavy edge, but instead I ended up with no straight, and just wavy edged.

I got a bit creative with crochet stitches to create the first line of the border, in the navy. This is what it looked like with just one line of border.

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I wanted to use this lovely peach wool for the next line of the border. I wanted to carry on the wave, but thought as I had already created a wave, that by just doing purely treble stitches in the next wave, that it would automatically follow the same pattern. Nope. This didn’t happen, instead it pretty much straightened out! When I wanted to straighten out the edges of the blanket, I couldn’t get it to do it, now I want to carry on with the wave and it goes straight, crazy! Anyway got a bit creative with stitches again (and got some inspiration from wave blankets from much better crocheters than I) and made the wave bigger and better.WP_20131011_19_53_31_Pro WP_20131105_15_19_16_Pro

I was happy with this, but this blanket is huge and it’s a lot of repetitive crocheting to get it finished. Add to that my boredom and impatience and it has taken me ages to get round to doing it. I had thought I would do at least one more layer on the border, if not two, but at the rate I am going it would never get finished. So I have decided to leave it be for the time being, and maybe look at doing some smaller projects, with more instant results.

I may pick it up and add to the border again one day but for now, I am very relieved to say that at last it is finished. It has certainly been a labour of love but I am proud of it, considering that at the beginning of the year I had no idea how to crochet.

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Frustrated with my Granny Square Blanket :(

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Urgh is how I am feeling towards my blanket at the moment. After months and months and months of crocheting and sewing, the blanket is now together and I just need to put a border on it. ‘Just’ pffff.

The problem is that I don’t think I am really very good at crochet, as my squares aren’t really squares, they are more like wavy blobs really. I thought when I put the whole blanket together that they would look ok, and the ones in the middle of the blanket have been pulled together when I have sewed them up, so they don’t look too bad. The ones on the edge however are another matter. They are so uneven and wiggly that the blanket has an unintentional, higgledey piggedly wave to it and I am just not happy with it at all.

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I was hoping that by adding the border to it that they would also get pulled a bit straighter, but as soon as I started my first line of crochet border I could tell that wasn’t going to happen, so I unpicked it all for a rethink.

I spoke to my mother in law the next day when she came to play with Monkey, as she is much better at crochet than I am, and how I got started with it in the first place. So I hoped she may have some ideas to help. She tried a few different things and we decided on one approach, which is basically to crochet double stitch on the high bits and then to half trebles, or trebles in the gaps (which are longer stitches) to try and even it out. I am trying that but honestly it still looks really wavy and a bit rubbish to me, even though it is definitely straighter than it was.

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I then wondered if I made the border and then sewed it onto the blanket, whether the act of sewing would straighten the edges… I tried that last night and that didn’t work so well either. So honestly I am not sure what to do with it. I may have to leave it for a few days so I can approach it fresh, but it is really bugging me at the moment 🙁 Not feeling very happy with it at all 🙁 which sucks when you’ve put so much effort into something! Maybe It’s as good as it is ever going to be, I dunno, just urgh!

Nap issues, Granny Blanket update and general business!

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I haven’t had a chance to write as much or as often lately as our routine is a little all over the place. Over the summer our routine was lovely, we spent so much time outdoors and playing then we would be home by 2pm for Monkey to have a 2-3 hour nap! Lovely! Then dinner when daddy came home at 6 and bed by around 7.15. Lately though our routine is all over the place.

I am clinging desperately to that routine, and, ok I don’t expect him to sleep quite that long every day, he is getting older so I’m sure he needs a bit less sleep but it’s just so random at the moment. There have been a few days where he hasn’t gone down for a nap til 3.30 or even 4pm! Which has freaked me out. We’ve tried to put him down but he’s just refusing to sleep. Then other days by about 1.15/1.30 he is exhausted and miserable. Today I missed the early signs and he was just wailing so I put him down at about 1.40, but then he was alternating between happy and miserable and didn’t go to sleep till gone 2 and was awake again just over an hour later. This was better than yesterday though where he ended up crying himself to sleep and only slept for half an hour. The worst thing is that he is waking up pretty miserable too and is just wailing for ages when he wakes up, but can’t seem to get back to sleep either.

Thankfully night time hasn’t been affected and he still goes down pretty easily and gets a good 12 hours sleep at night. I just don’t understand what he needs. Every now and then we have a good couple of days and I think we’re getting back on track, and then he goes all over the place again. I just have no idea. He is dribbling like crazy at the moment so it could be big teeth coming through (he has most of his teeth now, just missing 1 canine and the molars I think) but then I would have thought night time may have been affected too?

Oh I dunno, anyway the result is that I have a lot less time to get jobs done and do things for me so the blog has suffered ever so slightly! (So house the housework tbh, but I am trying!)

I am doing reeeeeeally well with my blanket though, last night I sewed on the last square! So it is nearly finished! Woohoo! I just need to do the border now and I bought some gorgeous wool from my mum’s shop so I just need to remember how to crochet again and get cracking on that. It will definitely be good to finish it!

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As it’s September the baby classes Monkey and I go to have started back again, but as you usually have to pay upfront, the bills have come in too. I am sticking with the tumbletots as I think it’s really helping his coordination and as the weather is bound to get worse over the next few months its a good opportunity for running around and climbing etc. as we may not be able to get to play areas as often or they’ll be a bit slippery. The music class however still has a big question mark over it. It started today and we didn’t go, we went to a cheaper class at a local children’s centre instead. The old class was great but £4.50 a lesson. The tumbletots is £5.50 a lesson so together it really adds up.

The class we went to today was only 50p! But, in truth, it just wasn’t that great. I don’t think it helped that there we were crammed into quite a small space. I was also confused as it was advertised as being for 12 months plus, however most of the babies were definitely under 1! So Monkey was one of the oldest and it seemed a bit more geared towards the younger babies which was a shame. Next week we are going to try a messy play session at another children’s centre, again at only 50p, to see if he gets much out of it. I want him to enjoy it and maybe learn things but it would also be great of we could cut costs a tiny bit!!

The spanner in the works is that I start Jury Duty on the 30th Sept. Yikes. We have been planning for ages, Monkey has been spending loads of extra time with grandparents so he is used to being looked after by them. I just really hope that his routine has settled down by then. Hubby is going to make sure he is available at all times during those 2 weeks so he can be on call to help the grandparents as much as possible, and he has a couple of days where he will be looking after Monkey. It will just be such an abrupt change for him after being looked after by me nearly every day!! Anyway we will just have to hope that I either don’t get called on a case, or if I do, that it is only a short and simple case so I don’t have to be gone the full 2 weeks or longer! We shall have to wait and see I guess!

I know this is a really fragmented blog but my thoughts are a bit all over the place at the moment! Life certainly isn’t dull!

The Granny Square Blanket – Joining the squares!

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I have been making granny squares for this blanket for months now, and it has definitely been a labour of love! I had it set in my head that I wanted to make a 14 x 14 square blanket which would be 168 squares. Which is wrong, clearly my maths skills are atrocious and I worked out 12 x14 instead, which actually wouldn’t be too bad anyway. Or 169 would be a 13×13 square. Either way, a big enough blanket.

I finished my 168th square on Monday  night and set them all out to recount them, with hubby’s help, to check I did have enough. The first count reached 176. 176?? We must have done something wrong. Count again and yup, we have 176 squares. Not entirely sure what happened there, must have counted wrong another time, as I now definitely have too many! Oh well, at least it gives a few spares in case the colours are uneven or something.

We decided to lay them all out to choose the order and layout, we wan it to look random but actually be carefully placed so dark and bright colours are spread evenly throughout the blanket. It was fun!

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We took photos so I had something to work from but were trying to think of the best way to keep the squares in order and make the joining process as straightforward as possible. So we tied them all up into bundles and labelled them with mini post its. I though that the stickiness of the post its would be enough to stick to themselves, but apparently not, and we had to use a bit of selotape too.

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Now comes the actual joining of the squares, and there are lots of methods of joining granny squares. Here is a link to 9 of them! I’ll put links for how to do these methods, and won’t try and explain them myself as I don’t know how to do most of them! I didn’t do the join as you go method, mainly because I didn’t have a colour plan in advance or anything, and because I made quite large squares I didn’t want to add another round of crochet onto each square, which you would have to do for that method to work.

One of my concerns was how the seams would look where the joins are and I want it to look as seamless as possible. So the two methods I thought about were crocheting them together with slip stitch or sewing them together with an invisible seam. The crochet method looks almost invisible from the front but has a visible seam on the back. The invisible method should, in theory, have an invisible seam.

I decided to try the Invisible seam method first, and initially really struggled. I also realised that I wasn’t lining my squares up properly. They all vary a tiny bit in shape and size, I don’t think my crochet is that consistent! But I hope that if I can line them up properly it will even them all out when it is a blanket. So I undid the stitches a bit and tried again, concentrating more on lining up the squares, and the stitch got easier as I went along! I used the same colour yarn as one of the squares and I am quite pleased with how the seams came out.

Seam on the right side

Seam on the wrong side

I got better as I went along and now have my first row of squares! Yay! Just 12 more of these to go and then I need to look at some border options!

 

Haircut at the hairdressers, a film festival and granny square blanket update

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I have mentioned before that we have been cutting Monkey’s hair ourselves so far. I don’t think we’ve done too bad a job of it, but he has got a very thick and heavy mop, bless him, and in the hot weather we have had recently it must have been hot. When I was having my fringe cut a few weeks ago my hairdresser mentioned his hair to me (having seen some pictures on facebook) and said they would only charge a few pound to cut it, so I thought maybe it was time to get it done properly, and maybe to have it thinned out a but. Of course though I was still concerned about whether he would sit still, scream his head off, pull off the gown and generally come out looking worse than when we went in because of his wriggling. We’ve cut his hair twice at home but it is looking as long as ever at the moment!

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Pre-haircut

On Saturday morning we went to the hairdressers, fully prepared with the portable DVD player and postman pat (about the only thing that will keep him sitting still – ever) and some yummy flapjack for him to nosh on. He sat on daddy’s knee and actually he did quite well. The gown didn’t last more than a few seconds (as anticipated!) but other than that he was a very good boy. He wasn’t keen on his fringe and the sides being cut and got upset a few times. It was also quite amusing to see that if she was cutting around the left side of his face he would lean further and further to the right! He gave her a few sharp looks too, as if to say ‘Who are you and what do you think you’re doing?’ We left the salon all covered in his hair but with a lovely grownup haircut.

His new haircut

His new haircut

We then went for a picnic at a film festival at a local country house, Burghley. The Disney film Tangled was on and it was a lovely day. Monkey had lots of fun playing with his nanny and grandpops and being very lovely in general 🙂 I would like to say that stickers are one of the best inventions for entertaining a toddler. He will sit for a good 10 mins (which is an eternity in toddler time) sometimes, pulling stickers off and sticking them on himself and pulling them off, etc. etc. repeat. Genius way to occupy him nicely and quietly 🙂 It helps that I managed to buy a book of 2000 stickers for 99p at a local discount shop last week!

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It was a very busy day for me, as one of my friends bought me a theatre ticket to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in London, for my birthday. So after the film festival and once Monkey was home for his nap, I hopped on the train to London to meet my friend and go to the theatre. It all got a bit hectic as we got caught in a post football crush and had to run most of the way to the theatre (including up the steps at Covent Garden, ouch) and they only just let us in as we were 10 mins late. Was a really good show though and nice to see my friend, but I got home from London at about 12:30am and was shattered! Good to do some me things sometimes though, rather than just mummy things.

Oh yes and a little update on the blanket I mentioned previously. I haven’t mentioned my crochet for a while, mainly because there hasn’t been much interesting to say! But I have been busily beavering away, crocheting as many squares as possible. I reached 100 a couple of weeks ago, which felt really good! Now I am at 135 squares, so just 33 left to go before I reach the target of 168 – which would make for a blanket of 14×14 squares. Here is a picture of the 135 laid out (on the horrible old conservatory rug). They will probably not end up in that order but something as random as that is the idea. Hopefully it will be only a couple more weeks of making squares, then I need to decide how to put them all together (sew or crochet?) and then put a border round the end. It is definitely keeping me occupied in the evenings! Will let you know when I have finished the squares, as then I will have a decision or two to make!

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Overcoming boredom with checklists and crochet granny squares

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On the whole I am very much enjoying being a stay at home mum and I spend a lot of time trying to make sure that the monkey is entertained and happy, and also that he is learning as we go. I also try and keep the house tidy and I am enjoying lots of cooking at the moment. But recently a feeling of boredom has snuck up on me. For quite a while I was really into my crochet and made a few toys and bots and bobs. I have been working on a project of a big granny square blanket, but if I’m honest I haven’t really been bothered with it lately.

I am hugely impatient and it is going to take a while to make the 168 granny squares I need to make this blanket, and it is going to take eeeven longer at the moment as I haven’t been doing any. In fact I have been completely unproductive lately and actually spent a lot of time playing angry birds on my phone, of all things. I started playing one day when the  monkey was a bit upset and I let him snuggle up and sleep on me, and in order to stave off complete boredom I had a quick game, and well, got a bit hooked. Until a week or so later when I was getting bored of it.

So I decided that in my odd bits of downtime (usually during monkey’s naps) I would read. I’ve reading a book my mother in law lent me -A suitable boy – which is really good and very interesting, but it is extremely long. (Hubby actually thinks it may be the longest book in the English language – I haven’t researched to find out if it’s true.) It is also huge, and not exactly easy to carry around, so it never seems to be in a handy place when I need it. So on another afternoon with a snuggly monkey,I decided to read a book on the kindle app on my phone. I’d downloaded a load of cheapy chick lit books, which are predictable but quick and easy to read, so this kept me going for a couple of days, then one of the books really annoyed me because all of the characters were just stupid and a bit pathetic.

It was at this point that I actually realised how bored I had become, you’d think I would have known before now, but I think I had just been getting on with things and doing jobs. But the problem is that because I have actually been really bored, I was losing interest just in the general tidying and jobs that need doing because boredom led to lethargy. And lethargy is not a good thing when you are a stay at home mum, I find. I imagine you would have the same issues if you are self employed, as you have to motivate yourself to keep going, there is no boss or colleague who is going to pressure you or inspire you to work hard, you have to do it for yourself.

So I have given myself a good shake and tried to re-motivate myself. The idea hubby and I had for using a whiteboard to share jobs out wasn’t really working properly, so I have changed it a bit and it is now just my way of writing a list of jobs to be done over the week. That way I can see easily what I want to achieve during the week, decide which job I feel like doing, and tick them off as I go. It may sound silly but I do like lists and the feeling of achievement when I tick them off. It’s not just housework that goes on there, but other things, like if I want to make some homemade play-doh or cook something new, that will go on there too. (Plus if I tick them off when they are done then hubby can also see easily what jobs need doing and *hopefully* do something like clean the bathroom for me hehe.)

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I have also been re-visiting my granny squares project. For anyone who don’t know what a granny square blanket is, there are a couple of lovely examples here and here. I think they are gorgeous but they really do require a lot of time and effort. Was chatting to hubby about it one evening this week and the conversation went something like this:

Me: Right, well I can easily knock out 2 squares an evening while we watch tv/films,    so thats 14 a week

Hubby: How many more do you need?

Me: Errrm I dunno, about another 140? So I should be finished in

Together: 10 weeks

Me: Groan

Which is why I have been so slack at producing the granny squares every day, it’s hard to think about not finishing something for another 10 weeks!! Never mind the fact that they then all need sewing together and then a border being put on the blanket…

Nevertheless I am determined to actually get them done! The jobs checklist is going well and have got lots of jobs done this week, and have been trying to get lots of housework done while the monkey is awake. I normally wait and just do them while he is asleep but I need to use as much time for granny squares as possible, so we had great fun changing the bed together one day (or at least lots of peekaboo and hiding under the sheets while I change them). So the last few days I have managed to make 5 granny squares a day. I don’t expect to be able to do 5 every day but every extra square that gets made per day speeds up the process a little!

Hubby and I also laid the 32 I have made so far out and looked at the colours of wool I have and it is all looking a bit ra! so far, so I need to buy some pastel coloured wool soon to even it all out. Luckily, my mum works in a lovely craft shop – Art & Stitch – and they have just added some gorgeous wools to their stocks, so the next time monkey and I pop by for a visit I shall pick some up.

So stay tuned, I will keep you abreast of my progress, unless I get bored again and divert my attention elsewhere 🙂

N.B, this is how it looks so far!

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Easter Nests fun and crochet chicks

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Who can believe that it is Easter but it has been snowing?! Miserable and so so fed up of the cold but hey ho, what can you do? Have lots of fun indoors, that’s what! We’ve also taken the opportunity to do lots of the niggly little DIY jobs around the house that we haven’t got round to so far, but I won’t bore you with those! This post is about making some lovely Easter chocolate nests with a bit of help from the Monkey, and my attempts at making some cute crochet chicks.

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After making the lovely blue bunny I decided that it couldn’t be that hard to crochet a little chick for Easter. I looked at lots of patterns online but couldn’t find any that matched up to the image I had in my head so I decided to just go for it, using the bunny pattern as a starting point and then going from there. I couldn’t make up my mind whether to make the head and body separate and then sew them together, or whether to try and make it so that it went in, and then out again, kind of like a skittle pin. I tried this first and the body looked ok, very much like a skittle pin, or maybe a yellow penguin! It was ok but where I really went wrong was with the eyes!! I am not very good at this bit and the end result is here – now known in our house as Evil Chick! hehe

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You see the problem is the knots in the yarn, clearly the eyes need to be a lot smaller if they are to look cute but as I am sewing them on after stuffing them, I don’t know how to hide the knots at each end without them ending up huge, and, well, evil looking! hehe

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So I decided to try again and as I wasn’t 100% happy with the shape of Evil Chick I thought I would have a bash at making a separate head and body. I also decided this time that I would sew the eyes into the head before I stuffed it, so that the knots could be inside and therefore the eyes much smaller. This ended up looking much better! Much cuter and just a nicer shape all round I think too so yay me 🙂

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Loving the long weekend with hubby off and wanted to do a few cooking things, including making some chocolate Easter nests, because they are delicious and it’s really the only time of year you can make them! Monkey has dropped his morning nap this week (it’s been fun) and so is awake much more and I am having to find ways of entertaining him more, whilst also getting my jobs done, more on that in another blog, but it also means I have less time to do baking and chores when he sleeps.

I thought making the nests would be a nice thing for our little family to do together, and have this week bought a little sand and water table for him for crafty time and in readiness for the summer, so decided to involve monkey in the crushing of the shredded wheat. He was much more interested in eating it, but as it’s 100% wheat I don’t think there’s too much wrong with that! It was a bit chaotic and it went all over the floor but it was lots of fun too!

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Daddy then melted the chocolate over a pan of boiling water while Monkey and I played. He also did the serious business of mixing up the shredded wheat and chocolate.

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Monkey has never really eaten chocolate before now but we thought we can’t keep it from him forever, and as it’s Easter it’s a bit mean not to share. So we gave him a little bit of the much cooled but still soft chocolate and wheat mixture, and he loved it. He loved eating it, smushing it around his tray and generally waving it around and spreading it throughout the living room hehe. All good fun.

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Meanwhile Daddy finished making the nests and filling them with yummy mini eggs.

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Then we ran out of mini eggs and made some more with minstrels hehe. Slightly less elegant but still good.

 

Yum, yum, yummers 🙂 we have eaten far too many but I have also been handing them out to all the family we have seen to make sure that we don’t eat them all! haha Had a lovely quiche for dinner, another of my mum’s recipes, but this one is a slight adaptation from a Mary Berry recipe, and much easier to follow and tastes delicious. Monkey loves it too which is great so some has gone in the freezer for him later in the week 🙂

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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! 🙂