Spreading End of Year Love

A wonderful community
December 29th

Jane from Sydney in Australia is more famously known as Quen Bab's, have you heard of her?  Jane was named Australian for the day back in June 2015 and strives despite her several illness' to brighten her community and spread a little happiness around her hometown which has now rippled out across the world.

What does Jane do?  She yarn bombs on scales from leaving small crocheted hearts to yarnbombing entire cycle racks and so much more,  just look at the riot of colour...

Photo was taken from Queen Bab's website,
a typical example of her riot of colour that she
spreads around her local community

Website:  Queen Bab's

Instagram:  IG account

Facebook:  Facebook


Queen Bab's has given much to the community as I have already mentioned and on her website, she provides many free patterns and tips on how to yarn bomb and what to consider before you begin.  She shares all her experience of what does and does not work. If you are considering doing something like this yourself her website is invaluable, even if this is not your thing, go have a peek!  Jane is mostly wheelchair bound and desperately needs a new wheelchair, so she has designed a new pattern called the  Love Bomb Christmas Ornament and she hopes the crochet community around the world will get behind her and buy the pattern as all proceeds will go directly to funding a new and much-needed wheelchair. 

These Love bombs just make my heart sing,
the photo was taken from Queen Bab's Ravelry page

And the crochet community has not disappointed, so far the hashtag #lovebombornament has 320 photos and the hashtag #lovebombcircle has 147 photos, that's a lot of love being shared all over the world people are making Jane's love bomb and even yarn bombing them, just look at this... know where I would like to be...

As of the 5th December, (the pattern was only released on November 30th) a third of the money needed to fund a new wheelchair had been reached!  By December 9th, they were halfway there! And by December 11th they had reached the three quarter way mark!  By the 22nd it was looking like Jane would be able to go shopping in the new year for a working wheelchair, the amount raised will determine which model!  How fantastic is that! 

I have bought the pattern but unlike so many people who seem to have found time not only to make one but several, as soon as I have published this post, whilst my son is having a teenage party in our house !!!!! I am a nervous wreck, I will attempt to soothe my nerves by making the simple yet beautiful love bomb...

Screenshot from Queen Bab's Instagram account from many others
who have made her pattern and shared their joy with her

♥   May you all have a wonderful new year and I wish for you all that you wish for yourself and loved ones   ♥

Christmas decoratoins the Scandinavian way

Tree decorations made from troll deig 
(Salt dough) 

December 4th

Troll deig/salt dough Christmas decorations

My first Christmas with John I introduced him to the Scandinavian way of celebrating and we decided that our tree should only have handmade decorations.  In Norway when you ask what their favourite Christmas decoration is, the most treasured one,  it tends to invariably be the handmade ones either passed down the generations or ones the newest members of the family have made.  I have a now very fragile angel that my mother made when she was a little girl.  It's precious.

But onto my first Christmas with John.  My mother provided us with the troll deig recipe and we began to make our Christmas decorations together, all hearts in different sizes and eventually painted red.  The little tree we had that year was the smallest I've ever had but it was the prettiest adorned with my future husband to be and my handmade decorations.

What is troll deig?  It is the humble salt dough, if you have never made any or used it before, I urge you to have a go, it's very versatile and made correctly can last for many many years.  I am not totally sure but think I remember saying to the family last year that our troll deig decorations were beginning to show their age.  Therefore I made some more this year, only time will tell when I venture into the loft and bring out the Christmas paraphernalia whether I needed to make more or not.  This year's decorations are the third set we will have made in 26 years.  Not bad going for a bit of salt and flour!  As adults, we have fun making them, and teenagers pretend it's a chore, but secretly enjoy this make and it is a brilliant thing to entertain the small ones in the family.  Give it a go, be as creative or as silly as you like with it.

Troll Deig

You will need:
1 part salt: 2 parts flour: 1 part water

1 tablespoon of cooking oil

Instructions:

♥  Mix the flour and salt well in a bowl.  This is essential to ensure the salt will dissolve and allow for a smooth dough.

Cut out using any seasonal shapes,
don't forget to add a hole if
you are going to hang them

♥  Next, in a separate container mix the oil and the water together, then pour over the dry ingredients.

♥  Knead well for 10-15 minutes.   This too is important to ensure a smooth dough.  The dough should now be quite firm, a good test to see if it is ready is to roll it into a ball if it retains it shapes after 3 minutes the dough is ready. 

♥  You can at this point add food colouring to dye your dough, I do not do this and prefer to paint them with acrylic paint once they are cooled. 

♥  For best results place the troll deig (dough) in a plastic bag and put it in the fridge for at least one hour before rolling out. 

♥  When ready create your Christmas tree decorations or any other shape either 2D or 3D.  Remember for hanging decorations to make a hole, I use a straw, to allow for the thread for hanging or even a matchstick if the ornament is small.

Pace the troll deig shapes on
a baking tray with greaseproof paper

♥  Place the troll deig on baking sheets with greaseproof paper and put into a preheated oven at 100 degrees Celcius for about 4-5 hours or until fully hardened.  Allow to cool thoroughly before painting.  If you can I leave a few days before painting, but this is not essential.  Especially if working with small children they are generally too impatient to wait that long!

♥  I paint my troll deig with either ready mixed poster paint or acrylic.  Make sure to cover the whole decoration and the sides too!

♥  Once the paint has dried, add ribbon and decorate your tree.

Troll deig Christmas heart decorations

Make hole in your troll deig for hanging with
either a straw or a matchstick

Once dried in the oven and cooled troll deig
is ready for painting and decorating

Remember to paint the sides of the troll deig too

Troll deig paint drying, side one

Once the paint has dried turn the troll
deig over and paint the other side

Add ribbon to complete the look of troll deig hanging decorations

Add some ribbon to the troll deig decorations 
and hang on the tree!

A tree full of troll deig decorations

Christmas tree at night

♥  How are your Christmas preparations coming along?

A jar of hearts

February 3rd ♥

A jar of  love from my daughter

Where do you get your inspiration from?


For me, it can be anywhere but my latest idea came from my daughter and the gift she gave to me. My last birthday, I received the most thoughtful present ever from her, it made me cry and it has become a present that just keeps on giving.

A jar of gifts from daughter to mother

From cleaning the house for me to sitting watching
a weepy movie with popcorn, such thoughtful ideas

Each 'gift' to be opened when I either: needed to talk,
wanted to share my knowledge or for when I want
to go on strike, just a few of her ideas.

In our household, we are not BIG on Valentine's day but I feel my husband has been working so hard and could do with some extra love and attention, bring in my daughter's idea for a gift and you have a classic valentine present, look...

A jar of hearts

Messages and gifts to my husband

I used a variety of different heart patterns and thought you might be interested.  Rather than redesign the wheel, there are so many patterns out on the www there that I used those instead of creating my own. Here are the five that I used and enjoyed.


Small 3D heart: 3D heart ~ 3 sizes

3D crocheted heart

2D flat hearts tiny: 2D mini heart

Mini 2D crochet heart

2D medium size heart: 2D heart

Medium sized 2D crochet heart

My favourite heart: Heart with magic circle

A crochet heart full of texture

Danish heart: Danish heart

Classic Scandinavian crochet hanging heart

My jar of hearts for my love ♥

♥ sharing 5 quick heart patterns for you this Valentines

 Joining in for the first time this year with the lovely Amy

do pop over and see what others are sharing.

And finally, I leave you with this beautiful quote from an inspirational woman...

Love recognises no barriers, it jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.

Maya Angelou

Scandinavian Hanging Christmas Hearts Garland

December 18th

I am definitely a starter and not a finisher.  If left to my own devices and not spurred on by this blog it's true to say my house could have become overloaded with WIPs, (works in progress) there's enough of them now if I'm honest.

In the summer when I return home to mamma I always chill and craft more than at any other time of the year.  It's my haven and my guilty pleasure, though not so very secret.

Each summer I choose to learn a new craft, until that was this year, when I knew I had to get a move on with Christmas makes.  Knowing that the first 10 days in December I would be away from home and so I needed to be organised.

Knitting Christmas makes in the middle of a Norwegian warm summer was odd but strangely satisfying.  When visiting the local library and asking for their Christmas craft books I had to wait a while as they dug them out of storage for me!  What fool would want Christmas books in July?  Me of course...

Initially fiddly to begin, but once you are past
about row 5 it becomes quick and enjoyable to knit

But back to being a starter and not a finisher. Neither the wine box cover [Wine box cover post ] nor these hearts were completely finished in Norway and so these past few days I have been frantically 'finishing up'.  And just in time too, phew.  It's never a good idea to leave something for a few months and come back to it as the flow has gone and it takes a while to get back into the swing.  But I must say I am delighted with the makes.

I will not share the pattern here now unless someone wants me to as I suspect it is too late for this Christmas, but ping me a message in the comments if you want it and I'll post it up in all it's glory for you in the New Year.  I'm actually thinking of making more in Spring like colours to hang on the door.

The hearts knit up quickly

A Norwegian summer and crafting always takes place

They even feel Christmassy here despite it being July

Finally having stuffed them and woven in the ends, joined them together and crocheted the hanging top loop, my vertical heart garland is ready for Christmas.  

What do you think?  Full of Scandinavian feel I think.

Vertical hanging heart garland

♥   Are you almost ready for Christmas yet?   ♥

Photo a day Crochet

April 15th

Today is the last day of the photo a day challenge set by the wonderful Ashley from Lazy Daisy Jones blog  in partnership with the new UK magazine called Crochet Now.  I have really enjoyed it and as always the IG community are generous with their comments, kind and some very funny too.   I shall share more on this with you another day.

My last five days of entries are below:


Day 11:  YARN STORAGE

I love this small corner in our house,
it's my place of colour

I have written a couple of posts about the paint I use on my furniture, in case you are interested you can find them Yarn storage and table and Outdoor painted furniture

Day 12: BORDER

I have crochet borders in many places but I adore
sleeping with this pillow case that I edged,
makes me feel decadent in bed

Day 13:  FINALLY FINISHED

This bunting was one of the first things I ever crocheted, it is
just over 5m long.  I love it and use it at any opportunity,
but was very glad when I had completed it.

Day 14:  BRIGHTS OR PASTELS

I'm a bright girl through and through with
only the odd pastel colours here and there

Day 15:  BAG

A while back there was a phase when all I seemed to make
were bags, this little one has proved to be very useful

Previous photo a day challenge round ups can be found here at  Week 1 and Week 2

Joining in with  Amy sharing my five crochet creations from

IG this week.  Pop over and see what others are sharing too.

 

 

♥  Have a wonderful weekend whatever you have planned  ♥

Heart review

January 29th


With Valentines Day only two weeks away my mind has been full of hearts so I decided to share with you some of what I have found 'out there' on the big wide web.  Where I can I have given each pattern a test and have showed you my results, not all are completed...

Crocheting in the round like armigurumi

This you tube video has over a million views with only (at last look) 210 dislikes, that's pretty good, so I decided to watch and crochet at the same time.  The lady in question crocheted a little faster than I did as I was using different yarn, splitty cotton so I cursed a bit here and there and had to put her on pause to sort myself out and have a good talking to the yarn to behave.  But all in all, this is a simple pattern to follow in real time and produces a quick puffy 3D heart in no time at all. I will use this pattern again.  Crochet 3D small heart As you can see this is still to be completed, I've not had the week I was expecting, but will update the post when it is finished! 

A fiddly beginning but soon began to look like a heart

I thought I should test out a 3D knitted heart too and came across this 12 minute you tube video.  As long as you can increase stiches on the front and back of a single stitch and SSK, you should have no trouble at all.  There is the Kitchener stitch at the head of the heart but she shows you how to do this very well that I think even if you have not attempted this before or have previously been put off, you will be fine here.  I did find her gentle voice a little annoying at first I must admit, but soon forgot about that as I become more involved in the knitting.  Give this a go, the end result is so sweet.  If time permits I hope to make lots of these and hang them on bare twig branches as a centre piece for the dining table on Valentines day.  3D knitted hearts

These hearts could rapidly become addicitive

I am imagining bare twigs full of these knitted
hearts as a centre piece on the table for Valentines day

 

Quickly the shape begins to form

For a 2D brilliant knitted pattern you couldn't do better than this easy to follow knitted heart.  It's so quick to knit up that you can make several in an evening.  This will definitely be a pattern I shall be returning to again and again.  Watching it grow so quickly was fun and the instructions are super clear and easy to follow.  2D super quick knitted heart pattern  You should pop over to Julie's blog to see what other lovely knitted goodies she has.  At the moment she has lots of knitted square patterns with animals on too, just adorable.  And I can vouch that she is very approachable and replies to communication very quickly, always a bonus, thanks Julie for this wonderful knitted heart pattern.  These hearts can be used for a variety of things and Julie recommends them as coasters,
what a neat idea.

Perfect for my glass of red at the end of the day...

A few have commented that this
could be the beginning of a mini bra,
but keep with it, the heart
will reveal itself soon enough

Ta-dah! Lovely heart in super quick time

And another one...

A pair of hearts...

And a third, they
just keep multiplying

And in no time at all there was a whole lot of love flying around

A great slouchy heart hat is also to be found on the web and I admit to falling just a little bit in love with this pattern too.  Using chunky yarn it makes up in no time at all.  Saying that I am not completed as I only began making it last night, two hours later and it is almost finished, but not quite in time for this post!  I will add in the finished hat as soon as it is!
This pattern is just a click away, designed by the clever Bethany, I shall be visiting her blog again to see what other treats she has to share.  Heart slouchy hat pattern

Crochet the band as a narrow strip and
then slip stitch together, very effective

Testing out for size

Such a clever crochet pattern

Almost done!

And finally the fifth heart I share with you is made by the sweet Monica and is perhaps one of my favourites.  I made these heart pillows and mini hearts a couple of years ago now and we still love them to this day.  Again another pretty quick make so there is still time before Valentine to make them...  Crochet heart pillows Monica has stopped blogging which is a huge shame but her blog is still up and patterns are still available. 

 

I'm joining in with  Amy  sharing my 5 heart patterns that I like with you today. 

Pop over and see what others are sharing too.

 

♥   Hope you week is filled full of hearts   ♥