Galentine Day

February 13th   

supersize crochet

Happy Galentine's Day  Some of you will know to that which I am referring but if like me this is the first you've heard of it, let me explain.

The past few years the day before Valentine's day has become an increasingly popular day to celebrate girl's friendships.  I am ALL for that. For more information see here

Today unwittingly I made myself a deep red handbag, thinking I was gifting a little Valentine present to myself, him in doors and I don't really 'do' the commercial forced lovely dovey thing, I've now come to realise that I have actually on Galantine's day made myself a 'girl' bag.  I'm so in tune with the world, I didn't even know it!

The yarn which is of the t-shirt variety has a lot of 'give' or elastic you may call it and must not be crocheted too tightly, loose hooking is called for.  I was actually making something else this morning with it, but realised that it was becoming a spectacular fail.  Enjoying hooking with this Boodles yarn, I thought to try it out as a bag.  With no pattern and just my imagination an hour later and a rummage through my crafting cupboard to find the acrylic see through handles that I bought years ago but have never had the need for, I had my very own bag and I must say I'm a little bit in love with it.

I used hdc as it's quick to give height and fast to hook up

acrylic handles

Within 15 minutes of completion, it was put in use

Supersize crochet bag

Happy Galentine and Valentine Day wherever you are

PS  Anyone know what has happened to Boodles yarn?  Bought mine a few years ago and today when googling them the site was not available?

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

Humble half term antics

February 19th   

This year for the first time ever my husband lept out of bed last Sunday mumbling he had to dash downstairs as he'd left my Valentines present in the study. A slow silly grin began to appear on my face as I thought to myself wow, we've never exchanged presents before... 

I should have known and he swears he did not say present but that he had mumbled card and within a few minutes tea and coffee in hand he produced (for him) a beautifully newspaper wrapped gift...

Still grinning from ear to ear I began to open. He had gone to so much trouble. What have I done to deserve such a man. What was my gift-cum-card...

... an engraved parsnip!

An engraved heart With blue food coluring

A 'V' for Valentine

See I am loved and we both had a good giggle whilst drinking our morning cuppas in bed. Hope you all had an enjoyable day last Sunday too. Oh how he still makes me laugh all these years on. 

What else has half term produced this year, well as always a much nicer me. I become less frantic and calmer not being ruled by the clock and the beginning of the week was taken up with dentist and eye appointments but with those out of the way the week has gone from strength to strength. 

My latest glass fusing antics this week have led me to decide I am going to produce an entire cake plate range throughout the year. My first cake plate I present to you now. 

Plate before firing

...and after firing

The inspiration to cake plate making was my
glass cake dome, it needed some 'wow', I think I may have found it

The week saw us also jump on a plane to visit mamma in Norway and despite the extremely mild winter the south of Norway have experienced this year, the weather gods were on our side and it snowed for us. We donned the skis and managed some sledging too all in the dark. Adds a frisence of excitement. 

Apologies for bad quality photos the
camera phone did not like the conditions!

Fun in the snow

And what would our visit be without eating traditional food, it has to be waffles as far as the children are concerned. Being with bestemor means they are spoilt and why not?

Home made waffles as soon as they were
off the waffle iron they were eaten,
I couldn't manage to photograph a whole stack!

Home made Bestemor strawberry jam
on some and chocolate spread on others!

And what would half term be for me without a little crafting... I finally began and finished the Shaun the sheep hat after a false start. Having begun the hat I frogged it not liking the yarn I had chosen and opted to buy the correct colour rather than using from my stash. I'm pretty pleased with the result although I feared it was too small half way through and thought it might need to be frogged again. But I continued my heart not really in it as I thought I was wasting my time. However I have been rewarded with a perfect fit. Just hope my husband likes it when he recieves it tomorrow.

I know it's half term when I'm knitting in bed in the morning

Beginning to grow but looks a tad on the small size!

Shaun the sheep beginning to shape up nicely

Apart from fastening off, it's done!

Ta-dah!

Joining in with  Amy  for the first anniversary of the beginning of 5 on Friday, do pop along and see what others are sharing and remember Amy has a giveaway this week too!


I must apologise for not having responded to all comments from last week yet, I will reply to each and everyone as I always do, but am a tad behind this week, sorry again!
Please do not let that stop you chatting with me, I love it more than you know x

Wishing you all a fun filled week ahead

xxxx

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   ♥