March already

Well the last month has sped by and its March already and its starting to feel a little bit like spring.

I've been having a spring clean and taking stock of my yarn stash. As you might guess I have a lot of yarn. Making amigurumi you need a lot of colours but you don't use a lot of each so the stash keeps on building and its easy to miss when you've run out of a colour I use all the time. I also have to check if any of the colours have been discontinued by the manufacturers. This is really important as I don't think anyone would be happy if I wrote a pattern and use a yarn colour that they could get anymore.

After the stock-take comes the stock up

I was really impressed by wool warehouse I have never used them before but they were great. easy to use website, free delivery and it arrived the next day. This about a third of what I had to buy to top up my stock and is mainly the rico cotton aran. Its a new range for me and I have a lot of projects planed for it :)

I have been busy working on more magazine patterns. I had two in the latest issue of craftseller

 The first project was a piggy cup warmer. This was pretty simple apart from they needed it on a really short deadline. I had an afternoon to make it in order to get it in the post the nest day. Kinda like a speed crochet design challenge. I was pretty calm though until I realized I didn't have a take away coffee cup to measure. I don't drink coffee so I had no idea of the size. This is where the internet comes in very handy and Facebook friends came to the rescue. I love the finished photos from the magazine it looks very cosy.

Thankfully they gave me a bit more time for the next project. This daffodil brooch had its own set of challenges as I wanted it to be made in one piece and I wanted the pattern to be as simple as possible and quick to make. Most importantly I wanted it to be pretty. I think it worked quite well and it has inspired me to make more flower patterns.

I'm hoping spring will be a busy one here on the blog I have a lot of things in the pipeline and I'll try and keep things updated a bit more often.

I'm going to join in on handmade Monday again too :)