Better late than never

As the new issue of Craftseller magazine hits the shops today, I realized I'm behind in my blog posts and haven't written about my projects in the previous issue, better late than never here it goes.

My first project in this issue was a sun hat for a small child. I didn't send a sketch in for this one. My editors had asked for a big floppy hat with a big flower and I figured everyone would know what that was going to look like without my silly sketching skills.

 We went with a classic cream hat and a big trendy coral flower and doesn't it look smashing
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 My biggest problem with this design was getting the size right, I didn't have a small child to hand who's head I could measure to hand. I sent a shout out on facebook and my lovely friends with children thankfully they answered my call. I them blew up a balloon to the average circumference size and used that as a basis to work from. Its all about finding creative solutions to silly problems, that's the life of a designer.

I think the great thing about this pattern is as you are making it you'll soon get the hang of how the increases work so you'll be able to add in a few more increase rows if you want to make it bigger.

I love how this pretty hat turned out, its not as quick to make as some of my smaller amigurumi projects but its a really nice, simple and relaxing make. Being an easy make I was able to leave my crochet cave and do a bit of crocheting on the bus on the way to my friends house and finished the main part of it while watching Wayne's world and trying to catch up with my friend (crochet and conversation isn't always compatible).

The next projects was a amigurumi picnic. I got a big long list of food to crochet, a cake, sandwich, macaroons, and a load of fruit.

This was the approved sketch and I think the finished foody items turned out really close to this sketch.

 There was a lot to get my head round in this design as there are a lot of different shapes to play . The biggest challenge was working out how to make a triangular shape while working in the round. This wasn't something I had ever attempted before so I had to start from scratch and work out the maths. In the end it turned out to be quite simple and I'm happy with how the pattern came out.

The other challenge with this pattern was just getting my head round the concept that I'm crocheting food. I know I can be a bit childish but I couldn't stop myself from sharing with the world on twitter that I was crocheting cheese :)

I do love this sandwich but gosh I was hungry all the time I was making it, I was even dreaming about food while making this set.

This was my reward for finishing this project a scrummy bacon sandwich with brown sauce and a lovely cup of Yorkshire tea, yum x

This project was so huge that they couldn't fit it all in the magazine so the macaroons when onto the Craftseller website as a free patterns available here

If you missed out on the magazine back copy's are available from Craftseller.com but this macaroon pattern will be available for free indefinably on the above link.

Right that's me relative caught up. I'll have my post about the newest Craftseller coming soon but if you take a look at the top photo you might get a sneaky peek at my alley cats xxx

Catching up

Again its been ages since my last blog post. My editors are keeping me very busy and finding time to write is tricky, heck finding time for a cup of tea is tricky at the mo, but it'll all be wroth it as there as some lovely patterns coming out over the next few months.

Before this issue of inside crochet leave the shops its time to tell you the story of my ice cream patterns that are in this issue.

 A long, long time ago I was asked by Craftseller magazine to design these ice cream patterns for the magazines relaunch. I really wanted to get a proper Mr Whipy look to these ice creams so I started with my then recently discovered spiral pattern.

 Vanilla has beads embroidered to look like sprinkles and a chocolate flake and a cherry on top.

 Raspberry ripple my favorite flavor - yum :)

finally chocolate with chocolate sauce. Many thanks to Inside crochet magazine for letting me use these photos.

For whatever reason these patterns were never published in Craftseller magazine and so after a year I got them back and offered them to inside crochet. I loved these patterns so much I didn't want then to be  forgotten about. I was really please when Inside crochet snapped them up and they look stunning on the pages of this months magazine.

In other news this month we've had the tour de France in Yorkshire and the second stage started in my lovely York. I unfortunately had to work but I was following along with the footage on telly and I got out before hand to see York all dolled up for the race.

Cliffords tower was looking lovely with all the yellow bunting around it.

 View from the shop I work in on the day before the race. The crowds starting to fill York in preparation for the race.

 A very rare view of the shambles when it isn't teaming with tourists.

The excitement of the race was all around York and I talked to people from all around the world happy to be in York to see the boys on bikes go by. I was very proud to be from Yorkshire and I think we did a great job.

On a completely different matter I can finally share a card I made for a friend who has just bought his first home.

I wanted an old fashioned American sampler but with a clever geeky twist.

This is what I came up with (shamelessly stolen for futurama). I used graph paper to work out a chart and then stitch on 14 count aida. The frame is strips of card, colour using spectrum noir pens to look like wood.
It was nice to do a bit of cross stitch for a change :)

Thats all for now but hopefully I'll get another post up this weekend as I have to tell you all about this months Craftseller and my amigurumi picnic xxx 

I'm linking in with handmade monday blog hop