One ball of yarn

A wile ago I mentioned I had another book out with contained some of my work.

The book is called one ball of wool and if you click on this link you can find it on amazon. It will also be in any good bookshop.

 The idea is that all the projects in the book can be made from just one ball of wool. Its a combination of knitting and crochet projects. Its a pretty cool book, both the look of the photos and the designs very on trend.

 The first project I was asked to design was a clutch bag.I had just had an order of yarn come in and I'd treated myself to a couple of colours in the drops cotton viscose range. The blue was just perfect for this project as it has a real metallic shine to it that give the clutch bag an evening look.
 Its lined with hot pink silk as a lovely contrast and finished with a large crystal button.

It has a fine strap that you can't see in these pic aswell so you can pop it over your shoulder if you need your hands free.

I please to say that the editors were very happy with this project and asked if I would be happy to come up with some more designs.

 The next project was a dog bone chew toy.
I had made a toy bone for my Rusty dog pattern for Love crochet magazine

Link to pattern

 This bone wanted to be bigger and stronger as its for real dogs to chew. In the end I adapted the rusty bine pattern and made it with a thick cotton yarn. Its probably not indestructible but it'll last a long time and be a great fun toy for your pooch.

 

Another doggie project. I was asked to design a bow tie for a dog. I figured if your gonna put a bow tie on your dog it might as well be bright red and sparkly :)

This is made so its adjustable so it'll fit most dogs. I love the picture they have used the dog is rocking the sparkly bowtie, bless him.

I was also asked to do some projects for humans.

A child's beanie hat.

A hat/cowl. This is a slouchy beanie hat that is also a neck cowl.

I have to say I love this pattern. I wear a cowl similar to this nearly everyday that I made for myself ages ago. I decided to use the idea of my cowl and its rib effect to create this design. A simple drawstring inside changes it from hat to neck cowl. I think its great and I'm gonna be making myself some more.

Last up for today is this coin purse.

This is really simple but you do need to buy one of the frames. Its called a coin purse frame and you can get them from any craft shop or off amazon.
These are seriously easy to make with the pattern. There is a little bit to do in the making up and lining process but if you wanted a pattern for a great gift, this is it.

There are many other patterns in this book and they are all lovely. I always feel honored  to see my work printed. I am very proud of the work I produce and seeing the finished books are just lovely.

Till next time
happy crocheting
love Liz xxx

Pattern of the week 1

As I mentioned on a previous post I am going to be doing a pattern of the week section.

The pattern of the week will be knocked down to just £1 and will be available all week 18/01/16-24/01/16

This weeks pattern is.....

 

Link to pattern

This stripy elephant was originally designed well over a year ago for Love Crochet magazine. It was one of those designs that didn't go to plan but actually turned out better because of that.

 This was my second cover of Love crochet magazine and I designed the elephant on the cover and the panda and monkey in the top corner.

The reason I have chosen this as the first pattern of the week is that I will be remaking it myself this week so if you want to crochet along with me you can join me on my facebook page here

I'm remaking it because I need to take some more photos for my website and I don't know where the originals have gone. The plus of this is I can play around with colour and make a few elephants in different colour themes.

If anyone has any colour suggestions please comment and let me know.

happy crocheting
love Liz   xxx

Underwater dummy buddies LGC

Earlier this month I announced the very exciting news that I am now working with Lets get Crafting magazine and shared the first project I have created for them this rather cute frog. You can read about it in this blog post if you would like.

The patterns have now been released on Ravelry for the next issue, issue 77 so I can share my project.

I was asked to create a set of three dummy buddies. little toys that can hang off dummy's or can be hooked onto a pram for a child to play with.

The inspiration image I was sent was of a little blue bunny, so my first suggestion was to go down the traditional baby toy route of bear, bunny and duckie. I wanted to give my editor another option though and after a bit of thought I suggested a underwater theme with a octopus, fish and baby mermaid.

      Well I'm sure you can tell by the photos of this pattern set what my editor went for. I think it was the baby mermaid that swung it, she got a bit excited about that.

Lets get crafting magazine comes with the yarn and hooks you need so I had the colours I would be using provided for me.

I love this photo of them all hanging together. They came out just how I wanted and I'm not sure which is my favorite now.



I was going to attach them to dummies but in the end put them on swivel clips so the can be attached and detached. In hindsight this seems like a better idea but it was actually because I failed at buying dummies.
 I don't have any kiddies and I'm not a fan of shopping so I bought what I thought was a pack of four dummies of amazon. When the arrived there was only two.
 Next I tried nipping to the pound shop but they only had pink and I didn't want them all to be on pink dummies.
 Finally with only a day left before these guys had to be in the post. I got some from the supermarket while shopping with my mum. They were a perfect set of 4 bright colours to match the toys. I only went and left them in my mums car, didn't I. Fool that I am.

 So with no time left I bought swivel clips from the haberdashery I work at and sent them off like that.

Alls well that ends well though :)



I hope you all enjoy this new pattern design and don't forget to share your projects on ravelry or my facebook page








Thats all for today.
 Don't forget to vote on this months free pattern by checking out this blog post here


happy crocheting
love Liz xxx

Etsy pattern shop update

Its that time of year and I'm updating my pattern shop.

My pattern shop is where you can find all my new and original amigurumi and crochet patterns. It is also where you can get hold of any patterns I have done for magazines after they have come back from being owned by the magazines copyright.

The link to my etsy shop is here. 
If you click the above sentence it will open up my etsy shop in a new window on your computer.

The first thing I'm going to be doing is updating any patterns that are getting a bit tired and discontinuing any that have been around for a long time and not selling.

If I discontinue a pattern that you have had your eye on and you can no longer find it in my etsy shop. Email me at lizwardcrochet@mail.com or message me via my facebook page or etsy shop and I'll be able to provide the pattern for you.

There are going to be lots of new patterns coming this year. I have a lot of designs coming back from publishers and I've been working on some really cute designs just for my etsy shop.

There are going to be some price changes mainly because if writing crochet pattern doesn't start making me a living I'm going to have to give it up and get a proper job.


A single pattern like teddy heart above will be £3

A group pattern like my mermaid and friends will be £5

A large group of patterns will be like the fat friends set will be £10

I will also introducing a basic range of little patterns like this cute mini owl that will all be £2.50 each.

There are a couple of other things I'll be introducing.

First if anyone buys two or more patterns they will be sent a free pattern by email. I will choose the pattern for you but you can leave me a message in your order if there is one you would particularly like me to send you.

I will also be having a pattern of the week which will be available for a discount price throughout the week. This will be announced here and on my facebook page every Monday starting Jan 18th. Make sure you following my blog or my facebook page so you don't miss out on your favorite pattern.

As a thank-you, for you all supporting me and my etsy shop this year I am aiming to post a free pattern every month. The first new pattern will be here on the blog by the end of the month and you get to choose what it will be.

The choices are

The perfect easy star
Afternoon teacosy
Easter eggs and basket
Fat friends polar bear

Leave a comment here or on my facebook page  and the winning design will be posted as a free pattern very soon


Thats it for now.
Happy crocheting
Love Liz xxx

 

Love frog

I hope you all had a love Christmas and a very happy new year.

Here in York its been very dramatic as boxing day saw some of the worst flooding the city has seen since the new flood defenses were put in.

Both The Foss and the Ouse that run through the center of York broke their banks and the flood barrier had to be raised to prevent electrical fault. Hundreds of homes and business in and around York have been flooded and many other homes we cut off by the water and people were stuck in their homes. Most people lost power, phone and internet connections.

I was lucky I don't live near the rivers and my home was fine. I had a few days without phone and internet but that wasn't any real hardship. We've been doing all we can to help the people who were affected by the flood. There is a donations page and I'll be donating the profit from any of my pattern sales in my etsy shop so if you want to go and have a look you can find it here.

One of the worst things is that it has people are still staying away from York because they think the floods are still affecting the city. All the little independent shops in the town center are open and they are suffering because the press is encouraging people to stay away. We need tourist and visitors in York city center. All of the shops are open, all of the car parks and roads in are open. We are lovely people come and visit and say hello.

In other more crochet related news I have started working for a new magazine. Lets get crafting. This is a fab magazine that has knitting and crochet. I've come on board as the new amigurumi designer. The mag comes with 6 balls of yarn, a crochet hook and knitting needle so you can start making something straight away.

You can spot my first design on the left hand side of the cover.

 Esmeralda frog :) It makes me really happy when I get asked to make something I've been waiting to make for ages and thats just what happened with this frog. I've talked before about having far too many ideas than I have time to make things. I've had in mind a amphibians and reptiles pattern set for a while and had a working idea of how I was going to make the frog. When LGC asked for a valentines frog I got my ideas book out and used my planned frog to make up the basics of Esmeralda.

I couldn't just make a frog though it had to have a pink bow on it head and a huge pink heart. I don't think it'd be one of my designs if it didn't have a bow or bow tie. I'm all about the cute :)

If you are on Ravelry you can find the project page for Esmeralda frog here so if you make one you can add your photo. I know quite a lot of people have already made her and I've loved seeing all the pics. You can share them on my facebook page here aswell if you like.

Well that all for today but there is lots coming up in 2016, I've already got some fantastic commissions that I'm working on for some great magazines. I'll be doing some fun video tutorials for amigurumi. There will also be some kits coming into my etsy shop so you can buy the pattern and everything you need to make it for yourself or as a gift, so no more shopping around for the right size toy eyes.

Its going to be an exciting year. Happy crocheting love from Liz xxx

Christmas baubles

A while ago I ordered a box of polystyrene balls of the internet. I had intended to make decorative pretty crochet baubles that I could sell at a craft fair.

However like most of the plans it didn't pan out and I didn't get enough time to make things for sale. I've been trying to think what else I could do with the balls and as I was playing around with the idea of adding some festive characters to my fat friends collection of patterns I decided to combine the ideas.

I wanted to work around the polystyrene ball so the they would be perfect bauble shape and lighter than if I'd use toy stuffing.

I don't have my Christmas tree yet this year but a little bit of raffia has done quite a nice job of the background in these pics.

I started with a robin. not something I've tackled before this was defiantly a pattern I wanted to try.

 So the hat and the body are what covers the ball and you place the ball inside before you start to decrease so that it becomes fully covered

From this basic shape the details are added to create a rather quite fat robin. You can find this pattern here link

I liked how with this one I was able to work the whole body so for the next I stuck with the idea of festive birds and made a penguin.

 I used the full round of the ball for the shape of this one and add a lovely red scarf to make him look lovely and festive.

The pattern for this one can be found here link

The next one I planned to make was a reindeer but I'd used up what I had of the brown cotton yarn on the robin and untill the postman brought me new supplies I would have to have another idea.

I thought of making the balls into heads and my first attempt was a little elf.

 This one evolved in the design as I was making it. I knew I wanted the stripy hat but I added the ears and pointed hat band as I was working him up as he was lacking a bit of character.

 Pattern for this jolly chap can be found here link

Next up I when for a snowman

 I have made lots of snowmen in the past but I have never been very happy with the faces. On this larger bauble I've been able to create the face I really wanted to. The hat isn't stuffed to it gives it a misshapen look that I really like aswell.

The pattern for this one is here pattern link

I could hardly make all these without making Father Christmas.

 I've tried a different design idea for the beard here and I think it looks more realistic than ones I've used in the past. This pattern also uses loop stitch for the hair. With all of these patterns I've tried to think how they will hang on a Christmas tree so the are completely decorated back and front.

 You can find the Santa pattern here link

So thats the final five for this year. Next year I'll use up the rest of the balls and add another five patterns to this set. I know I want a reindeer and a polar bear but I'm not sure what else yet. I think we'll just get this Christmas enjoyed first.

Now I need to get a tree and get these and last years free advents calendar patterns decs, decorating it.

Blog catch up

Its been a while since my last post and this post is more of a quick photo catch up than a proper blog post.

Me and Steffi when to Yarndale.

I made friends with an alpaca and bought some lovely yarn from this stall.

Steffie bought all the yarn.

I met my lovely editor Claire from inside crochet magazine on their stand and was shocked to see my poncho there on the stand aswell.

 This poncho has been  featured on the cover of the latest issue

 In the previous issue of Inside crochet were my Halloween earrings and bunting necklace.

My nativity has been in the last couple of Lets Knit magazines.

 I made the snowmen for Happy crafting magazine. They are adoring the cover but I can't find a better pic at the mo.

These Mug hugs are in the new Crochet gifts magazine out now.

Ne new polar bear pattern is on the cover of Love crochet magazine.

Finally I have a new book out. I wrote 6 patterns for this collection. The dog bow and bone, kids beanie, coin purse, even clutch bag and hat/cowl.

Thats a little catch up but I'll be back with a proper post soon :)