Lazy weekend

I don't have a lot to show for this weeks work. This is mostly because the jobs I have been doing have been typing up patterns and drawing up plans for upcoming projects rather than making lovely thing but also I've because had a very silly injury so I can't crochet.

On Thursday I had a lazy day of slow cooking in preparation for dinner at my friends new flat on Friday. I don't normally get a chance to cook something truly yummy for myself and a slow cook day when the house is full of wonderful smells is always a joy.
 A few weeks ago I'd seen them make pulled pork and bean hash on sunday brunch and now seem the perfect time to give it a go.

I didn't do the pork the way they said as I already have a recipe for slow cooked pork, so I used that. The pork is smothered with garlic, ginger and chili before going in for a slow cook. I have somehow in the move lost my pestle and mortar and my micro plane grater, so there was only one thing for it I had to chop everything by hand. This was quite enjoyable even if it did take some time. The smells alone were worth it but at the end of lots of chopping my arm way aching a bit. On with the beans and more chopping of more garlic, chili, ginger and onion, now my arms getting really tired.

Work on the food done I settled down to a lazy day crocheting. I started work on a granny square blanket

Cal helping :) This is a project just for me and so I'm happy for it to be a bit of a labour of love but my hand wasn't and I didn't get far with it.

Waking up for a day at the day job on Friday, my arm was very stiff and sore. It was going to stop me though as I had an evening out and yummy food to enjoy after work.

What a lovely night it was too. I managed to persuade Richard to open one of the cheap bottles of champers he got when he work at sainsburys, we listened to real music on vinyl records, enjoyed the food and had a good old natter :)


Unfortunately, I think all that heavy lifting of a wine glass was the straw that broke the camels back as far as my arm was concreted. By Saturday morning it was complety gone. I started some crochet work but it just hurt too much.

I have had to give myself the weekend off. This isn't really a hardship as I have no pressing deadlines but I do like to stay ahead when I have the chance.

I've read 2 books and have just started on my 3rd. I've had lots of kitty cuddles, cause obviously the warm kitty body's are soothing on my arm and I've finally got to spend some time in the garden in the sunshine :)

Its been lovely but I'm itching to get my hooks out and get cracking with the new crochet projects. Hopefully I'll have more to show you next week but for now I'm heading over to handmade monday for a catch up on what the other crafty bloggers have been up too :)

Craftseller owls

A while ago I posted this pic on my facebook age asking you to guess what I was making.

 Well no one guessed right but you ave me some great ideas of things to make next.

So I can reveal that I was making a family of rainbow owls for a commission for craftseller magazine.
Owls are everywhere in crochet at the moment so I really wanted mine to stand out by being very simple, easy to make but stunning and cute.

As usual with me its all about the eyes.

The rest was pretty easy as I was making a foot for a turtle and I realised it was perfect for the larger owls too. I bit of jiggery pokery with the pattern to make some ears and this is what we have.

 My finished owls before the were posted to craftseller HQ

But then didn't I get a wonderful shock when I finally saw the magazine :)

 Look that's my little owls on the cover. THE COVER!!!!!!!!! my fist ever cover I'm so excited. Don't they look lovely. I keep making excuses to go into newsagents just to see it on the stand :)

If you not to get your hands on this magazine and the owl pattern it'll be in the shops in the UK all month. If you are outside the UK its available as a digital download just check out the craftseller website :)

Now its time to head over to handmade monday to catch up with my fellow craft bloggers

Blog award

The lovely Jei of CuteyPatutyCrochet has given me a blog award. Thank you very much. This is my third blog award so I know the rules now first I must answer the questions set by Jei 

1. What is your latest achievement in life?
My latest achievement is my first magazine cover project. Craftseller magazine out in the shops on Monday has my collection of colourful owl amigurumis looking very jolly on the cover :)

2. Who is your hero?



There are loads of people I admire and respect and would go all silly and girly over if I ever met them but I don't have a hero.

3. Why are you blogging?
I blog to show off my amigurumi patterns and motivate myself to work harder and write more. I really enjoy blogging and the whole blogging community is very supportive and helpful.

4. Cats or Dogs?
I'd love to have a dog but its just not practical so for now its cats. I have 2, Cassi and Cal, mental Bengals they may be but utterly wonderful at the same time.

5. What is your dream vacation?
I haven't had a holiday for a few years so I'd be happy anywhere peaceful and relaxing. On the other hand I'd really like an adventure and Madagascar has always been the place I will get to one day. It seems such an amazing place and would love to see the lemurs in the wild.

6. How do you reward your self after you accomplish something?
By setting my goals even higher ;) I a workaholic and my to do list is always longer than is possible to complete. I do get great pleasure from crossing things off my list but I rarely stop to reward myself. 

7. What is your favourite stress reliever?
Wine :) Crisp, white, new zealand sauvinon blanc, chilled and served in a crystal glass. At the end of a long working day my glass of wine is the signal for my brain to shut up and for me to relax.

8. Boxer or brief?
I have a slight addiction to underwear with superheros and cartoons on but my favourite pair have the words "smarty pants" across the bum. As a big fan off puns this makes me smile.

9. What is your motto in life?

One I read a while back which I really liked was "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can" 

Thanks again for the award I'll have a think about who I'm gonna pass it on to and think of some questions myself now :)

Granny square purse

Its been another busy week here in amigurumi land.

My lovely hedgehogs have gone on their jollys to Simply Crochet magazine.

Dot the dragonfly is flying all the way to America to be in a book :)

I've had my tiny crochet hook out again for a project for Inside crochet magazine and on Friday a very exciting commission from Craftseller magazine.

I can't say much about the project but its gonna be colourful and cute.  I'm using the rico cotton I used for the project that will be in next months craftseller. I didn't have quite enough colours so I had to go on a bit of a yarn shopping spree, which was such a shame ;)
 I love this rico yarn it comes in such a fantastic range of colours and has a lovely finish. Its prefect for amigurumis. I'm trying to get the full range of colours so can will be my go to choice when I get to writing my first book. (maybe if I ask nice enough Rico will send me a few balls as I'm struggling to get all the colours even online in the UK)

In other news I have finished the little granny square purse I was taking about in my last post 

First your gonna need a good granny square pattern and for that I will direct you to this brilliant tutorial on Little tin birds blog.

You will need to make 4, 5 row granny squares in your choice of colour.

Then sew them together as below

Then fold on the blue lines. Sew up the edges but leave the top flap loose.

Then sew your flower on the flap.

When I get a few spare minuets I'm going to line this bag with some pretty fabric but for now here's how it looks :)

Well its handmade monday time again I'm looking forward to seeing what my fellow craft bloggers have been up to this week :)

Mollie makes vintage button flower motif

I have a weakness for craft and lifestyle magazine. Mollie makes is one that tempts me every month. This months issue has a give away of some very pretty vintage style buttons as a cover giveaway.

 Now anyone who knows me knows I have a bit of a thing for buttons. I do work at the biggest button shop in the UK and have a collection myself that is nearly as large as my yarn collection. I didn't want these pretty freebies to be forgotten about and lost forever to my many boxes of buttons but I couldn't think what to do with them.

I'd been working on flower motif for another projects and ended but with lots of pattern ideas that were rejected. I though it might be nice to rekindle and improve one of these abandoned flower projects and use the Mollie makes buttons in the centre.

Well this is what I came up with :)

After the photos is the a free pattern for the flowers so you can make your own too.

Mollie makes vintage button flower motif.

This pattern is written with UK abbreviations as Molly makes is a UK magazine. When I get chance I’ll write it up with the American abbreviations as well 

You will need

Dk weight yarn in your choice of colour

4mm crochet hook

Vintage look button

Wool needle

Abbreviations

ch: chain

sl st: slip stitch

dc: double crochet

tr: Treble crochet

dtr: double treble crochet

sts: stitches

This pattern is worked in a spiral. Use a stitch marker to mark the beginning of the rnd.

Start with 5 dc in to magic ring

Rnd 1 - 2dc into each st to the end.

Rnd 2 – (ch3, skip the next dc, dc in the next st) repeat to end.

Rnd 3 – (dc, 8tc, dc) in each ch space the end

Rnd 4 – working behind the petals created on the last row- dc in the next unworked dc from rnd 2, (ch5, dc in the next unworked dc from rnd 2) repeat to end, sl st to join

Rnd 5 – (dc, 4tr, 2dtr, ch2, 2drt, 4tr, dc) in each 5ch space to the end.

Fasten off leaving a long tail of yarn.

Use this tail of yarn and a wool needle to sew your vintage button into the centre of the flower.

You can add a brooch back to make this into a corsage but I’m going to make a little granny square bag and use one of these as the clasp. I share the pattern when it’s made J

Happy crocheting!

Cartoon time

Following on from yesterdays post which you can find here

I thought I'd share some more of my pictures.

These are drawn free hand in pencil the gone over with a fine liner, I then use the Specturm noir pen to colour them in.

 First up is the first portrait cartoon sketch attempt. This is my friend Boo. Its a silly thing to say and I know that she won't mind  but I'm really pleased with the colour work on her boobs. There was a bit of bleeding of colour round the face, I could do with a better quality of paper to overcome this problem but that will have to wait till I get a bit better.

 This is a cartoon I did of Richard after meeting him the other night. I don't know why hes got one leg longer than the other but I had had a couple of glasses of wine so I'm blaming it on that. This might also explain why I forgot he wears glasses, oh well. I'm happy with the hair and beard colour work and this if one of my favourite line drawings to date. The expression in the face has worked really well.

 This is a self portrait. It really hasn't worked but I like the line drawing so much I had to share it. I don't have the full range of pens yet so its quite hard to get the shading right on all colours. I have tried a few times to mend this picture but in the end made it worse.

 Another self portrait. I'm not keen on this on. The colour is fine but I don't like that the drawing is front on. It doesn't look natural. Think it'll be a while before I do one of me I'll be happy to have as my facebook profile pic :)

Up last is an omnipom. This took ages to do and its not finished but I wanted to get this post written in time for handmade monday. I'll go try and finish it now :)

Indulgence

The title of this post couldn't better describe the week I've had and I'm sorry but this is a very wordy post but indulge me ;)

I have come to the end of a long stint of overtime at the day job, which was tough but means I have quite a bit of free time now so all my crochet deadlines are achievable with ease and so much in fact I actually gave myself a day off.

Last night I actually had a night out. When your short on funds nights out are the first thing to go to the back burner. I have had only a few nights out in the past few years and they have mainly been works dos but last night I met up with someone I haven't had the opportunity to see for 3 years.

You forget when your an at home craftier, that there is a world out there. If there aren't other people around you tend to live in your own head space and one projects leads to another and you've been very productive but you haven't spoken to another human all day. If you do this too often like I have a tendency to you can become a bit of a hermit.

So with some true free time on my hands it was lovely to finally get a moment to catch up with an old friend. With my whole world bending on its axis twice since I last met him last we had an awful lot to catch up on.  It was a strange but lovely night. To be meeting a guy alone who wasn't Andy kinda felt like I was doing something wrong and that's a feeling that will take long time to get used to. Still it was lovely to have fantastic conversation and great laughs with an good old friend again. Drinks after work led on to me nearly missing the last bus home so that goes to prove how much I can rabble on as I think we only had about 4 drinks.

Also on the plus side while waiting in the bar for Richard to arrive I managed to write 2 and a half new patterns that I'll be making up tomorrow and I warn you the are gonna be cute.

In another sheer indulgence I will share with you something I am very proud of, Bubblebun one of my favourite patterns was features in the brand new look Craftseller magazine

b

How fab does she look :)
 I was in the madness of writing the many patterns for the book when Craftseller told me they wanted bubblebun. With little to no time and I had to re-make Bubblebun as the original had been sold via my esty shop. I love craftseller mag so much I managed to pull out all the stops and get her to her photo shoot on time and I'm so glad I did as she looks wonderful. Get your hands on this months issue to get an exclusive discount on patterns in my etsy shop also.

In other indulgence, today I had a true duvet day. Like every other day, I was woken a 6am by the cats misbehaving. Instead of giving in, getting up and getting to work, I got up fed them and when back to bed. I slept till 11am, made a cup of tea took it back to bed and read a book and napped till 1pm.

At this point my other indulgence this week was calling so much I couldn't ignore the need to craft anymore. For a long time now my drawings for my amigurumis have been a shameful secret in my ideas book but I wanted to try my hand at real illustrations. With a few penny's of spare funds I got some lovely Spectrum noir pens and had a go.

This is the result - bubblebun in 2d. Its my first attempt so be nice :)

Tommorow I'm having a big crochet day as I can't wait to try out my new pattern ideas. I am still wondering what colour the fluffly baby owl should be though. Please comment if you have any ideas :)