Craftseller daffodil

Thank you for the lovely responses from everyone who's been making the daffodil brooch from this months craftseller. With your help we've discover a typo in the pattern that means the petals aren't coming out right.

Round 2 of the petal round should read it should read - Rnd 2: (dc, ch2, 2htr, 2tr, dtr, 2tr, 2htr, ch2, dc) in each chain space around.

I'm sorry to anyone this has caused a problem for. Hopefully now you'll all get you petals pointing in the right direction :)

I've been making some more daffodils and playing around with colour to give you some idea of the different looks you can get

 Top left I've started in orange for the trumpet and changed to the bright yellow for the petals. Top right is worked completely in yellow except for the last round  in the pattern of the trumpet where I've changed to orange for the frill. I also added a few knotted strands of orange inside the trumpet to look like stamen.

 Bottom one is my favorite, the trumpet is worked in pale yellow and changing to white for the petals.

Close up and showing a slight side view.

There are so many colour combinations you could try. I know in my garden I have one with white petals and the trumpet it a peachy pink, I think I'll try that next.

Happy crocheting x

If you have made this and what to share a picture of your finished daffodil you can post a picture on Craftsellers Facebook page or my Facebook page

Love crochet

Love crochet is a quarterly magazine and its jammed full of fantastic crochet pattern. In the past they have published some of the patterns I have done for craftseller magazine but for their Easter issue the wanted an original commission. Easter of course means bunnies :)

 It was a lovely surprise to see they made the cover. This is my 5th cover design not bad for a fledgeling crochet designer only just in her second year of working for magazines.

For these bunnies I turned  my normal pattern writing process on its head and started these from the legs up. I've used the rico cotton essentials again as its such a lovely finish for amigurumi and has the largest range of colours of any cotton range I've found. Love crochet wanted them in vintage colours and I think this rose pink and pale blue work well with the cream and pale grey of the bunnies.
I think the best thing about these bunnies is that they are so customizable. With this basic pattern it only takes a little bit of imagination and a few crochet skills to make this bunny with any outfit. most obviously they could be made into a bride and groom but you could really go to town and come up with any thing.

I may have a play myself and come up with some more outfits for bunnies.

In other news I have been playing with my new yarn and decided it was time to make something for me. I love this green yarn and couldn't resist hooking it up straight away and making myself this little crochet hook case.

 Its made simply in cobble stitch and then the inside is just felt. Its not perfect but as its just for me I don't mind. I can decide about maybe adding some decoration to the fount. It defiantly need some way of keeping it closed so maybe a button and a loop?

All my lovely hooks together hopefully now I won't loose my 3.5mm so often.

I'll leave with a sneaky peek at my latest pattern for my etsy shop - new hearts.

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 :)

Free pattern flower coasters

I've got a bit distracted by the arrival of my book (check out my post tommorow) so I've only managed to type this with UK abrevations. I'll add USA abs soon :)

You will need:

·         James c Brett cotton on in Cream 2, beige 4, pink 7and green 16 (any DK weight yarn will work just as well)

·         3.5mm crochet hook

·         wool need

Coaster

Using 3.5mm crochet hook and starting with main yarn

Make a magic ring and work 6dc into the ring. 6sts

Rnd 1: 2dc in each st to the end. 12sts

Rnd 2: (dc in the first st, 2dc in the next st) repeat to end. 18sts

Rnd 3: (dc in the first two sts, 2dc in the next st) repeat to end. 24sts

Rnd 4: (dc in the first three Sts, 2dc in the next st) repeat to end. 30sts

Rnd 5: (dc in the first four Sts, 2dc in the next st) repeat to end. 36sts

Change to cream yarn

Rnd 6: (dc in the first five Sts, 2dc in the next st) repeat to end. 42sts 

Rnd 7: (dc in the first six Sts, 2dc in the next st) repeat to end. 48sts

Rnd 8: (dc in the first seven Sts, 2dc in the next st) repeat to end. 54sts 

Rnd 9: (dc in the first eight Sts, 2dc in the next st) repeat to end. 60sts

Change to main yarn colour

Rnd 10: (Ch 4, skip next 4 sts, dc in next st) repeat to end. 12 sts, 12 ch spaces

Rnd 11: (dc, htr, 4tr, htr, dc) in each ch space sl st to join

Cut the yarn leaving a long tail and pull through loop to secure.

Weave in and cut off any loose ends.

Hope you enjoy having a go making these.

Hapy crocheting
Liz x

Happy things

I'm a bit of fan of Sunday brunch channel 4s Sunday morning entertainment show and usually while away the morning with tea, crochet and telly.

Last week though Simon made a passing comment that no one crochets anymore. Well as I was sat there doing just that I couldn't just let that go. I posted on their facebook page and sent them an email. It cause a lot of fellow crocheters to do the same and this week they ran a feature on crochet to make up for it and for a few seconds my omnipoms were shown off to the nation

Thanks to Gazz for his quick thinking and taking a photo for me. I just sat there slightly stunned. I know they had asked to use my photo but I didn't know for sure they would show it so i was a bit gobsmacked when they did.
 I'm not sure Simon and Tim will ever be crocheters but it was so funny to see them utterly baffled having a try :)

If a brush with fame wasn't enough I have 2 books out this week.

This is an American book but you can still get it in the UK via amazon. I only have the one pattern in it, my Dot the dragonfly but she looks lovely and the book is full of lots of other fun bug patterns. If your a fan of amigurumi it'll give you lots of inspiration.

Next I have about five toy patterns in this crochet book by DK out today. I can't show you inside it as I haven't seen it myself yet. I missed the post on Saturday and they left a parcel for me at my neighbours. Everytime I go round to try and get it they aren't in. so its stuck there :( I have a feeling its my copy of this book and I really, really want to see it.

 Now its published I guess its OK to show you some of my photos I took of my projects.

 Finger puppets

Polar bear

There are a lot of other photos but I'll wait and do a full blog post when I get m hands on the book.

Now I've got 11 days off my day job so I'm gonna have a great week and a bit of crochet. To kick things off the pattern for these flower coasters will be posted here later today. It'll be a free pattern and I'm taking the time to type it up in UK and USA abbreviations so everyone can have a go. This is a great pattern to gain a bit of confidence in crocheting in the round and you get something practical to rest your brew on when your done :)

Stitches and design

Its hard to crochet when you have something this adorable and sitting on your work. Underneath this trouble some pair is my latest project for craftseller magazine (we won't tell them most of the yarn was chewed by a kitten before I could work with it).

Looks cute doesn't he, sleeping on my yarn, but oh no, he's not sleeping. Its a game, every time I think hes gone to sleep and can start crocheting again he attacks me, my yarn and my look. If it wasn't one of the cutest things I've ever seem it would be driving me up the wall.

On to crochet.This week I've had two projects for an upcoming craftseller magazine, one an Easter themed amigurumi and one for a crochet bag. Now I'm not gonna give the game away on how these turned out, you'll have to wait will the magazine comes out for that, but i though it might be nice to share how I start a design.

First of I get a brief from the magazine. This is usually a description of what they want and a couple of photos for inspiration.

My first step is usually to start a mood board for inspiration. I do this using pinterst as its makes the process very simple. Its also really good to see what other patterns are out there as I don't want to copy anyone elses design.
You can follow me on pinterest here if you like and see if you can guess what my next projects are going to be.

Next comes sketching. You can see with this sketch I did of the amigurumi dolls that most of the dolls stayed true to the sketch but for the one on the end who changed as I was making him as the colours of the yarn didn't work together.

Speaking of yarn, that is usually what comes next. I have found a few ranges of cotton yarn that have all or most the colours I like to use. Rico design essentals cotton dk and dmc natura just cotton 4ply are my favourites as they come in the biggest range of colours. I am looking at some new ranges to try but its quite an expense when you pretty much need all the colours in a range to be able to design with it.

The next step is writing the pattern. I've been writing amigurumi patterns for a while now and they come easily but the bag project required a bit of thinking and I got to use one for my favourite crochet books.

This book by Betty Barnden is the best I have found for covering all of the different crochet stitches. It is well written and give clear instructions in English terminology.

For the bag I was planning to make I needed a net stitch. I could have used the one I'd used on the shawl I'd done for craftseller magazine a few months ago but I wanted to try something different and this book has dozens of different stitches to try so i was spoiled for choice.

I'm happy with the stitch I went with and the bag turned out well. I'll post pictures as soon as the magazine has been released :)

I spent so much time playing with stitches for the bag I found a new stitch I really like. I'll leave more about that for another blog post but I'll leave this as a taster:)

 The kitten are asleep so its time for me to crack on typing u my patterns but first I think i'll head over to check out handmade monday :)

New cover

A new year and a new cover :)

back in October I was sat in the pub with a friend sketching these cats for craftseller. They had asked for trendy cats in hats and scarfs. Not being the most trendy of people I had gone to one of the newest bars in York to have a look at what the cool people wear.
 I think everyone I saw had a neck cowl and or headband. boots and jeans and mustard yellow seemed to be a popular colour.

It was easy to come up with inspiration for these three. Sketching is the easy part, next I have to figure out a pattern that will work for all three and bit simple. Most of my patterns have some basis on something I've done before, that I then adapt to fit the new idea. for these I started with a completely fresh body shape so I had to write a totally new basic body pattern.

I was really pleased with these cats when they were finished and thrilled to see they had made the cover of the magazine.

I got loads of projects finished and of to more magazines this week. Unfortunately I can't show you anything till they are published but I think they are worth the wait :)

In between magazine projects I've been going all traditional. I been making granny square blankets. I've fallen back in love with granny squares and I'll be using them in some up coming projects but for now let me show you some picks of my blankets

 This is the one I made for Richard its the first granny square blanket I've made that's got bit enough to be called a blanket. I enjoyed making it and loved the finished result. i was tempted to keep it but instead i decided to make another. I sorted the yarn I was going to use for the new blanket and it just seemed t fall into this gradating colour tones. Its not finished, its gonna go to ranges, yellow and finally finish with cream. Its gonna be huge when its finished but I love it.

 So do the kittens. I can't believe how fast they are growing. They are all on solid food and showing off their mad personality's. I have homes for all of them and it'll only be a few weeks before they leave. I'm gonna get as many cuddles as I can before then though.

Its handmade monday time again so time to catch up on my fellow craft bloggers