I made it!

One of my New Year resolutions for 2014 was to blog once a month. Here we are at blog 12 for 2014 - on the very last day. Woohoo, I did it!

I don't think I'll be able to commit to a blogging structure for 2015, much as I would like to. I'm starting a course for work in January which is going to take up a lot of my time. It's a year long course and I'm a bit daunted. And by daunted I mean scared.

I will need to drop in though to show you my niece's kickass blanket which I finally gave to her at Christmas and my other niece's owl scarf which I'm in the process of manically crocheting in time for Saturday!

Preparation for Christmas this year ended up being a big mad rush - as always. I wanted to make little tree ornaments to go inside my cards again - like the snowflakes I made last year. I found a lovely pattern for little stockings which I tried in November, but they took about an hour each stocking but the time I'd faffed about so I decided against it. They did look cute though.

See? Cute.

I did my first ever cross-stitch onto crochet for two of them. This was far harder than it looks. I now have the utmost respect for people who do this type of crafting.

Scrapping the stocking idea, by early to mid-December I found a quick little pattern for Christmas wreaths. I only properly started making the decorations in December which was pretty stupid. I really should remember that the last post is earlier than I anticipate and have them ready earlier.

First batch

I tried out different things. The one top right was my first and the bow was way too small I decided. I preferred generally how the ribbons looked to the yarn, although one of my friends disagreed with me on that, so I kept making them. I try to match the ribbon to the person's personality, as weird as that sounds. The colours and types of ribbon/yarn suit that particular person.

I used this brilliant green wool my friend Martha had bought me from Iceland. It was all unprocessed and wiry - perfect for the foliage of the wreaths.
 

 My fave

After making the snowflakes I knew this time to collect as many ribbons as possible over the course of the year. My main sources of ribbons are from the tags on clothing - those designed to ensure the garment doesn't slip from the hanger. Also Christmas crackers often have some pretty ribbons. Otherwise, I just collected up odd scraps of wool or bits of ribbon wherever possible.

Here you can see my ribbon/yarn collection for the bows. There is more there than it looks! I think I ended up making about 60-70 wreaths this year and I only got through about 1/3 of my supply.

However, I did run out of the Icelandic wool sooner than expected and so went on to using a Stylecraft dk wool in dark green. This didn't have quite the same stiffness, although the colour was pretty.

 

Here's one matching its card nicely

 

Blue!

 Another set ready to go. Apologies if I chat to you regularly on Twitter and didn't send you a card/wreath, by the way. I found it really tight for time trying to get them made up and sent off. The last lot actually went the day after the recommend sending date for Christmas. I tried to get everyone but I know I missed a few people. Sad times.

 

Here's the one I made for home on the tree, top left you can see last year's snowflake creation

One of my favourite things is when people send me pictures of their ones on the tree. It's well satisfying once the cards start arriving to see the little creations across social media. Here are a few pictures I was sent of them being all Christmassy and that.

 

 

 

If I sent you a wreath and you want to send me a photo of yours to add to this collection then do so and I'll put it up! :)


Have a wonderful New Years all. May 2015 be very happy and healthy and lucky for you.

Lots of love x x x

Teal crosses

Wow, cutting it fine this month - right up to the wire on bashing out a blog post! Nearly there now on this 'blogging every month in 2014' New Year's resolution. It's been good, I feel like I've actually been pretty productive in showing you my stuff.

It's another scarf blog this month you'll be thrilled to hear. I do make things other than scarves, I've just been so preoccupied with this mammoth blanket project (which needs to be ready for Christmas) that I haven't had much time for anything other than mini-sideline projects.

If you're a regular reader (pfffft! Hahahaha! Deluded) then you might remember this project where I was using some lovely silky (but splity) wool I'd bought from Northern Cyprus whilst on holiday there. I was holidaying in Cyprus with my friend Chrissie, staying with her mum, and so I thought it would be nice to make her a present in the wool I had bought whilst there with her. This delicious teal yarn looked just like her. Obviously I made a scarf because, well, I'm lazy.

It was pretty quick to knock this up beauty using a pattern from Ravelry. I get most of my patterns from there. If you're on Ravelry and want to add me as a friend my name on there is CraftyTort.

My absolute favourite job in the world - sewing in ends. Gah!

I didn't take many photos of the scarf in progress, as I started it in the back of a car driving up to Newcastle for a friend's birthday. And then a few weeks later I broke my phone with the photos on, by dropping it down the loo. Clumsy oaf.

My second favourite thing to do is blocking

 Cool crosses bro'

Blocking is my crochet nemesis. Why must it take so long? It has to be the least fun part of the whole process. I find it all - trying to measure out and pin the item evenly, sticking pins into layers of towels, burning yourself with iron steam - quite unpleasant. It was necessary for this project though, because the ends were curling up on themselves and the width was different in places.
I learnt from the autumn leaves scarf project and this time didn't expose the yarn to the steam for quite so long. This prevented it from losing elasticity - as the yarn in the earlier project had.

Word up iron

*Obligatory drum roll please*

 

 *Cue oooooooooh noises*

 

I like how the ends are shells, although it does make them flare out a bit.

 

ZIGZAG!

Lovely stuff. I'm pleased with that one! Hope you've had a cracking November and I shall see you in December. Can't believe 2014 is nearly over, I don't feel like I've been awake for most of it!

x x x

Someone else's wonderful work

I thought I would do something different with this month's blog. Mostly because my pictures are all a muddle and it's going to take me a while to match them up to different projects, but also because I didn't fancy writing about another scarf.

Earlier in the year I visited my brother in Oslo. He lives out there and has done for many years. During our visit my mum and I went to see one of the museums, (in fact, we went to about as many museums as it's possible to fit into a week of sightseeing) which had no English translations anywhere. All of the wording about the exhibits in this particular museum were in Norwegian only. As such I have no idea who made the art in this post and can't credit it to them, but whoever it is, you are wonderful and incredibly talented.

Wandering around the museum, in a section which appeared to be devoted to medieval spoons, I stumbled upon these backdrops to the display cabinets. They seemed to be designed as a backdrop only - I couldn't identify any text which looked like it referred to them in Norwegian. Whilst everyone around me peered at spoons I was busy snapping pictures of the fabric, 3D backdrops to the cases.

I don't know what the law is regarding photos of art and I can't credit the artist, because I don't even know who they are. But hopefully the fact that I'm saying how shit-hot incredible they are means I won't get into too much trouble.

The female had a pair of thin gold glasses on, which really appealed to me (as a fellow specs wearer particularly), because it isn't often that you see women in art wearing glasses - especially not glamorous, princess figures.

These are not naturally handsome people. They have odd unseemly features, large noses, big fleshy chins, and yet they are completely beautiful.

The detailing involved is simply stunning - look at that pig's head!

It's a simple idea, but the execution is sublime. It really makes me want to look at creating some 3D fabric art too.

The warts! The hair! That smoke! His hand!

A couple of them were free-standing figures, illustrating the tools from the exhibit (although most seemed to be completely unrelated to the items in the case below). It was the friar which first made me stop and pay attention. He has ginger stubble poking out of his bald spot, which seemed such wonderful attention to detail, and the most lovable face. 

For me, this next one is the star of the show. I love everything about her. Especially how grotesque her face is, whilst at the same time beautiful. I think I kind of want to be her. I like cats. Not sure about getting naked with them, but still, cats.

Look how unbothered the cat is. 'Whatevs love, stick some clothes on already'

I've been trying to work out what their faces are made from but I have no idea. It's like they're plasticine, but fabric. I don't understand how you could do that with fabric, they're so detailed.

So many questions about this one... is she flying a kite? Swinging a whip? Is that a big burn on her face? Why? Who knows.

This one relates to the exhibit around it. Also it features the lesser-seen spider-horse. Spider horse, spider horse, la la la la la spider horse...

This one makes me think of a constellation. Also the guy has great hair. I want me some of that hair.

The next one is a bit terrifying, but I did like the weird moonface next to him, so I took a closer one of that.

IKR? Bit scary

And finally, I think this one must be some kind of a comment on the state and religion...

 

So there y'are. I absolutely loved them, as I think my gushing has probably shown. It makes me want to get sewing and create my own 3D fabric art. I wish I could tell you the name of the museum even, but my memory is terrible. I *think* it might have been called the Norwegian National Museum, but don't quote me on it.

Which one is your favourite? Let me know in the comments. xxx

The colour of autumn leaves

Wotcha. How goes your September? Hope you've had a good one. 

If you have read my blog before (hi Mum!*) then you might remember when I started a crazy scarf adventure which went horribly wrong. That's right, this one...

Ummmm...

 

Oh hai hot mess!

I went to Cyprus last July with a friend, which was beautiful and ever so, ever so hot. So I did what any normal, logical person would do and bought some yarn to make warm garments with. Totally normal... shut up. We crossed over the border to Northern Cyprus for a little shopping trip in the sweltering heat, so technically this is Turkish yarn. I bought two balls of this lovely autumnal orange, two of a dark turquoise/teal colour, and two mixed jewel type colours. I expect you'll see the other two sometime soon in a project.

I started the orange yarn project without a lot of direction, unsure of who I was making it for. Then I completely unwound it all...

And started again.

Looking at the yarn I knew who it was for now. My lovely friend Regina would be perfect for a delicious looking orange - she's got just the right colouring. 

So I had a purpose. Go go gadget crochet hook**...

Slowly

Slowly

 

CATCHY MONKEY

You even got a bonus glimpse of my cat pyjamas there in that last one; you lucky buggers.

I really like this pattern, it reminds me of kites. It's super simple to do too. I'm working on another project at the moment which reminds me of it. I'll save that for another day though.

The only slight difficulty was that the yarn is very splitty, because the strands aren't twisted together. I think a very fiddly pattern would be nigh on impossible with it. It has the texture of silk of something though - it's so soft it's delicious. That's the second time I've said delicious in this post, I hope you don't come away with the impression that I eat knitwear.

The moment I realised that my nail polish matched the yarn

This was a really nice project to work on. Once I'd finished it I decided to block it because the ends were a bit curly. I did some research into blocking methods for different types of yarn and decided to steam block it. I had never done steam blocking before, but I like an adventure. I had to basically guess what I should be doing with it because the wool instructions are all in Turkish.

Ready to steam block and roll

I'm not sure whether I left the steam on too long or whether this was actually the wrong type of wool for steam blocking, but it lost quite a bit of the elasticity of the yarn and became a little bit flat. It's still beautiful but I'm not sure whether to steam block the rest of that kind of yarn.

I like that the stitches are basically little bows

It's got some length to it (that's what she said)

Looks alright don't it?

My Owlyfaced friend loved it, and so I was pretty chuffed.

Right then, that's enough from me. See you soon, be good.

x x x

* Just kidding, even my mum doesn't read this waffle.
** I don't have a mechanical hook that crochets for you, but that sounds like a cracking idea - nobody pinch it.