Wednesday 22 October 2014

An owl and a monkey

I have had a lot of fun recently following Vanessa Mooncie's patterns and making crocheted animals! I bought Vanessa's book 'Crocheted Wild Animals' about 6 months ago and so far I have made the elephant, the giraffe, the owl and the monkey. I find the patterns very easy to follow because they are in both written and diagram form.

finished owl

The owl was particularly fun to make because it involved various different stitches. I loved making the shell pattern body!

I decided to make the monkey as a surprise birthday present for my husband this week. His birthday was yesterday and despite him catching me working on it a few times he did not suspect it was something for him. I chose darker wool than the pattern suggested, mainly because that is what I had in my stash. For both patterns I used King Cole baby alpaca DK and the finished animal is so soft and squishy!

finished monkey

If you would like to see more of Vanessa Mooncie's crocheted and knitted animal patterns take a look at her Ravelry page http://www.ravelry.com/designers/vanessa-mooncie


Friday 17 October 2014

My latest pattern - at the testing stage!

The alpaca wrap crochet pattern that I had been working on is finished and it has been typed up. One of my followers on Instagram kindly volunteered to test it out for me and I sent the pdf off to her a few minutes ago - phew! It is such a good feeling to be at this stage. This pattern has 4 repeating rows which look very similar in written form and they had me going cross eyed trying to focus, making sure I was typing in the correct abbreviations!


finished alpaca wrap

So, all I have to do now is wait patiently while this pattern is tested and distract myself with thinking up new possibilities! I also began work on a pretty pink baby cardigan yesterday and found it to be the perfect little distraction. I know of several babies due in the next six months - one of them is sure to be a girl! The pattern is another Kat Goldin one, from her book 'Crochet at Play'.


my current work in progress

There will be details soon of where to find my latest patterns, stay tuned and happy hooking!

Friday 3 October 2014

New pattern ideas


The school holidays start today so I thought I had better fit in a quick blog post because I know I am not too good at blogging in the holidays! I have been busy crochet pattern writing this week and wanted to share my progress with you. Earlier in the week I looked back over my ribbed ear warmer pattern and made a few changes before sending it out to a couple of testers. I know that one of them has begun work straight away and it's always exciting to find out from testers how it's going so I can not wait! This pattern will be published here once the testing stage is complete.



ribbed ear warmers (crochet)

Tightening up my ear warmer pattern gave me the urge to create another crochet pattern and I had 10 balls of King Cole baby alpaca sitting in my stash waiting to be put to use. I have worked in this yarn before, creating a shell pattern cowl (the pattern is free on my blog, look under April 2014). I love how soft this wool is and also how well it drapes so I decided to make a larger piece in it.



the beginnings of a new pattern


After a short time playing around with a few ideas I settled on a pattern I liked and quickly worked out the dimension details before beginning for real.



pattern progress

Today it's raining so it's the perfect day to curl up in my cosy corner and crack on with this! I shared a picture of where I sit and do most of my crafting on Instagram earlier this week so I will post it here too.



my crafty corner

I will endeavour to blog at least once in the holidays, until then happy crafting!

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