And then this happened outside my window…

Which makes it less of a Wollaton Park day and more of a hot tea and muffins, soup and catching up with your blog day!

So, 2010 has brought craftiness into my family. Last month I had a lovely day with my 3 nieces showing them how to crochet, embroider and do a spot of French knitting too! I wish I had some photos of the things they made. I was so proud to see them crocheting colourful granny squares and stitch pretty embroideries. They picked it up much quicker than I did and they tell me they’re now completely addicted!

I made some handmade family gifts too. A Frankenstein’s Monster cushion for my nephew, just to show him we didn’t forget about him on our girlie crafting day, and a felt brooch for my mum. For some reason I didn’t take photos of those either. What was I thinking?

I do, however, have photos of the gifts I made for my big sister for her birthday. Patchwork cushions to match her bedroom with dragonfly embroideries. Dragonflies are her favourite.

Bedroom slippers to match

And a case to keep them in

There’s nothing nicer than sharing your craft love. Who do you share yours with?

I still have lots of good intentions for 2010, to keep learning techniques and finding out about textiles, colours and tools of the trade. Despite my hectic life this blog has been quiet recently, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t found time for some creativity.

Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show

Back in November the Textile Workshop organised a trip to the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching Show. Of course the Stitched Up ladies were there and we had a great time admiring the stunning artwork.

I bought a few lovely things too, including some 1970s braid, vintage embroidery transfers, a few pieces of beautiful fabric (hopefully) destined to become skirts and not forgetting the amazing giant ric rac!

I’d never been to the Harrogate International Centre before so it was a surprise to stumble across its Royal Hall. A beautiful theatre built in 1903, still shining and glittering from floor to ceiling.

Discovering BurdaStyle

This was quite a biggie! The first thing I thought when I visited the BurdaStyle website was “why on earth haven’t I been here before?”. If like me you’re a bit slow off the mark and haven’t enjoyed BurdaStyle yet then go (www.burdastyle.com).

As they say, its ‘for people who sew‘. This site is for dressmakers and crafters of all abilities, where patterns are labelled from ‘novice’ to ‘amateur’. There’s way too much to say about BurdaStyle here so all I am going to say is that if you want to be inspired and whipped up into a sewing frenzy then that’s the place to go!

The Great Craft Room Clear Out

OK, so a clear out might not be strictly creative but it is absolutely necessary for me to have a clear brain. The craft room clear out was part of a bigger wave which started with us emptying the loft for new insulation and has carried on with a major tidy up of every room in the house. For me it’s better than therapy and along the way I found some things I’ll treasure for many more years to come.

My first (and very tiny) ballet slippers.

Birthday cards from when I was little and my very first ‘aunty’ card from my baby nephew.

Christmas Crafts

I have to admit I’m usually a bit grumpy at Christmas, this tends to be because I just don’t have the extra time it requires to fit everything in – but then who does?! This year though I decided I was going to make the effort to enjoy the build up, rather than treat it as a chore, by incorporating a little craft along the way.

For my close family I made little felt tree decoration Christmas cards. I was too rushed to take photos before I sent them but they were snowmen, gingerbread men and baby deer, a bit like this one.

A few prezzies were hand made too, including a cotton apron for my great aunty, a crochet scarf for the lovely Hannah and a zip up purse for a welcomed home friend. I even did a bit of baking, which is unheard of, for my Dad and Norman (a very special fella). Plus this giant granny square blanket for my husband’s Nana. I never knew I could crochet so fast!

I have to say that making these things didn’t ease the pressure of Christmas preparations at all but it did make it much mure fun.

Having lovely, thoughtful friends and family I was lucky enough to receive some truly beautiful handmade and crafty gifts:

This absolutely gorgeous patchwork quilt made from vintage 1970s fabric by the very talented Claire was such a fantastic surprise! Claire is one very busy lady and so I’m even more grateful that she found the time to make this for me.

Hannah knows me very well, spoiling me with more wonderful vintage goodies, including crafty books, the cutest bunny jelly mould and this adorable hand mirror which I love (I’ve been drooling over vintage hand mirrors for ages). It’s a bit like she read my mind too with the vintage Christmas card holders!

My youngest neice gave me the sweetest sewing box which will be ideal for taking to sewing class and craft group and my in-laws treated me to books on dress making techniques and patterns, exactly what I need.

I know I’m a very fortunate girl indeed and I don’t take that lightly! Thank you everyone!!!!

How about you? What have you been doing these past couple of snowy months?

Nottingham Contemporary have been working with artist Lisa Anne Auerbach who uses knitwear as a way of provoking good-humoured political discussion. She has created a line of knitwear called ‘Take This Knitting Machine and Shove It‘ for Nottingham Contemporary showing various slogans, song lyrics and sayings.

Following on from this Nottingham Contemporary are planning to exhibit the ‘Blanket of Ideas‘, a huge red and black patchwork blanket with squares knitted and crocheted by Nottingham people, expressing their own political messages. Of course I couldn’t not get involved in this. My square is crocheted in shell stitch which represents a concern for the damage we’re doing to the world’s oceans through over fishing, climate change and pollution.

I loved the shell stitch so much I decided to make something with it that I could keep, so here’s the beginnings of a new winter scarf. It’s getting pretty chilly here now so I’d best get cracking, I’ll need it very soon.

I was going to post a link to a ‘how to crochet shell stitch’ resource but when I started looking I realised that there are many different ways to create a shell stitch. Do a search on Google or YouTube and you’ll see what I mean!

I’m sure more experienced crafters will have lots more gems on how to recycle and cut down waste when making, so please do share them. If you send me your green crafting tips (either here or at GGG) I’ll compile another list and publish it, with your tip credited to you of course :)

Well now its October, its cold and rainy and just in time for winter I’ve made a granny square blanket out of my little summer obsession.

I sewed the squares together with black yarn in whip stitch but I think next time I shall either make one giant square the size of a blanket or crochet the small squares together as I go. In total it must have easily taken about 20 hours to sew it together and I was up until 4am this morning determined to get it finished. I think it was well worth it though :)

It started quite innocently. My thinking was that since I enjoy crochet as much as I do I should master the staple skill of the granny square. It was quite easy to pick up (from my trusty Happy Hooker book) and once I got it, one square became two, became ten, became twelve…

It was the point of no return. I really don’t like to waste so what else could I do but keep going and make a lovely, traditional granny square blanket?

Now, the added complication is that although it began with one square from one gargantuan ball of orange wool (the same that my little crochet clutch bag came from) it needed brightening up a bit. So I added a canary yellow and a few cream squares. With the orange and yellow I could really indulge my 70′s fancy.

However, once I made the cream squares I decided that a blanket in softer, more pastel colours would look lovely too. So in came the baby blues, the mint greens and the candy pinks. The loud orange and yellow do not go with the subdued pastels so they had to be split into two separate blankets.

These two projects have taken up my every Stitched Up session for many weeks and at every opportunity (waiting for the kettle to boil, before I go to bed, at breakfast) I sneak in a quick little square. Its like a compulsion that, if I didn’t have anything else to do, I could happily occupy myself with all day, every day until it was done. Why does work have to get in the way of crafting?!

However, I fear that I must go cold turkey for a while on my little granny square addiction. My stash of lovingly collected second hand yarn from charity shops, eBay and my mum have been very much depleted. And since I’m only half way through each blanket I need to start building the stash up again. Oh well, just another excuse for a spot of charity shopping!

If you’d like to make a granny square blanket pop over to the resources page for a how to video. Be warned though, granny squares are highly addictive.

She describes the different types of yarns and gives links on where to buy. Most of the links are to US based shops but for those of us outside the US the info is still very useful and we should be able to find alternatives closer to home.

Check out the article  ‘Eco-Friendly Yarns by Caley Walsh‘.

I guess I could have picked up just about any beginners’ crochet book and had a go at teaching myself but convinced that I don’t learn properly that way I wanted a master to show me. I gave Claire a few headaches at first I’m sure because I just wasn’t ‘getting it’ but after lots of false starts it finally sunk in. The stitch I wanted her to show me was the ripple stitch (or the wibbly wobbly stitch which I named it in my ignorance) because its just so beautiful to see when a gorgeous combination of colours are put together.

I was so impressed with myself at learning the ripple stitch (and treble stitch which it uses) that until a week ago I didn’t bother to learn anything else. Plus I just love that stitch, I was literally hooked (ooh sorry, bad pun)! The undulating pattern, just like gentle water, is so relaxing and rewarding as you add more and more waves to the fabric you’ve created.

Here’s a little clutch bag that I made in gold, orange, teal and green.

So on Boxing Day, my first day of isolation with this evil flu, I took my Happy Hookers crochet book (given to me by the lovely Anna-Lisa), a great big ball of orange yarn which I found on a car boot sale at the seaside, my crochet hooks and chocolate rice crispy treats (cheers David!) and settled on my bed. Since I’d not ventured any further from making straightforward rectangles with treble stitch I thought I’d better go back to basics and start from the very beginning.

As I’ve said before, I’m awful at following instructions because I’m just too impatient but that had to stop. Going through each step of the book’s guide was like opening new door after new door, learning which types of yarn suit different items to make, why gauge is important and how to do that first difficult row without having a messy loopy finish – by going through the ‘bum’ of the ‘V’ of course! Then there were the stitches, ‘Single Crochet’, ‘Double Crochet’, ‘Half Treble’, ‘Treble’, ‘Double Treble’ and ‘Treble Treble’ and their confusingly similar yet different American comparatives. At the end of the first two sections of the book it said “… you’ve learned all the basic stitches you’ll ever need to know in crochet” – Wow! the world is my oyster!

The next revelation was pattern reading. The way crochet patterns are written is brilliant, so efficient and concise. Does this mean I can actually follow a pattern and make something other than a rectangle? Well I have actually started making something from a pattern in the Happy Hookers book but its a work in progress that I’ll show when it’s finished.

Resources for learning crochet

If you’re a beginner like me and wondering what on earth I’m talking about then scoot over to the ‘Resources‘ page where I’ve given details of the Happy Hookers book and links to a couple of crochet tutorial videos.

Does crochet have style?

This is something you might be wondering. What on earth can you make from crochet that you would actually want to wear? My (misinformed) idea of crochet and crocheted items used to be that all you could make were shapeless cardigans, doilies and granny square tank tops but I was so wrong. Crochet makes great accessories such as hats, purses and bags and since I’m a bagaholic having too many won’t be a problem. If you’re very clever you can make beautiful tops, jackets and shawls in crochet too but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

If you don’t believe me that crochet has style then listen to Vogue’s experts talking about crochet collections for 2009!