Made Marian: Oozing Crafty Goodness

I made these cushion covers to try to cut down my stash of yarn.  There is loads of new yarn that I have “the want” for so to make room for it, I’m trying to use up some of what I have.  I bought some plain cream cheapo fabric from Hickeys for the back and I repurposed the zips and insides from the Primark cushions that were there.  Well, let me rephrase that, my Mother used the fabric and zips and my crochet fronts to make the cushions, all I did was crochet granny squares

Here are the results.

I’ve held out for long enough, the festive season is around the corner so it’s time for some Christmas posts. These are some napkin rings that I started for last Christmas but only finished yesterday.

These gorgeous buttons came from Helsinki and they are just sewn onto a simple ring of crochet as follows:

• Chain 31
• Row 1 - 4 SC in second chain from the hook, SC across (30)
• Join the ends and sew on the button

After last year’s mammoth task of making nearly all my Christmas presents I wasn’t so brave this year.  I am making some of them but not as many as last year (phew!!)  I did manage this scarf for my other half’s Grandmother though.

This is a variation on my standard crochet scarf, I just did a few extra rows of double crochets and used a fine cotton yarn.

I’m working on some ornaments at the moment so I should be back soon.

So I decided that the finished object cannot be called Snoopy, he does bare a resemblance to the famous cartoon character but he is now named Tom!

This is Snoopy

Image from Wikipedia

And these are some shots of Tom

Cute? Yes.  Snoopy? I’m not convinced!

This was Snoopy at the weekend……

I’m in the process of finishing him off as we speak however I am in fear at this stage he’s looking like a very cute white dog but not enough like Snoopy.  More pictures later in the week.

I recently bought a pattern for this Snoopy toy on Etsy and I’m about to make a start on it now.

The Etsy seller in question is on holidays at the moment so there are no patterns for sale but check out the blog in the meantime. Wish me luck

It was well worth the visit and if you’re interested in any crafts I would recommend it for next year.  They had plenty of card making and jewellery making supplies as well as fabric, yarn and other bits and bobs.  Here are some of the things I brought home.

Yarn from This is Knit - I plan to do some gloves and a scarf from this.

Ribbons for Christmas Present Wrapping.

Extra supplies for Christmas Card making.

Crafters, especially yarn crafters, are always trying to think up projects to use up their stash.  My favourite is brooches but this time I decided on cushion covers.  In the interest of keeping things  kitsch I went with granny squares.  Here are two I’ve done so far.

This first one is just one giant granny square, designed to use up left over cotton yarn.

For this one I crocheted lots of smaller squares and then sewed them together.

If you’re interested in doing some basic granny squares yourself this tutorial looks pretty good.

This is the second baby blanket I’ve done this year…..this one is a little more traditional in terms of colour but I stuck with the block layout.  Given the number of weddings I have this year, looks like I could be kept going with these for the next few years

I used the same book for the block patterns but instead of using different coloured blocks I used a variegated yarn in various baby appropriate shades.  I mostly stuck to variations of the granny square, the kitsch enthusiast in me loves Granny Squares

Bobbles are one of my favourite things to crochet

Up close of Granny with a twist.

Overhead view of the bobbles.

Since our summer seems to have abandoned us we all could do with some cheering up. Eating al fresco was a nice novelty there for a while but trying to enjoy your salad with rain and sleet blowing under your table umbrella doesn’t seem like that much fun at all.  So, how better to cheer yourself up than by adding some colour to your (inside) dinner table with these cheap and cheerful napkin rings!

I made something similar before for our good friends and you can find a description of how to make them here.

I haven’t been feeling the card making recently, I don’t know why but it’s a craft that has been neglected in the Made Marian house of late.  However there are some important birthdays coming up so I said I’d better come up with something inspirational soon or I’d have to resort to buying a card, something I haven’t done in well over a year.

So inspired by the birthday cards with badges that we all got as kids, I decided to combine my crochet skills with my card making and came up with these.

The crochet circles on the front are actually brooches, so they can be removed from the card and worn by the lucky recipient. The circles were super easy to make. I cut out a small circle from a piece of felt, attached the crochet circle and the button to the front and then sewed on the brooch back.  Easy Peasy