Made Marian: Oozing Crafty Goodness

If you assumed all baby blankets had to be pink or blue or maybe pale yellow, you were wrong.  I’ve recently finished a sports themed blanket for a friend of a friend.  It was done in the colours of this team, but I did joke that if my commission fell through I’d surely be able to find someone from Tipperary in the market for a baby blanket.

This pattern was “inspired by” a pattern in my Bible.   I changed the size though to make the blanket a square, it’s basically just two rows of navy double crochets and two rows of yellow DC all the way up.  Then I did a row of single crochets down the two sides to give it a better finish.  The navy looks very dark in some lighting, so dark that I could probably pawn it off on someone from Kilkenny should the need arise.  But I looked again at the teams colours and their navy is quite dark too, so it should be ok.

I’ve posted about flower pins before and many of my readers have some of those.  But this one here is a little bit fancier than those as it has two layers of petals.   The pattern is again from Debbie Stoller’s Happy Hooker, this time from the pattern Spring in Winter.  I made this one to wear with a pink bolero and a black dress.

I’m thinking of making these ones to order so if anyone would like one, or if anyone would like to give them as a gift to someone get in contact through the link at the side.   I’d be looking at charging about €8 - €10 each for them as I’d be using good quality yarn and they take about an hour to make

I was asked a while back to make crochet lapel pins for some of the VIP’s to wear at Podcamp and once Bernie had ok’d my prototype I got to work on them.  Just a simple white crochet circle and then I sewed/embroidered on the logo in green.  Here’s the logo.

And here’s my interpretation. The yarn is “greener” than it looks in the photos.

As I’ve mentioned before Limerick Pride is coming up soon and since the Rainbow Coffee Dock makes such a great home for the Limerick City Stitch ‘n’ bitch I figured I should do something to help.  So, I’ve volunteered to make crochet flowers which will be for sale on the Saturday of the Parade (13th September).  Here’s a few I’ve started working on.

I’m working from my own and donated stash.  Lou was first to donate stash but Gina and Conor from the group donated generously on Saturday.  Flowers will be €2 and all proceeds will go to Rainbow Support Services.

My good pal Lette loves frogs, so when I spotted frog buttons in a shop in Helsinki I new I had to get them and make something for her.  So when she moved into her new house I got my thinking cap on to see what I could come up with.

I just crocheted a chain which I thought was long enough to make a napkin ring, then did about 4 rows of single crochets.  I then sewed the ends together to make the ring and sewed the button on what was to be the top.  My mom made the napkins!

By the way, my photography skills came on a lot, didn’t they?  Hah, yeah right, thanks to Lette for sending me the photos!

Damien has his fluffy badges, Alexia has her Geek is Good badges and Grannymar has her Toyboy branding!  I figured it was time I jumped on the badge wagon (oooh that was cringe worthy).   So I have some handmade Flower badges for whoever wants them…all you have to do is leave a comment on this post.   I know they’re flowers, but they ARE unisex I swear.   The colours were as close as I could get to the flower in the banner and in fairness Green and Yellow are unisex colours.

I started these when I was on holidays, they were my time killers while my better half was staring at maps planning our routes.

I finally got around to finishing them yesterday,  weaving in the ends of the yarn and sewing on the pins was the perfect project for a lazy Sunday.

So, just leave a comment and one of these can be yours.

Well, I’m off for a couple of weeks holiday to Latvia and Finland.  The main event will be a wedding in Finland, but I have many many craft and design shops penciled in as well.  I’m taking some yarn and a crochet hook to do some small projects, I’ll report in full when I get back, but in the meantime here’s one for the road.

I was in the process of packing today when I realised that my swanky new phone was just going to be thrown around in my backpack for the journey.  I love my handbags but find them a nuisance when traveling so no dainty little pockets available for the phone. I was inspired by this to put something quick together.   I initially tried to knit something but wasn’t happy with it so I went back to my reliable hooks!

It’s basically just a mini version of this with the flap added in for good measure.

Hopefully I’ll get to log in every once in a while to say hello, but hope everyone has a fantastic two weeks. I know I will

My Twitter friends may have seen me mention a “very special project” which I started last Sunday.  It turned out to be a perfect Sunday hangover project,  there was no complicated stitches and it worked up in about three or four hours.   The project was the “one skein scarf” again from the Debbie Stoller book.   The recipient of the “very special project”  was Sabrina Dent, as a thank-you for her work on the blog.  The choice of colour was deliberately as close to the background colour of the blog that I could find (It looks more like the blog colour in person).  When I saw the pattern I had a feeling that it might suit Sabrina (even though I’ve only met her once and that was for about 30 seconds).

The pattern is here.  I used two balls of this and I couldn’t get the bigger size hook so I kept the proportions but used a 5.5mm and a 7mm instead of a 6.5mm and a 8mm.

I hope you liked it Sabrina.

This is another pattern from “The Happy Hooker” by Debbie Stoller. The picture in the book is of a lovely pink shawl but I needed something black to wear over a pink dress.  I had my doubts about it, the last thing I wanted  was to look like Peig Sayers.  But I really wanted something black and this seemed easier and was quicker to work up than some of the bolero type cardigans in the book.  I started it  two weeks ago and finished it on Friday, just in time to wear to a wedding on Saturday.   I’m still not entirely convinced that there isn’t an element of Peig about it but the way I wore it, it looked more like a bolero at the front so I think I got away with it.

I used 5 balls of Debbie Bliss Prima and a 5.5mm clover hook.  All from This is Knit.

The pattern is available for download here.

This crochet clutch bag is for a wedding I’m attending next month. The wedding is in Finland but we’ll be traveling for almost a week before the big day so I’m packing a wrinkle free dress, unfortunately my only one of those is black, so the pink accessories will hopefully jazz the outfit up a bit. It was a quick and easy project that got me reintroduced to some sewing as well as being my first proper crochet project. The pattern is from Debbie Stoller’s iconic Stitch ‘n’ Bitch crochet book “The Happy Hooker”. I am somewhat worried about the Google searches that might lead people to this post, but anywho, lets continue.

The yarn is Sirdar Snuggly Double Knitting purchased from The Singer Sewing shop on Fox’s Bow here in Limerick and I used a 5mm addi hook purchased online from This is Knit.

You don’t need much crochet experience for this project, as it’s mostly the half double crochet stitch, which is explained very clearly in the book. I sewed up the sides using the back stitch.

Stage two was adding the lining. The fabric came from Hickey’s on Cruise’s Street in Limerick. I cut it to size and hand sewed the sides up with a matching thread. That’s then slotted into the bag and I tacked it in place first and then hand sewed it on, I only sewed across the top (you can see the stitching in the photo).

Finally, the flower. I didn’t use the pattern that came with the bag, I used the six petal flower pin pattern from later in the book.

I stitched the flower onto the bag, but I’m not entirely convinced that I shouldn’t have attached it a bit higher.