Hanging pockets

I've been saving old jeans for quite a while for a future project (stay tuned), and recently saw some picture on Pintrest that sparked an idea. It has been done lots of times before, just google 'jeans pocket hanger'. Here's mine, quick and dirty hand sewing but very handy to hide/organise clutter.

Crochet shell curtains

We have a nice big window in our bathroom. Unfortunately, it looks out onto a blind wall.

Adding curtains or blinds would take the light away, but having it bare didn't feel very cosy. Our local DIY business offered some cheap easy cut & paste frosted film, but this too, seemed to take away quite a bit of light, so we only applied it to the bottom half of the window. For the top half, it was crochet to the rescue ;-)

Using a fishnet like stitch, I crocheted 3 panels, to mimic, you guessed it, fish nets. They can be moved out of the way individually, allowing to maximise the amount of light entering the room. To finish it off, we attached sea shells (carefully collected when I was a child and subsequently forgotten in a box somewhere) to the bottom edge. Window makeover, nautical style...

Another paper light shade

Just as a quick side note, before the origami light shade, there was Jimbo:

Jimbo was originally going to be the new light shade for the bedroom, but turned out a bit heavier than expected. Rather than testing the strength of the ceiling suspension, Jimbo and an old uplighter were recycled into a 'paper palm tree' like structure. It sounds funky and it looks it too. I still don't know if I actually like it, but I couldn't quit discard the hours of gluing hundreds of triangular paper strips onto an old paper light shade (idea from here).

Origami light shade

After seeing some interesting light shades that looked DIYable, I hit Pintrest and found one that looked simple enough to make but complicated enough to have a bit of a wow factor. There are various tutorials out there resulting in a similar light shade, here's just one of them to get you started if you're interested.

Briefly, I used 5 A2 sheets of drawing paper (lengthwise), folding each one first, punching holes in the top & bottom, then using clear tape on the inside to attach them to one another into the round. Next, I threaded a piece of string through the holes in the top, and similarly another one for the bottom. This construction was then hung over an existing spherical light shade and the strings tightened to form an origami sphere covering the existing shade.

While it took a bit longer than it sounds, it wasn't particularly hard and it's definitely worth it in my opinion. Much better than the bare bulb that was there the previous couple of months! It gives a lovely indirect light, though you could get more light by not tightening the bottom string. For comparison, here's Habitat's £20 version & £35 version. I know which one's my favourite!

Fingerless gloves

Bye bye sunny holidays and hello cold winds! Time to crochet a set of fingerless gloves for my favourite computer geek...

The pattern is really easy and you can adapt it to fit any hand size. I used 2 strands of DK yarn held together and a 5 mm crochet hook, but really, anything goes. The pattern starts from the wrist up. 

First chain an even number of stitches large enough to fit around the/your hand and join in a circle (careful not to twist the chain). For the pictured gloves, that was 36 chains. 

Chain 3 to serve as the first double crochet (dc, American terms), then dc into each of the following stitches (36 stitches)

Repeat the line above till you're happy with the length. This is the portion from the arm/wrist up till the hand. The increases in the next few rows will create the extra space for the thumb. Increase as many times as you like, I used 4 rows:

17 dc (first one being a chain 3), increase (2 dc in same stitch), increase, 17 dc (38 stitches)

18 dc (first one being a chain 3, you got it by now...), increase, increase, 18 dc (40 stitches)

19 dc, increase, increase, 19 dc (42 stitches)

20 dc, increase, increase, 20 dc (44 stitches)

In the next row, we do chain 3, 17 dc, skip 8 stitches and another 18 dc (back to the original 36 stitches). This creates the thumb hole.

Keep adding rows of chain 3, 36 dc until you're happy with the length of the top of the glove (to the knuckles, halfway up the fingers, your choice)

Et voila, superquick fingerless gloves! You can add a contrasting colour trim (here in red) or other embellishments to your liking.

Sun hat

Work and health issues have kept me quite busy/distracted till recently, but due to the arrival of hot weather and a mini-holiday it seemed a good idea to crochet a sun hat. 

I based mine on a pattern by Jessie, especially to make the crown. The brim doesn't have any 'holes' in it to optimise the amount of shade provided, and is kept stiff by 2mm garden wire crocheted into the last row. The hat band consists of 2 pieces: a chain threaded through the last row of the crown which can be tightened to fit the hat and a second chain with flowers threaded through the first chain purely for decorative reasons.

The yarn for the hat is DK pure cotton in off-white/ivory, the hat band is made from an acrylic light blue DK. Hook size for both was 3.5 mm. A lot of it was crocheted while travelling; it's a great take-away project! Not all sun hats can boast they have been partly created under the sea (i.e. in the Eurostar) :-)

Alpine rugs

Long time no write! This is partially due to Real Life commitments, but the size of my latest project probably accounts for something as well. May I present, the Alpine rug (on top of the shiny newly sanded and stained floor):

This project started as the works on the floor began. Taking out the carpet to reveal the old floorboards and give them new life seemed like a great idea... but what about cold feet? How about 2 bedside rugs? Maybe I can make them myself? It's a lot cheaper and I will have full control over colours and patterns...

Hook, line and sinker.

It was a lot of fun coming up with the concept and colours. The rugs are based on, and are meant to evoke, holiday memories from the Alps. So a chevron pattern for the mountain peaks was pretty much a given from the start. It wasn't easy to settle on colours, but in the end I picked 15 'alpine' shades of Stylecraft Special DK based on pictures of mountain landscapes.

White (1001) - Cloud Blue (1019) - Denim (1302)

Turquoise (1068) - Aster (1003) - Royal (1117)

Meadow (1065) - Khaki (1027) - Bottle (1009)

Parchment (1218) - Mocha (1064) - Walnut (1054)

Silver (1203) - Grey (1099) - Graphite (1063)

I used 2 strands held together and a 5 mm crochet hook. There are a lot of different variations of the chevron/ripple pattern out there, depending on how sharp/rounded and small/high you'd like the ripples to be. I used a variation of this one using 7 instead of 3 double crochet stitches between the peak (3 dc in one) and valley (3 dc together) stitches. I did 2 rows in each colour, 80 rows / 40 coloured stripes in total. The order of the colours probably took way too much time to decide upon :-)

After weaving in the ends, it was time for blocking! Because this took several weeks to complete (Real Life and all), it needed a bit of help to look more like a rectangle. I would usually spray it wet, but this thing was so thick I actually had to use the shower! 

Finally, I sewed part of an old fleece blanket to the underside of the rug for extra warmth/protection from dirt and attached a rug liner. These sewing jobs can be undone fairly quickly to wash either the fleece or the rug if necessary.

It took ages to complete both rugs, but they are totally worth it. Seeing the Alps as soon as your feet touch the floor, there are worse ways to wake up in the morning!

Chair socks

How to protect your (gorgeous shiny new) floor when a chair has rounded legs so you can't easily stick felt to the bottom? Crochet some chair socks of course!

Super simple, just started using 6 sc in a magic circle, increased in each stitch and continued spiralling up with 12 sc per row for about 7 rows. I used 3 slightly different colours of brown DK yarn (echoing some of the lovely shades of the floor) held together and a size 5.5 crochet hook, so it's all nice and thick and tight. This chair is the IKEA folding chair, but the pattern can be easily adapted for other chairs.

Cosy feet :-)

Crocheted cushion cover

My first attempt at crocheting a cushion cover. It was a present, specifically designed to replace an existing granny square cushion, which is why it's a weird size and I couldn't take a picture with the inner pad in place.

The front is a simple granny square and the back, in a matching colour scheme, features a new textured pattern I came up with (inspired by and probably similar to what's already out there). I'm calling it Andes, because it reminds me of mountains and those triangular South American designs.

I used 2 strands of DK yarn and a 6 mm crochet hook. The 2 strands will give the 'mountains' a bit more volume.

Andes requires a starting chain of a multiple of 6 plus 5 (I used 41 in the example shown here). Next chain (ch) 2 (turning chain) and double crochet (dc, American terms) in each stitch of the starting chain. Stitch count will always be your starting chain count (here 41).

row 1 (right side): 41 dc, chain 2 & turn
row 2 (wrong side): 41 dc, chain 2 & turn
row 3: 2 dc in back loop only, (ch 1, skip 1 stitch, 5 dc in back loop) 6 times, ch 1, skip 1 stitch, 2 dc in back loop, chain 2 & turn
This generates a slightly raised stitch, with regular 'holes' which will be covered by the big 'peaks' of the mountains
row 4: (5 dc, ch 1, skip 1 stitch) 6 times,  5 dc, chain 2 & turn
This creates the holes for the small mountain peaks.
row 5: 1 dc, (3 dc into the stitch underneath the hole created in row 3 (keep stitches loose), skip 3 stitches, 1 regular dc, 1 dc into the stitch underneath the hole created in row 4, 1 regular dc) 6 times, 3 dc into the stitch underneath the hole created in row 3, skip 3 stitches, 1regular dc, chain 2 & turn
This forms the large and small mountain peaks.
row 6: 41 dc, chain 2 & turn
row 7: (5 dc in back loop, ch 1, skip 1 stitch) 6 times, 5 dc in back loop, chain 2 & turn
Holes for the big peaks are now at the same location as previous holes for small peaks to offset the pattern.
row 8: 2 dc, (ch 1, skip 1 stitch, 5 dc) 6 times, ch 1, skip 1 stitch, 2 dc, chain 2 & turn
row 9: 1 regular dc, (1 regular dc, 1 dc into the stitch underneath the hole created in row 8, 1 regular dc, 3 dc into the stitch underneath the hole created in row 7, skip 3 stitches) 6 times, 1 regular dc, 1 dc into the stitch underneath the hole created in row 8, 2 regular dc, chain 2 & turn

repeat rows 2-9

I finished the cushion off by sewing the granny and Andes square together on 3 sides and adding some button holes on the fourth side in the Andes square, with the crocheted buttons (dark brown) attached to the granny square side.

Button holes/ending:
After row 2 equivalent row
row a: 41 single crochet (sc) in back loop, ch 1 & turn
row b: 4 sc, (ch3 & skip 3 stitches, 3 sc) 6 times, 1 sc, ch 1 & turn
row c: 41 sc
fasten off

Buttons (2 strands DK):
row 1: 6 sc in magic circle
row 2: 6 slip stitches, finish with slip stitch into first stitch of round and fasten off

This cushion cover was made with scrap yarn, all officially acrylic DK weight but different brands so it doesn't look as neat as it could be when using the same brand/type of yarn. But it has its own charm, I think :-)

Happy Holidays!

December has been really busy, getting all the crocheted presents ready on time. Now the holiday is over, here's a quick line up of this year's presents.

First up are 2 variations on older projects: pet football scarves (now crocheted using single crochet and embroidered using this technique) and jellyfish amigurumi.

Next, I got crazy with golden glitter, painting pinecones as well as a crocheted butterfly for Christmas decorations. 99p makeover :-) The butterfly pattern can be found here.

I also tried my hand at crocheting some jewellery. I used regular old embroidery thread and glass beads (I think they were called Czech Fire Beads). These off-white earrings are a copy of this pattern with a bead added in the centre.

The earrings and necklace set were based on this pattern, making some small changes as I went along (which, of course, I forgot to write down...).

Last up is little Rudy the reindeer. He's mainly based on this pattern.

That was the end of 2014, already having lots of exciting projects lined up for the new year!