Bridal bouquet

It has been ages since I last updated this blog! Not for a lack of projects though, it seems the past few months have been the busiest so far, with baby's to crochet gifts for, house selling/buying, preparing to quit my job and ... preparing for our wedding. Since my family and me love to craft/DIY, we did a lot ourselves. When I say 'we', I mean they did most of the work and I mainly 'directed' :-)

My main solo wedding project was to crochet my bouquet, and I have been thinking about/planning this for about a year and properly working on it for the last few months. I found some beautiful patterns for calla lilies (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/calla-lily-flower-2) and roses (http://www.fiori-uncinetto.com/). The leaves and sepals are derived from another pattern (http://happyberrycrochet.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/how-to-crochet-realistic-roses.html).

There are 7 calla lilies and 5 red roses and a dozen of stems of leaves. A fashionably small bouquet but surprisingly heavy and substantial. I got a lot of positive comments, people were fascinated that this could be done using crochet! :-)

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...

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 :-)

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!

Stool cover

I'm a big IKEA fan, but some things can use a bit of 'pimping'. Take, for example, this rather plain Marius stool (currently a bargain at £3). Add some t-shirt yarn and an old cushion that doesn't fit the decor.

I used a 10 mm hook and commercially bought t-shirt yarn, but it's very easy to substitute your own. The pattern I used is super easy; just double crochet in a circle. Here's an example tutorial. To accommodate for the legs of the stool, I added 4 sections, each consisting of 3 equal rows of double crochet.

Next, I weaved some yarn through each those 4 sections so it can be tightened like a drawstring. Add cushion, add cover, tighten & knot strings et voila.

Marius looks a bit more personalised now.

Neuro-geeky

Being a crocheting neuroscientist, this was all but inevitable... Drum roll, please! May I present: the crocheted neuron...

The cell body and axon are based on existing patterns here and here.

The dendrites (above) and axon terminals with synapses (below) are braided and then respectively 'fluffed' and knotted.

Hold on to your action potentials, this neuron is about to be fired off as a birthday present to, drum roll, another neuroscientist family... Happy neurotransmitting! :-)

Yarnbombed bin

Ever since I've seen yarnbombed objects (look at all the pretties!), I've secretly wanted to yarnbomb something myself. Recently, I discovered this lovely wave crochet stitch but had no quick project suitable for it (I have way too many scarves already...). Add the fact that our bathroom has gone (pleasantly, in my opinion) crazy already anyway with the addition of Nautilus (introduced in this previous blog post)... And the idea was born to yarnbomb the least interesting object in the room, a small bin.

Apologies for the poor artificial lighting conditions. Here's a close-up of the waves pattern, using all shades of blue in my stash.

The 'lace', created by braiding 3 strands of yarn, was weaved 'corset-style' to create a tubular piece, so it's easy to remove those lovely waves and install them somewhere else. Nautilus has been eyeing them quite keenly...

Monster basket!

When I saw the 'hanging monster basket' pattern, I simply couldn't resist! I had been looking for a hanging basket to crochet, and when I saw the added feature of the eyes, I was sold. It also turned out that the pattern itself was very easy and clearly described, unlike some free patterns I had tried to make sense of before.

For the basket itself, I used Sirdar Indie yarn in the shade Tahoe (5 skeins) crocheted around 4mm blue polyamide rope (about 25 m) using a 10 mm hook. The eyes were made with 2 strands of white DK yarn held together & a 6 mm hook. The pupils are black DK yarn (3.5 mm hook) with white DK yarn embroidery to make them come to live. Finally, the eye sockets were improvised using Sirdar Indie yarn (6 mm hook). The eyes are only tied on so we have the option to quickly remove them when respectable people are expected to visit ;-)

Putting eyes on a basket to turn it into a cute monster that eats clutter - the addition of a light sensor triggering a burping sound comes to mind... Brings back fond memories of the Hollebolle Gijs bin at the Efteling :-)

Remembrance poppy

It's almost Remembrance Day, and in the UK this means most people will start wearing poppies. Since it's the year of the 100th anniversary of the start of the Great War, and being a quirky Flemish expat, I decided to replace the usually paper poppy by a crocheted exemplar. Using DK yarn, a 3.5 crochet hook and this pattern, it's quick and easy to whip up.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow...

Crochet flower lights

This project was inspired by the crocheted flower fairy lights over at http://crochetbytukta.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/bell-flower.html. I made some small changes to the original idea (crocheted a stem and gave the flowers different petals which glow in the dark - crazy, I know, but I love it!). In case you want to try some of this yourself, here's a quick overview.

I used a string of 20 LED fairy lights, glow in the dark (fabric compatible) paint and 3 different pale colours for the flower petals (off white, yellow & pink) and one grass green colour for stem/sepals, all DK yarn combined with a 3.5 mm hook.

I started by crocheting around the wire connecting the LEDs. The technique is the same as for crocheting around a rope etc, e.g. for a tutorials see http://stitchesnscraps.com/2013/07/29/asymmetrical-cowl-step-2-crocheting-around-the-rope/

Next, I followed Tukta's pattern for the sepals and created a variant on her flower (grey text is Tukta's original):

6 sc in magic ring (6 st)
inc x 6 (12 st)
sc, inc x 6, (18st)
sc around (18st) for 4 rows
6 times (sl st, [in same stitch: sc, hdc, dc, dc, tc, tc, dc, dc, hdc, sc], sl st) (18 st)

Or, less fiddly but also slightly less symmetrical, drop the sl st at the end and just skip that stitch (it should be hidden quite well under the newly formed petal). The flower on the right has been done using the first, symmetrical approach, the flower on the left (my preference) shows the quicker way skipping the stitch.

Once finished, I painted some glow in the dark paint on the rim of the petals. In the picture below, you can see the off white colour of the paint easiest on the pink flowers. In addition to the paint being less visible on pale colours, the glow also gets reflected more for the optimal effect(dark surfaces would absorb more).

Finally, assembly time!

Trying out the lights...

You'll have to take my word for the glow in the dark effect. My camera can't capture it but it's quite visible to the naked eye in a sufficiently dark room.

As the cold dark winter approaches rapidly, my little flower LEDs can serve as a reminder that spring and light are never far away...

Poppy the pony

Requested for a beautiful baby girl, this horse/pony was made using a free pattern: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/paudie-the-kerry-bog-pony

Lots of mane equaled lots of fun! Poppy got nicknamed the Tina Turner of my amigurumi friends...