Nom, nom, nom

Happy birthday, Dr P! A mint monster for a man who likes mints very much.

Amigurimi Mint Monster

Idle comments on Facebook get picked up, you know. Gauntlets thrown, challenges set, sneaky commissions organised six months in advance, you know how it goes. This fuzzy little fellow is made with Sirdar Snowflake - which is utter hell to crochet into circles, let alone striped circles, and to embroider teeth on to. But I think he came out pretty well, all things considered!

Vicarious Crafting

Well, we are half-way through week two of a seven-week summer holiday. D is four weeks old, K is 4 & 3/4yrs, and it's raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaining. Again. So my happy little dreams of taking the baby down to the park and letting her kick about on a rug in the sunshine whilst big girl climbs and runs to her heart's content have been pretty much shattered. S'what I get for being optimistic. Sigh.

What can you do in such a situation? Only craft, of course, and since D spends her time clamped to my chest one way or another, my hands aren't all that free. I'm working on a couple of long-term projects; one of which is to restock the shop with Mr Suns asap and the other is a granny square shrug adapted from The Crochet Bible which will feature the three squares I received from Izabela last year. Both of those are...well, kinda boring as they're repeated patterns with not much variation and only the finished product is worth photographing. Another two projects I can't show you just yet - a birthday amigurumi is diving into the post today, so that can't be revealed until the recipient has seen it, and I'm not quite finished stitching the new fringe onto my plain black sling. I'll do a proper write-up of 150 Crochet Trims when I get that done.

So much for my own work. I'm very carefully not mentioning the large heaps of yarn I've just ordered to make two items from Cute Crochet for Tiny Tots for K, nor the jacket from Crochet in No Time and cardigan from The Crochet Bible, neither of which I've finished yet for D. Ahem. In the meantime I'm living la vida crafta through the hands of K, who's been very busy this week, bless her.

Thomas The Tank Engine

A cheap and dirty trick to while away a wet Friday afternoon; we picked this kit up in the pound shop last week. K painted the larger areas and I completed the detail simply because the paint was so rubbish it would barely go on. Lesson learned (again) - cheap kid's craft sets are 100% crap. But she's happy with her work!

Black & White Baby Mobile

 I recently bought The Social Baby, having enjoyed the toddler version with K - despite being pretty darn good at understanding baby communication (if I do say so myself - three years of experience teaching baby signing now!), we've found it quite useful and it's been a good refresher for these early weeks. I also got their Baby Shapes books for something for the girls to interact together with before D is really ready for toys - they've proved a real hit and K has made this fantastic mobile of black & white shapes which hangs over the nappy change station. D is certainly appreciating it and I loved K's reply when asked about the wiggly lines: "They're secret messages for D".

Berk, Drut and Boni from Trap Door

Lastly, this morning's creations - thanks to some wonderful salt dough from our friend Kirstine - Berk, Drut and Boni from the TV series Trap Door. One that A and I grew up with and K has loved ever since she was tiny. Long may the Globbits continue in this house!

If you go down to the woods today...

...well. If you went down to K's preschool yesterday morning you'd have found the whole class picnicking away in the hall, since it's wet and horrible! It's her last week of preschool (and we have had much wailing about it), so there are lots of events on and Wednesday was their Teddy Bears' Picnic. K is much more obsessed with cats than bears, so we had to scrabble in the toybox a bit to find one. All we could find was a little one of just 8ins tall - and this was after I'd opened my big mouth and suggested I may be able to make something from Crochet for Bears to Wear. Oh dear. I do like to destruct-test patterns from time to time, and although the book is designed for toys of 18ins tall, there's a very clever conversion which means you can resize the outfits. I have to say I was extremely sceptical as to whether it would work, given that I was changing not only the size of the bear but the yarn and the hook as well - but it did!

Bear-y Pickin' Dress

It's a near-perfect fit. I'm not quite sure about the shoulders as it's a little too large, but given that D was going into her first growth spurt and feeding like crazy as I was trying to count rows, it's probably my mistake. Otherwise, it's absolutely spot on. And so very satisfying to make something so quickly!

Of course, when bear has a pretty dress, K must have a pretty dress too. It was quite by chance that she picked the bear's colours before remembering that she had a dress in the same lilacs and greens, so all that remained was to whizz up another quick hairband to match. 

The full outfit!

 Close-up hairband and scowl

If you'd like to make this hairband, download the pattern for free from here or from the Free Patterns page above where they all live. Just the thing for a party or a picnic!

I've been a bit busy making something...

...well, someone, anyway!

This is Danika, my youngest daughter, at four days old. Isn't she a peach? She took her own sweet time coming but was a wonderful home waterbirth. It's been honestly hell being pregnant in the summer time (K was born in November so a very different experience). I've not had the energy to do anything at all, really - a bit of listless crochet here and there and I made a start on her birth sampler, but absolutely everything has seemed exhausting.


I don't really have any crafting plans at the moment but I do have some new books to enjoy - A bought me two drawing books for my birthday in May (How to Draw and Paint Dragons and Draw Faeries), and in desparation at going over dates I treated myself to three new crochet books.

These are:

Cute Crochet for Tiny Tots, which I've had from the library before - I've actually bought it to make a poncho for K but will have to upsize the pattern to size 5-6 myself, eek!

Crochet for Bears to Wear - Jessie Cat (our Sing & Sign mascot) will be getting a whole new wardrobe next year!

150 Crochet Trims: Designs for Beautiful Decorative Edgings, from Lacy Borders to Bobbles, Braids, and Fringes. Whilst pregnant I bought a nice green maxi dress and promptly got grease all down the lap, which will not come out of the microfibre fabric, so I plan to hack it to tunic length and hem it with a pretty crochet fringe (mostly to cover the inevitable sewing machine cock ups, I'm hopeless with clothes!). I love this book and I want to put edgings on absolutely everything I and the girls own now! My one concern is finding somewhere I can buy perle cotton by the ball rather than the skein or it's going to be an expensive obsession (since when are my crafting whims ever cheap?).


Anyway, it's taken three days to type this post one-handed with a sleeping or nursing D on my arm, so I'll love you and leave you here before she wakes up again!