Posted by Natasja | Filed under My crochet
Winter scarf WIP
10 Thursday Nov 2011
10 Thursday Nov 2011
09 Wednesday Nov 2011
Posted in My crochet, My ramblings, Pattern
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No, not the old Tudor song:
but a crocheted green cotton sleeve for my Starbucks cup at work.
I whipped this one up with a no. 6 hook and Drops Paris cotton yarn. I used the “House Blend Cozy” by Lion Brand yarn pattern as a base. In the end I had to almost double the foundation chain and as I didn’t do mine in stripes, I ended up doing it in Amigurumi style where you just keep on going in the round without a definite start and end to the row. I basically just used their pattern to get the shape of the sleeve right.
All things considered, quite a thing of beauty me doth thinketh.
07 Monday Nov 2011
Posted in Markets, My crochet, Pattern
Twelve days to go to the W.I. Maple Village Christmas fare and I am done crocheting things to sell. Finito. Kaput. Oppela.
Nine fleece blankets with crochet edges, 48 granny stars (yes, 48!) and 18 of the cutest little birdies. (Of course, there will be clocks as well but I haven’t made any new ones for the market.)
I really really really enjoyed making the birdies! They are so adorable!
They start off as Pac-Man shapes…
grow a pair of eyes, a tail and two wings. Of course their tummies are filled with lots of fluffy stuffing…
and lastly I have to add a triangle of orange felt so they can chirp tweety tweet like any flock of birdies would do.
Adorable aren’t they?
I’m sure you will want to make a flock of birdies for yourself now wouldn’t you? Yeah, I knew you would 🙂 Who can resist these cuties?!
You can find Bitter Sweet’s “Birds of a Feather” pattern here. My birdies are done in Rowan Handknit Cotton, Stylecraft Cotton Classique and Drops Paris with a 3.5mm hook. The eyes are 6mm safety eyes.
As one of my fans on Facebook said, I hope these birdies “fly off the shelves”. Then again, they look so freakin cute on the windowsill I might have to keep a couple for myself.
Feel free to comment to this post with links to your blog, or post photos to my crocheTime Facebook page, of birdies you make. I’d love to see them!
30 Sunday Oct 2011
Posted in Etsy, My crochet
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It’s the end of British Summer time, which means we have a 25 hour day today. In the spirit of time travel and 25 hour days, I am giving you a 25% discount code to use on ready made clocks* in my Etsy shop!!!
Just enter the code Sale25 when you check out.
With the code you can this baby for £18.75 in stead of the usual £25 (excl. postage)! Credit cards at the ready.
*Not to be used for “design your own” clocks or brooches.
30 Sunday Oct 2011
Posted in My crochet, My ramblings
Here are the nine fleece blankets that I will be selling at the Christmas markets in November. I’m very excited about these and I looooved making them.
All of the edgings are from Edie Echman’s book Around The Corner Crochet Borders. Highly recommended!
29 Saturday Oct 2011
Posted in My crochet, My ramblings
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27 Thursday Oct 2011
Posted in My crochet, My ramblings
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Apologies people, but I’m just testing out Flickr’s cool feature where you can post a photo from your Flickr account directly to WordPress.
If this works, you would probably want to know a bit more about these cushions. Well, I made them for my brother way back in March. I used Stylecraft Special DK and the eight blocks are from Jan Eaton’s (brilliant, fanastic, addictive) 200 Crochet Blocks book (you can find a link to the book on the right of this page). The squares are: Big Round, Lacy Cross, Begonia, Mesh Fantasy, Edwardian Fantasy, Catherine Wheel and Circle In Square.
Okay here goes, I’m going to hit the Post button and see what happens…
Update: It worked! Yeah!
18 Tuesday Oct 2011
Posted in My crochet, My ramblings, Pattern
My husband and I visited Hampton Court palace on Sunday and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. My handbag of choice for the day was my Larger Than Life crochet handbag. Looking back at the photos of the day I realised, once again, what a thing of beauty it is. Seriously. I’m not even afraid of sounding vain because I’m just totally in love with my crochet handbag.
In this photo I’m wearing a Green Velvet Travelling Cloak, courtesy of Hampton Court Palace. Its soooo much fun and it really gets you into the spirit of (Tudor) things, but what stands out in this photo, is the handbag.
Now that I’ve whet your appetite, you probably want to know a bit more about this bag. It’s official name is the Larger Than Life Bag by Cecily Keim. Mine is done in Rowan Handknit cotton, the blocks are “Willow” from Jan Eaton’s book 200 Crochet Blocks, and instructions for the construction of the bag, as well as the Willow pattern, is published in the Interweave Crochet magazine – Spring 2007. You can see more of these Larger Than Life bags in the Flickr group.
I loved, loved, loved crocheting the blocks and playing with the colour combinations. I was very scared of the sewing involved in turning the crochet blocks into a proper handbag. Luckily I have an amazing husband who helped me every step of the way. We finished the bag on 7 March 2010 and I couldn’t be prouder.
If you want to make a crochet statement and scarfs are not doing it for you anymore, have a go at this bag. You can’t go wrong!
05 Wednesday Oct 2011
Posted in Markets, My crochet, Pattern
I’m hard at work making stock for the WI Christmas Fayre in November. That means every spare minute I’m hook-in-hand, including on the train to and from work. This morning while I was hooking away (entertaining the people standing in the aisle pretending to read the newspaper *if you don’t turn the page I know you’re watching me*), I did some Market Maths.
If I want to make eight sets of six granny stars, I need 48 granny stars. I managed to do four stars this morning on the train. I do two train journeys per day. That means eight stars per day. 48 ÷ 8 = 6. Just six days, or 12 train journeys, and I’ll be done with the christmas decorations for the market!
I couldn’t resist hanging the stars off the gladioli that I bought for my boss who is coming back from maternity leave tomorrow. Christmas trees are so last year. Gladioli are the way to show off your decorations!
27 Tuesday Sep 2011
Posted in My crochet, Terrific Tuesdays
On a Monday I can still remember the fun I had over the weekend, Wednesday is the middle of the work week, on Thursday I start getting hopeful and on a Friday I can taste the weekend. But what about a Tuesday? It’s so…. just there. Weekend memories are too far away and the upcoming weekend might as well be a year away.
What we need is a bit of colourful inspiration to get us going on a Tuesday, don’t you think? A pretty picture, beautiful scenery or colourful imagery. Yup, that’ll liven up Tuesdays and turn it into a terrific day!
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Today’s colour burst comes from four lap blankets I made for Huis Uitsig in South Africa. My grandmother, who passed away in July 2004, was very involved with this carehome. Right up to the age of 73 she helped out at the carehome. She used to call the residents “ou mensies” which is an affectionate Afrikaans way of saying the “old people” – she was older than a lot them, so it that just speaks to her-young-at-heart attitude which I so loved.
I only started to crochet after my grandmother had passed away, which is a pity. Making these blankets is my small way of continuing the good work she did at Huis Uitsig. I’m sure she will approve.

The technical bits of these blankets: The body of the blankets are white polar fleece with crochet edging done in Stylecraft Special DK. I had to choose unisex colours, and had to be careful not to make the blankets look like baby blankets. The rows are just shells of 2dc, with the very last row done in sc. In order to tie the borders in with the white fleece, I did the second to last row of all the blankets with white.
I’m definitely going to make more of these in the near future. I was so aware of my grandmother whilste making them! Every time I chose a new ball of yarn and wondered whether it’s too bright, I thought of Gran and I knew she would have said “Go for it! It will cheer up the old mensies.”
I hope these cheerful stripes brighten up your Tuesday!