23 Wednesday Oct 2013
Posted in My crochet, Video, Watch me crochet Wednesdays
This is nothing fancy; just a short video of me making a pom-pom. Ooooh. Exciting. Not.
Unlike my usual Watch Me Crochet videos, I’m not crocheting in this video. In stead I’m making pom-poms with my small Clover pom-pom maker that I bought at Loveknitting.com. I’m using the (very) pink pom-poms to decorate the centre of flower brooches I made for Breast Cancer Awareness. I’ll tell you more about the pink flower brooches in a future blog post.
16 Wednesday Oct 2013
Posted in My crochet, Video, Watch me crochet Wednesdays
Tags
This is nothing fancy; just a short video of me crocheting whatever I’m working on at the moment. I hope you like it.
The video shows me weaving away the tails of purple and white mandalas that I made whilst on holiday in sunny Spain. Trust me, even weaving away ends is a pleasurable job when you are doing it on the sunny balcony of your holiday flat with the sound of waves breaking in the background.
I will do a full post with all the nitty-gritty of the mandalas later this week.
08 Tuesday Oct 2013
Posted in My crochet, My ramblings, 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!
From now on I will go through my photos and Pinterest every Tuesday and find us a pretty picture to add colour and joy to the day.
xxxxxx
It’s a colour explosion! This is what our patio table looked like on Sunday afternoon. The sun came out so I rushed outside with a granny square coaster for my coffee, the smiling kidney granny squares (the free pattern is here) and my Sunset Shades chevron scarf. The balls of Vinni’s Colours were rolling all over the paving and I lost my crochet hook a few times through the gaps in the table, but it had to be done – when the sun comes out and the light is this perfect, I do my business al fresco.
Wishing you all a Terrific Tuesday.
Natasja
02 Wednesday Oct 2013
Posted in My crochet, Video, Watch me crochet Wednesdays
Tags
This is nothing fancy; just a short video of me crocheting whatever I’m working on at the moment. I hope you like it.
The video shows me crocheting:
18 Wednesday Sep 2013
Posted in My crochet, Video, Watch me crochet Wednesdays
Tags
This is nothing fancy; just a short video of me crocheting whatever I’m working on at the moment. I hope you like it.
The video shows me crocheting:
This is my longest video yet. It had to be because I explain how to make the long single crochet stitches on either side of the “peaks” in the chevron.
17 Tuesday Sep 2013
Posted in Book reviews, GIF, My crochet
I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy op Nicki Trench’s latest book Cute & Easy Crochet with Flowers. The book is filled with 35, count it, 35! beautiful crochet projects incorporating floral motifs. The 35 projects are divided into three chapters: Starting Out, Practice Makes Perfect and Confident Crocheting. Like any good crochet book it also contains a Crochet Know-How section which will guide novice crocheters and experts alike along their way, with stitches and techniques.
A very clever touch to this book is that the crochet stitch abbreviations are given for every pattern, and only the abbreviations that you would need for that project. 
This means no more flipping to the back or front to look up stitch abbreviations – you have it right there in the pattern. This also means that a novice crocheter isn’t intimidated by the long list of crazy crochet stitches, but can work their way through crochet stitches one at a time, and as needed.
The book really has the most beautiful projects. Best of all, you can mix and match the type of flowers for each pattern. If you’re Starting Out you can make an easy purse, a Kindle cover, egg cosies or a Hexagon Flower Throw. (The Hexagon Flower Throw is known on Ravelry and various blogs, as the African Flower Hexagon). Then move on to Practice Makes Perfect where there are projects for your home like placemats, shelf edging and a beautiful Buggy Blanket. Finally in the Confident Crochet section there’s the Gypsy Queen Throw which I predict is going to be a huge hit. (Of course I’m only listing my highlights for each section – there are many more projects for you to choose from.)
As you can see, the photography and styling for Cute & Easy Crochet with Flowers is stunning. It made me want to 1) move home and 2) crochet all 35 projects so that my new home would look like this.
So what was my project of choice? I immediately fell in love with the Vintage-style Vase Coasters from the Confident Crochet section. The pattern is very well written (as all of Nicki’s patterns are) and easy to memorize once you’ve made your first coaster. The handy tip to this pattern was a lifesaver. Nicki gives the colour options to make two versions of the vase coaster, but I made mine in shades of purple and white so that I can use it as a table decoration for the Crochet for Kidney Research UK day on the 9th of November. Great plan right?
I also didn’t stop here. I made two more in the colours I used for the Lacy Coasters guest blog on Patchwork Harmony. Nicky’s vase coaster is the perfect accompanying item for my lacy coasters. I left out the flowers along the edge, and in stead made a 3 chain picot so that the vase coasters would have the same edging as the lacy coasters.
I think Cute & Easy Crochet With Flowers is a fantastic crochet book. The patterns suit all levels of crochet skills. Every crocheter will find something they would want to make for themself, as a gift, for the home, or just for the love of crocheting flowers. The book is currently on sale on Amazon for £9.09. There’s a link to the Amazon listing for the book on the right of my blog under the “Books I recommend” section, or you can click on the photo of the cover at the top of this post.
If you buy Cute and Easy Crochet With Flowers, I would love to hear what you think of it and see which of the 35 projects you chose to crochet first.
*The book was sent to me by the publisher. I did not receive payment for doing the review. The opinions in this review are my own. There are affiliate links in this post, which help me run my blog.
17 Tuesday Sep 2013
Posted in My crochet, Terrific Tuesdays
Tags
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!
From now on I will go through my photos and Pinterest likes every Tuesday and find us a pretty picture to add colour and joy to the day.
xxxxxx
My Sunset Shades chevron scarf in the making. Perfect for a burst of colour on a Tuesday isn’t it? There are four more colours in the scarf which I haven’t photographed yet. I’m using Vinnis Nikkim 100 % cotton DK yarn. The colours that you see here (from right to left) are Stone, Baby Yellow, Ballet Pink, Peach and Red Violet and Natural. All credit should go to my Mom who gave me a bag of Vinnis Nikkim when I went to visit her in Cape Town earlier this year. She chose the colours – I just had to put them together. You’ve got a great eye for colour Mom!
I’m writing up the pattern and colour sequence for this scarf so you’ll be able to make one for yourself too! Would you want to make your scarf in exactly these colours? I’d love to hear from you.
Wishing you all a Terrific Tuesday
Natasja
11 Wednesday Sep 2013
Posted in Crochet For Kidneys, My crochet
Caffe Nero tables are the perfect size to get an overview of my selection of purple and white squares. I was tempted to stand on a chair to take this photo, but the barista might not let me through the door again if I did. Restrain yourself Natasja! Not everyone gets excited about crocheted squares the way you do. (Pity. They really should. The world would be so much happier if everyone found joy in craft activities during lunch breaks.)
11 Wednesday Sep 2013
Posted in My crochet, Video, Watch me crochet Wednesdays
Tags
This is nothing fancy; just a short video of me crocheting whatever I’m working on at the moment. I hope you like it.
This video shows me crocheting:
This video has voice over too! Me! I talk you through the basic technique for making a chevron.
I really wish I had more time to crochet because I can’t wait to see this scarf grow. Between work, organising the Crochet for Kidney Research UK day, making purple and white squares and just life in general my scarf is growing very slowly. I guess that’s just the way of the hooker with too many things on her To Hook List. I’m sure you know what I mean.
08 Sunday Sep 2013
Posted in My crochet, Ta-daah!
As if organising the Crochet for Kidney Research UK day isn’t enough, I’ve also been working of a very interesting custom order I received on Etsy. A lady emailed me the photo below mid August and asked whether I would be able to recreate the crocheted balloons hanging from the ceiling*. Say what?! Crocheted balloons for a nursery. No pattern. Only a photo to go by. Challenge accepted!
Once we had both done a bit of thinking, squinting closely at the picture, Googled a lot and did some number crunching, we came up with a plan.
I would use spherical polystyrene balls in three sizes (200 mm, 250 mm and 290 mm) as the top of the balloons. About three-quarters of the way down I will stop following the lines of the sphere and in stead crochet to a point which will form the bottom part of the balloon. In stead of ribbons, I’ll crochet three crochet chains for each balloon. We decided to make each balloon as textured and dense as possible so that the white polystyrene won’t show through. I was given creative licence with the design for each balloon.
I had a plan. Now all I needed was the pattern. There isn’t a pattern for “crochet balloons to hang from a ceiling in a nursery”. Imagine that. What I did find was Crochet Spot’s tutorial for how to crochet a sphere. This turned out to be all I needed. It was perfect. I obviously had to make adjustments and modify my balloons as I went.
If you hover over the photos in the above gallery, you will see more text that explains the designs. I used a mix of (US) SC, HDC, bobbles, shells and a fun stitch called Crunchy Stitch. I found Crunchy stitch in the Crochet Stitches Visual Encyclopaedia (there’s a link to the book on the right of the blog). Crunchy stitch is just alternating HDC and slip stitches. It gives a lovely texture.
You can see a short video of me crocheting the white balloon around the polystyrene ball here.
The white balloon was definitely the most difficult to make. I started off by using a DK yarn and spent a whole weekend trying to shape the top part, only to realise that I needed chunky yarn (to make it grow quicker, and to give me the texture I needed). As soon as I switched to the chunky yarn (which by the way has a lovely sheen that adds to the texture and looks great when the light falls on it) it was much easier. Getting the shaping right for the two smaller balloons also became easier. By the time I had reached the beige balloon I had this crochet balloon thing down!
The nitty-gritty of the crocheted balloons:
Up up and away!
*The photo is from the Pottery Barn website. They couldn’t tell my client where to buy the crocheted balloons used in their catalogue photo, because it belongs to the person whose home the photo was taken in.
crochetime 