Koala

Hi there

I'm running very late this week, as you have probably noticed.  Just turned my computer on to find that lots of you have already posted on Handmade Monday, I will sit down this evening and have a catch up.

I was cooking a roast for a pre football dinner last night and of course then there was the football.  Not that I am a fan but when food, drink (just a little of course, it would be rude not to!!) and a get together with friends are involved, it just has to be done!  We had a good evening though, despite England losing (although with my very limited knowledge of football I personally didn't think we deserved to win!)

I'm sat outside waiting for the sunshine to come out, probably my fault it's not though, as I put a skirt on today, first time for weeks, in the hope of catching a few rays on my lily white legs!!  But it does mean I can actually see the computer screen, I suppose!!

Maisy


I must thank you all for your comments on last week's post!  I'm really pleased you all liked Maisy and I have to admit I had wondered about a Jumbo version just like some of you did!  But it was only a passing thought for now!!!!  It seems as though everyone likes the sound of Jumbo crochet and I agree with you it does sound a lot more friendly and like you said "It does what it says on the tin" :)  I had a good few laughs reading your comments, thank you so much!! Keep 'em comin'! :)

Koala

I have been messing about again this week and found a rather cute pattern for a little koala so thought I'd have a go.

I crocheted him in Sirdar Blur as I thought he would look nice slightly fluffy.

Here he is next to my mug of tea so you can get a sense of scale, looks like he's giving you a little wave in this photo!!  He doesn't have a name yet!  Anyone got any suggestions?  I'll let you know what I've decided next week.

I've also been trying to come up with ideas for the Textured Crochet Workshop I have coming up in the Autumn.  I'm intending us to have a go at as many heavily textured stitches as we can find.  If anyone has any favourites please pass them on to me.

Here is the beginning of a popcorn square and I'm afraid that's as far as I got yesterday.  So when I have finished writing this blog, I shall carry on.

Rather than just churn out samples my idea was to make these samples into a bag or a basket come the end.  Perhaps a bag with 4 different stitch squares on each side, at least then you have something useful after all your efforts.  Or maybe a basket with 6 squares sewn together to make the edge and a spiral base.  A bit like the granny square bowl I made a while ago.

Ok, that's it for this week, I'm going to carry on with my squares now and I shall sit down this evening and have a relaxing browse through all your lovely blogs over on Handmade Monday.  Can't wait to see what names you come up with for 'Koala'!

Thank you for reading folks, see you later :) x

Maisy the Elephant

Hello Everyone!

Have we all got webbed feet then!  I've given up wishing for sunshine! Hope you've all had a fun and productive week.  I've had a bit of a break from the Jumbo crochet (not to be called extreme crochet anymore! I'll explain in a mo!) this week and decided to do something just for me.

I came across a gorgeous little crochet pattern for a tiny elephant. The pattern was designed by Sharon Ojala.  Her elephant was called Gracie but I decided to call mine Maisy.  She has two or three blogs and is on facebook too.  Here is the link to Sharon's blog Homemade Obsessions.

Below are the components that made up Maisy.  I put them on facebook with a caption "Can ya see what it is yet".  It brought a few smiles to people's faces!!!  I can't think why though!

I then added a few more bits to help people guess.  Although by the lack of guesses I had, I don't think it helped much!

Allow me to introduce you to Maisy!

Here she is all finished!

Maisy was made using a 1.5mm hook and cotton thread. She is about 3.5" tall.

Sharon's blog has some cute amigurumi patterns, I think I may have to try a few more!  She makes them available completely free of charge, just requesting that you credit her for the patterns if you use them.  A big thank you to Sharon for this and just to say, she was really taken with Chester and sent a lot of people my way to have a look at him, which I appreciated greatly!  Thank you :)

Jumbo Crochet

Well you may wonder about the change of name for all this enormous crochet I have been doing.  I wont mention any names but I came across someone else doing big crochet recently.  I thought extreme crochet was just a generic term for the extreme stuff, but it appears not!  So as I don't wish to step on anyone's toes I have decided to refer to mine as Jumbo Crochet which I actually think describes it more accurately.  What do you think?

Crochet Workshops

Also just to keep you in the picture Fiddly Fingers has now confirmed dates for September, October and November crochet workshops!  The workshops will be held down here in Devon and will be Introduction to Crochet, Textured Crochet, Jumbo Crochet and a Knitted Wire Brooch workshop.  I will put all the information together as soon as I can and add it to the Workshop page of my blog but in the meantime if anyone is interested please get in touch.

Ok, that's all for now folks!  I hope you have a really good week and I am now looking forward to browsing the wonderful things that all the lovely crafters have made over at

Update on Fair and a Round Square!

Hello again

I wish these Handmade Mondays didn't come around so quickly.  You start the week off with plenty of determination to get a mountain of things done, only to get to the weekend with a list longer than you started with!  And of course all this rain isn't helping!

Well, moan over, I thought I had better update you on last weekend's fair as so many of you left such lovely comments.  After the first day (Sunday) it got progressively better.  More signs were put up and we had activities going on inside and outside the marquee.  As you all predicted, Chester was a real crowd puller, even if people weren't interested in crochet they still wanted to know all about him.  I lost track of the amount of times I told people what he was stuffed with and how long he took to make!  He had his photo taken with another bear to go back to nursery school with them!  And the nursery school bear had his photo taken 'doing' some extreme crochet!

Lots of people had a go at extreme crochet and I was also pleasantly surprised to find out that quite a few men can crochet too.  I managed to photograph one having a go!

I was overwhelmed by the interest in the huge balls of yarn I had wound.  It was my daughter's suggestion to market them like this and I'm so glad I did (I owe her one, but don't tell her!).  I had to go home on the Monday night and wind 5 more.  I only had two left at the end of the fair! (Sorry for the grainy picture!)

So, it was a totally brilliant weekend after all.  I met lots of interesting people, apart from the interest in the extreme crochet many customers were also interested in the workshops and the atmosphere between stall holders was very friendly.  I made new friends and caught up with past ones too, a far better weekend than I had ever imagined it could be.  A big thank you to everyone who came to visit Fiddly Fingers, I hope you all enjoyed the fair.

A round square basket!

I decided I would do something a bit different and make a square basket, after all I couldn't find many square crochet baskets on the internet so I thought an extreme crochet square basket would be a little more interesting.

Well, as you can see the base started off square!

But after the first round things started going round too!  A bit of a flop really, may as well have done a round one!!  Maybe the fact I couldn't find many pictures of square crochet baskets on the internet should have been a warning!!

Anyway, back to the drawing board! Next time I'll try crocheting each side separately , although probably not for a while as I need to be in the right mood!  I've moved on to a small 'v' stitch rug now, another trial so we'll see how this one turns out.

I'd love to hear any ideas for other items you think may work well in extreme crochet.  I'll give anything a go!

Hope you all have a good week, I'm hoping not to end up with webbed feet by the end of it!!!!

Bye for now!

x

Dartington Food (and Craft) Fair

Hello everyone

I'm shattered!  But was determined to link up with Handmade Monday today.

Liz and I have been to the Dartington Food Fair today and will be there tomorrow and Tuesday as well.  Hence why I am shattered!

This is my first outing with my extreme crochet hooks and huge balls of yarn!  My main purpose for this fair is to promote the workshops I'm hoping to run.  As you can see Chester has pride of place and was a BIG hit all day long.  Why has he got his feet in a bag? I hear you say!  Well it was only raining slightly but we found the water ran under the marquee wall and collected in small puddles.  So the reason for this bag is to keep poor Chester's feet dry.  Perhaps tomorrow I should take some wellies for him :)

I was very pleased with the interest people showed in the huge hooks and the balls of yarn.  The basket which can be made from one of the huge balls is visible in front of the crochet hooks.  The bags I made, quite a while ago now, are hung on the front of my table as I had very little room.  The one on the left is in Astrakhan stitch, the grey one in the centre is Crocodile stitch and the duffle bag on this end is in spike stitch.

Here is Chester sporting his Jubilee bow tie.  You can just spot a 'normal' amineko and Taffy in the picture too!  Luckily Taffy had his boots on!

Here is Liz's stall, with all the lovely things she makes.  Her Jubilee bags (on the top shelf) are wonderful and you can just pick out a couple of Jubilee cushions on the table in the front l/h corner.

As you can see from the above picture, I laid out chairs so anyone could have a go at the extreme crochet.  It was very popular, even for people who hadn't crocheted before.

We had an enjoyable day although it was pretty quiet really.  Apparently there will be more signs up for tomorrow and something going on immediately outside the marquee to encourage people up our way as I think the problem was there was a large demonstration tent just down below us.  People saw that and didn't realise the craft tent was behind it.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better, although I met some lovely people today and made some interesting contacts.

For anyone who saw Fiddly Fingers at the fair today, I would value any comment as it was wonderful to meet you all.  Thank you for dropping by :)

And ... for those of you who are nowhere near Devon, I hope you enjoyed a glimpse of what went on!
I will let you know how the next couple of days go at the beginning of my blog next week.

I'm off to relax now as I have a fairly early start again tomorrow.  I will have a peek at your blogs over the next few days as I am looking forward to seeing what you have all been up to.  Thanks for reading hope you all have a good weekend x