A disjointed week and Jumbo Crochet Rope Cushion - Update

It's been a rather disjointed week this week.  A lot seems to have been going on but not much to show for it.

Of course, I finished my Jumbo rope cushion, sent it off to the shop and have been waiting for a reply but I don't seem to have been able to settle to anything else.  I got out my Kid Silk Haze project which has not been touched since January.  I started trying to unpick it (ha ha!)  The first two rows seemed to unravel relatively easily, but then ...... well lets say after many hours I gave up.

Plan B may have to be the addition of a bit of freeform crochet, in order to make a rectangle and then I can turn it into a shrug, but .... for now I've put it back in the bag! Does this sound a little familiar to some of you :)

Update
Unfortunately, as I suspected, the shop didn't want my Crochet Rope Cushion as the price was too much.  They did like it however and commented that they had seen similar at the London Design Show this week.  How I get it down in price though I shall never know!  Rope is rope and without buying 1000's of metres in order to get a substantial discount or knocking off my hourly rate (which would mean working for nothing!! and at £8 hour is only just above minimum wage) I am stumped!  How do you price products if you are serious about selling them?  Do you allow yourself an hourly rate and if so do you think £8 per hour is about right?  After all a shop is going to put a fair mark up on anything they sell and whilst I realise they have many overheads I would like to think I could make a little something too!!  This isn't really a moan, it's just despair!!  I have the skill to produce these things and it's obvious they are on trend but how to sell them for a fair price is beyond me!!!

Fine Cotton Crochet
I've been meaning to show you these for a while.  They have not been blocked yet so are a bit squiffy still!

A friend of mine is collecting bits and pieces for an heirloom quilt she is planning to make so I have been experimenting with fine crochet cotton squares.  Not sure which one to choose, may just send them all and let her make the decision!! I love doing these but once again ran out of inspiration this week and put it away for a while.  If anyone has any pretty afghan square patterns they wouldn't mind sharing I would love to do a couple more.

Jumbo Crochet Hooks
My OH has been making some jumbo crochet hooks ....

..... this week as I have a Jumbo Crochet Basket workshop coming up at Spin A Yarn this Friday.  The last one was great fun so keep your fingers crossed for me!!

Country Walk
And lastly we have been for a lovely walk today so I thought I would share a few of the beautiful examples of nature we noticed along the way :)

Have a lovely week everyone.  I'll let you know how the workshop goes next time.  See you over at
Handmade Monday

Bye 

x

Spin A Yarn

Have you ever used a hook the size of a broom pole?  

Have you ever crocheted with multiple strands of yarn?

 I didn't think so! That was the same for the ladies who came on the Jumbo Crochet Basket Workshop at Spin A Yarn in Bovey Tracey on Friday 8th February.

We began the workshop like 'children in a sweetshop', choosing from all the gorgeous yarns you can find in Spin A Yarn, to make our baskets!  This helped us get to know each other a little and soon the room (and therefore the whole shop!) was filled with cheerful banter and plenty of giggles.

I had made a few samples so the ladies could decide what size baskets they would like to make.

They got off to a flying start.

After lots of counting stitches, a bit of cursing (well perhaps a little more than 'a bit'!),  more counting stitches, a bit of unpicking and more counting ...

.......... the bases of the baskets were complete.  

Time for a bit of relaxation!

We all sat down to a wonderful lunch of Joyce's home cooked quiches and salad followed by homemade cake for desert.  Scrummy :)

After lunch, everyone was eager to get started again!

Feeling rather relaxed now, we all seemed to slip into a jovial, playful mood!  We decided it may be fun to use our partially made baskets as berets!!!

Don't you just love the results?

My apologies to Chrissy as I don't seem to have a photo of your 'beret'! Sorry :(

Following our jovial interlude, the crochet hooks were operating swiftly again and with a little blood (2 blisters acutally!), sweat (we had to turn the heater off, we were working so hard!) and tears (well not strictly true, we didn't have any of these, but it wouldn't sound right without this on the end!) we finally finished our baskets!  

Take a look! What do you think!

I know for sure, from the positive feedback I received from the ladies, how pleased they all were with the baskets they produced.  The colours and textures chosen were stunning, and, I also know for a fact, that at least two of them have started on basket number 2!

I think you will all agree, the ladies produced a wonderful selection of unique colourful baskets.  Well done to all of them! 

And a big thank you to all of them too, for making my day so special :)

I'm off over to Handmade Monday now!  

Why don't you join me and see what other crafters have been up to?

Thanks for reading :)

Chester's Choice!

Another enjoyable day at Hobbycraft demonstrating Jumbo Crochet.  Once again I met a lot of lovely people and thought I would just share this one photo with you all!

Thanks to Rosa and Gracie's mum for letting me share this photo.  It made Chester's day :)

and thank you to all the staff at Hobbycraft, Kingsteignton for making me feel very welcome!

Hobbycraft Update and A Graduation or Two!

Phew! I don't seem to have had any time to think just lately and when I have had time I'm just too shattered to do anything!  Sound familiar?  Thought it might!

This post is going to be a bit early for Handmade Monday so I will link up to you guys in a few days time  (I've done it now so why not pop over to see what all the other lovely crafters have been up to) but if I don't get it done now I shall miss yet another week.  So much to say, but so little time to write it down!

This weekend we have our younger daughter and boyfriend coming to stay and we have friends coming for a meal this evening so I have been running around making everything just so!!! (As we do!)  I actually made meringue for a pavlova this morning, they were cooking by 8.30am!! I was very impressed with myself. Not sure how they will turn out though, they look ok but the taste test will determine it!  I'll let you know :)

Anyway, thank you all again for your comments on my last post I shall try and answer each comment individually this time as I think I have been neglecting you all.

Hobbycraft

Ok now to Hobbycraft!  It was last sunday when I went in, you may remember that was one of our first real days of sunshine!  Chester really did arrive in style.

Safety belt on - ready to go

Here he is about to leave, he has his safety belt on but I think he looks a little uncertain!

Chester arrives safely!

He needn't have worried, he arrived in plenty of time!  I followed him down (I couldn't fit him in my car with all the other bits and pieces!) which was great as I was able to see the looks on people's faces when he drove by.  I heard one little boy say to his dad "Look at that huge ..." he wasn't quite sure what to call it and I'm not sure his dad would have believed him anyway unless he saw it for himself!  I could see a lot of pointing and gesticulating from people and Chester certainly turned many heads!

Chester had a great view across the store, watching everyone coming and going.  He was sitting on a perfect chair, one of those tall bar stools.  I was very cheeky and borrowed it from some great guys at Willow Kitchens, Bathrooms and Bedrooms who have a store just around the corner.  They thought it was fantastic when I explained how I had made him and the size of the hooks I was selling!!!!!! Innuendoes came spilling out!!!!!!  A big thank you to these guys, they made Chester very comfy!

Here is Tina, the lovely lady, who made all this possible.  I think she was explaining about the store to Chester?!!

I had two tables this size, one I used to display the yarn, the hooks and the items you could make and the other (which unfortunately I don't seem to have a picture of) for demonstrating where people could sit and have a go with the Jumbo hooks and yarn.

Did you spot Taffy perched on top of the yarn?  I couldn't leave him behind, he would have felt so left out!

As you can see it's a fantastic store!  You can just pick out Tina and me having a chat with Chester in pride of place.  I met some really lovely people, the staff were all so helpful and eager to learn about what I was demonstrating and they all fell in love with Chester.  I sold some yarn and hooks and also received bookings for my workshops (Introduction to Crochet is proving very popular, only a couple of spaces left on this one!).  A brilliant day and a BIG thank you to everyone who made it happen :)

And finally!

A very proud mum and dad showing off their eldest daughter's graduation!

And just so the youngest one doesn't feel left out - this was last year at our youngest daughter's graduation!

Very proud of both of them and of course the boyfriends too!

Have a good week!  Hope the sun keeps shining :)

Bye 

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