An Extreme Wind Up

Hello everyone!

What gorgeous sunny weather we are having at the moment.  Doesn't it make you feel so much better?

I have been a bit quiet on the blogging front recently as I have been very busy trying to get ready for a 3 day food and craft fair over the Jubilee weekend.  I am going to be using the fair mainly to promote the workshops I will be running soon.  So in order to get people's attention, I am encouraging people to come along and have a go at extreme crochet.  Therefore I haven't really been making much, but I have been winding balls of yarn by the bucket load!!

I have been trying to design some Extreme Crochet kits to sell at the fair, this is what has been taking up my time and unfortunately I have come to the decision that time wise it is just not viable.  I was going to include a pattern, a 25mm wooden crochet hook (hand made by my OH) and 20 balls of yarn in the kit.  Well winding and labeling all the balls took ages to get them looking professional, on top of that you have the time spent making the hook, and the cost of the packaging!  So all in all what seemed like a good idea at the time turned out to be too time consuming, but it took me at least a week if not more to work this out!!

,

After much discussion we are still going to offer the handmade crochet hooks, the yarn and the pattern, but I will be selling them separately.  Instead of 20 small balls of yarn I have been busy winding huge balls with 20 strands at a time, this reduces the labeling from 20 down to 1 and the winding is so much quicker.  Rather than measuring the length of the yarn on each ball I have weighed each one at 500g.

I added my cup of coffee just to give you an idea of scale!

So as you can see, my link to Handmade Monday this week isn't strictly correct as I haven't actually managed to make anything over these past couple of weeks!!!  But I hope you will forgive me this time :)

To finish off my post I thought you may like to see a photo of Chester that I took a while back (both him and Taffy have been a bit neglected recently :( )

I think you'll agree - he looks such a cool cat!

See you all again soon, have a good week and enjoy the sunshine! 

Alison 

x

Chester Goes Topless!

Hello Everybody!

I expect you have all had a wonderful weekend with wall to wall sunshine?  I know I have!  A wonderful walk around Salcome on the Kingsbridge Estuary, with 270 degree views from Snapes Head up, down and along the river.  Absolutely stunning!  And a day in the garden today topped off with a few G &T's in the late afternoon sunshine (wine ran out!!).  Ignore any typing errors please!

Well Chester was enjoying the sunny weather too!  He fancied a drive out in Rob's Mazda with the top down.

Come on then Chester, start her up!

Oh dear Chester!  Don't like the look of all that smoke!  Better make sure there is nothing wrong before you drive off!

Have you checked the

oil?

 Better book it in for a service when you get back!

Not looking too bad now!

Have a safe journey Chester!

Byee!

Just in case any of you are wondering who Chester is, I have written a page 'Chester the Extreme Crochet Cat' on my blog explaining how and what he is made from.  If you click on this link it should take you straight to it http://www.fiddlyfingers.blogspot.co.uk/p/chester-extreme-crochet-cat.html I am using him to promote Extreme Crochet workshops.  If you would be interested in holding a workshop or attending one here in Devon please contact me via my blog or email me at alisonjoyw@hotmail.co.uk

One more thing! I am linking up to Handmade Monday over at http://www.1stuniquegifts.co.uk/blog/ why not pop over to have a look at all the other interesting blogs.

It looks like most of us are going to have a good week weatherwise, so lets hope it lives up to expectations otherwise! 

Can't wait for tomorrow! Am going to collect another car load of yarn for even more Extreme Crochet!  Oooh! So excited! Can't wait to see what colours I'll get!  Better than Christmas!!!

Have a good week!

Talk soon!

xxx

Hello Chester!

Hello, hello.  I'm over the moon and really excited. Chester is finally finished! I bet you are all dyeing to see a picture of him?  Well just hang on one minute! I have to get the important stuff out of the way first.

Favecraftsblog are offering the chance to one lucky blogger to feature in their newsletter.  All they ask is for a mention, so please visit their site to see what they are all about  http://www.favecraftsblog.com/about/ and hopefully Chester and I may feature.

Before you have your first peek at the finished Chester, I would like to mention the creator of the pattern.  It was taken from a book called 'Hello my name is Amineko' written by Nekoyama.  My sister-in-law http://www.limegreenlizzie.co.uk/ started making Amineko first of all and this gave me the inspiration to try an extreme crochet version of Amineko.  Hence Chester was born!

Ok!    A drum roll please!    Here he is!  

I am really pleased with him.  He took me long enough!  I've been making him now since Christmas on and off, more on than off really. It took me all day yesterday to add his nose, mouth, eyes and ears. This photo was taken very quickly yesterday evening before we went out. I finished him at 6pm and we were due at friends down the road at 6.30pm.  Not bad timing really!

I think he's going to be quite a character!  

Here are some facts about him.

He's about 6'5" tall!

His legs and arms took a whole single duvet to stuff them!

He's put on weight since I started making him ... his waist is 50" now!

His first journey was rather undignified I'm afraid!  He wouldn't actually fit in the back seat of the car.  We had to put the seats down to fit him in the boot!  

Well I hope you like him and please keep an eye out for him, to see where he gets to in the future.  

If anyone is interested in an extreme crochet workshop, I have a couple going on over the next few months in the Devon area and I would be happy to travel a reasonable distance if a group of you fancied having a go.  Why not email me on alisonjoyw@hotmail.co.uk and have a chat, I'm sure we can arrange something.

One last thing, I am linking up to Handmade Monday over at http://www.1stuniquegifts.co.uk/blog so why not pop over and see what other craft bloggers are up to.

I'm also linking to http://thirtyhandmadedays.com/ who I recently stumbled upon, so why not have a look at them too?
If you like what you see, why not sign up to my blog, I look forward to reading yours too!

Bye for now x
Happy crafting!