Chester at Lustleigh Spring Show

You will be pleased to know that with all your help and comments last week, Little Ted now 

has a name!

Let me introduce you to ......

wait for it ....

I whispered a few names in his ear and he seemed to like Hugo so ... Hugo it is!

Hugo just seemed to suit him for some inexplicable reason! 

I am so grateful to you for your wonderful suggestions, thank you. 

I really couldn't have done it without you :)

Chester at Lustleigh Spring Show

As far as I can tell, Chester had a very pleasant time at Lustleigh.  He was all by himself this time but being a male he doesn't give much feedback!!!!  Here are just a few pictures for you. 

For those very observant ones amongst you, you may have noticed I have altered Chester's eyes slightly.  I have attached them with velcro this time so I can position them looking in different directions.  I think his extreme crochet flowers were equally as good as those on show, don't you?

I apologise to everyone last week as I had a quick peak at what you were all up to but I didn't have a lot of free time to place many comments.  We've been decorating you see, it seems to eat up the hours!

I shall aim to remedy that this week! 

Popping over to Handmade Harbour very soon. 

See you there!

Oh! Just one last thing

Now have to spend the evening re-threading the heading tape on a new set of curtains I bought from Dunelm Mill.  First pair were tied.  Only when I started to gather the second pair, and didn't seem to be getting anywhere   -  did I twig they weren't attached!!!!!!!!!! Doh!

Thank you Dunelm !!!!!

Polymer Clay Buttons

Hello

A very busy week this week so only a very short post today.  We went for a wonderful walk along the Devon coast around Salcombe yesterday.  There are far too many photos to add to this post so if you would like to see how beautiful this area is please click on the link.

First I would like to say thank you for all your comments last week and the help in naming Maisy's little tiny friend.  I finally decided to go with the name Minnie as suggested by Catkin Jane.  She really is very minnie and I love the idea of 'wearing purple' when I'm a grandma.  Thank you all for your help, it makes it far more fun than thinking up a name on my own!

You may have noticed for the past few weeks I have been answering each comment.  I hope you like this idea, I know it's not necessary but it feels a little more personal.

This week I have been having a fiddle with polymer clay buttons.  I hopefully will be running a short workshop on how to make a very simple crochet flower and turn it into a brooch or hair tie.  As there will be no crochet knowledge necessary for this workshop I need to make these as simple as possible.  Therefore I thought a button centre would be perfect.  As you can see from the picture below  I haven't got around to adding the holes yet and I will still be experimenting with other colours.

Below are a couple of ideas for the finished article

Thank you for stopping by :)  

I'm off to see what everyone else has been up to 

over on Handmade Monday.  

See you there!

Extreme Crochet Hearts

A very warm welcome to everyone out there! Hope you are all enjoying the sunshine :)  This is the first time I have linked up to We Did It Wednesday over at Sew Much Ado but lets hope it will be the first of many!

I would like to share some Extreme Crochet with you! 

What? I hear you ask. 

 Extreme crochet is using multiple yarns with a huge hook.

Taking crochet to the extreme - so to speak! 

Before I show you my latest creations I have listed links to my previous posts for those of you who are not already familiar with Fiddly Fingers.  

I hope you like what you see - Look out for Chester!!!

 http://www.fiddlyfingers.blogspot.co.uk/p/chester-extreme-crochet-cat.html

http://www.fiddlyfingers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/experimenting-with-extreme-crochet.html

http://www.fiddlyfingers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/chester-goes-topless.html

And now you've all caught up, take a look at my newest creations!

I'd finished this basket one evening and was wondering how to photograph it!

The following day a trip to the supermarket was a necessity and being a bit peckish (never a good time to go shopping!) I bought some hot cross buns - two packets actually (buy 1 get 1 free offer!).It was soon after this I had one of those 'ping' moments!  Hence the photo!

The basket is made using 20 strands of yarn and a 25mm hook.

If you click on the link below you will be able to see the size of the hook!

  http://www.fiddlyfingers.blogspot.co.uk/2012_01_01_archive.html

You may be asking yourselves why I am making these?  Well as you will see from 'Chester the Extreme Crochet Cat' link.  It's all my sister-in-law's fault!!  I started with Chester, on a 12mm hook with 5 strands of yarn, then decided to try something a littler larger!  These are my experiements for workshops I will be running in the near future.  I need projects that can be completed within the day long workshop.  So far I have made a really big flower and a 2 round granny square seat pad (see link 'Experimenting with Extreme Crochet' as well as the basket above and heart below.  If you are interested in either workshops just (you guessed it!) click on the following links

 http://www.countesswearvillagehall.co.uk/vh/Home.html 

and

http://www.rowantreestudio.co.uk/workshopcalender.html

 Here is the latest addition to my experiments.

The photograph below shows the scale!

I thought this heart would make a lovely wall decoration and I even thought it would be handy to hang 'hooky' earrings on.

If you have any other ideas for me to create in extreme crochet please let me know and if I manage to make any I can put a link to your blog when I put up a picture.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post.

Enjoy the rest of the week.

Happy hooking!

X

Experimenting with Extreme Crochet

Hello everyone

Hope you've all had a relaxing weekend.  We have had a lovely time, family 80th birthday celebration yesterday, short walk and a look round the 'Blue' exhibition at The Devon Guild of Craftsmen this morning  http://www.crafts.org.uk/ and a bit of extreme crochet this afternoon (the real reason for this blog!). Perfect!

I thought it would be great to link this post with Handmade Monday over at 1st Unique gifts http://www.1stuniquegifts.co.uk/blog/about-handmade-monday/ as I know you all enjoyed the blog post about Chester.   This project, whilst smaller, is created on an even bigger hook than Chester!  Think what size Chester could turn out if I used the hook and yarn I used for these projects!  Wowee!  I'd have a job to get him in the house, let alone the car!  Anyway, I'll stop waffling.  I know you want to find out about these projects!

Well as I have already said, the projects are quite small but the hook and yarn is not!  You may or may not know that I run workshops from time to time and I have an Extreme Crochet one coming up soon at the end of April and hopefully another one coming up in June, so I am starting to think of projects which can be achieved in one day.  Remembering of course it also takes a while to sort out all the yarn!  Anyway have a look at the first one and see what you think.

It is difficult to tell the scale in this photograph but the next one may be more helpful.  I used a 25mm hook and 20 strands of dk yarn at a time.  I thought this would look rather nice on the wall of a conservatory maybe.  I did think it would look even better if I edged it in the same yellow as the centre but I haven't got enough!

Does this show the scale a little better?  I hung it on the wall in place of one of the pictures and held up a bottle of wine next to it so you could see how big it actually is.

A close-up of the flower shows the stitches in this photo.  Counting sewing in the ends it took about 1.5 - 2 hrs to complete.  So, may be possible to make a couple in a one day workshop depending how much chat and eating cake is going on!

This next project, a Granny Square seat pad cushion for a garden chair (or a kitchen chair for that matter) or a kneeling pad for gardening, was suggested by In the Sky http://inthesky1.blogspot.co.uk/ so I thought I'd give it a go.

You would not believe it, but this is only 2 rounds of a granny square!  It probably took a similar amount of time to work up as the flower - perhaps nearer the 1 - 1.5 hours.  It's the sewing in of the ends that take the time.

Here it is on a chair!  Unfortunately we have no square chairs in the house, this was the nearest I could find, but at least it gives it some perspective.  No stuffing needed for this cushion!

If you would like a few statistics, the flower took 28m of 20 strand yarn and the seat pad took about 32m.  The flower is actually the same distance across as the seat pad.  Accidental not planned!

If you have any other simple ideas for 'small' projects I would love to hear them and if any of you would be interested in a workshop please email me at www.alisonjoyw@hotmail.co.uk I will get back to you then with a price and let you know what dates are available. If you have a group of like minded friends you could get together, I would be willing to travel a reasonable distance from Devon and could arrange a date to suit you all.
Oh! One last thing, some people have been having problems commenting on my blog. If you do experience any problems could you please email me (as above) instead and explain the problem you're having and then I can try and sort it out.
Thanks for reading! I'll have a look at some of the other lovely blogs at Handmade Monday over the next few days.
Catch you soon! Alison x