I'm back!

Hello, hello, hello!

Long time no see!  I have had a combination of a couple of really busy weeks leaving me no real time to write a post, followed by a rather quiet time with nothing much to write about!

Bit of disappointment on the Hobbycraft front.  The project I was going to do for them was for Children in Need but unfortunately timescales were against us so we have agreed to postpone this until next year.

I have had another couple of workshops over the last month ..........

... this one at Countess Wear Village Hall (above)

.... and this one at the Courtenay Centre!

I'm very pleased to say that a great time and lots of fun was had by all - oh! and the girls all learnt to crochet!

Felting

I have started a wet felting course and am about half way through now.  Wet felting is something I didn't think I would ever get into, but I am really enjoying this so far.

Here are my finished pieces over the last few weeks

I have been waiting for my last piece, the grey pot, to dry out thoroughly and now I think I may embellish it with a bit of needle felting and maybe a crochet edging.  Next week we are making a small 3d  purse and then we start working on our final piece.  Not sure what to choose yet but think I may make a bag.

Embroidery

I bought a new book recently, just because I fancied it!  Here it is A Rainbow of Stitches

It is full of embroidery templates which I am sure will come in very handy one day.  Here is the first one I tried - a very simple 'puddy tat'

Off to join in Handmade Monday this evening, the first time in a good few weeks, so why not make yourself a cup of tea and take a bit of 'me' time to follow me over there to see what all the wonderful crafters have been up to.

Thank you for reading and I'll try and finish my pot for next week, hopefully I'll be back on track from now on.

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!

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!

A Kidsilk Haze Fix!

Hi Everyone

Hope you have all had a good week, our weather has been a bit disappointing again lately rather a shame after that spell of sunshine we were all beginning to enjoy.  What about the Olympics?  Haven't we had some fantastic results?

I've had a very bitty week really, not getting much done at all.  I did manage to put out a few posters to advertise my workshops and I have just been preparing one for the Hobbycraft Store as I am doing a Crochet Flower Workshop in their Kingsteignton store on 14th September and I have agreed to do another workshop for Social Fabric over in Totnes, a new venture for a lady called Caroline so I hope it goes well for her.  When you look back at it, maybe I have achieved a something.

I wanted to share a couple of things with you.  I had a 25% off voucher to use in Hobbycraft which had to be used by today - so as it was raining extremely hard all day it was an ideal opportunity to pop down for a bit of retail therapy.  Look what I bought!!  It is so scrummy!

Three balls of Kidsilk Haze Stripe!!!!  I have no idea what I shall do with it but using it recently to make those fingerless gloves I absolutely love it.  I had to buy 3 balls just in case I found a lacey cardigan or jumper pattern, but a pretty drapey scarf would also be wonderful.  I wondered whether I should design my own jumper, although Kidsilk Haze may not be a particularly suitable yarn for a beginner designer to start on!!!  I'll let you know.

You may remember a short while ago I made 'Maisy' a little elephant.  Well I promised a dear lady I would make one for her to keep for when her great-grandaughter came over.  Unfortunately I didn't have enough of the cotton thread I used for Maisy so had to use something a little thinner.  As you can imagine she came out just a little smaller!

I crocheted her dress in Kidsilk Haze that I had left over from the gloves.  I think she needs a bow or flower in her 'hair'.  What do you think?

Here she is next to Maisy.  Maisy is about 3" tall and she is about 2" tall.  Both created from the same pattern written by Sharon Ojala.  If you click on her name it will take you to her blog where you will find the pattern.  Talking about names, any preferences for this little cutie?

Ooh one last thing!  A lovely lady over at Christmas Pie Crafts is looking for Friday Guest Bloggers she says
"If you are ready, willing and able to give it a go, please email me on christmaspiecrafts@virginmedia.com with Friday Guest Blog in the subject area.  Your article should be approximately 500 - 600 words, but please don't panic if that seems too long,  Let me know the date you would like to take part and also your blog and website address will be added at the end of your article.  Many thanks for your help and I am looking forward to reading lots of fantastic articles and sharing them with the rest of the crafting world."

So if you would like to direct a little more traffic towards your blog just get in touch!  It really isn't as daunting as it sounds!

Ok now I'm off over to Handmade Monday to see what everyone else has been up to and I may even have a little look to see if I can find any Kidsilk Haze Stripe patterns.  Have a great week everyone, bye x

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

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

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

Pretty Bits and a Crochet Workshop!

Hello All

Well here we are at another Handmade Monday! Don't the weeks just fly by?  We've had a bit of rain for the garden and a few lovely bits of warm sunshine in the sheltered spots, so hopefully you all got the bit you wanted when you wanted!  I hope this next week turns out to be a really good one for everyone, not just weather wise!

I was really pleased to be a Friday Guest Blogger over at Christmas Pie Crafts last week so if you haven't already why not pop over and have a look.  You'll be able to see what Chester and Taffy cooked up between them!  Ooh and I was also awarded the Versatile Blogger Award, very exciting as I have never been awarded anything like this before!

I meant to share this make with you for a while now but kept forgetting, so before I tell you about the workshop I ran on Saturday, have a quick peek at this!

I used a pattern from Attic24.  She makes some lovely things!  I don't think this one is quite as pretty as Lucy's but it was using carpet yarn and the colours aren't quite so bright.  I made it just after I finished Chester as I wanted something quick to do.

I've just started making Lucy's Blooming Flower Cushion, this is as far as I've done but I'll keep you posted on progress!

Ok now to the workshop.  It was a one day workshop at Countess Wear Village Hall.  A lovely group of ladies who used a tremendous amount of concentration, punctuated by chocolate mini rolls to keep the blood sugar levels up!

Here's the hall set up ready for the students

And of course, Chester had to come along to supervise again!

Very busy!  Not a chocolate mini roll in sight - just a healthy looking apple!

Just a few of the projects completed by some of the ladies.

(Wonky photo - can't get it to turn around!)

I was really pleased with what all the ladies achieved, a couple really struggled with wrapping the yarn around their fingers (something I remember finding difficult when I first started) and during the morning I was beginning to wonder whether they would ever crack it.  They had a lot of information to take in, all in one day.  But fear not!  Everyone managed a granny square and some even went on to do a little bag and a flower. 

I had lovely comments from some of the ladies and thought I would like to share them with you.  It makes it all worthwhile!!

Excellent day!

I learnt absolutely loads and made 2 items!

Thrilled I could even read a pattern!

Very enjoyable course.

Clear instructions.

Thank you.

Great class!

Very interesting and informative!

Very patient teacher.

Would come again!

I think you'll agree I couldn't ask for better comments. 

Thank you to all the ladies who attended for making this a very enjoyable workshop!

Hope you have managed to take a look at what Taffy and Chester cooked up for me, they really did get in a bit of a mess!  I have a few other photos of Chester I know you're going to love but that's for another blog.  Hope you all have a really good week!

See you soon!

x

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