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

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

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!

Chester the Extreme Crochet Cat - an update on progress!

Hi there!
I've been a bit busy lately so sorry if it's been a while since my last post.  I've been crocheting my little heart out, trying my hardest to get Chester finished!  For those of you who are not familiar with Chester the Extreme Crochet Cat , if you click on this link it will take you to the post on my blog which explains a bit more! http://fiddlyfingers.blogspot.com/2012/01/chester-extreme-crochet-cat.html
Well not many pictures to support the amount of work involved really ....

Before you ask, yes the legs are the same - different colours I know, but the grey toes and the size are the same, just the picture doesn't make it look like they are!

Legs and arms now! Legs are the shortest ones.  That surprised me really, thought they would be the longest!

To give you an idea how much is involved, I started the last arm at about 11am today and finished at about 3.30pm ish.  Ok I put a couple of loads of washing in and out of the machine and stopped for lunch as well but you don't have to be Einstein to work out why it's taken all week to get these finished!

Now I need to work out how to stuff them, before I stitch them on!  To be honest I think I should have stuffed the toes and hands before I crocheted the narrow bits!!  But ... it's too late now!

I have managed one ear too!  But I've stopped now ... I'm completely crocheted out for today.  Just another ear and the mouth to go.  There's light at the end of the tunnel!!

Can anyone suggest any magazines or websites who may be interested in Chester the Extreme Crochet Cat?  When he's finished of course!!!  

Just before I go.  Taffy has been a very helpful bear today so I shall put up a post over the weekend, showing you how he helped.

That's it for now then.  We're cracking open the wine!  It's Friday!!!!!  See you soon xx