I'm Alpaca Girl's Fiber Arts Friday featured blogger!

The lovely Katy from Alpaca Farm Girl contacted me to ask if I'd talk about the fine art of crochet for her Fiber Arts Friday feature. How could I refuse? I am but flesh and blood.

You can read my hilarious insights and homespun wisdom right here.

Also, I know it's shameful of me, but I gave Katy the scoop on two things I finished making recently: my crochet blanket (well I say "finished" - I've still got a row of edging to do) and my amigurumi Milo, which I made for my Milo-mad niece over in Australia. She's already picked a hole in the back of his neck, which I think speaks volumes about the ingratitude of 2 year olds.

Cafetiere Cosy and a spot of DIY decor

Yes, I really am living the dream. Not content with a black and gold tea cosy, I made myself a matching cosy for the cafetière, so now I have TWO tastefully crocheted items in my flat. Crazy, I know.


While I'm at at it, let's talk about the furnishings. You can just see the white bamboo table which I painted. It was given to us when we moved into our last flat and we had always assumed we would get rid of it when we finally moved into our own place. But in the spirit of trying to recycle and re-use, I decided to paint it.


I made those cushions for the sofa as well. Previously, it was a very tired and old chesterfield, and a lot of the leather had begun flaking off. I bought some duck feather cushions and covered them with material that I bought on eBay. They're not only helping to increase the life of the sofa, they're also making it a lot comfier to sit on!

The cream scatter cushion cover is made from the bags that our organic bed linen came in. I didn't want to waste them and they were exactly the right size for the cushions. Al thinks they're silly, but I like them! This is what they look like on the other side.


Waste not want not!

And finally, we have the lampshade. Al's been promising to paint bright flowers on the lampshade for ages, but after about 3 years of waiting, I finally just decided to sort it out myself. Here you can see what it looked like, and how it looks now.


The paper is from an Arts & Crafts wrapping paper book - Victorian paper for a Victorian house!

New crochet blanket

Those squares I started making a while back are finally being put to good use. I've begun composing them into some semblance of order, adding some in to the mix and sewing them together into - almost - coherent patterns. It's almost as though I planned it that way!

Anyway, here's what we've got so far:

The latest square to be finished.


Here it is next to the first one I made (still my favourite so far).


And this is the new one I'm working on. Still not sure how it will all come together (I might swap the corner pieces for something else), but it's looking ok so far, I think!

International Crochet Day at Shiny Towers

It's amazing what I'll do to try to win one of Jimbo's beautiful handmade crochet hooks. Quite how I found myself trundling into work with a bag full of wool and an almighty hangover the other Friday is a mystery to me - but I'd made a promise to teach anyone in the office who wanted to learn how to crochet, and my word is my bond.

All this was in honour of World Crochet Day, something that I read about on Jimbo's Front Porch, and which inspired me to have a crafty day in the office, much like they do over at Fruit Towers in the Innocent offices.

But while I was having these romantic thoughts of a bonding, crafting session with my staff, at the back of my mind was the knowledge that not all Shiny people are given to folksy crafting experiences, and - as expected - many of them scoffed at the very notion of spending a lunch break learning to crochet.

Luckily, I know how to win them round, and once I'd bribed them all with pizzas (bit of free advice: carrying 10 boxes of steaming pizzas is not easy), six of them stayed seated (presumably, the carb coma kept them grounded) in order to learn crochet skills.

Susi, Gemma, (who is already a wonder-knitter), Abi, Kelly, Lucy and Duncan all sat and listened patiently while I tried to talk through the hangover. Gemma proved (unsurprisingly) to be teacher's pet, and was soon helping the others. Lucy and Kelly eventually got fed up after about half an hour of valiant persistence (they were just getting the hang of it as well!), Abi finally got the hang of it (she's tried to learn before), Duncan was a natural, and Susi surprised me (and possibly herself) by not only having the patience to sit there and learn, but also by quite enjoying herself.

In the end, my initial promise to teach them to make Innocent Smoothie hats proved a bit ambitious, but the rows of trebles (US DC) they produced were still pretty impressive! In fact, there was enough enthusiasm for people to get Gemma promising to do a knitting session, so maybe this is the start of something beautiful at Shiny Towers.

You can read Abi's piece about the day over on Crafty Crafty.

Teaching people to crochet in Crystal Palace

The lovely Noisy Pitta and I had a great day back in June teaching the good people of Crystal Palace how to crochet. Here's Noisy Pitta Alison herself sitting at our stall, surrounded by brightly crocheted objects after driving 2 hours just to come and sit next to a person she met on the internet. Surely she deserves some sort of medal or award?!

The day, aimed at promoting the local shops in the area, was organised by the It's A Green Thing people, who confused me recently when they decided to move their shop to the other side of the Triangle. Lots of people stopped by to learn, which was a pleasant surprise - I had visions of us spending a day sitting on our own while people gave us a wide berth.

Teaching is tiring business (as Vanessa will attest), so thank goodness for whoever brought over the Eton Mess for us to devour, and for fellow professional blog botherer and Crystal Palace dweller, Rob, who bought me a pork butty from the food market. Otherwise I may well have *died*.

All in all a good time was had by all, and hopefully a few people will have found the lessons helpful!

Return of the Granny Blanket.

My life's work has had another makeover, returning in a smaller, more manageable format, and with a whole lot more sturdiness.

You'll no doubt recall that I've been making this blanket since before I can remember (so - what - like, 10 years or something) and it's never really been finished off properly, despite the fact that it's been put to use on many occasions.

Since the weight of it meant it was starting to pull itself apart, I finally got my act together and rejoined the pieces (properly this time), taking out some squares to make it less heavy, and actually took the trouble to edge it as well.

However, as you'd expect, I'm still not entirely happy with it. I want to do something a bit more fancy with the edging and make it a little bit bigger. But it will do until I have my next little blanket break down.

PS. You'll note that I've left in the "bright orange monstrosity" that I so objected to last time. That's because it's grown on me and it's now my favourite one. Further proof that I just can't get enough of ugly crochet.

Black crochet tea cosy - surprisingly tasteful for me

Those of you who hold each and every update I write close to your bosom, remembering every word and every project as though they were your own children, will have no trouble in recalling this "trendy tea cosy" (as I dubbed it at the time), which went disastrously wrong thanks to an ill-judged bit of sizing guess work on my part.

Well, I finally got the unfinished project back out of my stash box and added the extension required to make it fit my tea pot. And now I have an *actual* bit of tasteful crochet in my house, as well as a very nice warm tea pot. It's like some kind of Christmas miracle. Except for without the Christmas.

The cosy didn't really suffer from the half-arsed bit of bodging I had to do to make it big enough. In fact, I rather like the sideways rows I've added to each edge of the cosy. And the fact that it's custom-made to fit my pot gives it that special edge that I know will drive all my friends crazy with tea cosy-envy. They'll try to hide it with looks of complete indifference or polite interest, but *I'll* know the truth.

Yet another baby tomato hat

I don't really see the point in having babies unless you dress them up in ridiculous clothes for your own amusement. Luckily, there have been plenty of powerless babes appearing in my life recently, and I've taken full advantage of their helplessness by plopping a tomato hat on their innocent noggins as soon as they hit the air.

My latest victim is my nephew, George, who's shown his gratitude to his favourite aunt by instantly growing too large for his. What he doesn't know, however, is that I can knock these things up at a hell of a rate of knots, and each time he outgrows a hat, another one will soon appear to replace it.

It's important that these youngsters know who's boss.

Here's a picture of him pretending he doesn't care that he looks ludicrous.

Whitting in the Wood - my first handmade wood crochet hook

We bought a woodland recently. You know, as you do. The story of how it happened is too long (and possibly not very interesting), but the short version is that we love camping, we love woods, and we found a woodland for sale that was near enough to Crystal Palace for us to be able to drive to our very own woodland campsite in an hour.

Most of our time spent there so far has been used for clearing some space for the undergrowth to start returning, making a few paths and taking down dead trees. But in between the hard work, there's plenty of time to sit and stare at the camp fire and pass the time with a spot of gentle whittling.

I thought I'd have a go at whittling a crochet hook. As you can see, I still have a long way to go before I'm anywhere near to making something that's usable. But since this photo was taken, we've got some proper wood working knives, which makes life easier. It's also a lot easier once you've got a bit of wire wool involved in the process to help keep it looking a bit more tidy. I've made better attempts since this one, but still nothing I'm entirely happy with.

My brother in law is an especially keen whittler, and he produced this finished hook (above), which he's sanded and gently waxed, making a hook that's surprisingly easy and comfortable to use - much better than those jumbo plastic ones I've got. (Click for bigger)

Maybe one day, we'll be as talented as the amazing Jimbo. Check out his blog for some truly beautiful handmade wooden crochet hooks.