5 things for 2013

I have borrowed the idea for this post from my friend Helen, who's blog you can read here. Helen has been writing some blogs recently about the 5 good things that have happened to her recently, and this format really inspired me. Rather than copy it directly, I thought I'd use it here to look forward to 2013 and log some of my *whisper it* "resolutions". 

I know some people are not really big fans of resolutions, or using the New Year to re-evaluate what's going on, so if this is you, you might not want to read on. Personally I think that any time of year is great to do this, but a new calendar year just feels like a good excuse to do it. It also gives you a fixed timeframe to look back on to see how you got on.

So. What do I intend to refresh or start this year? Well...

1. Get healthier.

Yeah, yeah, I know. This is pretty standard, and probably the one I will fail at the most. But hey, I felt I should give it a go at least. I have put weight on this year. Quite a bit of weight. This I realised when I saw this photo of myself taken at Andy's graduation. Not good. 

Me and Andy. Absolutely horrified by this pic so it's my inspiration shot for this weightloss attempt. 

Plan is: carry on cooking yummy things from BBC Good Food Magazine, cut out "little treats", and try new things from Nadia Sawalha's new book Greedy Girls Diet ; exercise more. (Oh and Andy's doing it too, so I have some moral support). Wish me luck.

2. Crafting

I love craft. In particular I love sewing, and more recently knitting and crochet. So my crafty resolution(s) is/are to carry on with more. I need to get back to sewing clothes (not done any since July); knit some more including learning how to knit cables, finish my knitted waistcoat, and knit a gorgeous jumper I found in this months Let's Knit! magazine. I also have some baby stuff to do for this years crop of new little people; and I need to carry on my crochet blanket. I've only got 10% done so far, and I need this to be more by the end of the year or I'll lose the will to finish it!

My knitted waistcoat so far! 

3. Baking

I have been running a small business doing cakes for the last 18 months or so. It's been fun, but it's not really bringing in enough money to make it worth my while. So, my business will close at the end of this month. I will still happily do cakes for people, but it just won't be through my business (if you know me and need a cake/cupcakes then please do ask!). One day when I have more time to spare at weekends, or if I'm ever lucky enough to be able to try it full time I will come back to it, so it's "au revoir" rather than goodbye!

I'm doing cakes for my lovely friends Linzi and Steve for their wedding in May, and very much looking forward to these as there'll be several different batches with more natural decorations than usual.

I'm also hoping to continue with my cake decorating classes at Trafford College in April to develop my skills further. I'm looking forward to learning to make flowers and frills and lots of other things which I can use in the future.

And I'd like to make more bread. Tying in with resolution 1, I'd like to make a good rye or pumpernickel bread, and there is a lovely looking recipe in the latest Great British Bake Off book which I'm going to try, and after I'm happy with the results from resolution 1, then maybe the doughnuts too!

4. Read more

Since I got (addicted to) my iPhone a few years ago, I have gained the habit of reading facebook, twitter, pinterest, and BBC news before I go to bed. Which has totally taken over my traditional reading time. So this year, the book is going to claim back this half hour. I've got a few books I'd like to read to begin with so I'm going to read/reread:

• The Hobbit (started already)
• A book about how sewing helped the war effort in World War II I've borrowed off Mum (can't remember the title right now)
• Something Poirot or other Agatha Christie
• Some more Philippa Gregory. Not sure where I'm up to in her chronological series' but I'll work it out. 

5. Professional development

I need to get my revalidation for Chartered status done. This is a particularly dull one I know, but I need it to be here. I've started it, but too much of resolution 2, 3, and 4 always get in the way. So I think this is a good one to end my resolution list with. 

So there it is. My plan for 2013. Oh, apart from a sneaky 5a) blog more! I have really enjoyed my blogging so far, so will carry on as much as possible this year. Hope to see you along the way!

Camelia blanket - part 1: The beginning

Now Christmas is out of the way for another year, and 2013 has arrived, I've started planning some craft projects just for me (I know, I know - crazy!). As well as finishing a sleeveless cardigan/waistcoat I started knitting back in September, and a lovely jumper I've seen to make use of some wool I fell in love with on holiday, I also plan on getting back to a big project I started earlier this year.

Knowing we were going on the canal for our holiday this year, I decided I'd take some crochet to keep me occupied (when I wasn't doing locks or bridges). Rather than take a teeny little project, I decided to tackle my very favourite project from my crochet book (Cute and Easy Crochet, by Nikki Trench), which is... a blanket!!! It's the Camelia Blanket, and will be a gorgeous snug blanket for my bed or snuggling on the sofa.

I started it in August, a few weeks before the holiday, and I'm sure I'll still be going this time next year (and probably even longer), as I moved on to Christmas projects in October!

The blanket has a mixture of 'plain' Granny squares and squares with a three dimensional camelia. I've done about 17 squares now, and as there's 142 squares on the blanket there's still some way to go...

Crochet bear baby gift

We spend more of our time in work than almost anywhere else, so when you have good people around you it really does make life easier.

Today, we said a temporary good bye to a very good person to have around you, as our friend (and colleague) Jen left to have her baby. It only seems about 5 minutes since she announced her pregnancy, but yet here we are, 6 months later and there's only two weeks before the little one arrives.

We did a collection, and really splashed out on some lovely things. But some of us also got our own little gifts, and I wanted to use my new found crochet skills to create something special.

Until now I had been crocheting from patterns I found on the Internet, but I recently bought a book of crochet - Cute & Easy Crochet by Nicki Trench. I got it from our work drop from The Book People for the absolute bargain price of £4, and had a flick through almost every day planning projects.

The bear pattern really stood out, and even though it was in the section with the highest level of difficulty, I had a good feeling about it, as the pattern looked fairly simple.

As Jen doesn't know the sex of her baby, I decided a neutral colour was the way to go, and really thought that a cream bear would be very lovely, so I got some nice soft double knit wool from Leeds Market, and off I went.

Bear was constructed in two main sections for body and head, stuffing each before the crochet is finished. Eyes are added before the head is stuffed, and I bought a bag of safety eyes from Hobbycraft rather than stitching eyes on. The ears were stitched as four individual pieces. Each ear was assembled by double crocheting two pieces together, and then stitching onto the head with more wool (I used the loose ends to do this rather than cut fresh wool). Here is the body and head, once the ears had been assembled:

You can see his little face starting to take shape here, but to complete his personality, he needed a nose and a mouth. My other hobbies helped here. I like to embroider, but also in the past have had a go at making teddy bears. This was during the phase my Mum went through of making jointed teddy bears, and I used one of her books to make a couple of very simple non-jointed mini-bears out of some offcuts of mohair she had left. Anyway, the point is that as part of this crafting I learnt how to embroider noses and mouths on bears. This came in very handy as I free styled this little guy's face. After embroidering the expression on, I drew the thread through his head to come out where the head will be stitched onto the body, so I could tie a knot, and hide it in the join. You can just see the thread hanging down under the head in this picture of his finished face:

Once his head was finished, all that was left was to stitch him together. I had already crocheted 4 arms and legs. This was actually quite tricky. The trouble was that after the bit of instruction for the paw, the leg/arm bit was just left to the crocheter to complete and keep going until the limb was 12cm long. So it was quite tricky to match them up. In the end I tried to match the arms and legs to be fairly even and as luck would have it ended up with two that were slightly thinner and longer (used for arms) than the other two (used for legs).

Then I just had to position the limbs on his body and stitch! I finished him off with a fetching green bow (baby neutral again!), and he was ready to meet Jen and her bump!

I was a little bit sad to see him go, but I know that Jen's little one will be the best parent for him in the future! (And I might make one of my own!)

Crochet baby elephant

I am 32. In general, this means my partying days are sadly pretty much all done with as I'm too poor (thanks mortgage), and nightclubs are loud noisy places (yes, 32 going on 62!). It also means that not only are lots of my friends getting married, but nowadays lots of them are starting families too.

So, inevitably I'm getting more and more invitations to baby showers. I love a nice baby shower - gossip with the girls, yummy food, and an opportunity to buy or make cute presents for mum and/or baby. And for the baby shower I went to this weekend, I really want to make use of my new crochet skills.

I don't yet have a book or any patterns (although my first book is due this week from The Book People), so I turned to the trusty internet to find the perfect pattern. I eventually chose this baby elephant pattern from the Red Heart Yarns website.

Given the trials of my rose and mouse patterns learning the correct terminology for the stitches I needed, the first thing I did was check which region it was. It was US, so I made sure that the reference sites I picked for reminding me how to do particular stitches were from the US. I had to do this a couple of times, and made a few errors along the way! Particularly with the body (see picture below), and the bonnet, which I abandoned when I realised it was so small it was for an elephant at least half his size!

Rather than buy the branded wool suggested, I went to a couple of the wool shops on Leeds Kirkgate Market, and chose a lovely grey double knit (100g), and some smaller balls (25g each) of a different brand for the bonnet and eyes. This proved to be a mistake which I will explain later.

The pattern itself was fairly simple, but required me to count the stitches a lot as they were in rounds. I taught myself an adjustable ring, which is simple to do, but fiddly to hold. I also found a video on YouTube which suggested using a contrasting scrap of wool as a marker so you don't have to count so precisely. This was a particularly good tip for crocheting in the evening in front of the TV so as long as you get the rhythm right (e.g. sc in next 2 sc, 2 sc in next sc, repeat x5 etc) you don't need to worry about the counting so much. Event better, if you do lose count you can just go back to the start of the row/round and then you can carry on. More than once I had to bin bits I'd started before I started using a marker. Never again!

The Pattern consisted of a head piece:

...body piece: (shown here on the left next to the one I did wrong! Was using slipstitches and only going through one side of each stitch (this will make sense to fellow crocheters)) 

...and four arms/legs:

Ears were added straight onto the head. So far, so simple. The stuffing of the head was added before the trunk was crocheted, as was the stuffing of each arm/leg. The body was stuffed later just before stitching the sections together.

Most of these were made just with single crochet (US). The bonnet was made in a round again, but this time with half double crochet (US). It had been a while since I had done this stitch (in the rose) so after messing up the first version I made a quick trip to the learn to crochet webpage from Lion brand again to remind me how to do it. Then I was off. I also had to add a second colour for the tie, and gaps for the ears.

When finished, it looked too small for the ele's head! Then I realised - by using different brands of wool, I had inadvertantly bought wool which was thinner than the grey, resulting in smaller stitches and guage. However, it stretched just enough to fit on his head. I added a yellow gingham ribbon for extra cuteness!

I was quite pleased overall, even though at first I was worried he wasn't as cute as the picture (possibly down to me moving away from recommended wool, guage too loose or stuffing him a teeny bit too tightly). But he went down a charm with the parents-to-be, and that's the main thing. Hopefully their "Lentil" will like him too when he or she arrives!

I REALLY enjoyed making him, and I cannot wait to stuck into my new crochet book (bought more wool in Leeds this weekend!). Watch this space...

Learning to crochet

In previous posts I have talked about my love of crafting, particularly baking and sewing. I like to think I got my passion for cooking from my Granny Peel. Her cooking was always fabulous, and I still have her old recipe file. I also have a Mason Cash mixing bowl and a small Cornishware collection, inspired by memories of cooking with Granny (and the vintage feel I love).

My love of sewing definitely comes from my Mum and Granny Clark. Mum has always done embroidery and things, and made some clothes when we were little, and Gran made my ball dress for my 6^th form ball many moons ago.

But Granny Clark’s main craft was knitting. I have tried many times to get into knitting but other than making my baby cousin a bootie, mittens and hat set (21 years ago!!!), I just can’t get into it, or remember how! 

At Christmas a friend of mine and fellow blogger mentioned she was making crochet Christmas star decorations, and I was struck with a longing to be able to make some myself. I didn’t get around to trying until a few weeks ago, when on impulse I bought a crochet hook and some wool in Leeds market to while away some time while my boyfriend did some studying. So, armed with my hook and wool, and trusty Google, I set about learning to crochet.

I firstly managed to cast on and do some Double crochet.

Then, I moved on and did some Treble crochet. (Or did I? More on that in a min).

Project 1 - Rose

Using my favourite new social media site, Pinterest, I found a lovely crochet rose pattern to do, using this pattern. It claims to be easy, and I think it is, particularly because there are two sets of instructions to help those of us who aren't familiar with the stitch abbreviations yet. I managed it not too badly.

Close up detail of rose petals.

The rose before construction.

I then realised I didn’t have a wool needle, so eBay to the rescue, and I got on with the mouse described below. When my needle arrived, I followed the instructions to create this gorgeous rose. I might add leaves when I can find some green wool I like – the stuff in the market this afternoon was too bright.

Project 2 - Mouse.

Again through Pinterest, I found this cute mouse pattern. I settled down, and using the stitches I had learnt, I got on and made this up to about row 14, but it was looking a bit, well, BIG!

 It was then that I realised I’d read somewhere that US and UK stitches are different, and lo and behold a quick check of Wikipedia told me that I was right. I had actually learnt [check UK stitches learned], and on checking the rose pattern was US, and the mouse was UK. So, back to the internet for UK instructions to make sure I was doing it right, and off I went. Much better! This is what the mouse looked like with his body finished:

However, I've since discovered that this is STILL not right, so I will have to persevere and see how I get on. I have had another project on the go I just finished as a present so will get the pictures on the computer, and come back to blog about that. The mouse has frustrated me too much to come back to just yet, but one day I'll maybe get him right!

*sigh*