Not much again...

...thanks to particularly obnoxious teenagers this week. School was tough these last 3 days- very tiring. Completed a couple more motifs for my crochet shawl. Prob wont do much this weekend. Sat I'm going to Rocky Horror at the Mayflower and Sun is Phil's birthday.

A little bit of knit and crochet

Yuck! Had a killer migraine for the latter half of last week. Therefore not much in the way of anything to report. The pain finally went over the weekend. Annoying though. I was planning on going over to Havant for an open day at Carl Martin's workshop. Never mind. Some other time.

Over the weekend I did have a little play with my new Knitpro interchangable circular needles.  Liked what I produced and thought it would look good as a jumper but even I'm not skinny enough to get into it! Took a piccy to remind me but have undone it to start again at a later date. Maybe 10 cabled plaits instead of 6!

Yesterday eve I remembered a crochet pattern I'd seen ages ago for a poncho. Decided I'd put my newfound crochet skills to good use and have a go. Some hunting later I found the pattern in the March 06 issue of Crafts Beautiful and completed a whole motif! Yet another WIP to be added to the list.

2 more crocheted brooches

The rose one is made from this free pattern from Lion brand yarn. Its very quick and easy to make. I made the medium size with a 4mm hool and cheap dk acrylic yarn. The one with the button was made using similar techniques.

I don't really wear brooches but am having fun making them. They're easy and quick. Its great to finish a project in a couple of hours. In fact- can you call it a project if its done so quickly?

Carmen

A while back Caroline posted a dragon on her blog. I was blown away and needed to make one myself. This was her second dragon using this free pattern by Marjorie Jones. Unfortunately I couldn't crochet then but now I can a bit so for thought I'd have a go as my Thursday night project on crafteroo. I'm usually too busy with school stuff to get involved but the snow days this week enabled me to take part for the first time.

Things were going great...but then...oh no...I ran out of yarn!! I couldn't finish her last night. Looking through my yarn stash this morning, I found some more but it wasn't quite the right shade. So I treated last nights efforts as practice and started again.

Let me present to you, Carmen. She was made with cheap double knit acrylic yarn and a 4mm crochet hook. Like Caroline, I added wings from the cthulhu from Christen Haden's Creepy Cute Crochet. I omitted the spikes as I liked her without them.

Crocheted flower brooch

Well here's the result of yesterdays snow day.....

A crocheted flower brooch that I made up as I went along. Its only made using chains, slip stitches, doubles and trebles 'cos thats all I know how to do at the moment. Found a nice button in my depressingly small button stash. Also- my first make of 2010- yay!

As an aside ponder... a couple of months ago I had decided that I was going to concentrate on silver smithing as my craft of choice. I have been enjoying learning this craft but the prob is it takes up lots of space. Its too much effort to get it all out only to have to tidy it up if either of us need to use the dining table. Maybe I should give some serious thought to converting the garage.

But crocheting can be done in the warm and doesn't need as many tools. It doesn't take over the dining table either. It can be done on the couch whilst watching tv and you can do it at any hour without having to worry that your hammering is disturbing the neighbours. Oh, and wool is cheaper than silver!!

Ponder, ponder, ponder......

Snow Day!!

Well I attempted to go to school today. Headed out of the door and everything. Roads were horrible. Decided to ring in and let school know I'd be in later. I dutifully sent in my cover work for period 1. Then I get a text- we have a snow day anyway! Yay!

Now how shall I use it? Hmmm.......watching trashy telly?....some school work then crafting?

The downside of the snow is that I am supposed to be going to the Guildhall to see the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra with MIL tonight. I'm assuming this will be cancelled :o(

LUNCHTIME EDIT: Just had a text from my HoD saying we have tomorrow off too. I have done a little school work but this can stop now and I'm going to watch tv and play crocheting. Getting the hang of it now thanks to 'The Art of Crochet' (see first post). I'm going to have a go at making a flower- without a pattern!
Results to follow if they're good enough!!

Crafteroo Secret Santa swap

Finally got round to posting this! The wonderful Vonnie from over on crafteroo (her blog) organised a Secret Santa swap for us all. It was great fun to be a part of- lots of second guessing myself and much excitment when my parcel arrived (and I was vey good- I waited until Christmas day to open it).

Abbi from Edwina.Simone sent me this gorgeously unusual necklace and some choccy pennies (they aren't in the photo as they didn't last long enough to be photographed!)

Its fantastic! So different and exactly my colours. Thank you, thank you, thank you Abbi!! xxx

I sent a pressy to Eileen (her blog). Her main pressy was a pair of silver and crystal earrings.

I made them from 2mm wire and used a jig to make the shape. They're quite big so not for everyday use. Hope she liked them. I also sent her some choc and fizzing lavender bath melts roughly based on this tutorial. (One of many great tutorials to be found on this site) Thanks again Vonnie for organising this.

Motivation where art thou?

I'm on a serious downer of late. (Feel free to stop reading this post- it may turn out to be quite negative.) Finding motivation to do anything is proving very difficult. Well I was motivatied last night to play about with this and get my head around some of the html/xml coding...and lets face it- not essential work but it does look prettier.

Haven't done any crafting since before Christmas and then it was only to make pressies for people. It felt forced. School starts again tomorrow and I haven't done anything about that yet. Luckily I only work part time so have Mon and Tue to do that work if I don't find the motivation later today. Don't even want to watch the UFC we recorded last night and usually I love that.

Right, that's enough. Stop moping Gemma. I'm going to go have a bath with left over homemade smellies and candles and I'm thinking I'll take the crochet stuff I picked up yesterday in with me.

Roll on the longer days!

My first post!!

Hello world!!

I have been inspired to start a blog by the wonderful folks from crafter...oo (great forum for all kinds of craft inspiration; problem solving; chitter chatter; etc.)

The idea is that I will update every now and then with my crafting projects; rants/ponderings about life; cool stuff I find...possibly other stuff....I'll find out as I go I suppose.

Was going to make my blog all pretty before making my first post but wanted to tell you all about what I found just now. Had nipped out of the house to feed a friend's cats and pick up some milk. In the shop I found "The Art of Crochet" issue 1. Its one of those ringbinder collecty thingys. I have been meaning to learn more than a chain stitch for years and have been recently inspired by TheBijouDragon on crafteroo (see post) who has very recently started. It must have been a sign!! 99p for the first issue which includes 2 little balls of 'wool'; a 4mm hook; a dvd; some basics and some patterns.

I don't know if I'll bother subscribing but love the cheap first issue!