The droid gang

I'm still loving the fantastic Star Wars crochet patterns by Lucy Collin. In the run up to Christmas they were the perfect quick gifts to make for the family.

BB-8 has come from the new Star Wars crochet book "Even more Star Wars Crochet" by Lucy Collin. I love how the clever construction worked so well to show so much detail and he ended up looking fantastic.

This kit came with so many exciting new patterns as well as the materials to make BB-8 & a Jawa.

"Utinni!"

I was much happier with the finish of my Jawa after adding an extra row of sc around the finished edge of the hood to make it slightly deeper.

Last up I made a really quick R2-D2 (and he really was very quick, only took about 3 hours from start to finish). My R2-D2 has pipe cleaners in the legs to reinforce them without any stuffing which I think worked really well.  

I just love these patterns and will be sorting through my stash to make more soon :-)

 

Cross stitch for Christmas

Christmas always seems to come too quickly so I'm very pleased to have a little bit of crafting under my belt already.

These two cute cards are again quick cross stitch kits by mouseloft, they come both as kits or kits with cards and the designs fit the windows perfectly.

I love doing these cross stitch kits - super quick and satisfying. I especially like doing the black outline at the end - it brings all the stitches to life :-)

Oink!

Just finished stitching up this cute little pig cross stitch pattern (another fantastic design from mouseloft). Tomorrow I go back to work after a lovely craft filled Summer break so the posts on here will sadly have to slow back down again - awww!

Hope you've all had a fantastic Summer and been able to fit in plenty of crafty time :-)

Yoda I am

It's time to even the sides of the force (stormtrooper here) with a very cute little Yoda. This is another great pattern from Star Wars crochet by Lucy Collin.

He is made up in quite a few pieces including and lovely little jacket with sleeves all carefully shaped so it fits him perfectly.

I especially love his little toes with claw details embroidered on.

Hopefully I'll be able to share more Star Wars crochet loveliness soon as I would so love to make all the characters!

Dinky Tardis

Just heard that a friend is in hospital so needed a little something to cheer him up fast! Thankfully I found this fabulous Tardis pattern by Nyss Parkes on Ravelry which worked up super quickly.

The detail is added with bits of white felt and black embriodery done in a hurry so slightly irregular but still looks good. A bit of black yarn sewn round the top shows where 'police box' should be written (no way I was going to be able to sew that in so small!)

I decided to stuff mine and crochet the bottom closed, by decreasing in the corners it also helped with keeping the Tardis a box shape.

A little crochet light added on top finished it up beautifully :-)

Simple sewing?

Hooray! I made a dress :-)

It's only taken me about 4 years to sit down and have a go at it... thankfully made up in it's largest size it still fits Emily.

This lovely shift dress is one of the fantastic kits you can by from Clothkits. It has the pattern printed out onto the fabric so all you need to do is cut out the size you are making and get sewing. For this kit there is also a 2 part video tutorial up on Youtube which was really helpful, especially when I went quite badly wrong putting in the placket.

I love the colours and the design and doesn't it look fantastic on Emily!

Cooling down

Our super hot Summer weather has quickly become rainy and overcast... however that hasn't stopped my Emily from very much wanting me to make her this little cute crochet ice lolly.

Pattern is from the latest issue of Simply Crochet (#74) and is written by Susan Yeates. It worked up super quickly and was perfect for gratifying the demands of this little bossy girl.

The dark side of crochet

I'm really excited to be showing off this little stormtrooper made from the Star Wars Crochet kit that I've had sitting waiting for me to start for years. (Star Wars crochet by Lucy Collin)

Well now I've made a start and created this little guy I think I shall just have to keep going and see how many of these fantastic characters I can create.

The patterns are fantastic - detailed, clear, well thought out and easy to follow. I love all the detail that has gone into this little guy, especially his chubby cheeks!

Dancing Darcy Dog

Latest quick make from Simply Crochet magazine, my son Sam saw this come in with my magazine last week and was very excited so I quickly whipped it up for him.

It's so lovely to be on Summer break and be able to finally get through all these little projects I have tucked away!

New to the herd

After much stabbing with a felting needle I have managed to turn some unspun into two rainbow fleeced sheep, and I simply adore them :-)

Needle felting takes a surprisingly long time, I must have spent 20 hours stabbing bits of wool to create my sheep, however it becomes quite addictive and it is fantastic to sculpt with wool.

This little guy had even more yarn adding to him to make him extra cuddly and colourful.

My sheep crafting kit I bought from Yarndale last year and if you fancy a go too they have an online shop www.feltcreative.co.uk where you can get kits like this one designed for complete needle felting beginners.

Pixel cross stitch

You may remember that we have a bit of a Space Invader theme going on in Tea Towers (if not then check out my post on laptop cases), if so then my latest make will be no surprise...

This cross stitch design was from a lovely little kit by mouseloft (www.mouseloft.co.uk) - these kits are simple, cute designs which are the perfect size for an evening of quick cross stitch.

I bought some black aida to use instead of the light blue it came with - this really shows off the design and makes it feel more like the graphics from the original game. 

With a little bit more sewing it has now transformed Rich's new bag.

I'm now itching to add some cross stitch to other items about the house, I had best go and buy a few more kits from the lovely Mouseloft designs!

Christmas llama

I'm still cracking on with the backlog of Simply crochet kits that I've amassed, here is the latest off the hook - Fa-la-la-llama by Erinna Lee.

Quite a fiddly make to do, lots of small pieces to crochet and then join together including some tricky embroidery on the face using separated yarn... which ended up pulling apart so had to make do with some doubled up thread.

When I made up the sequined reins I decided to crochet them straight into the chain which I think gives them a much neater finished than the method in the pattern.

Pretty pleased to have him finished, and also glad to crack on with some other exciting projects I've been keen to start... more on that soon :-)

Pottering

Have a look at the pots I got to make at a friend's hen party, they've been glazed and fired and thankfully survived coming up from London to Croatia and then to us here in Manchester.

This little one was my first try at using the potters wheel and turned out much better than I imagined.

It was lovely using the wheel and feeling the clay take shape, would love to try it again some time.

We also got to spend some time forming a pot by hand. This took a much longer time with much smoothing out and slowly shaping.

My pot had a torn edge effect that thankfully meant I didn't need to try and create an even brim... it may well have driven my fussy nature crazy!

I'm not as keen on the outside of my pot with the striped look from the glaze... I had thought it would be coming closer to the base than it did which would have just left the light blue showing at the bottom.

I love my two pots and am so grateful to my friend for having such a lovely crafty hen party :-)

Hama bead geekery

This weekend had us all busily hama beading away... Rich had seen some fantastic Mario coasters that he wanted to try and recreate so everyone in Tea Towers was enlisted to help.

Didn't they turn out fabulously?

Peaceful waves

I've done it! I have finally finished my very lovely snuggily Moorland Blanket from the yarn pack I bought way back in September last year.

I love the colourway - it blends so well through the grass colours, into the heathers and then to the beautiful colours of the sky.

I had difficult choosing a four colour border so I stuck with the 3 colours liked best together and that I felt went well with the blanket all the way through the colour phases. Now I'm all ready to snuggle up on the sofa - may have to wait a few months though!

I'm also putting a few repairs into Sam's old toddler blanket, it's seen a lot of love over the years and from being on Sam's bed since he was tiny it is starting to unravel in a few places... hopefully I can keep it together for a few more years!

Hot hot hot!

The weather is so very hot - our Manchester garden has never been this dry... however there is one plant that seems to be loving the recent heat wave.

This ever so cute amigurumi crochet cactus is from the kit with issue 59 of Simply Crochet. I love this pattern by Ilaria Caliri, the little details make it look so perfect, like the spike stitch around the top of the pot to create the rim and the tiny pompom that you put in the centre of the flower.

The hot weather seems to make it hard to face any larger projects so at the moment I am happily working through some of the lovely kits from my back issues of Simply crochet.

I've also recently finished this Tilly Flop card design that made me smile - so true :-)

Tasty and useful!

I've just finished up this quick Jammy dodger biscuit, and it looks good enough to eat ;-)

But wait... it's not just a biscuit...

It's also a tape measure!

This was made from one of the Simply Crochet magazine kits that came with issue 71.

Pretty patchwork

This year I have mostly been patchworking... I started paper piecing a number of hexagons after Christmas and have been very slowly putting them together ever since.

Once all the hexagons were completed I had some fun arranging them along the bottom edge of the curtains I was making, I then took a number of photos of them to act as a patchwork map for joining them all back together.

Months later I had finished joining them and sewing them onto the curtains... final seams and bits were done last night and today I finally have put them up, hooray!

Don't they look so very pretty and lovely hanging up in Emily's room?

World book day

Behind the scenes I've been busily crafting away on a variety of projects that I've yet to get around to letting you know about. Until I find a few moments to finish and take some photos I wanted to share with you this year's costumes for World book day.

Emily has suggested a wide range of ideas from 'a pencil' ("The pencil" by Allan Ahlberg), 'a loaf of bread' ("Hooray for Bread!" by Allan Alhberg), 'a rainbow fairy', 'a guinea pig' ("I love guinea pigs" by Dick King-Smith) and 'Norman' ("Norman the slug with a silly shell" by Sue Hendra). Eventually we agreed on 'Keith' ("Keith the cat with the magic hat" by Sue Hendra) and this crochet hair band is what I've come up with.

Sam was much simpler... he at first wanted to be a moving castle ("Howl's moving castle" by Diana Wynne Jones) but happily settled for Calcifer the fire demon instead for which I've made him this mask.

I'm so pleased to have costumes sorted well in time for World book day and that we've managed to do characters from books that both my two love :-)