Alpaca Hats

Before Christmas I was addicted to the John Lewis haberdashery department. 

Oh, who am I kidding, I'm still addicted to the John Lewis haberdashery department. But, before Christmas, they had this chunky, warm looking hat on display. I made the mistake of touching the hat, and now I'm hooked on chunky alpaca yarn. Which is not the cheapest of yarns to be hooked on.

So I decided I would quite like to make this hat for my friend Joe's girlfriend's Christmas present. Of course this meant practicing by making myself a hat first. Honest! Truly, my motives were pure! The display with the hat had the required book with the necessary pattern in it next to it. 

I picked up the required wool, Rowan Tumble, which is 90% Alpaca, 10% cotton and is deliciously soft. It comes in 6 different colours. I chose marshmallow for my hat. It required me to cable stitch, which I hadn't ever done before, but turned out to be easier than I thought it would be. It also required the most ridiculously large knitting needles: 12mm and 15mm. 

The chunkiness of the wool, added to the huge size of the knitting needles, meant in total it took me about 3 hours to knit. In one evening I'd made the hat, including sewing it up and putting a pom pom on top. It looked good, and so I decided to make a pink hat for the friends girlfriend. 

Kaylie's came out best, probably on account of me practicing and making myself one first. Sacrifices sometimes have to be made, you know. I prefer my one, though. I'm most proud of making Sonic, but I love my hat the best of all the things I made last year. It's been perfect to wear in the weather these past few weeks.

Angry birds

When I saw this pattern for the Angry Birds red cardinal and the pig, I just knew I had to try and make them for my cousin as a Christmas present.

Easier to do than the Sonic, as it's pretty much one single part with a few additional bits sewn on, I stupidly started this at the last minute. Come Christmas eve, I was up at 7 am to try and sew it all together and get it ready for wrapping and packing. Which explains the following, very rushed, picture:

I couldn't get the eyebrows right on the red cardinal. The sewing on could have been more symmetrical, but that's my fault for sewing it up so quickly! The pig is fine, but I'd like to work on the bird a bit more.

My cousins reaction was to request some more of the characters, and ask for a beanbag of the above two. So I guess he didn't notice the imperfections. Note to self: stop being so hard on yourself! Oh, and if you don't want as many imperfections, don't make them in such a rush!

I also need to get hold of some safety eyes, that's for sure. I'll be making a list of the things I want to make for Christmas this year and what I'll need to get for them. I know it's very early, but I need to start very early!

Sonic the Hedgehog

Sometime this week I promise to do a roundup of Christmas, New Year and my birthday. Probably not all in one post, as you can all guess by now I find it rather hard to be concise! I was planning on doing it today, but I've had no time to take nice pictures of the wonderful things I got, and the things I gave. I can say, I discovered over Christmas I genuinely prefer giving presents over getting. Not that I don't like getting presents, but I get a real kick out of watching people open the gifts I've taken the time to buy or make. 

Speaking of making gifts, I had a whole long list I wanted to make for people for Christmas this year. I gave up making some: two scarves for my cousins, characters from the Mario games for friends. The yarn I was using for my cousins scarves wasn't nice and I'd rather spend a bit more time getting nicer yarn and crocheting or knitting with that. I'll use the yarn for toy making instead. As for the characters, well, I just didn't have enough hours in the day! Or, I did, but would find myself crocheting furiously until my hand ached, and then I couldn't crochet for a few days after that. However, I did make a few gifts. The one I'm going to show today is my favourite. 

If you had told me a year ago that I would make that, I would have laughed in your face. In a nice way, but still, you would have had me in hysterics. Me? The girl who can barely knit properly, make a sonic that actually looks like Sonic? HA! Well, I did. 

I found the pattern here. Sonic is Corey's favourite video game character from when he was younger and when I saw the pattern, I just knew I had to at least try and make him! What followed was a month and a bit where I frantically crocheted while Corey was working late or weekends, hiding the tell tale signs underneath a scarf I'd completed before. He's not perfect. I just knew his eyes wouldn't be right, as I am incapable of free hand drawing anything. But for once I look at something I've done and feel pleased with myself. 

Here he is from behind. I couldn't get him to stand up, so he's collapsed on my sewing box

His socks were also supposed to roll up. I don't know if it was my tension, or the pattern, but they just didn't want to! 

I tweeted a very badly taken picture to show a friend, and the game was nearly up when Corey saw the picture as I was going through stuff on my phone. My refusal to tell him what it was meant he knew I'd made something for him. I knew I had to make him think it was something else. My brain thought Yogie Bear, and I convinced him I'd made him that, much to his disappointment (which he tried valiently to hide!). His face as he opened it was worth all the secret crocheting and cramped up hands. 

I may not be proud of his eyes, but I quite like his cheeky grin that I embroidered!

All I can say to beginners who are currently struggling to make the first chain look good: you'll be able to make something like this sooner than you think. I promise you. It's so much easier than it looks!

Stripey rug pattern

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I'd have a project to show off soon. That was a rug I was making for our laminated floors, which get pretty cold in the winter. Initially it was supposed to be a lovely  big round rug, following a pattern I found online. However, no matter how many times I pulled it apart and started again, no matter how many times I checked my stitch count and made sure I was following the patterns, it stopped being circular and wasn't lying flat.

 

The rug before I pulled it apart.

When it was smaller, it looked nice, and had an attractive wavy pattern as you can see above. But the bigger it got, the worse it looked. I'm all for home made things not looking completely perfect, but I was using rather expensive wool (just over £7 per ball). I wanted it to look good. So I changed it to a rectangular rug. Hence me not finishing it as quickly as I thought I would!

The wool I used was SMC Select Highland Alpaca, which is 50% Alpaca and 50% Andean Highland wool. It's lovely and soft to the touch, and I wanted to make a decent quality rug that would last years. I can't say how many balls of wool I used, but it's approximately 12 balls. Initially it was going to be all white, but I miscalculated the amount of wool I would need. And when I went into John Lewis, they had no white. So It became white and mocha (that's what it was called in the shop. Personally I think it looks a little more latte) instead. Here's how I made the rug!

SMC Select Highland Alpaca

You need 12 balls of chunky sized wool, 100gs each, 6 of one colour, and 6 of a complimentary colour. I used an 8mm crochet hook, but you can use bigger or smaller, depending on how you want the rug to look. Tension isn't important. I would suggest having a rough size in mind, and adapting the amount of chains in the pattern according to whether you would want it bigger or smaller.

Ch 48

1st Row (white) Ch 1, then 1 dc into 2nd ch from hook, 1 dc into every chain to end.

Rows 2 - 10, repeat Row 1

The first section of white

Change colour

Row 11 (mocha) Ch 1, then 1 dc into 2nd ch from hook, 1 dc into every ch to end.

Rows 12 -  20, repeat Row 11

Continue alternating colours until you have the sized rug you want. I did 8 different strips. I also added a fringe to the bottom and top of the rug, with the mocha fringe by the white strip and the white fringe by the mocha strip.

The finished article.

I then went off to work on Saturday, 6th day in a row, and was asked to help out with an event being held by my Monday to Friday job after my part time Saturday job. I came home and decided to wash the rug. A part of my brain (very tired) was telling me to put the rug on a woolen wash, but as it couldn't explain why this was necessary, the stupid part of my brain put the rug on a 40 degree wash. It was only after the cycle finished that I remembered why my brain was telling me not to put it on that high. At that temperature, wool shrinks and felts. I took the rug out of the machine, worried I'd messed up my (rather expensive) brand new floor covering...

After the accidental felting

What I got was something with sides that are neater, a centre part nicely meshed where there were slight holes before, and something that (to my eyes) looks better and more professional. It's slightly smaller, yes, but I like it! I still need to sort out the fringe a bit, but my mistake, far from being the disaster it could have been, turned out beautifully!

However, I will not do that again, unless I know what I'm doing! No more messing with things when I'm absolutely exhausted, because not all my mistakes will turn out so well!

*As a note on the pattern, I did not find this online, I thought I would try this and see what happens. However, as it's a pretty simple pattern to do, I am sure this can be found elsewhere. Any patterns I find online I will link to them on my blog.

Crocheted bag

Last night I turned this:

Into this:

In 3 hours. As I've mentioned before, I've started crocheting, and it truly is so much quicker than knitting. I've also fallen in love with amigurumi, the Japanese art of crocheting anthropomorphic creatures and animal. I've only made one so far, but I will be doing more for Christmas presents and I can't wait to start. It's also led me to this blog: All About Ami which has so many wonderful patterns for free and links to other patterns I would love to try.

It was through this that I found a link to Crochet in Color, which had the pattern for the basket I made last night. It was pretty easy to follow, and incredibly quick to make, although it did hurt my hand, crocheting for so long. The wool I used wasn't chunky enough, and so it isn't as stiff as it should be. But it's perfect for putting the project I'm working on in. Which is the reason I did it: I can take it to the beach in Barcelona and know I can wash it when I get home.

Plus I'm thinking it'll be great to put Christmas presents in. I'll make it a bit smaller for the amigurumi, and a bit bigger for the gift baskets I plan on making. I also want to make bigger baskets just for general things around the house. It'd be perfect for a wash basket, or storage for things around the house.

For now, here's a few more pictures to show you the size of it. It's really not that big, but it's perfect for what I need

As you can see, it doesn't stand up straight on its own, but it'll do!

My i-chord rug.

Also, making more baskets would let me get through some of my spare wool, giving me space to buy some more!

Projects I'm trying to finish

While I've been "offline", I've managed to finish Corey's jumper. It is quite possibly the thing I'm proudest of accomplishing this year. I often start things and then stop them for months on end, but the only thing stopping me from finishing the jumper was the fact I ran out of wool. Now, I know that you're supposed to buy the correct amount of wool PRIOR to starting the project, not half way through so that you don't risk getting a different batch of wool, but that's just not how I roll! Ok, actually, I'm not a knitting rebel, I just couldn't afford to buy so much wool in one go. My mother then bought me some more of the same batch (or so she thought) as my graduation present. Turned out it wasn't the right batch, and so I had to wait till March to get the rest of the wool I needed. But, ho hum! I now have more wool to work with, so I can't complain!

Excuse the quality of the picture, I don't have a nicely decorated flat to use as a background!

In fact, I'm currently using that wool for another project. Currently our bedroom is where the living room was, due to the hole in our ceiling caused by a leak from our neighbours flat. But once the hole is sorted, we'll be moving the furniture around again. However, the floor in that room is laminated flooring, and so gets freezing cold in winter. I'm using the wool my mother bought to make an i-chord rug. I love the i-chord and the way it grows to rapidly! One minute you're starting out, the next minute you've knitted about 3 metres worth! I'm hoping the wool will make a decent size rug to go in front of the sofa when we move back into that room.

My i-chord before I started sewing it up

It's still got a fair way to go!

My final project is a cushion that I'm making as a housewarming present for a friend. He's just moved into a studio flat, and I was hoping to make him something nice to have on his sofa. It's a crocheted item, something I have started up, again while I was "offline". I'm hoping to improve at crochet, as it's so much faster to do than knitting. I think I'll pick up knitting again, soon, once I've used up the spare wool I have lying around the house, but for now I'll stick to crochet. I have all sorts of plans for what I'm going to do for people's Christmas presents, plans I should probably put into action once I've come back from my holiday, as it might take a fair while to do these. And I'd rather not be sitting on Christmas Eve trying to finish off a garment/toy like I was last Christmas! I'm also very excited about these plans, and I really hope that people like what I'm doing for them.

I've done the one half, just on the second half and then I'm done!

In the meantime, I've made my first home-made jam. That was pretty fun, although exhausting as I went on a crazy baking/cleaning/creative binge where I made bread, biscuits, cupcakes, jam and cleaned the house.

Exhausting, but worth it

 And that's some of what I've been up to since I've had no internet or working keyboard.