Cushioney Things

For a while now I have been fed up with our sofa cushions, I am tired of looking at them. We bought them years and years ago in Woolworths, that gives you an idea of how old they are and that was before Woolworths had even thought of a closing down sale! I have to say the covers are the same but I have periodically changed the inserts. So the obvious solution would be to crochet some new ones, right? Now I have heard of how crocheting a cushion is a short satisfying project, now while I enjoyed it it did seem to take for-ever.  As I have mentioned I am not the most patient person in the world, but still. The crochet part was straightforward but then the construction part meant a lot of a part project hanging about, totally my doing.

I was inspired by this fabulous cushion from Attic24 I loved the wooly back with the buttons. I decided to make the front using a treble crochet (uk) ripple stripe.

I then used a red cashmere cardigan that had long shrunk too small, to make the back. The cashmere makes a gorgeous soft back, as you can imagine.

I forgot to take a photo of the construction, but I followed the tutorial linked to above. Here is the back with some random buttons that were literally the only buttons I had that were the right size for this project

Here is the finished cushion on my sofa, and I love it! I am already planning my next one.

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:: Quick Update ::

Just thought I would do a quick Babette update. I have now finished panel nine and working on panel ten.  I love the way the blanket is built up in panels but it does mean that each subsequent panel is significantly larger than the previous one, which can sometimes feel like a mountain to climb for impatient bods like me!  I am always slow at getting the panels started and speedy at the end when I can see the end is in sight.

 

 

:: Hello And Zingy! ::

The other night our current favourite advert came on the TV (is is bad to have a favourite advert?) it is the EDF Feel Good energy advert, it is our favourite because it stars no other than Zingy! He is very cute, very very cute.

 

So we decided we must have a Zingy of our own, but of course we couldn't as he was created for the advert. A bit of googling found he is a custom made My Keepon but with all due respect to the little yellow guy, he just isn't as cute is he?

So that evening I was chatting a on a social network and mentioned how cute and unavailable Zingy was and the wonderful Charlotte from Studio Delirium offered to write me a crochet pattern, I couldn't say no could I? So within half an hour I had a pattern and started stitching and by the morning we had ourselves a Zingy! Ok so he is the wrong colour (it was all I could lay my hands on late at night!) and his face is a little dodgy but I was so pleased how he turned out. 

There are more adverts coming soon, and I am sure EDF will be producing a Zingy toy soon enough!

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:: Outdoorsy ::

There always come a time in the new year when I remember I have a garden.  I am not a very faithful gardener, I spend a lot of time in the garden and enjoying it in the summer but as winter descends, other than feeding the birds it does get a bit neglected. At this time of year the snowdrops are already out, the daffodils are about to bloom and the crocuses are here already.  Finally seeing some colour in the garden even just a little is a very welcome sight.

My current project to put some more colour into the garden is to make some outdoor bunting!  I will give more details when I have more to show, but here are some photos of the triangles that I cut out this afternoon.

:: WIP's ::

A while ago I was feeling overwhelmed by my crochet WIP (work in progress)  which is silly really as I only had myself to blame! So I decided to just work through them and not add to them. At all.  Easier said than done.  I soon realised that some of them, in my head, were WIP when in fact they only exisited on a to do list. So I scrapped the list and brought my load down further. I have been very good and managed to finish almost everything off so far. As I sit here I only have my Art of Crochet blanket, which is only ten squares away from being finished, I am currently up to date with all the squares so far, and my Babette blanket.

Due to so many other things needing finished my Babette has been hibernating for the best part of a year, yikes! I have picked it up again and I am pleased to report I can show you another update photo. I am just sewing together section seven and will start crocheting section eight very soon.

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Oh and I might have bought a new pattern to crochet a Dragon, but shhh I won't tell anyone if you don't!

:: New To Me Fun ::

Isn't is great when you get new-to-me stuff? I am a massive fan of Ebay, charity shops, car boot sales, you name it, if it's second hand I'm there! 

This last week I had some time to kill and decided to visit a local charity shop and picked up a fabulous red corduroy coat for £4. Bargain! I didn't like the buttons that were on the coat which was just as well as there were two missing! but never fear, new buttons have been purchased and as soon as I find myself some red thread they will be on the coat. I have taken some 'before' photos of my coat but right now they are trapped inside my camera so I will show the befores just as soon as I have some afters to share.

In other news my brother has passed his old iphone to me! How lucky am I? I was most excited as now I can use instagram which I have been looking longing at for some time. I have actually only taken one photo with it so far and here it is! Hmmmmn tea :) x

::The Art Of Crochet Third Quarter::

I have recently finished sewing together the third quarter of the Art Of Crochet partwork.  I have surprised my self that I have been able to keep up with all this crochet lark.  Although the crochet itself has got easier it has also become less interesting as a result.  The complete blanket is made up of 120 squares (from 120 issues) and there are many  many repeats of the pattrens, but they are good for practice and to be able to compare squares and see progress. When I started square one I hadn't actually managed to crochet yet and here I am now whizzing up squares and thinking they are boring!

Here are a couple of photos of the new section.  I haven't sewn it together yet as we use the first half of the blanket and I don't want to turn it into an unwieldy 'L' shape. So now we have one big blanket and one small blanket kicking around on the back of the sofa! Next stop one huge blanket wheeeeeeeeeeeee!

x

::Welcome 2012::

Welcome to the New Year! Hope it is going well for you so far.

I am trying to take advantage of the quieter times and shorter days, spending time on the computer redoing my banners. I am also looking into building a new website through moonfruit . Currently made by val is hosted by Wix but it is flash based so can sometimes take a while to load and also, can't be viewed on mobile devices that don't support Flash, so I thought perhaps moonfruit might be the way to go they also let you add a shop so that is helpful, but as with these things it takes AGES, I am not know for my patience :)

I have started to make more fairy doors in the hope that I can build up a nice stock for the coming year. Other business plans include taking some new photos and launching some new stock items which I have in the pipeline although these might need to wait until the boys have gone back to school.  Well it is good to have plans, I never like the pressure of resolutions, so plans sound good to me.
 

Cheeeese!

I love cheese, so imagine my excitement when I was buying some mini babybels for my son and it came with a mini 'meltpot'

Before:

During:

After:

Basically you place a babybel in the little tray, zap it in the microwave for 20 seconds and then you have a little melty pot of cheese! Sadly though, I was a little disappointed, although the resultant melted cheese tasted great, it was less fondue and more hot chewy cheese, it cooled too quickly and I ended up eating it more or less in one go, which wasn't good as I wouldn't eat a whole babybel in one go. I also thought the cheese was quite hot so not sure I will let my son near it!

So there you go I thought it was a great idea but sadly it doesn't seem to work in practice.

Now to think up a good use for he little pot!

x

Percival

I have been wanting to make a pin cushion for ages so I finally got around to making this wee guy:

 He was supposed to be stuffed with only polyfill but as he was to be a pin cushion I put a cardboard circle in first to give him a flat base to sit on and I filled him half full with poly beads to weigh him down, finally finishing with polyfill. I think he turned out quite good!

 

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Today I .....

Moulded ....

dried ....

 and painted ....

These are all different doors, unfortunately I am unable to mould, dry and paint a door all in the same day, just like the expensive phone advertisments, some sequences have been shortened.

The painted doors only have their first coat applied, kinda look like they are made of toffee nom nom.

x

Amineko!

A while back when I was wandering around the web I came across a lovely crocheted cat called Amineko. He stars in his own book 'Hello my Name is Amineko' and, how generous, the creator of the pattern - Nekoyama shares the pattern on Ravelry - for free!

Well, I just had to have a go at making one, and here he is!

The thing that makes him/them supercute is the fact they are slightly weighted in the bum area, and in the arms and legs so they can pose. Although he seems to enjoy sleeping. A lot. Cats eh?

x