How to :: Foundation Half Treble (fhtr) ::

How to make a foundation half treble stitch (fhtr) or if you're using US terminology, foundation half double crochet (fhdc) ::

I love using this stitch and it's counterparts (fdc and ftr) because it creates a much more flexible foundation row for your crochet stitches than the traditional row of chains, it's also a really good way of starting a project if you want to turn and work into the underside of the stitches as it creates really clear loops in which to work into on the underneath. It's also really easy and in my opinion much quicker than the chaining option.

I've put together a little video showing you how to construct the the stitch ::

How to :: Rainbow Smile Necklace ::

Following on from yesterdays "Crochet I-Cord' post, today I'm sharing with you a little tutorial on what you can make from all that lovely i-cord. I simply made this necklace as a way of using up all the icord I myself had been making, I raided my jewellery making supplies and gathered together a rainbow of cords.

It's pretty easy to put together and such a fun and bright piece of jewellery. Of course you don't need to make a rainbow, I think it would look fab all in the one colour or use a super chunky yarn to make just one big cord.



So if you fancy having a go you can find the i-cord tutorial here, though if you'd rather you can also knit your i-cords.

Little Bento Project Bags :: How to ::

Back in the spring my sewing machine and I reacquainted ourselves and it was oh so good. I had grand plans of making myself a whole summer wardrobe, not to mention all manner of baby attire for Miss Effie. However, work and life, as is often the case, soon had other ideas and my sewing machine has been sat in the corner of my dining room gathering dust ever since then.

One of the things I managed to sew back in April was a really simple folded bag, which I love so much it has become my daily use bag. This bag is so easy to make, it takes so little time, but is so versatile and I love it so much.

As this years Knit Girllls, Stash Dash is currently in full swing, I've been pulling unfinished knitting and crochet projects out from all over the house and what I really needed were a couple of these bags in a slightly smaller incarnation. So, I dusted off the sewing machine and the iron (it's only outing is generally for sewing or weddings) and quickly stitched up just that.

Hillary's sent me some of their gorgeous daisy pistachio fabric to take part in their crafting competition, so I decided this would perfect for these little bags.

These are great little project bags for small knitting projects. Perfect for baby sized items or socks for instance. The handles on the top are knotted together to seal, so need to worry about zips getting too close to your precious knitting either. Read on if you fancy making some of your own.

Personalised Towel :: How To ::

In need of inspiration for a last minute Father’s Day gift, that’s personal and will be cherished? Why not try your hand at embroidering your children’s drawings or writing onto a gym towel? Find a towel that has some nice thick panels along the edges that aren't fluffy, to provide a flat space for your embroidery. I've used this same technique to personalise hankies which would also make a great Father's Day gift.
 

 

Ingredients ::

• A towel, with nice thick panels
• Embroidery floss
• Embroidery needle
• Scissors
• Dressmakers carbon paper
• Embroidery hoop

Method::
First up, measure the panel on your towel. Mark out on a piece of paper this measurement to ensure your child(ren) don’t write or draw too large for the space you have available. For example, the panel on my towel measured 2.5cm high. As it was much longer than an A4 piece of paper I didn’t worry too much about the length, but I did draw two lines 2.5cm apart and asked my little boy to try to keep his writing within these lines. Milo, much more of the practical than creative sort, decided he’d much rather do some writing than drawing, so that’s what we went with!

When your child has finished, cut out the paper along the lines you drew, so it fits into your panel. Place your carbon paper dark side down on to the towel, with the drawing on top, over where you would like your embroidery to go. Carefully draw over the lines of your child’s drawing/writing with a pencil, pressing down just enough for the carbon to mark your towel.

Put the embroidery hoop over your area to embroider, making the fabric nice and taut like the skin of a drum.

Now it’s time to get stitching. Choose your colour and cut a length of thread about the length of your arm, any longer and you’re likely to get yourself in a tangle. If you’re using traditional 6 strand embroidery thread, you’ll probably want to half the strands so you’re only using 3 for your stitching, otherwise it can tend to be a little too thick. Thread your needle and begin, very simply all you need to do is sew over the lines you’ve just put on the towel using backstitching. To backstitch, make a simple straight stitch, any length you like, I usually do mine around 5mm, continue along your drawn line, but bring your needle up a little bit ahead (around the same space away as your original stitch was) and bring your needle back down in the same place as the end of your last stitch, repeat the last 2 steps all the way along your lines, changing colours as you like.

When you've finished all your stitching, wash to remove any leftover carbon lines and wrap ready for gifting.

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Play Dough :: A Recipe ::

When I signed up to take part in the Magic Square Playdates Challenge, hosted by BritMums and Petits Filous, it got me thinking a lot about what we usually do when Milo has friends over to play and what we could do to mix it up a bit and make it all a bit more fun.

Recently the time when Milo has friends round has become a lot more led by him and his friends, with a lot less interference from me. I'm here more as a referee in case any arguments break out and to ensure everyone is safe, happy and fed! Now he's six, he has his own very definite ideas of what he wants to do with his friends (play lego mostly) and he certainly doesn't need or want me getting involved. The more I thought about it though, the more I kind of wished I was more involved in the activities that take place when we have little get togethers. Just like when his friends aren't here, Milo's happy to play lego all day every day, with the occasional snack break, if I suggest a different activity it's generally met with very unenthusiastic mutterings, but once he starts to get involved, he usually enjoys whatever crafty endeavour I've 'forced' him to take part in.

Play dough was always a huge part of afternoon playtime and playdates when he was younger, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to dig out my old recipe and make some up, in an effort to draw him away from his beloved bricks.

To try and get him a little more involved I decided we would make up some accessories for our playdough and make some monster figures. So I quickly sketched out a variety of arms, eyes and teeth on a piece of card, Milo coloured them in (this kept him busy whilst I made the playdough) and then I cut them out for him. We also gathered some googly eyes and pipe cleaners we had in our crafty supply cupboard.

Milo decided of course that he wasn't making monsters, oh no, he was making Lego Mixels! We had so much fun together, creating these little figures. I suspect there will be a lot more playdough making going on again in our future and something I will definitely get out next time Milo has a friend over to play.

The recipe I use is the one my Mum taught me to make when I was probably not much older than Milo is himself. Don't be fooled in to thinking I have this committed to memory now though after all these years of making it. I have to call my Mum every single time I decide to whip some up! I know the ingredients required, I can just never remember in what quantity. This means I've also tried my hand at various other recipes I've come across via the interwebs when she has been unavailable and I still believe this to be the best recipe I've tried.

Ingredients ::
3 cups of Flour (any flour will do, I tend to use plain as that is what mostly have on hand)
1 1/2 cups of Salt
3 tablespoons of Oil (any oil will do, I tend to use baby oil, just because I like the way it smells, but any cooking oil is fine)
6 teaspoons of Cream of Tartar (you can make this without the cream of tartar, but this magically ingredient really helps to give it some elasticity)
3 cups of Water
Food Colouring

Method ::
Place all the ingredients in a pan, heat gently, stirring until it works in to a dough.
It's as easy as that. Ideally you want to add your food colouring in with the rest of ingredients, it's much easier to blend that way, however if you hope to make multiple colours, that's a bit of a pain. I often make up one plain, uncoloured batch and mix the colouring in after it's done. It's not as easy to blend and can be a little on the messy side, but it can be done.

This post is an entry for BritMums #MagicSquaresPlaydates Linky Challenge, sponsored by Petits Filous.

Circle Centred Crochet Granny Square :: A Pattern ::

As I've been working on my crochet granny square blanket, as part of my series on how to design your own granny square blanket, I've got this particular granny square well committed to memory now! My heart centred granny square pattern is one of my most popular blog posts, so I thought you may like the pattern for this square too.

The main square has 4 rounds and I've been finishing all of mine off with a round of regular granny square in white and joining them as I go, more on this soon. It's a nice, simple square, that looks classically granny, but with a little bit of a twist on the traditional square.

Design a Crochet Granny Blanket :: Part Two ::

This is part 2 of a series of blog posts I'm writing to explain how I design my crochet granny square blankets, you can see part 1 here.

When you've chosen your yarn and once you've done a little swatching and decided what motif you're going to go with for your blanket, it's time to do some maths. Don't worry, it's nothing too scary.

The first thing you need to think about is how big your blanket is going to be. Single, double, lap, king, maybe it's for a baby. I used this source for a list of sizes. 

Next up, how big are your motifs? How are you going to join them? If you're going to use double crochet to join them together then your original motif size won't alter a lot, however if you're going to add another round of treble stitches to each square obviously this will make a big difference. I'm going to finish each square with a round of treble stitches in white and I'm going to use this round to join the squares together as I go. So when taking the measurement of my square I did it with the white border added. If you're going to block your squares you'll also need to do this before taking your measurement.

Once you have these two numbers, blanket size and square size you can work out how many squares you need, then you can weigh your motif to work out how much yarn you're going to need.

I have made a little spreadsheet you can download. You're welcome to use this to do all these sums for you, but I'll talk you through the sums so that you can also understand how these results are created.

Above you can see how the spreadsheet looks before you've entered any numbers. 

The first thing you need to do is plug in the numbers specific for your blanket. Firstly the details from your yarn, the grams and metres per ball as given on your ball band.

Next you need to add the size of the blanket you would like to make, so add your measurements to the line on the yellow table that reads 'Blanket Size' you can use whatever unit you like for this, whether it be cms or inches etc, but make sure you keep to the same unit for both your blanket measurement and your motif measurement. I recommend using cms but only because that's what I'm used to using myself. I'm aiming for a blanket that measures around 203cm x 228cm so these are the numbers I put in.
Next you add your motif size, my motif is square and measures 17cm x 17cm, so these numbers go in your yellow table where it reads 'Motif Size'.
In the second to last row you'll now be able to see how many motifs you need to make your blanket, this is a rounded number, as it's unlikely the size of your motif will fit exactly into the size you're hoping for, therefore in the row marked 'Finished Size' you can see what the measurements will be with the actual motif quantity.

So now we know how many motif's we need to make, but how much yarn do you need to buy?

There are two ways of working this out and I actually used both for my calculations. For the 6 colours that make up the main part of my motifs, I used the weight and for the white that surrounds my squares and joins them all together I used the length of the yarn used.

To calculate with the weight of your motif use the red table as follows; firstly weigh your motif using digital scales to get an accurate measurement. My squares, without the white border, weigh 15g so that's the measurement I enter in the first row of the table. As I aim to use 6 colours equally throughout the blanket I enter 6 in the second row. 

If you plan to use different amounts of each colour I'm afraid this table won't calculate that for you, but as you'll have the total number of balls needed, it shouldn't be too difficult to work out yourself. 

I calculated the quantity of white needed separately, as each square will have a round of this, therefore I will need white than any other colour. To do this I worked one round around my motif in white, then ripped it out! I then measured the length of the yarn I used. This measured 5.2 metres (520cms). Therefore this is the number that I put in the first row of the blue table. I'm only calculating for one colour here, so the second row is 1. I can now see that I need 12 balls of white yarn.

I now know that I need 8 balls of yarn in each of my 6 colours and 12 balls of yarn in white and I need to make a total of 156 motifs. Now to get to work on all those motifs!

In the next part I will share the pattern for the motif I'm using and explain how I'm joining my motifs as I go.

You can see Part 1 of this series here.

How To :: Making Pom Poms ::

I am a big fan of pom poms, really what's not to love? Yes if you use the whole 'wrap yarn round cardboard circle' method they can be fiddly to make, but I've been making them using my hand as a template for some time now to much success. However last week I found myself needing to make a whole load of pom poms and reasonably quickly. My nephew had requested a magic yarn ball for his birthday after his sisters received one for Christmas a couple of years ago. Milo and I had a great time shopping for things to hide inside, then Milo hunted through his own toy collection for some extras to add in too. We wound it all up with white yarn. He had received a box of white pom poms as a christmas gift, which were disguised as snowballs so figured adding to this collection would be the best way of getting to all those goodies inside.
So after presenting Aston with his gift, I quickly set about winding yarn around my hand whilst he watched the ball of yarn waiting for treats to pop out. It soon became clear that this wasn't quick enough for a freshly turned 5 year old. So we had an idea to make multiple pom poms in one go, attempting to use various pieces of furniture, but realising they weren't quite right, we eventually got our hands on a wire coat hanger and came up with the method I'm going to share with you.

Crochet Lego Head :: A Pattern ::

I originally made this Lego head about 18 months ago now, after taking Stacey Trock's fabulous Monster Making class on Craftsy.  I only ever really intended to make one for Milo and leave it at that, but I've had so many requests for the pattern for this I thought I'd write it up for you.

It's really very simple and if you've tried your hand at amigurumi before I'm sure you'll have no problems with this.  If you haven't here a few notes to help you on your way.

• The whole head is made in one piece, working in continuous rounds of double crochet (UK), meaning you don't join or chain at the beginning of each round, you just carry on in to the next stitch.
• You start at the bottom and work up to the top, increasing and decreasing at various points to create the shaping.
• You start your project using the magic loop technique.  This gives you a nice tight first round with hardly any gap in your starting ring, this is especially important for amigurumi as you want your work as tight and as free from holes as possible.  There is a really handy tutorial for magic loop over on craftsy here.
• You need to use a marker to keep track of the beginning of your round, I find a scrap of yarn much, much easier to use than an actual stitch marker.  I have a tutorial on how to do this here.
• There is much talk about the right side and the wrong side of your work, I say as for most crafty endeavours, there is no right or wrong, go with what looks/feels best for you.  I know some folks prefer to work through the back loop only of each stitch too. I take the side that faces me as I work to be the right side and work through the whole stitch, but like I said, do whatever works best for you.
• I recommend you go at least a hook size smaller than your yarn ball suggests, this helps to get a nice tight fabric.
• You can use whatever kind of yarn weight or content you like for this project, obviously the chunkier the yarn the bigger the head, for my bigger version I used aran weight yarn held double and for the smaller head I used a fingering/4ply weight yarn.  The smaller head measures 5cm tall and 5cm wide.

Polymer Clay, Crochet Hook Handles :: A Tutorial ::

Last Christmas, I decided to make up some polymer clay covered crochet hooks as gifts for my nieces, to accompany the Magic Yarn Balls I also made up for them.  It's a fairly simple and fun project I'd thought I'd share with you today.

For a long time I only ever used the small metal handled crochet hooks you see in these pictures here.  I never had any problems with using these and though I would occasionally treat myself to a bamboo hook, I was very happy using these for a long time.  Then I started to crochet professionally and a lot, this was when I started to realise the advantages of having a bit more handle to hold on to.  I wrapped hairbands around the handles for a while, then I figured I have a lot of polymer clay in my possession, why not have a go at making some more permanent, more attractive handles.

These ones are even glow in the dark!

I'm offering someone the chance to win their own set of supplies to make up some crochet hook handles of their own over here.

However anyone can make these with just a few crafty supplies, so if you would like to have a go keep reading.

Festival Watch Strap :: Free Crochet Pattern ::

With the weather attempting to improve and summer definitely within reach, I've been thinking a lot about summer festivals and was reminded that last year I made this watch strap for Latitude Festival. I originally offered it as a free pattern especially for my newsletter subscribers, but I thought I'd share it over here on the blog now, so that if you wanted to make your own for this summer you could.

The pattern is written out in it's entirety below, but if you'd rather you can download the PDF here.

Please note it is written in UK crochet terms.

Enjoy x

Granny Cowl :: A Pattern

ingredients ::

I used ::

rico cotton essentials DK

1 x 50g ball white
1 x 50g ball green
1 x 50g ball banana
1 x 50g ball purple
1 x 50g ball tangerine
1 x 50g ball grass green
1 x 50g ball red
1 x 50g ball light teal
1 x 50g ball orange
1 x 50g ball fuschia
1 x 50g ball navy

any double knit cotton (or indeed any other type of yarn) in various colours would work too.


4 mm crochet hook

Abbreviations ::

ch        -    chain

ss        -    slip stitch

dc       -    double crochet

tr         -    treble

method ::

Make 8 granny squares in different colour ways.
The colour combinations I made were :
orange/navy
grass green/red
green/purple
red/yellow
fuschia/light teal
fuschia/tangerine
light teal/banana
green/tangerine

each with a white edge.

to make a granny square ::

Leave a long end, make 4 chain and join to first chain with slip stitch.

Round 1:

3ch, 2tr in to ring *2ch, 3tr into ring, repeat from * twice more, 2ch, join with slip stitch to 3^rd chain of first 3 chain.

Fasten off yarn.

Round 2:

Join new yarn at any 2 chain corner space, 3ch, 2tr,2ch,3tr in same 2 chain corner space, *1ch, 3tr, 2ch, 3tr in to next 2 chain space, repeat from * twice more, 1ch, join with slip stitch to 3^rd chain of first 3 chain.

Fasten off yarn.

Round 3:

Join new yarn at any 2 chain corner space, 3 ch, 2tr, 2ch, 3tr in same 2 chain corner space *1 ch, 3tr into next one chain space, 1ch, 3tr, 2ch, 3tr in to next 2 chain space, repeat from * twice more, 1 ch, 3tr into next one chain space, 1ch, join with slip stitch to 3^rd chain of first 3 chain.

Fasten off yarn.

Round 4:

Join new yarn at any 2 chain corner space, 3 ch, 2tr, 2ch, 3tr in same 2 chain corner space *1 ch, 3tr into next 1 chain space, 1 ch, 3tr into next 1 chain space 1ch, 3tr, 2ch, 3tr in to next 2 chain space, repeat from * twice more, 1 ch, 3tr into next 1 chain space, 1ch, 3tr into next 1 chain space 1ch, join with slip stitch to 3^rd chain of first 3 chain.

Fasten off yarn.

Round 5:

Join white yarn at any 2 chain corner space, 3 ch, 2tr, 2ch, 3tr in same 2 chain corner space *1ch, 3tr into next 3, 1 chain spaces, 1ch, 3tr, 2ch, 3tr in to next 2 chain space, repeat from * twice more, 1 ch, 3tr into next 3, 1 chain spaces, 1ch, join with slip stitch to 3^rd chain of first 3 chain.

Fasten off yarn.

 

  Joining the Squares ::

using the white yarn, join to the corner of two squares, 1chain, 1dc in to the top of each stitch of both squares, joining them together as you go, when you reach the end of the side, break off yarn.

Join another to the opposite end of one of these two in the same way as above, continue to do this until you have a strip of 4 squares.  Then do the same again, so you have 2 strips of 4 squares.

 

 Join these two strips together using double crochet again in the same way as above, but joining all the squares together so you have a block of 8 squares in a 2 x 4 formation.  Join this block together down the side, using double crochet again, to form a circle.

Weave in any loose ends.