Cute crochet inspiration

If my crafty plans for the weekend work out, then I should have plenty of my own photos to share next week, but nothing's yet at the stage that I'd be ready to share.

I also need to go through all the great comments I had on my last post and draw together some thoughts on that. I need a bit more time and space to do that than I get here at work, so, hopefully again, I'll come up with something over the weekend.

It would be just my luck if nothing got done!

So today, I thought I'd share with you some of my cute crochet inspitation.


I really want to make one like little Rosita up there (centre, top row) - I can't get over all that 'hair'!

I was disappointed that this one didn't have the right permissions to appear in the mosaic.


precious baby
Originally uploaded by saplanet


And of course, as soon as I'd made the mosaic, I realised I'd missed out these too!

Florence - Amigurumi White Bear Originally uploaded by Pepika

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil Originally uploaded by Chiwaluv Chi's

Some of the patterns for these are available in various places like the designer's blog, website or etsy shop. I've been wondering a bit recently whether I'm just a bit lazy, I mean, it can't be that hard to work out a pattern for something like a lot of these, based, say, on a basic amigurumi bear. But I'm the mug who falls for the designer's original every time and I have to buy yet another pattern!

My biggest problem with these patterns is the yarn. As I'm sure many have said before, and many more will say in future, most American yarn brands aren't available in the UK! Although I did find out today that I can get Lion Brand Yarn in the UK (bit pricey!), I normally try and work out some approximation. But with something like Florence or Rosita, the appearance of the yarn is half the attraction!

British and American stitching and a giveaway

I found it interesting to see my letter published in World of Cross Stitching issue 150.



One of the things I’m most curious about is the way that my original email has been edited for publication. Here’s my original email.



I appreciate that when I originally wrote the email, I was not thinking of it being published word for word. I’m not entirely sure what I thought, the pictures I attached were more important. Under these circumstances, the email was almost certain to be edited.

The language used in the edited version, however, does not, to me, sound like me! To be honest – I hope I sound more intelligent and slightly less over-enthusiastic! And it’s got me thinking about UK cross stitch magazines. I don’t often buy magazines for two reasons – the designs don’t often appeal and the style in which they’re written.

And I was reminded me of an article by Patricia Bage in Classic Stitches towards the end of last year (I can’t check as it’s stored with the still inaccessible stash) in which she commented on the differences in the British and American markets. Apparently, in the American market, designs using mixed stitches are far more popular, whereas the British market prefers cross stitch alone. I think also that kits were perhaps more popular in the British market, whereas in the American market, there was much more interest in ‘manually’ kitting up a project and selecting the fabric and flosses.

Now, I realise I’m generalising very much here, but I’d be interested in the comments and observations of others on this.

I wonder how unusual I am for a British stitcher and I wonder about the role of the Internet in this. In some recent British magazines, biscornus seem to be being sold as new and exciting. I first discovered biscornus around 3 years ago when I first got into stitching on the Internet, so they don’t seem quite so new to me (but still exciting) and the magazines seem to be out of step.

The stitching interests of the British stitchers whose blogs I read also seem to be far broader than just cross stitched pictures and I suspect Patricia Bage, in her article, missed out another market (as well as other parts of the globe), an international, perhaps internet-driven market, where people, perhaps like me, find the ‘home’ market too limited and are inclined to shop online and potentially internationally.

Anyone like to comment? And how typical are the American stitchers I encounter online of American stitchers? What's it like in other countries?

Finally, a giveaway. As a prize for having my letter published in the magazine, I've been sent a couple of small cross stitch kits, neither of which I am ever likely to stitch.



If anyone would like one or other or both of them, leave me a comment saying that you're interested!

From here to eternity

From



To



in 12 short months!

Where did the last year go? Can anyone tell me? Even Alexander is convinced that Iona arrived only 3 or 4 months ago! So how come we all celebrated her 1st birthday over the weekend?


I know I'm biased, but isn't she just gorgeous?

The creamy white version

Here it is! My sister's ring pillow, finished on Monday evening. I do like the way it's turned out, even though I did, as usual, change a few things as I was going along.

My sister hasn't seen it yet and I won't see her before she heads off to Florida for the wedding, so I've been out to buy a box and brown paper to send it off to Manchester where it needs to be by the end of next week.


I'm particularly pleased with the way I've attached the ribbons and arranged them to hold the rings - it was an area that was worrying me a bit and for a long time I just didn't know how to do it. I went from ribbon tied in a bow (but where to put it on the cushion?) to single loops of ribbon, to double loops of ribbon, to one long bit of ribbon attached in a kind of figure of eight configuration.


The final piece in the puzzle came when I saw the white felt flower just sitting centred on top of the prototype cushion. In an instant it all came together in my mind and I knew exactly what to do. So the ribbon is attached in the figure of eight (sideways) with two heart shaped pearl buttons on top. The flower is then placed to cover the buttons - the ribbon just hangs out below looking pretty and decorative. In the photos I've got a couple of white plastic rings attached in place of wedding rings so that I can use them to explain to my sister how it works.



Would anyone be interested in my posting more detailed notes on how I made this? It wouldn't be a detailed tutorial as I don't have the photos to back it up, but I could write rough instructions and give links to some of the things I used.

I have another felty new start as well, but not so much progress on it yet as I gave myself a night off last night! If you look at my felt inspiration, you might get a clue as to what I'm going to do here.


A gift for a special little girl who has a special birthday very soon.

Distracted

I've been a little distracted recently. I'm supposed to be making a ring pillow for my sister's wedding. About 10 days ago, I finished the prototype.


I'll just emphasise that this is a prototype - the 'real' thing will not be purple and blue and green and yellow! Imagine the above in a creamy white colour.

I made the prototype so that I could see how the felt behaved in being made into this sort of thing and to test the size of the actual pillow and the size of the flower and how the flower and the pillow worked together.

I was rather pleased with the prototype. But now, when I should be working on the 'real thing' I keep being distracted by cute crochet.

Last week I just had to make this.


I saw something similar on Flickr, and just had to work out a pattern to make my own. I'm not completely pleased with it - it needs fine tuning, but I don't know when that'll happen.

Over the weekend these tumbled off my hook.


I definately need to make at least another half dozen of these! I have all sorts of yarn and colours that I want to try out on them! The instructions for these little birdies are here, as well as in the book Kooky Crochet.

And I have a number of things I want to make for Iona's birthday, one of which I'd like finished by Friday!

Well, at least I'm going to have a few quiet evenings this week as my DH has gone off to Kuwait for work and Alexander is going to stay with my parents in their caravan for a few days.

So no excuse for not having a good go at the wedding pillow at least!

Lesley is ......

I saw this meme at this blog (after I got Google to translate it into English) and thought it looked like fun, so here we are.

Do this: Google your name plus "is" in quotation marks, that is, "Lesley is" for me. Copy the first five matches in which sentences containing "Lesley is ...." and upload them to your blog.

I was curious to see what Google came up with!

1. "Lesley is stalkin me" - oops!
2. "Lesley is now in a promoted post in administration at the bank" - ooh thanks! Not that I know anything about banking, but who does, these days?
3. "Lesley is 19 stone lighter" - I wish! LOL! Although if I really was 19 stone lighter, there wouldn't be any of me left!
4. "Lesley is about to star on the West End stage" - Yay - fantastic idea!
5. "Lesley is Moore" - Huh??? Roger? Julianne? Demi? I think I'll go for Julianne if I've got to be someone else.


On a different note, Lesley is also dead chuffed with the beautiful biscornu she received from Ronel in the Tiny Treasures Exchange.



Isn't it lovely? Ronel sent some lovely goodies too - some DMC floss, ribbon, beads fabric, and a lovely letter which almost had me blushing! LOL She seems to think I'm some kind of biscornu expert which I can assure you is far from the truth! I just love to play around with different ways of doing things!



And finally, evidence that I have stitched something other than biscornus over the last few weeks.


My first 'icicle'! I stitched this one on my 28ct yellow checked Graziano linen using varigated DMC floss and following a chart from Les chroniques de Frimousse.

This icicle has now been sent off to make a new home elsewhere, but I think I'll have to stitch up a lot more of them - they're such fun and a quick stitch!

Cute crochet rocks!

I can't believe how cute these are!


I bought the pattern as I thought they could be something cute to give Iona for her birthday, but after wandering round town unable to find a birthday gift for a friend I've made them for her birthday too!


The pattern is from stripeyblue on etsy. I still have to make Iona's and now Alexander has decided that he wants one too - I had thought he might prefer a Yoda or some other Jedi, but no, a cute blue bunny it is!



I'm also having a go at the 2009 12in Block-a-month CAL on Ravelry, and having finally remembered to take the patterns home, I whipped up my Mandala square for January.


Now the challenge is to try and complete more of the CAL squares before the end of 2009!

I'm just noticing now how much the internet is changing and inspiring my crochet. This happened with my stitching about 3 years ago and now the crochet is catching up. I've known how to crochet since I was a child, but never did much beyond granny squares, and rarely did enything that used a specific pattern. Oddly, I find it easier to make it up off the top of my head with crochet than with stitching. But at the moment the internet is really broadening my crochet horizons!

And the clocks have changed, so I can even take photos during the week now! LOL

Inspired by Felt!

I've been really inspired by felt this week - just look at the above which I found on Flickr! I'd particularly like to show you Kerrin Quall's felt art - it is simply gorgeous!

'Strawberry Sundae' wall art

Sending Kisses closeup

Originally uploaded by Kerrin Quall, a little bit of just because

Aren't they beautiful? When I (eventually) find the time, I'll definately have a go at playing around with felt shapes and sequins.

In the mean time, I'm planning on playing around with felt and sequins anyway! My other sister (not the one who got married last year) is getting married this year and I've offered to make a ring pillow for her too. I was planning on making something from this book but just haven't been feeling particularly enthused at the thought. Then I saw all that felt lovliness and realised I could probably do something quicker and just as nice in felt. Only problem is, guess where the felt is?

And a certain someone has a birthday next month (already!) so I'm planning something girly and felty there too.

And today, I'm actually allowed to show you something I've made recently as Jenna has received her biscornu in the Tiny Treasures Exchange!



The biscornu is stitched on 28ct yellow checked Graziano linen using a design from the French magazine Mains et Merveilles. I stuck with the charted colour scheme, but changed the flowers to use varigated DMC floss rather than solid colours.

Very cleverly, I managed to completely forget to photograph everything I sent to Jenna, so if you head over to her blog, you can see everything there.

You'll notice that earlier this week I set up Disqus for commenting on my blog after seeing it set up on Chrissie's blog. I really like the way it has the potential to change a casual comment into a conversation and makes it so much easier to respond to comments and keep in touch with commenters!

Off to the shop now to see if I can get hold of a certain magazine!

Edited @ 1.30pm - got it! See page 14 of 'The World of Cross Stitching', issue 150 - it's my Tutti Frutti biscornu!

Life without stash

Well, hopefully this week will return a bit more to normal! Last week just seemed to descend into chaos and I feel as if I'm still recovering from the 3 hours I spent last Wednesday night comforting Alexander while he threw up! Fortunately, he's recovered now and went back to school today.

Consequently, my head feels as if it's stuffed with cotton wool today and I'd like nothing better to do than to stick my head in the sand and wait for today to go away!

I don't have any stitchy pictures to share at the moment - I've stitched and crocheted quite a lot over the last couple of weeks, but everything I've made is being sent to someone else from my biscornu in the Tiny Treasures Exchange (which I managed to send off to my partner without photographing ), to gifts and birthday presents for various friends.

However, I though I'd share with you a couple of photos of my bedroom to illustrate the title of this post.




It really was my bedroom up until 2 or 3 weeks ago! There's still a bed in there somewhere! The room has now been filled with the contents of our loft (at least 15 years of it) as we're having new loft insulation laid today, courtesy of the local council - and who'd say no to that? I'm now sharing bunk beds with Alexander - me on top, him below. (DH won't allow Alexander to sleep on the top, convinced he'll roll out in the middle of the night.) I find to top bunk a bit claustrophobic - the ceiling is too near and the side of the bed sticks up to stop me rolling out in the middle of the night!

As to the title of this post - guess where I keep my stash?


Fortunately, all my floss is stored elsewhere and I managed to rescue my box of beads before it became completely inaccessible. And I have one or two things out that I was planning to work on. But, other than that I won't see my stash again until the room is cleared and goodness knows when that will be!

Finally, as requested, here are the rest of the snowflakes from my biscornu.

I also stitched a variation on this one (above), using Rhodes stitches instead of the eyelets. I think the eyelet version came out better - I certainly liked it better, and, typically, I don't seem to have a photo of the Rhodes stitch version.

So, if you take the four snowflakes described here, the four snowflakes in this post and the four of Janet Perry's December twinchy snowflakes, that makes 12. The other ones I stitched were based on images I found on Flickr, but I don't like them enough to chart them and post them here. So, if your want to stitch the 15 sided biscornu, you'll have to make up another 3 yourself! LOL! Or if the inspiration strikes, I'll make up some more myself!

The tutorial on putting together the 15 sided biscornu is here.

I'll go away now and leave you in peace!

Gifts and Pieces

I’ve been a bit busy over the last week or so, so I’m behind in blogging and even more behind in reading blogs – Google Reader says I’ve still got 178 items to catch up with!

First for the gifts -

I sent a parcel to Deb a couple of weeks ago with some things for her, Jessica and Kellan. Jessica’s been in touch to say they’ve been received and much admired!



The larger lion was for Kellan and his little friend for mum Jessica.



I also crocheted this bowl for Jessica. I was really pleased with the bottom, bowl part. I crocheted two bowls, one a little smaller than the other and then put the smaller one inside the larger one and crocheted a row of dc (American sc) around the top to attach both layers together. I’m really pleased with how it worked out – it just makes the whole bowl a little more rigid to stand better and it a really neat way to do it.

And I made this bowl for Deb.



However, when it was finished, I really didn’t like it – the bowl sides weren’t reinforced and lined like I did with Jessica’s, so they were just too floppy. I ended up taking the bowl to pieces and making this purse instead - I like it a lot better!



I’m really glad they all like what I made!

Now for the pieces -

Google reader - I’m reminded of something I meant to mention that I dislike about Google Reader – if I mainly read blogs through Google, then I’m less likely to comment. If I read the actual blog then I’m more likely to comment. And I like to comment – I start to feel kind of out of touch if I don’t comment regularly, but Google Reader doesn’t make it simple! It isn’t exactly complicated, but it’s not automatic, at least for me!

Blogger followers - I think this must be an Internet Explorer problem – I can’t see my followers either at home or at work and both use IE. I should perhaps load up another browser (Firefox?) at home and try it out, but the laptop’s starting to seem painfully slow! I think the people at blogger must know about it, going by the messages posted on their help forum. As usual, however, they aren’t being very communicative about telling anybody what they’re doing about it. At the moment, I much prefer the old way of displaying followers as it made it much simpler to navigate to a follower’s blog and keep in touch. Unfortunately, I don’t have that option.

Software - I asked a while ago about suggestions for software for cross stitch design – thanks for all your comments on the subject. It looks like PC Stitch Pro is the most popular, but it is rather expensive and I’m not ready to commit myself to that expense yet. While rummaging around the Internet, I found this page which compares programs – very useful! I’ve now downloaded and am using KG Chart which is free and which is letting me do what I want to do for now. Unusually for free software, it does allow speciality stitches!

Slightly different (alternative 15 sided biscornu)

While I was off work last week, I finished off my biscornu using the blackwork designs from Anita at Stitch Creations. I still finished it as a kind of 15 sided biscornu, but slightly different!



Following this idea, I attached the top on a different orientation - very simply but a very different result!

I've stitched it on 32ct Vintage Blue Zweigart linen using DMC 3840 (I think) - I should maybe have used a darker blue floss, but I still like it as it is. The beads are Mill Mill seed and pebble beads.

The way to make this kind of shape is very similar to making the more rounded 15 sided biscornu.

• Stitch your 15 squares, all the same size.
  


• Join 5 together to for the top and another 5 for the bottom - you will have 5 left for the sides. Join the five sides to either the top or the bottom - this will give you a kind of bowl shape.
  
• I realised something at this point that I could do to illustrate the difference between the two kinds of 15 sided biscornu -
  
  For the 'normal' rounded version, join the 'peaks' of the flattish side to the 'valleys' of the bowl.
  
  For the alternative version, join the 'peaks' of the flattish side to the 'peaks' of the bowl.
  
  Remember to leave a gap to stuff your biscornu and then sinish stitching together. I found the final stitching together a bit more awkward for this alternative version than previously. Of course, it didn't help that it wasn't until I had finished sewing it all together that I decided to add the beads to the top!

I hope this sense - just the simple change in the orientation of the top makes a complete difference to the final item!



My original 15 sided biscornu tutorial with more detailed instructions can be found here.

Fame at last!

Back again - slight hiatus last week as it was my turn to catch the cold that's recently been doing the rounds of the office where I work. (Un?)Fortunately, too, I'm the only one in my family who catches most colds - the others all seem to be disgustingly healthy!

Today I feel like I'm famous as I've been featured on Janet Perry's Nuts about Needlepoint blog! She wrote at the end of February that she wanted to feature the galleries and profiles of needlepointers and stitchers on Mondays in March and I was foolish enough to volunteer! So today my stitching is featured on her blog! I'm not sure now whether to hide or to brazen it out - but it's too late to worry about that, I'm out there already!

Advice please -

1. Can anyone recommend to me software for cross stitch design? I'm fed up messing about in Microsoft Paint, so I'm looking for something that will let me chart my ideas easily and allow me to include other stitches as well as cross stitch, but which won't cost a small fortune. Any suggestions?

2. Bit of a rant! Can anyone tell me how to get my followers back or to set up the Google equivalent? I know that the Blogger/Google people were merging the two, but I can't see my followers buttons on my main blog page and when I investigate setting up the Google equivalent, it wants me to put files on the server where my blog lives - given that this is a Blogger blog, I don't have access to the server! And I've seen the Google thing set up on other blogs, so it can't be that complicated! Has it gone screwy for me or have I lost the plot somewhere?