Yes, I am preparing for winter by making winter accessories now, such as hats. The latest in my crochet accessory collection is a neck warmer/cowl, the idea of which came from Holly’s guest D.I.Y at A Beautiful Mess. I’m a scarf girl and would wear them all year round if it wasn’t so hot during summer, so I when I saw this idea I knew I’d love it!

It took me a little while to get the hang of making ‘granny squares’ and I ended up resorting to YouTube as I found most written instructions a bit confusing. I learn better by seeing someone do something anyway, and following along as necessary. Once I figured it out, they were a breeze to make. I will definitely being adding my cowl collection and crocheting some colourful ones!

Please excuse my tired looking self. I woke up before 5am this morning, naturally, so instead of going back to sleep and waking to my alarm at seven, I decided to get up and do some yoga instead. I love waking up early without an alarm because I always feel like I’ve had a much better sleep and so I feel fresh and ready to start the day. Alarms are evil! If only I could rely on my body to wake up naturally early.

Have a lovely Monday (or Sunday if it still is in your part of the world)!

accessories, crochet 1 Comment

Hello all! I hope you’re having a lovely weekend; for the most part, I am. Saturday was a bit of a downer because I woke up feeling incredibly groggy with allergies and I had an awful headache for the entire day. Subsequently I wasn’t nearly as productive as I had planned to be, but nevermind. Today I’m pretty much all better except for some neck pain and a very slight headache—nothing preventing me from doing anything.

Earlier last week my dad asked me if I would create a website for our family farm, which I was more than happy to do, so I’ve been playing with that most of today. The design is close to being finished but some of the content will take awhile to be published because I’m not the one writing it. That’s actually fine with me because I’m probably a bit more at home playing with graphics and writing code.

And now for more crafty news.

On Thursday night I had an urge to make a needle book because I didn’t have anything decent to store my needles in (pin cushions are hopeless because needles can disappear inside, where they lie in wait to poke the crap out of your poor unsuspecting fingers!). I was feeling too lazy to design my own, so after much searching I finally found the cutest needle book pattern ever! Skebba designed the book to look like a letter which you unfold to reveal four pages inside for your needles. This is one of my most favourite designs for a functional item! Love, love, love.

My sewing is not overly neat because I’ve barely ever used a sewing machine, despite my mum owning one my entire life and my love of hand-sewing. One would think that I would have hours of experience, but no. I use the machine so little than every time I do use it I have to get Mum to show me how to thread it… However, I think I have finally unleashed the sewing machine junkie within me because I had a lot of fun. I even had to teach myself a couple of things (Mum had, um, gone to bed by this point so I couldn’t ask her, lol) as well: how to put new thread onto a bobbin, and how to catch the bobbin thread with the needle thread. Now I want to sew other things, but I’m not sure what. Any ideas?

Check out Skebba’s Flickr group for her tutorials!

Happy Sunday! ♥

sewing, website design 3 Comments

I mentioned a little while ago that I made some birthday gifts for people and I wanted to share one of them with you. For my step-niece’s 7th birthday I made her a cute wee bunny and cute wee kitty from the My Little Mochi: Chibi Kitty and Rabbit pattern. It’s such a simple design which makes sewing the toys incredibly easy and fast (even if you don’t use a sewing machine).

Snuffle! Mew!

I sewed these by hand, so it took a little longer (better part of a day), but even then it was quick and straightforward. As you can see in My Little Mochi’s post, the customisation is endless, but I chose to keep things simple. I really like how they turned out and I will definitely be making more in the future!

My niece loved them, too, which was the aim!

soft toys 3 Comments