... Gilbert the Giraffe

I have not posted anything for ages, but for good reason. I realised mid November that everything I was making was for birthday / Christmas pressies so blogging them would have spoiled the surprise somewhat!!! So .... the next few posts are not quite in order as not all the gifts have been given yet - i will start with those that have!

This is Gilbert and he is a giraffe, all be it a blue one (I could not find any yellow wool I liked - I have realised i am quite fussy about what I like crocheting with). He was crocheted for Dan's Nephews for Christmas as they are giraffe mad. I had grand plans about making two, one for each Nephew but time dictated otherwise!

You can see more photos of Gilbert on my Flickr page - he has lovely Giraffe spots on his back which I was quite pleased with, they were not part of the original pattern and required some freeform crochet which I enjoyed. Gilbert is made from a pattern by the wonderful Roxycraft.

... a hot water bottle cover

As mentioned before I am a serial hoarder. I find it hard to throw most things away but this was especially true when years ago one of my favourite jumpers got accidentally shrunk in the wash. I loved the jumper and I loved the felty material that resulted from it's washing machine experience as well (after I had got over the trauma of losing a treasured piece of clothing).

This happened so many years ago I can't remember how many. And all this time I have carefully stored it fully intending to do something with it one day.

I decided some time ago that it would make a great hot water bottle cover but never quite got round to it. For some reason I decided to make it this week. Maybe it was the pattern for the lovely crochet circles I found in one of my craft books that inspired me. I am really pleased I got it finished. It is lovely and most importnatly means you don't get scalded by your hot water bottle.

... a brain slug

Sometimes good things come in the smallest packages and this is one of those times. This chap is tiny - only 4cm tall to the top of his cute antennae. He is a brain slug which is not particularly cute at all I suppose. Brain slugs exist in Futurama, my all time favourite cartoon. They turn their human hosts into semi comatose shadows of themselves, I sometimes wonder if I have been infected - it would explain my recent slowness! The pattern, which I got from a cool blog called hooks and needles came in two sizes, small and large. Turns out the small one was the perfect size for the crochet me! More information on the brain slugs and their nefarious plan to take over the earth can be found here

... a jack o lantern

Happy Halloween.....

I wanted to crochet this afternoon, was casting round for good ideas and realised it was halloween. Then I remembered I had bought some violently orange wool a few weeks ago when I was making small hats and decided it had to be a pumpkin (I could see that wool sitting in my box for a long time otherwise!).

... a whatsit

That's what he is called - no really. This is cheeky blog entry as technically I made most of this quite some time ago. But as anyone who knows me would agree I am a better starter than I am a finisher and this little fella had to live with no eyes for some time as a result of that particular character trait.

As I had all my buttons out to choose the eyes for my self portrait I decided to give him eyes too (and a belly button as well).

He is based on a pattern from the very clever darncatcrochet - http://darncatcrochet.blogspot.com/2007/10/whatsit-free-pattern_12.html

... Debbie

I was crocheting the other day and realised that the strips of crochet I was making looked just like my curly hair. I decided a self portait in crochet might be quite cool and so here I am!

... pink cakes

I love making cakes. I haven't been able to enjoy baking for ages as my old cooker was rubbish. Me and my lovely new cooker are getting to know each other and I am starting to enjoy the art of cake making again (watch out waistline!).

These were whipped up this evening for a bake sale we are having at work to support breast cancer charities. I wanted to keep with the pink theme (not a common choice of colour for me - I am not a pink kind of girl really) and thoroughly enjoyed playing with the tub of assorted pink sprinkles I got for the occasion.

Hopefully the sale will go well. I think I will have to bake some cakes for us at the weekend - a victoria sponge appeals.....

... a wrap shirt

I love wrap shirts. They are very flattering and most importantly of all expand to fit perfectly however big your tummy seems to have magically got over night or if you treat yourself to a naughty lunch (i.e. chips or bacon sandwiches). My favourite wrap shirt suffered a fatal accident recently - I ripped a great big hole in the shoulder when I was putting it on.

So I decided to have a go at making a new one. I carefully took the old one apart and made a pattern from it, cut one out of some white cotton and voila, a new wrap shirt just like my old one. Well nearly...my old one was black - I thought this one would be too until it transpired I had ordered white cotton fabric by mistake. Ah well, never mind, I like this one too and as the fabric only cost me £2 from a site on the internet I might just be able to stretch to making another order and having a black one too.

...an apron

This apron is a copy of one Dan found hanging around somewhere and decided he liked very much. In fact enough to want one of his own. It is made from painting canvas scraps so is another low cost item. All I bought for this was the white tape and that cost me about 30p. Bargain!

As I understand it, this is a studio apron and will mostly get used for priming, so should save the lives of a few of Dan's t-shirts.

It will join Dan at an exciting time - he is nearly at the end of the current phase of Dan Young Daily - http://danyoungdaily.blogspot.com/. It might be a bit late for it to have much of an impact on that project but should come in handy for the next boards or canvases that need priming.

...more woolly hats

Here are my latest batch of hats for the Innocent / Help the Aged campaign, beautifully modelled by a range of fruit (if you are wondering why the heck I am crocheting mini hats see post #1 on the blog).

I can't help but be particularly pleased with the viking helmet. I got a bit bored of making bobble hats so diversified a bit!