Crocheted cosiness

I am not able to churn projects at the pace I am posting them, but  I have some backlog from the last year. This week I have actually finished two commissions, which I will show you later. I have been hopping out of my bed and skipping to my workroom as soon as my housework has been done.

Here is a project I finished a long time ago, but forgot to show you. I got into crocheting by reading the fantastically colourful blog attic24. Lucy is a real gem; very creative and generous. Her blog has a sidebar full of crochet tutorials, many of them really beginner friendly in that she photographs the different stages of making and points out where to put your hook etc.

This is the granny stripe blanket from her sidebar. I did the edging from my own head, as I had gained some unwarranted self-belief in my crocheting skills. It is essentially just triple stitches, just like the blanket. The only adjustment was that on the long side I only used two of them in each space between the clusters. I had to unravel it a few times to get it right. Looking at the pictures you see that the edge is wavy because it still has too many stitches. I should have thrown in few places with only one stitch.

I like the white framing it brings lightness to the blanket. I was not too sure about my skills and whether I could actually take this project to its end, so chose reasonably priced (read not 100% wool) yarn. Lucy had mentioned the Stylecraft yarn on her blog and I decided to try it. It is nice enough, not as sumptuous as a full merino wool yarn, but hey, certainly nice and snugly. (And the price is not quite as painful).

It took me four months to make it. Mostly sitting and "watching" telly or at the swimming pool when Elf son was still having lessons. But it was addicting pastime too. Just this one row...you know. I loved the ease of making it; there is no sewing it together afterwards, all the ends were tidied as I went along and it was very easy to crochet.

I finished off the blanket with small pompoms. Now if you have children around a word of warning; they absolutely love the blankets and will put their fingers through it. There is no harm in that. But the pompoms, the pompoms. Dear me, it is very difficult not to pull and tuck in them. They were made with the clover pompom maker and secured very well onto the blanket in my mind. Nevertheless, I have done some maintenance today in this part of the blanket replacing many pompoms. Now that the blanket is not a new one, we have actually not had these incidents of pompom murders for a good while.

The blanket resides on our bed, the quilt is one of the things I still have to show to you.

Here are the stats to help you if you should wish to make one too:

166cm X 136cm
Weighs 1277gr
441 stitches on the foundation chain.

Stylecraft Life Dk yarn in seven colours: White, Zing, Clover, Cardinal, Fern, Fuchsia and Cobalt.
4 months in making at a leisurely pace
Great to snuggle under!

Baby Quilts

I have made several of these in different guises. They are relatively easy to make and I can often use fabrics I already have, although I also buy a bit to make them extra special. The quilts have become my default go-to gift for new babies as they have been very well received. Several recipients have very sweetly commented that the quilt has been the nicest gift they have got for their baby. (Or maybe I am really quick, before there are too many to compare with???)

Here are more pictures from little A's quilt. I used the "Chinese Coin" quilting, but did not make the coloured bits equal in their length. It is a really easy way to quilt as there is no need to sweat over the block corners to fit. This is possibly the easiest quilt type ever!

The quilt was for a "yoga baby" and I got the birth details from the Mum without even being sneaky. I just had to keep them in my head during the session, so I could embroider them as soon as I got home!

This second one was made before the baby was born and we did not know about the gender. The quilt was made of big squares of white and printed cottons.

 The back was some of my last bits of hand dyed batik polka-dots from Africa.

 

The colours were rather light and sort of retro feel to them. It felt like a spring baby quilt. This one I quilted along the piecing lines.

Have you done any nice quilting lately? Big or small...(These are not especially big pieces, but big enough to be used for toddler naps and later maybe as lap quilts).

Cleaning the Hut part 1

I am sure that I am the last one to get on the cheap/environmentally friendly/home made cleaning stuff. The web seems to be full of recipes for different concoctions, so I thought that I will show you what I use at the moment, just to add to the general merriment! My cupboard gets edited if I find better stuff. On the other hand, if something works I seldom bother seeking alternatives. It is more that I might stumble on a bright idea on my internet journeys.

I plan to wash our clothes in washing powder made of :

2 part soap flakes or grated soap
1 part or borax
1 part of soda crystals

I need approximately 2 tablespoons of this per wash. (I have a big 9kg machine).
I did a test run or two. It worked beautifully and now I am working through my stash of shop bought detergents. You could add an essential oil into the mixture if you want a scent. Our family is happiest with unscented stuff in general.

I am really, really excited about dishwasher powder I have been making and using

1/2 part  borax
1/2 part  washing soda
Little squirt normal dish washing liquid

White vinegar for rinsing.

I use maybe 1-2 tbs of the powder per wash.

If you have a grim shower screen, here is a whopper:

Make a paste of water and flour. Any flour does it; corn, potato, wheat, as long as it thickens the sauce.   It doesn't need to be awfully thick, aim at a cream cleaner consistency. When the sauce is thickened and hot, add some white vinegar. Now spread the paste on your grim shower screen and wait. Go on, have a cup of tea or go and clean something else. If it is really bad, you might even want to leave it overnight.  Then you just rinse the thing away with the help of a sponge. Voila, shiny screen!

One thing I have not really found is a dish washing detergent I could make. I am well aware of that you can use washing soda to this end, but that means using rubber gloves all the time. What I need is a gentle enough for hands, but enough oomph to get the grease off the pans. At the moment I am using a commercial eco-friendly product. Any ideas?

PS. The picture does have very little to do with the post apart from the fact that I often wear an apron while cleaning and always when cooking and washing dishes. My aprons get a lot of use and look disgusting after being used for a year. The one above was a Christmas present to my mother-in-law.

The three sisters

 

These two are now ready to travel to their new home.
Their little sister here did go earlier.

Isn't she cute? She is the youngest sister of the three I made. I have a friend who commissioned three dolls from me, one for each of her daughters. She is adopting the youngest one and is giving each of the girls a Waldorf doll with their features and favourite colour clothes. The picture is courtesy of my husband. I didn't get to take more pictures of the "baby" as she travelled to her new home earlier than the older ones.

I love to make these dolls as custom made orders. They become so special because I think about the child and their personality while I am making the doll with care and love. The dolls are obviously not strictly traditional Waldorf dolls, I play with adding features like eyebrows and sometimes dimples. My dolls are also in sewn clothes rather than in knitted ones. I do though honour the idea of natural materials. They are filled with sheep wool, which makes them really lovely to cuddle. Everybody wants to hold them, children and adults alike. This baby has actually also a knitted jumper she took home with her.

Now, let me indulge in the pictures of the two older sisters. Here is the oldest sister posing in her dress. Don't be fooled to think that she can stand. She is cleverly supported from behind, hence the sightly odd pose.

She can wear her boots up long and her warm sweater and be ready to go anywhere!

She has a lovely messenger bag and nice wooden bead bracelets.

 Here is the middle sister in her dress. She likes clashing colours.

 

She too has a sweater and a bag. And a very curly hair!

Her bag is keeping the dress safe on the way home.

The sisters do like each other.

And then for the unashamed self-promotion: Would you like to order a doll like these? I am open for orders and will send worldwide. I take payment through PayPal. You can email me for prices, if you are interested. I also make boy dolls and dolls suitable for younger children (0-3).
As the dolls require quite a lot work, you need to allow 4 weeks for making of a doll. (I might be quicker, but as a caution do calculate with 4 weeks as a standard). I would love to hear from you!

Soap making

I was encouraged by a friend to try my hand at soap making. I was very doubtful about her assessment: "It's really easy!" I went to read about it on Rhonda's excellent blog and decided to try. I followed Rhonda's instructions for the olive soap. The result was OK, although not excellent. The fail is not necessary in the instructions, I had a very inaccurate set of scales that might have more than anything to do with the result.
By then I was determined to make some soap I liked and borrowed a book the local library. I cannot even remember the title, but honestly, any book on the subject would do and the net is heaving both with recipes and instructional videos. The most important bit of the making is to get the proportion of lye and oil right. There are a number of good lye calculators on the net and I use this one.

I am not entirely sure if I should confess what I did next...my Hubbie had been making chips and afterwards wondered about the waste of the oil. (Of health reasons we won't re-use). He then aired the thought of filtering the oil and using it in soap making. I must say that this soap was purely meant to be for cleaning and the oil had only fried potatoes, nothing else and it really did not have bits in it when it went into the pot. As the other ingredient, lye, is not expensive I decided to try. I think I added a smidgen of coconut oil, just to add some lather. You know what? It worked. We have been using this soap quite happily. Even my sister was gifted some and really liked it. Although I did not reveal the story before she had used it...I did not want to gross her out.

I did make a batch of soap for Christmas presents. If you received some you can be safe to use it without looking for potato bits, I used oils directly from the bottles! This time I wanted to make it a bit special and extracted some goodness out of Calendula petals into sunflower oil on my windowsill for some weeks. I then used the oil in the making of the soap. There was also a bit of coconut oil and some dried Calendula petals added and some lavender oil for scent. This soap is very good for anybody with dry skin.

 In general the home made soap, like the posh hand made ones from the health food shops, are far superior to the industrially made ones. It is such a delight to use it. Because all the ingredients of the nice oils are left in the soap, it is not as harsh for your skin. I understand that in the industrial process glycerin is extracted first as it is more valuable to sell as an ingredient to the cosmetic industry. It is actually quite an eye opener to look at the ingredients list of even a good soap from the supermarket shelves. Something which should have very simple ingredients has suddenly an arm long list. I leave you to draw the conclusions. I can wholeheartedly recommend making your own soap, it is really easy! (Just the common warning, do not attempt while you are having small children or pets around).

Wanting the present would fill somewhat more I also gifted a facecloth with all of my soaps. They were made as described here.

I did produce more than the pictured ones, just did not take photos of them all.

 

I have reports from my giftees (not a word, I know) that they love the soap to that degree that they would like to receive more when they have used up their lot. Hmm...I think I'll send the recipe. 

My soap recipe for my Christmas Soap:

1000gr sunflower oil

250 gr coconut oil

172 gr lye

450ml water

Some of the sunflower oil was infused with Calendula. I added maybe 5ml of lavender oil and the Calendula petals when the soap had reached trace.If you really want to scent your soap, prepare to use considerable amounts of essential oils. This also explains, why only certain oils are used; you better use something with distinctive and strong scent and at the same time it needs to be one of the affordable oils. In our household we honestly prefer unscented cosmetics and detergents.

I won't write how to make the soap as the process has been described so many times...you could start at Rhonda's blog, it has the recipe/process button in the side bar.

Christmas present review part 2

The picture is not one of the presents, but some home made decorations. I noticed that the blog land was awash with "paper jewels" and everybody seemed to have their own version of them. I downloaded some patterns here and used white card with different coloured and patterned papers clued to it. (The site is total bliss for someone wanting to do paper crafts...)When I started I thought that I would not be able to make them and if I could, I would not really take to it. It just looked too fiddly. Well...the ones in the picture are by no means the only ones I made. I just could not stop making them. It was truly addictive and I had to try all sorts of combinations of red and white. They were hung in our tree and are now carefully packed away for the next Christmas.

I also made mini bunting for our tree. It was really easy. I cut the flags as diamond shapes and just folded them and sewed them on the hemp line with zig-zag. In this way the bunting works from both sides. I cut the fabric with pinking scissors to avoid hemming. It also makes the little flags look rather decorative.

 

Here it is on the wall behind our bed before the tree went up. I almost left it there, because  it looked so festive and cheerful. When the tree came down I was debating whether to keep it for decorating all year round, but decided not to.  There is something very special about things which come up only once a year. I might though produce something similar in other colours...

 

So now to the presents. The bags galore were made. Two more wash bags were made for twin nieces R&L. They have started to have and go to sleep overs and I thought a wash bag might be a nice thing to have. The inside was made out of same polka dot wax cloth as the bigger wash bag's in the previous post.

They were nice to make until I for no reason hit a wall of "cannot do" with the second of them. I think I spent as long getting one seam right in that as all the other seams put together. Few swear words were uttered...I made a zip tag to ease opening and closing of the bags. I thought the button looked cute on it, do not know how nice it is to use though. The girls can always take the buttons away, if they are too much of a hassle.

I made more bags for others. My sister-in-law got this one. It started as a simple shopping tote, but then I lined it and decided that it needed a rigid bottom. So now she can either just use it as a shopping tote or a BIG handbag.

 

For our teenage niece the bag was made from a wilder fabric. Luckily she liked it, as it admittedly was a gamble. I thought she might, but was also prepared for the "what on earth does she think of me" -reaction.

I made it big and strong enough to use as a school bag for the college and this is what she is using it for. I am relieved.....

Did you take a chance making surprise presents? Link in comments, I would love to see!

Christmas present review part one

I started in good time making my presents, yet it felt that I was working awfully hard to the deadline of sending them away. I don't know how that came to be.

One of my sisters wished to have a wash bag and/or make-up bag, so I made both for
her. 

 

I lined the wash bag with red waterproof fabric with polka dots from IKEA. I like their oil cloth as it is matte and slightly thinner than many of its counterparts. This makes it easier to sew.  I have previously made even a little rucksack of it and it worked beautifully. (I don't think I blogged about it...)

It is not that difficult to sew a wash bag, but it does take some time. I have to be extra careful of not making any mistakes as picking the stitches from plastic doesn't work! I was really pleased to find some turquoise ric-rac from my stash to give it a little kick.

I also added a face cloth in the same theme. I don't think I have blogged about these, but they are a great way of using good bits of ripped towels. As a bonus everybody can recognise theirs when they have different colours and appliques. I will show more of them later.

 

My other sister had not wished anything and we don't normally exchange gifts. I wanted to surprise her with just a little practical home made present. I made her a new shopping tote and decorated it with some crocheted "snow flakes". These were again a thrift shop find and one of my trusty go-to when  wanting to doll-up something.

The little bag on the side was my  moment of genius. You see how very handy it is? It fits perfectly in your bag.

 I really detest plastic bags as they are blowing in the wind and ending up in places they should not be. I have been using reusable bags for long and now I have gone one step further; I bring my own vegetable bags as well. So I sewed a set for my sister to take with her. I did make five, but at the point of photographing the fifth one did not have the string - I ran out of it and had to grab the moment, because the sunlight or even just reasonable photographic light have been in a short supply here.

This post became rather baggy, but that was largely the theme of my gift giving this Christmas. More to follow!

Change of Year and Colours

This time of the year I can feel my colours changing. You know the reds and oranges and yellows turning into teal and turquoise and sometimes fuchsia. In my mind that is. I am simply reaching for different colours in my wardrobe and in my fabric stash. I used to spend a lot longer time in a colour in the past, but now I seem to get  largely through the rainbow in a year. I keep my base colours grey and white and very little black in the background all the year round. Before I felt always unsure about a new colour, because it felt as such a commitment. Now I am rather relaxed about "going off" a colour and won't get rid of a piece of clothing too soon. If I haven't worn something during last 12-18 months, then it might be recycled or re-purposed.

As I am not going to show my wardrobe with its washed and worn long sleeved t-shirts in all colours of the rainbow I thought I show you a set I made for a little girl last summer. I had bought simple polka dot cotton in an intense shadow of green for trousers and paired it with white peasant shirt made out of sheet cotton. The doily on the front was a thrift shop find and totally transformed the shirt to something special! Both the trousers and the shirt were made with very simple patterns, so sewing them didn't take long at all.

The little princess looked fabulous in the ensemble.

Do you shift your colours like a chameleon?

Bad Elf

Sooo long time away. That makes me a bad elf already,  but what I had in my mind was to declare the

 SEASON OF THE

Bad Elves

OPEN

The bad elves are those who 

1. Make so complicated gifts that at some point of the production swearing is needed.
2.  Then covet the gifts they have made.

You can add more criteria in the comments and/or join the club here.

As the season is mostly about gifts and they cannot be showed for a good while, I will show you things I have made while I have not been blogging.

I feel this is an old hat now, but it is one of those birthday gifts I make in hope of getting children to appreciate handmade and at the same time avoiding to add to their pile of plastic.
The picture above is a PE bag. I added two pockets on outside for the sand shoes. She also got a pencil case.

 

Actually I think i could easily use these things....hm... Bad Elf vibes again. Luckily these items have been gifted away long time ago!

As it would be awkward not to mention it, our family unfortunately became a part of 1/3 statistics; the adoption we were working on broke down. We have worked hard to get ourselves up from the floor again and are left with sadness and hope and also great respect for those who adopt.