Builder's Crochet

Well for a crochet nerd like myself I have had a rather exciting week.  First I took delivery of some builder's plumb-line in some interesting colours...

..and then I managed to track down some jute garden twine (harder to find than I thought)...

Nope I'm not planning on building a wall and trailing some clematis up it, these are in fact the ingredients for my next project in the Happy Hooker Backwards project!  And what fun I am having crocheting with such a different material than I am used to.  True my hands are getting rough and smell like B&Q, and I have flecks of twine over most of clothes and soft furnishings, but oooh such excitement!

It's working up nice and fast too so hopefully I will have a finished result to share with you all soon.

Thanks for the lovely comments on my crocheted iPod cover, I am in the process of writing up my rather haphazard pattern to share here, might take me a wee while longer though, pattern writing is not my fastest skill :)

I shall leave you in anticipation now, I do hope you UK readers are enjoying all this sunshine (unless you are like me and love a bit of autumnal drizzle...)

:)

Happy Hooker Backwards Project #37

When I was hit (like a ton of bricks) with post-natal depression I shelved my mission to work my way backwards through the Happy Hooker book for a while until I could once again get my head around the challenge. Then over this past weekend I suddenly felt the need to pick up the book and get on with it...must be a good sign, right?

I am very glad I waited as I had to basically do my own version of this pattern. It rather made my brain hurt...but I got there in the end!

So the fourth project from the back of the book is "Cozy Pod Creatures" by Cynthia Combs, cute little covers for an iPod.  Only one problem: the pattern is for the old style iPod and is based around a vinyl cover for the front...not much good for the new touch-screen iPods and phones.  So with quite a lot of counting, a fair bit of light swearing and a lot of unravelling (the yarn and me) I eventually managed to come up with my own altered version. 

I kept the front open to allow for full access to the touch screen.

Taking inspiration from the original pattern I embellished my iPod cover into a a little cat. It is is definitely cute...

I left no access for earphones as I currently listen to all music via my iPod speakers at home.  I may have to rethink this for when I start commuting again so I can show off my iPod cover whilst listening to the Craftypod podcasts on the train :)

All in all a very cute little project and very quick too (once I had worked it out I had the whole thing completed in an afternoon in between feeding times, school runs and playing peek-a-boo.)  Another plus of this project is it is small and therefore cheap to do!  Here's the breakdown:

• Cost - about 50p - I reckon I used less than an 8th of a 100g ball.
• Yarn - Wendy Serenity luxury cotton DK. First time I've used this and I am now addicted! Such a lovely yarn :)
• Hook - 3mm
• Difficulty - Well for me it was a right bugger to do, but now I have it worked out I think my next go at it will be very easy indeed.
• Overall happiness with finished object - for the fourth time in four projects I am...delighted!

As I had to completely rewrite the pattern and only used the original in the end for inspiration I think I can quite happily share my version with you, so as soon as I have had time to write it up and take accompanying photos I shall :) 

Right now Lillia is at a friend's to play and Phoebe is with her granny for the afternoon, so I shall be making a cuppa and scrolling through some crafty blogs on my very cosy iPod :)

Monkey madness

Hello hello! And how are you enjoying all this delicious rain, hmm?  Just right for me, warm and rainy...perfect. 

Things here in the Snipsnaphappy household are Busy (note the capital B).  But fear not, I have still found the time to get some lovely things hooked up!  When I made this little fellow for Mr Snipsnaphappy's birthday earlier this year I knew that more would inevitably follow, the pattern is, after all, so simple and fun and I'm a simple kind of gal.

This time around I had a little help beside me as I hooked away, Phoebe is by my side chilling out with her fat little legs kicking away...

With her help I finally managed to finish the latest pair of monkeys, resplendent in girly pink this time...

These two girls are currently in a box (with airholes of course) on their way to their new owners, who I hope will love them.  I very nearly kept them, it was hard to let go!  If you are looking for a first arigurumi pattern this one really is worth a go, it's really easy to follow and good fun to do.  It was my first one and I really enjoyed it.

In non-making news I have been unbelieveably absorbed in daily family life.  Plus I have been into hopsital for my drug treatment to bring my ulcerative colitis under control.  I did take a picture of the IV line into my arm to share with you but then I had a moment of clarity and suddenly realised that it would be a bit..well..a bit eeew.  So far so good on that front, getting slowly better :)

And in making news I have more to share!  I am back on my Happy Hooker Backwards mission, oh yes!  I am very excited to share with you my next project as I actually had to modify the pattern so much I ended up writing my own!  My very own crochet pattern!  Tune in here tomorrow for more...

L'il Monkey Blanket in action!

Remember the Li'l Monkey Blanket?  Completed waaaay back in October last year, seems a lifetime ago!

Well Phoebe has been putting it to the test.  Lots of leg kicking and arm wriggling going on atop the blanket...

Yes, she seems most satisfied with it.  It's always lovely to see the things I make in use, getting stamped on, thrown about and sicked on.  It's how it should be :)

Happy Hooker Backwards Project #38 Completed!

I finished my blanket on Monday afternoon during what turned out to be a rather stressful 24 hours.  So in the midst of running backwards and forwards to various hospitals, having Big Discussions, and dealing with a vomiting 4-year-old we had a new soft blanket to snuggle down with.

Very handy it was too as when the sickness bug hit Lillia's own pink ripple blanket took most of the mess!  So while that was washed and dried she was able to recover on the sofa quite warm and cosy under the new Colour Bar blanket.

Do excuse the rather bad and wonky "voila!" photo!  The light has been terrible and space to lay it out is fairly limited so you'll have to make do...

All in all in took just under a month to do and it was really good fun working through each little coloured pile of granny squares, then laying them all out and crocheting them together.  I used grey yarn and a single crochet stitch to join them, I like the contrast and the pattern it creates...

The yarn, despite being relatively cheap and cheerful, is incredibly soft and the colours are soooo earthy and warm.  Hubby calls it his "man blanket" as it is one of very few things in the house at the moment that doesn't contain an element of pink.

The pattern didn't call for any edging to finish off the blanket but I felt it needed a finishing edge, so I added four rows of single crochet in taupe and green...

It fits in beautifully in the bedroom as I hoped, the colours are perfect.

But for now it has taken up residence with the family on the sofa, which is where I suspect it may stay for a while :)

So here's the lowdown on Happy Hooker Backwards Project #38!

• Cost - about £15 - I bought one ball of each of the ten colours and I haven't used any of them up entirely so there's plenty of left for more projects.
• Yarn - 100% acrylic - various brands.
• Hook - 6mm
• Difficulty - Easy!  In fact this project almost made me enjoy doing granny squares!  Each square is only three rounds so they are easy to work up quickly, which is just as well as there are 140 in total!  I enjoy joining granny squares so I didn't find that much of a chore, but I am guessing others would disagree :)
• Overall happiness with finished object - as usual I am delighted!  But not as delighted as hubby is with his "man blanket"!

So another project is completed, that's 3 out of 40 so far!  Two weeks until my due date, can I squeeze another one in do you think? 

xx

PS - thanks for all the lovely positive vibes and comments on my Giveaway post, and don't forget you have until Friday to enter if you haven't already!

The view from where I'm sitting

During my first "proper" week of maternity leave now that no.1 is back at school I have spent some quality time crocheting on the sofa.  Not as much time as I would like so far, due the ongoing nesting operation, but a fair amount of time :)

The Colour Bar blanket is coming along very nicely, despite me mucking it up considerably on the first assembly.  I used a 4mm hook when I should have used a 6mm and ended up with a very crinkly blanket that just wouldn't sit right at all.

It took me ages to work out what I had done and you can imagine the reaction of an eight-month pregnant woman with heartburn when I realised I had to rip it apart and start again.  However the end is now in sight and I am pleased to report that a 6mm hook and a lot of patience has indeed solved the issue.

So excuse me whilst I sit here and hook away, it's easier than getting up.  If only someone would bring me a cup of raspberry leaf tea my afternoon would be complete...

Colour Bay Blanket - scenes of great progress!

Progress on my Colour Bay blanket has been much speedier than I expected!  These granny squares aren't so bad - three simple rounds in a nice variety of colours of easy-to-use double-knit yarn.  I've been racing through.

What with finishing up the day job and all that palava though I haven't had a change to get any photos until now...

There are ten colours in the blanket and I've done 9 squares of each so far.  Now I need to to decide the layout of my colours and work up more squares in each of the more dominant colours I choose.

I had a little helper on my photoshoot who didn't like things looking quite so neat and tidy...

She had a lot of fun messing them up!  Who would have thought granny squares could be so entertaining?

I'm loving the mix of colours.

It's half term this week so I'm not sure how much time I will have for sitting down and crocheting but I shall be trying to squeeze it in as much as possible.  With the weather turning much colder recently I am looking forward to snuggling up warm under my new blanket very soon :)

Yummy wool!

Just dashing in as I am too excited not to share this with you...

I have chosen my ten colours for Happy Hooker Backwards project #38!  For my Colour Bay blanket I will be using a mix of greens, browns and creams, with a small hint of blue.  These colours match our beachy bedroom and I can't wait to get started! 

More from me in a day or two, hopefully with pictures of great progress!  Much excitement here in the Snipsnaphappy household!  Well for me anyway, can't seem to get Mr S and the little person that enthused about my pile of yarn, they don't know what they're missing...

Gloomy side...Bright side...and crochet...

Gloomy side...

Early mornings leaving at just gone 6am whilst my little family still snores.  Long drives stuck in traffic.  Popping pills that do no good.  Limping towards maternity leave slowly.

Steoids and me have a long thorny history but they are the only available option whilst I am pregnant (aside from homeopathy and yoga, which I am already doing).  I am not responsive to them, I have just taken too many over the years - pills, more pills, intravenous...any way they get them into me in large doses, in a constant battle to avoid the surgeon's knife.  They've brought me back from the brink a couple of times though, I have to give them that.

Bright side...

The darned pills might just work, given more time, so there's always that hope.  My last work day is next Friday then I am free of early starts, London traffic, work stress and bother.  Most importantly the pregnancy is going brilliantly well with no issues or complications despite my illness.

Aaaaaand, I am at the beginning of the next big crochet project!  Always a fabulous feeling.  Want to know what the Happy Hooker Backwards Project no.38 is?

The Colour Bay Blanket by Cat Mazza!  A nice big simple blanket, and this one is definitely for us grown-ups!  There are ten colours to choose for this blanket.  I am not using the colours suggested in the book as I want the blanket to match our bedroom, which is more muted browns and greens than rainbow brights.

Lots of fun to be had with this one!  Best get started....

Happy Hooker Backwards Project 39 - Li'l Monkey

Well after a slight setback whilst I waited for a further supply of grey Wendy Serenity yarn I have finally managed to finish my second Happy Hooker Backwards project!  And I have to say I am delighted.  I love the yarn, I love the colours, I love the look of the whole thing. 

Here it is...

The original pattern called for the traditional sock monkey colours of red, tan and cream - a combination I love - but I wanted a much girlier version.

This yarn is super soft - it's a mix of wool, alpaca and acrylic, so very washable too.  In fact I am not going to bother with blocking as I suspect this blanket, which is destined for use as a kind of floor blanket for the new addition to roll about on, faces a lot of washing in its future!  Plenty of time for shaping and drying flat and straight then :)

Those monkey faces were quite a challenge though, more on those below.  But first lets sum up Project 39:

• Cost - about £35.00 - I used about 10 balls in total, more than double what the pattern recommends.  But I did use a different yarn as I couldn't get the required Bernat Softeee Chunkee here in the UK.
• Yarn - Wendy Serenity Super Chunky in grey, pink and cream.  I used more grey than any other colour and ended up having to track down more having made the classic mistake of not buying enough in the first place!
• Hook - 9mm and 5mm
• Difficulty - Easy!  The granny squares are easy to do and the special stitiches are really well explained in the pattern.  The hat was really quick and simple.  The monkey faces were a total pain though!  In fact I totally gave up on the pattern instructions and worked it out myself, I have written my alterations below.
• Overall happiness with finished object - absolutely delighted! It is soft, it is chunky, it is unusual, fun and girly.  There's not a member of the household who hasn't happily buried their toes into it :)

 

Now onto those darned monkey faces.  I got pretty stuck on these and looking at Ravelry I see I'm not the only one.  So here's my revisions to the pattern - basically a list of what I did to more or less make it work ok for me.  These are just me notes, I am no pattern writer!  But if they help another frustrated Happy Hooker somewhere in the world then it's worth posting them:

Rounds 1 and 2 - work to pattern

Round 3 - with colour D
Ch1, sc in same st
2 sc in nxt sc
1 sc in nxt 6 sc
2 sc in next 3 sc
1 sc in nxt 8 sc
2 sc in last sc
Sl st in first sc to join

Round 4
Ch1, sc in same st
2 sc in nxt sc
1 sc in nxt 11 sc
2 sc in nxt 3 sc
1 sc in nxt 9 sc
2 sc in last sc
Sl st in first sc to join

Round 5
Ch 1, 2 sc in same st
2 sc in next sc
1 sc in next 10 sc
2 sc in next 2 sc

Then return to pattern for the ears.

  

Two down, just 38 to go!  Next project is another blanket but this time a big one for us grown ups!  Perfect for the coming winter, more soon!

x

Guilty confession

I have a terrible admission to make.

I don't like making granny squares.

I know I know, a crochet-addict who doesn't like granny squares, like an alchoholic who doesn't like cocktails (mmmm, cocktails...)

I just find them a little tedious, all that going round and round in circles..ok..squares...the same stitches over and over and over again. to create lots of little identical, or very similar, componant parts.

*sigh*

You know what I really like?  Crocheting them all together...

...seeing them come together to create the whole...



...finally seeing the fruits of my labour...



And it's always handy to have a little helper on hand to test the softness...

Happy Hooker Backwards Project #39 in progress

It's time to start the next project in my plan to work through the Happy Hooker backwards.  After a bit of a delay whilst I tried to overcome the problem of not being able to buy the required Barnat Softee Chunky yarn here in the UK, I eventually took action (rather than repeatedly doing the same Google searches and coming up with nothing) and headed down to a local yarn store to get some advice. 

Yes!  Excitingly I actually now have not one but TWO local yarn shops!  When I went to buy our 4 year-old's school jumper at a specialist uniform shop in a nearby village I discovered that they are also a yarn shop complete with a resident old lady knitting expert.  Then I discovered Yarnia in Belvedere in Kent, just a ten minute drive away, and it was here I finally managed to find myself some alternative wool with the help of one of the owners.  Phew.

I went for these colours rather than the suggested red and tan combination...

I want everything to be baby-girly so of course it had to be pink and soft.  This stuff was *gasp* £3.35 a ball, three times the amount I usually spend on yarn.  It's 10% wool, 20% alpaca and 70% acrylic, so it's fairly posh for a baby blanket.  But I can still shove it in the machine on a wool wash so all is well.

The brand is Wendy "Serenity"...

The irony of using a wool called "serenity" for making a blanket for a newborn is not lost on me :)

Coming home clutching my new stash I had to get started straight away of course and prepared myself to quickly work up one of the monkey faces essential to the whole project.  In the end it took me about four hours - no matter how I looked at the patten it just didn't add up the way it should have - and after many unravelled attempts I finally started again and just did it my own way...

And you know what?  It actually does look like the picture in the book!  I will post my amendments to this part of the pattern after I've hooked up a few more and perfected it.

I then moved on to the hat part of the project, which I am pleased to report was easy as pie and took about an hour to do in between bouts of working from home...

The idea is now to attach the monkey face to the hat in order to elevate its cuteness to heart-melting proportions.  I haven't done this yet, but here it is placed together...

Gah!  Too too too cute!  My eyes my eyes!

So now I am off to work on the afghan part of the project.  I am very much enjoying this chunky way of crocheting, everything seems so quick, apart from the blasted monkey faces of course :)