White Jug Cover

It's time for garden parties and warm summer days, barbecues and jugs of Pimms, I offer you a jug cover for said alcoholic beverage ...

Tea Towel Edging

Oh, I do love an edging or two. I've added an edging to a couple of delightful Cath Kidston-style tea towels and they look even more charming now.

Spring Flowers Egg Cozy

It really is Spring, and I'm celebrating that with the project this week.  I couldn't not do something that hints at Easter celebrations. I've given you a simple egg cosy, but one that speaks of the blossoming season too. This little number works up really quickly.

Log Cabin Baby Buggy Blanket

Spring is here, but because the days aren't quite so warm yet, I offer you a blanket. This one is the log cabin blanket. This patterning is very common in the construction of patchwork quilts. However, for crochet, it's not a terribly difficult pattern to get into. If you can do a granny square, you can do this blanket.

Granny Heart Square

So much love!

The lovely Wendy from The Hooked Haberdasher has featured the Granny Square Heart on her website. She asked me to put together a square using the same motif. Here is my offering of this little beauty.

February Crochet Love

I have a lovely flower heart pattern for you. I will preface this by saying that this is not my pattern, but is available online at various locations in another language (Russian, perhaps?) as a symbol chart. 

You can download this here if you want all those symbols in a written pattern:
Ravelry
Love Crochet

Rustic Lace Square - A Written Pattern

So the Rustic Lace Square has been doing the rounds lately. And even though I've come to it quite late, the thrall of it hasn't waned. I still love it and keep returning to it often.

Granny Heart Square

This post is now featured here

More Valentine's Day Hearts

Here is another quick project for the lovers and the makers out there. This little padded heart is a delightful decoration for this weekend.

Granny Heart for Valentine's Day

Here is a quick and easy heart to work up for Valentine's Day. I can't claim this pattern as my own, as I have seen numerous versions of this all over the internet. But here is my offering of this little beauty.

Blocking Motifs

I enjoy creating motifs, but one thing I do know about these lovely creations is that the presentation of these motifs is not complete until they have been blocked. I have been asked on numerous occasions how I block my motifs, so I will go through the process I use to get them crisp and perfectly formed.

A Round Cushion Cover

I crocheted up a couple of mandalas. There are quite a few patterns around for these marvellous creations, but I especially like the ones that Wink from A Creative Being has released recently. The Picots & Petals Mandala pattern is available for purchase through Wink's outlets. Be sure to grab yourself a pattern and get crocheting.

Blanket Sizes

I have a Ripple Blanket (Afghan) that has been going on for more than five years. It's so large now that it's no longer portable. I can't just pop it into my bag and pull it out if I have a couple of minutes spare during the day. It's a heavy blanket too, so it's not the kind of item that I want draped over me in the summer. So I'm confined to the winter months of crocheting this blanket. But there are so many other items which are just so lovely, that I haven't got round to working on this blanket for the last 18 months. BUT it will get finished one day (one winter day)!

Colour

I love crochet, and I adore creating and generating new ideas and manipulating other people's offerings to this wonderfully creative enterprise. However, the thing that slows me down the most, and where I get a little confused and muddled is over colour choices. I tend to stick to conservative colour combinations. I won't really push the boat out with outrageously clashing colours that just somehow work.

I have found that browsing through others people's ideas in this respect helps a lot. I run a couple of classes a week and have found that those that attend the various groups have some fantastic ideas for colour combinations. I often photograph these items and and keep them as my resource for colour choices in other projects.

There are a number of websites that I have found immensely helpful when I am stuck for ideas and where the colour creative has deserted me. Fresh Stitches have some wonderful posts on colour and colour theory. Have a look at this post on Yarns that Go Together and this one about online tools.

Fresh Stitches point to various sites around the web that help with Changing Colours with Stripes and Granny Square colour combinations.

I really enjoy using Design Seeds for inspiration in colours that work well together.

Fingerless Mitts

I have been scouring pattern books, Pinterest, Ravelry and miscellaneous websites for a suitable pattern for fingerless mitts. And I found one at Maaike's lovely creJJtion website, and I'm captured by them.

How Much are You (and Your Work) Worth?

You know that uneasy feeling you get when you have to price your wonderful wares up for a craft show/fair/fete/online shop/ display/ etc. And you know the hours you've put in. You know the cost of the materials. And you vaguely know what the market is charging for these items because you've done your homework on sites like Etsy, Ravelry and similar places. And you get that sinking feeling in your stomach when you realise that you can't ever recoup the hours of investment into the piece and barely able to cover the cost of the materials. (Although, at this point, I do question the validity of whether you should be making and offering the item up for sale.) 
And worse still, after having costed up the item, you're brow-beaten by the first customer into offering a discount and/or nobody stops by your stall because the next person has the same items for sale at half the price (do they have access to a sweatshop somewhere?).

Naturally this opens up the debate about the value of the crafter/artisan and what the public/market expects them to offer at what price. But that's for another time.

Here is a nifty little Craft Calculator which gives some kind of indication of what your work is worth and where you should be pitching your prices.
This is, however, just a tool and not the definitive word on what items should cost. Use it with care and if you have some process that works for you, continue with what you have.

This is available as an app for both Android and iPhone mobile phones.