Dark Kitty Crochet

 With the weather outside on the turn and autumn well and truly underway, my thoughts turned to Halloween and of course, pumpkins. Years ago I would purchase pumpkins and spend ages scooping out the insides and carving a face ready to be lit with a tea light candle. Now whilst I love the look of a good carved pumpkin, and boy have I seen some amazing ones thanks to social media, one thing I cannot stand is the physical scooping out and the smell!  Social media has also shown me some lovely crochet and fabric pumpkins. With this in mind I set about trying to see if I could make my own version. Looking through my stash I found some lovely chunky wool that changed colour, through shades of browns to purples and dusky pinks. This reminded me of the beautiful colours that nature displays. Using my 5mm hook I did a chain that was slightly longer than the height I wanted the finished pumpkin to be as I wanted to squash it slightly in the middle. Using back loop stitches and working i...

Well it seems like a lifetime ago since I last wrote a blog post and I guess it was a different life and time.......... Crochet has certainly been keeping me busy when I have not been working at home doing my normal day job. It has also been a great help as I find crafts, whatever they might be, are so useful to protect your mental health and for being part of a mindfulness practice. Something that has certainly been needed in these particular times. One of the things that I have been doing is to work on an afghan. The pattern is one I have done and completed twice before and I have another two on the go. This particular one is done in double knit yarn, black and teal. I love the combinations of the colour as I think the black really makes the teal “pop”. The technique that I have been using is one called interlocking filet and the pattern is Early American inspired. It is such a great pattern to do. When I first started this style of crochet I must admit it took a little while t...

So having finally found the perfect colour blue and being able to get enough of this and the black yarn to complete it I have been busy the last couple of weeks on making my fourth version of the interlocking filet afghan. It has been a very welcome distraction to be working on this in the times that we are going through at the moment in the world. I have always used craft to help with my mental well being and I feel I have never needed them more than I do at the moment. I have always loved maths ever since I was a small child and I think that is one of the reasons I like to crochet. The structure and patterns along with making sure you get the stitch count correct or else the pattern, particularly with interlocking filet, will go wrong and it will be very obvious. Another reason I like to crochet is that it gives your mind something to focus on which helps shut out all the other things that might be going on in your own world. A time to breathe so to speak. This is the fourth vers...

As you know I absolutely love making my cacti and love how they all have their different characters depending on the type of yarn used as well as the colours. Having done some of the micro versions lately I thought it was time to go large. I needed to think about what type of yarn this first mega cactus was going to be made out of. Did I go traditional colours or to go for a bright colour? For a first attempt I thought I would stick with a shade of green. In my stash I have the most beautiful yarn that I thought would be perfect. It is a dark olive colour and is fluffy as well which is a bonus as some of the succulents that I have seen at my local garden centre do indeed have a fluffy looking texture. Yarn chosen now it was time to get underway. There wasn’t much difference in the number of stitches but I wanted this to have a different feel to it. I felt that it needed to have “arms” like the stereotypical cactus does. These were made and completed along with the safety eyes. I fo...

Well as you know what started out as realistic looking cacti’s have slowly been evolving over time. The first transformation saw them having the addition of cute eyes as a nod to the kawaii inspired amigurumi that I have seen. From there it seemed a natural step to make them in all sorts of different colours. This is also a great way of using up all the scraps of yarn that we all have. I also started playing around with different textures and have made some using a really gorgeous fluffy yarn. It made the cacti very tactile and gave it a whole new character. So having a rummage through my craft room I came across some cute little ribbon roses. I will often acquire things that at the time I do not know what I might use them for but know that somewhen in the future they will be perfect for the project that I am working on. The majority of my cacti have a flower on them somewhere, usually on the top. Looking at these little ribbon roses it gave me an idea of whether I could scale down m...

So as some of you may know I have been working on a ginger Tom realistic looking puss cat. I did a blog post about it when I had finished making the head and the two front legs. This has definitely in some ways been a challenging make. Some of my own doing and some not. First off I did find it quite hard to work on for any length of time because of the yarn that I was using coupled with the hook size. The pattern that I was using recommended a particular type of yarn, one that I was not used to so had to look up on a comparison site what weight that would be. It recommends an Aran weight yarn. Using my lock wool store I felt I had found the perfect yarn to make a ginger Tom as it was variegated with different shades of orange as well as cream shades. The problem however was the weight of yarn. It was in a chunky weight and not Aran. The second thing I had to contend with was the size hook. It was asking for a 3mm hook for the Aran weight yarn. Now I know that I have a slightly loos...

So with Valentine’s Day just around the corner the shops seem to be full of everything red and adorned with hearts. That got me thinking about my little cacti that I make. How would they look with heart embellishments? Now those that know me well know that I love my craft supplies. I often find myself walking into shops and coming out with a variety of different things that I just had to have but have no real plan for what I am going to use them for. I am just safe in the knowledge that one day they will come in handy and I will be glad for that one day in the past I decided that they were that days must have purchase. With this new idea for a cactus in my head I set about rummaging in how I could embellish it and from there it would lead me to what colour yarn and pot it would have. I found my little red heart buttons. I thought these would be cute to stitch on the front of the cacti where a heart might be. I also found some ribbon bows that had hearts printed on them. Now the col...