Valentines day hearts

Happy Valentines day!

Since its the day of luuurve I thought I'd put up a simple pattern that I worked out especially for you beautiful lot, because I love ya ;)

So this is for a simple crochet heart, there are lots of lovely lacey patterns out there, and I'll probably want to revisit them at some date but this is done in rows of single crochet because it can be a wooly Valentines day card :)

Row 1: chain two, sl st in first chain, turn
2: 3 s in st from previous row, turn
3: 2 in first s, 1 in the next s, 2 in the last s
continue making 2 st in the first and last of the row until you have 11 st, it will take another 3 rows.

7-9 straight st, no increases.
10: (Gets a little tricky now) st 5, turn
11: st tog, st 1, turn
12: st tog, bind off.

then joint your wool to the the other end of the row and repeat the last 3 steps :)

This was my first attempt, it looked a little bit blocky so I tried again.

But I really liked the results the second time! Although I still think it needs a little bit of perfecting. 

I hope you all have a lovely day!

Tat-ta

Evening Jellybeans.

After spending most of my evening feeling unwell and trying to concentrate on uni work I decided I would make myself feel a little bit better by doing some blogging. And better I am! After finding out that my views have gone up from 18 to 23!! Not a big achievement to some but I am chuffed. Regardless of whether you are 23 different people or just one big fan, this post is dedicated to you!

Anyhoo, this post marks the beginning of glove palooza! Where I am the cold does not seem to be going anywhere, so to keep warm you can stay inside and make gloves :D

First we'll start with a nice and easy knitted wrist warmer, perfect for beginner knitters. I knocked these up in a about a day, so a fun and easy way to spend a few free hours.

This is what you'll need. Yarn, thickness and colour of your choice, I'm using a soft lavender acrylic, easy to wash and durable which is great for gloves. I got this yarn for a present last Christmas, and I couldn't think of a project for it, so I'm really excited to be able to use it because its such a nice colour and really soft!  Anyways! (Don't get me started on wools and yarns). You'll need a pair of needles, I suggest using larger ones, I'm using 4 1/2 mm, because they give the gloves a chunky look, which I really like. You will also need something to stitch the work together and weave in the loose ends, I like to use a crochet hook, but you can also using a darning needle if you find that simpler. Oh and a diddy pair of scissors. Ok, lets rock and roll!

Cast on 34 sts 

Row 1: k 4, p 2 all the way to the end.

Row two: p 4, k 2 to end. 

Continue in this fashion until the work reaches the desired length. This envolves a lot of stopping and holding it against your hand. But the actual knitting part of it is pretty much as simple as that! 

This is what it will look like once it is at the length you want. The pattern creates a rib like paneled effect. Weave in all of the lose ends. 

Turn the work the wrong way, (it actually looks pretty nice on this side too!) fold it in half and position your hand on it, then along the edge mark with pins where your thumb is

Like so. 

Then, either crochet or darn the edges together either side of your thumb markers. Turn it inside out once again so its the right way. 

This is what it should look like.

And this is what it looks like on. Cute right? 

So cute in fact that I could not resist embellishing them a little bit. 

I originally planned to make just one of these for the purpose of demonstration, but I have fallen in love a little so the next one is on the needles as we speak. 

 I hope you found this helpful, my beautiful 23! The next glove post will be the next step up from these simple wrist warmers, so stay tuned. 

So I'll start with an announcement; guess who's started using Instagram! Probably not as exciting as you had expected haha. And I know, I know, I am a wee bit behind the times. I did not like the idea of people I did not know  looking at my pictures, but the filters and quality are perfect for this here blog so I thought, why not give it a go? Plus people have posted some really beautiful images on there.

So from now on the images on here will look a little different, hopefully for the better!

Anyway, on to this weeks project. Grab your crochet hooks and yarn because its snood time!

A little bit of background first. Like me, my mum loves all things vintage, particularly the 20's to 40's, so from Art Deco glam to making fab dresses out of old curtains. So I wanted  to make her another snood  (rather she brought the wool home one afternoon and said 'Emmyyy, pleeeease' *insert puppy dog eyes*, how could I say no?). The snood was a staple look for this era. Actually it dates back all the way to medieval period and has been used practically as well as fashionably ever since. Because by snood, I'm basically talking about a hairnet (not the never ending scarfs, though they are also lovely). But through time they became so much more than just a way to keep your hair up, as you can see from the images below.


These designs and one I had made for her previously (which I unfortunately don't have any pictures of), that I attached a tailored bow and glass beads too, are a bit loud. So this time round I wanted to make her something a bit plainer and everyday.

 I used a fine black cotton and a small hook, size 3. And worked a mesh style pattern.

As I had previously mentioned, this is not my first time making a snood, however I could not quite remember the pattern I used first time around or the website I found it on. After a quick web search I found it on this blog peacewing.wordpress.com. However during my search I stumbled across this blog annabooshouse.blogspot.co.uk, which unfortunately did not have the pattern but did have lots of really great crochet tutorials and I urge any one interested in crochet to have a look. I have made a few dolls similar to that on the page so I was draw to its cuteness immediately!

my lovely mum modeling :)

Anyway, this is what the finished piece will look like. Sorry for the giant hair pins! We couldn't find any others. What is great about this pattern is that is it so simple, you an add and change as you go along. I certainly made changes the second time I made this snood. Also, because it is so simple it can be done in a variety of different colours and types of yarn. I'm toying with the idea of using a fine mohair... You can also add lots of little adornments to jazz it up a bit, like bows, beads and sequins. Have a play around :)

Snood and mum on their first outing. 

Curtains

Its not curtains for make do and mend!

Sorry about the pun...  What I mean is, my mum has embraced the DIY vibe and has made a pair of curtains for a daughter of a friend.

 She took a plain, dust sheet like backing and covered it in a pale green shimmering fabric.

Unfortunately it does not show up too clearly in this picture, but the colour is really lovely, especially when it catches the light.

She firstly measured the and cut the fabric to the right size, and pinned it to the backing. This was more difficult than it sounds, and where I came in to help! To ensure the fabric did not balloon when the curtains were hung, the top fabric had to be held taught when pinning. Then stitch.

Really you should use a sewing machine, but ours is not currently working so mum did it by hand.

Look at how neat her hand stitching is!! I bow down to her amazing invisible stitching.



Although some times she forgets to take out the pins! (She made me a rabbit costume for Halloween once but forgot to take the pins out of the tail...ouch!)

And the off cuts can be used to make attractive hair bows! As modeled by mum and I.