There, I fixed it

I love jeans. They’re the only kind of pants I wear to be honest. But sometimes, my jeans don’t love me back. Like this one pair, that had the little worn patches like so many jeans you can get nowadays (talking like this makes me feel old, but I don’t really know another way of saying it -_-” ) anyway, those worn bits are prone to truly tearing sooner rather than later. And I do not love holey jeans (especially since my legs are as white as can be) luckily, I came across this great idea while browsing the world wide web: fix your jeans with crochet! So that’s what I did, and here’s the result:

The holes stretch as I wear the jeans

Crocheted some simple patches, just increasing 6 stitches in the round until they were big enough

Sew them on the inside

Sew some ‘concentric’ circles on the outside. While this attaches the patches a bit more secure, it also looks nice

And now, when I wear them, you don’t see snowy white skin but pink fabric, yay ^_^

What is the best (crochet) idea you picked up from the Internet?

Have a great weekend! Cheers, Lydia

Projects, projects everywhere!

I’m back! And still insanely busy… In between the holidays, a very busy time at work, getting sick a couple times, and having my birthday, I’ve been working on loads of little projects that just didn’t seem to want to be made into a blog post. Thus, I’ve decided to try and put them all in one.

So here’s a quick overview of what I’ve been up to:

I made a bunch of stuff to sell with Tegendraads at Gamepitcon last January.

Finished work on the blanket I started back in October/November (still need to somehow attach the fleece that I bought for the back)

Made some cute felt owls with a kit I bought way back at the Kreadoe

Went to the Haakathon for the Dutch leprosy relief and made a couple ‘red cats’

Went to the opening of a new Crochet store by the girls behind Briljant Crochet (they seem to really be living the dream!)

Made some cards with a kit I got for my birthday.

And together with my friend Doretta, we taught two more people to crochet ^_^ I hope they enjoyed it and are still working on their skills.

Right now, I’m working on Vlad the vampire bat by Lalylala. Using this:

A ball of awesome ‘magic swing’ yarn from Briljant Crochet. It’s got a little sparkle mixed in it ❤ but I have to work it together with my normal yarn, which made for some hard work. Thankfully it's almost done now!

Magic swing in action, it’s a lot of fun to watch the balls of yarn taking shape.

After Vlad is finished, I’ve got a couple projects lined up already (african flower crocodile, a froggy coin purse, actually really finishing the blanket, maybe even start on another blanket with the Stylecraft CAL in April) I hope to be making more blog posts again in the future! I’ll probably elaborate a bit on the Haakathon in a later post ^_^

Plus, something totally not crochet or craft related, I got a new fish tank!

What have you guys been up to?
Cheers, Lydia

Fabulous flamingo

This was a project I’ve been wanting to do for a long time now. The pattern is from ‘Crocheted wild animals’ by Vanessa Mooncie. The feathers gave me quite a bit of grief, but luckily there’s always the crochet community to turn to and after someone noticed it looked like the crocodile stitch (which I had heard of, but never used) things went a lot smoother.
So here’s the result:

The first feather, I was so happy when I'd figured out how to make them

All feathers. Thankfully they're made in one go and I didn't have to sew them on one by one

Full flamingo, I love his looooong legs ❤

Now that this project is done, I might get time to work on a project for this year’s amigurumipatterns.net contest. I will keep you posted ^_~

Cheers, Lydia

Sorting the ‘stash’

I’m sure you all know the feeling. You need that one particular colour, but your stash is so messy that you end up spending endless amounts of time digging through it all to find what you’re looking for.

A while back, I got a nice big trunk to store my yarn in and I figured if I kept the colours together, I wouldn’t have to spend too much time looking for anything. Man, was I ever wrong. Eventually, my stash ended up looking like this:
I decided that I needed to do something, or I would have to keep buying more and more yarn because I couldn’t find that one skein that’s hidden all the way at the bottom. The perfect idea came to me when I read a post from All About Ami about making a DIY Yarn Storage. I needed compartments in the trunk to sort my skeins. I thought I’d found some at Ikea, but as it turned out, they didn’t fit. (They did fit perfectly in the drawers of our new wardrobe, so our socks and stuff are sorted as well)
That’s when I realised, I could just as easily make something myself.

And today, I finally set myself to work on it.

Everything you need: a piece of foamboard, two big pieces of cardboard, a pencil, scissors, box cutter, measuring tape, hot glue gun and something that helps you draw straight lines

Plus, of course: a cup of tea. (optional)

I cut the foamboard in two pieces that fit inside the trunk when laid flat. These make the base of the compartments, so I could fit multiple layers inside that were easy to lift up. It’s important that the underside is nice and sturdy, to that it doesn’t bend or break under the weight of the yarn. The dividers don’t need to be as sturdy, so I used the thinner cardboard. It’s actually pretty nice that they give way a little bit, so you can squeeze in that last skein. I think it’s easiest (for me to type and less text for you), if I just show you in pictures how I made the compartments.

First, I divided the foamboard in two fitting pieces

Then, I measured the strips to make the dividers

Cut them all and then used the hot glue gun to attach four of them around the bottom

After glueing, you get this

Time for another cup of tea!

Cutting notches so that the dividers can be placed together

The dividers put together

They can also be folded if I ever decide I don’t need them for a while

The complete compartment. The dividers are loose, so they can be taken out or replaced if need be

Time to cuddle with the cats before I start on the sorting (they look totally happy to see me in this picture :P)

The bottom holds a couple skeins that I don’t use very often, since it’s bigger yarn, plus some tiny skeins, needle felting materials and a little bit of stuffing.

The second layer holds one of the compartments

And then there’s the top layer with the second compartment

A sorted stash is a happy stash! Hopefully it will stay neat this time ^_~

How do you sort your stash? Is it sorted at all? And did you find this little post of mine to be helpful? Feel free to let me know in a comment! ^_^

Cheers, Lydia

Cabled beanie

Did you guys know you can make cables with crochet? I certainly didn’t, until I came across this post from All About Ami. I’d found a nice chunky yarn which turned out a little too big for the pattern, but I still really like the result:

It should be a bit more slouchy, but because of the thickness of the yarn, it stays up a bit. I hope that through wearing it, the beanie will stretch and slouch more than it does now. Nonetheless, I’m hoping it will soon be cold enough to wear ^_^

I have a little over one skein left over of the same yarn and now I’m indecisive on whether or not I should make some matching cabled wrist warmers… Or maybe I should return the leftover skein and use the money for a different project. What do you think?

Cheers, Lydia

Catbus revisited

One of my earlier patterns was that of a Catbus, from the movie My Neighbour Totoro. I made one for a friend of mine when I started writing my own patterns. Sadly, when I wanted to make another one, I realised I never fully wrote out the pattern. So when I decided I wanted to make a catbus for the Tegendraads stand at Tomofair this October, I took out my old notes and revised them. And wrote them down in full. So I can make this new, ‘improved’ catbus over and over again.

Catbus all in parts

Inside out

All put together

Working on the face

A big smile for the camera

All ready to take you wherever you need to go!

I’m pretty pleased with the result, especially since I dabbled a bit in changing colours and carrying the yarn as I went. I’m not sure if I will ever post the pattern on here, since the instructions are clear to me, but hard to put into understandable terms. Plus, the pattern is huge! So it would take a lot of time to type up and I don’t have the time or motivation for that right now ^_^” you guys will have to make due with the pictures for now, but if you’re at Tomofair on October 4th swing by the Tegendraads stand and come admire it in real life ^_~

Cheers, Lydia

New house, new projects!

We are finally settling in our new home. It has been a very busy couple of weeks for me, with packing, painting, moving, and working all at the same time. We’re still not completely done with painting the house, but the most important rooms are usable 🙂
Before the move, I’d been having some problems with a package that was sent to me, namely my third kit club shipment. Eventually, it turned out that it got lost in the mail and nothing could be done for me. Luckily, Stacey from FreshStitches hooked me up with a replacement kit, which arrived safe and sound yesterday. And I love it ^_^

It’s the pattern for the cutest little slug you’ve ever seen, together with a rainbow of colours and an adorable snail measuring tape.
So today, I set to work and check out what rolled of my hook:

The yarn included in the kit is pretty easy to split and Stacey suggested making a marbled slug, so that’s what I did.

She goes great with the orchid we got from a friend as a housewarming gift.

Plus, she gets along great with the tape measure ❤

Check out the FreshStitches Kit club for more info about the club!

I have plenty of projects lined up for the coming time, so hopefully, I will be able to update more regularly again 🙂

What have you all been up to lately?
Cheers, Lydia

Teddy bear troubles

A cousin of mine asked if I could make a big teddy bear for his youngest son. It took a while to find the right pattern, but after a lot of searching online, I suddenly realised I had the perfect pattern all along. So I dove into my pattern folders and dug up a polar teddy pattern from a Dutch crafts magazine. The pattern is made by Christel Krukkert, one of my favourite Dutch crochet designers.

The pattern ended up needing a lot more yarn than I anticipated, so after making the head and an arm, I needed to look for more. Sadly though, the yarn I had used, didn’t have a band on it and since I got it from a friend, I didn’t know which brand it was. So I had to find a matching yarn in the right colour and thickness, which turned out to be much more of a challenge than I could’ve imagined. Eventually, I found a colour that came close enough and thanks to a tip from the shop lady, I realised it was probably the best idea to frog the arm I had already made, so that the difference wouldn’t be too noticeable.

I had finally made all the parts and was getting ready to put everything together. That’s when I saw that the arms seemed way too big for the body. It was as if this teddy spends all his time at the gym lifting. So I ended up frogging the arms again (well, one entirely and the other about halfway) and with some adjustments, they look a lot better to me. Now I just hope my cousin’s little boy likes this teddy as well 🙂

On the rigth: the arm as it was described in the pattern. On the left: the arm with my adjustments

How do you handle mistakes in patterns? Do you make your own adjustments, ask the creator, or give up on the pattern all together? I almost choose option three, I was pretty much done with the bear at that point ^_^’ but in the end, I’m glad I didn’t!

Cheers, Lydia

Second Fresh Stitches Kit club!

The next kit is already on its way, but I still haven’t shared the last one. I believe I haven’t even shared the results of the first kit! I did post about the kit here, but what I didn’t mention is that I forgot to check out the special kit club website and I found out after I was done with the pattern, I needed to felt my work in the washing machine. So I had to take it all apart, make some changes in the pattern and wash all the parts (some several times) to get them to felt. In the end it looks pretty cool, but it isn’t a technique I would quickly use or choose myself. I like my projects to really have that crocheted look, I guess ^_^”

Then again, the kit club is a great way to try some new techniques and patterns, so I’m not really complaining 🙂

The second kit was more down my alley: a cute little robot.

First off, I absolutely loved the pattern. Second, it has some great technique to really make great corners. I usually prefer round shapes, since squares don’t seem to come out right, but with this technique, it looks really good! Apart from that, the kit included red felt for the heart and tiny, shiny beads to make it extra special. We needed to do some beading!

The end result looks pretty cute if you ask me ^_^
I did something a little bit different while stuffing this little guy though. The pattern kept open the underside of the head and the top of the body in order to stuff and sew together. I stuffed and closed up the head, but kept the body empty and open. In the body, I put a small glass cube, so that I can now use the robot like a little jar ^_^

For now, it’s full of little lucky stars, but once we move, I will probably store my USB-sticks and such in it next to my laptop ❤

Can’t wait to see what the next kit club kit will bring!

If you want to make this little robot for yourself, I’m afraid you will have to wait a couple more months. The kits are club exclusives for six months and this pattern was especially constructed for the club! (I feel so special :3 ) But of course, you can join the club and get an awesome kit every other month!

Cheers, Lydia

Happy the African flower happypotamus

I don’t have much time to blog, but I really want to share this little cutie with you guys:

Happy  the happypotamus, from a pattern by Heidi Bears :3
He was a lot of work: crocheting 44 different African flowers and then having to sew them all together… but the end result is definitely worth all the time (and stuffing!) it took ^_^

Have some work-in-progress pictures!

A lot of African flowers were needed

Unstuffed Happy, he ate almost all the stuffing I had!

I really like the ‘African flower’ animals, especially because they take up a lot less yarn than you’d expect. Since I bought a boatload to make the owl last year, I’ve got plenty left over to make lots of different animals ^_^

You can find some inspiration over at Heidi Bears or Jo’s Crocheteria. Which would you like to make?

Cheers, Lydia