Sugarlemon

Hearts & Flowers

There’s no escaping it - excluding January, 2-oh-oh-8 has been a pretty lean year for me, crafting- and stitching-wise. I’m a bit bummed about that, but as usual, when I’m feeling a lot of stress about other things, I find the urge to create falls in a heap. Instead, I’ve been doing a lot more reading than usual (the highlight of which has been the very beautiful Girl with a Pearl Earring - how, oh how have I not read this before?) More recently, I’ve developed an unhealthy addiction to Packrat on Facebook (and I’m going to go ahead and blame Annette for that, even though I know she will protest!)

All has not been completely lost though. Way way waaay back in February, I did actually do a wee bit o’ cross-stitchin’ Can’t for the life of me remember where this cute heart is from (DMC??), but it was a freebie chart, and I stitched it with a pretty pink hand dyed silk from Jo.

Then, in March, I became a joiner-in-er! I sidled into a Brown Owls meeting one night, had a bit of fun stitching up my name and Tweenie panels, decided that a room full of crafty strangers wasn’t quite as scary as I thought, and became a Seconder that very night. What is Brown Owls? Why it’s ‘Brownies’ for Crafters, of course (or ‘my weird cult’, if you believe my sweet husband!) Bunches of crafty chicks sitting around the clubhouse drinking tea, eating bikkies, chatting, and learning and sharing bits of crafty goodness. All thanks to the Good Lady Pip.

I’ve been to another two meetings since - in April we played with hooks and yarn. After the crochet class, inspired by Lara’s collection of flowers, I came home and puzzled my way through a few online tutorials to create this bunch:

At last night’s meet we had a bit of a Mix-up - everyone brought in whatever they liked to work on, plus some Show & Tell. I was so worried I was going to be the daggiest crafter there - because it has always seemed to me that even in this atmosphere of crafty revival, cross-stitch is still stuck firmly in the ‘Nanna crafts’ category. But surprise! and yay! I wasn’t the only one who brought cross-stitch. I know… I worry about the silliest things

Oh yes, and on the weekend, one of my red flowers made its way onto a last-minute handmade gift for my Mum for Mothers’ Day (makes me feel like I’m back in kindergarten… in a good way!)

Pretty!

But the thing that is making me happiest of all today is a small but significant breakthrough in the Finn situation. We’ll get there yet

May 13 2008 | Counted Stitchwork and Finished and Other Craft and Sewing and Yarncraft | 6 Comments »

The ‘Aha’ Moment

(This is where I prove myself a liar, because I have actually been doing something crafty amidst all the clutter!)

Once upon a while ago (or ‘Back the days a bit’, as Finn likes to say), I taught myself to crochet. I think it was back when there were a lot of people joining in the 63-Square Crochet-along on The Wagon. I figured it couldn’t be as difficult as all that, right? Wrong! I just didn’t get it. I was splitting the yarn with the hook, and losing stitches with every row, and couldn’t figure out where. Being left-handed, it is always that bit more fun trying to interpret diagrams. (I know, I know - mirror-image the diagrams, then print them out - I just seem to like doing things the difficult way!)

Anyway, more recently, I have got my mum hooked (ha!) on amigurumi - crocheted stuffed toys. She gave me a lesson in crochet-ing in the round, and bought me some plastic hooks. And I was pootling along, crocheting in the round, and the plastic hooks made it so much easier to avoid splitting the yarn (though I did break a 4mm one on the way)… and, suddenly, I got it! I figured out where I had been losing stitches in flat crochet, and suddenly it all made sense. In about half an hour, I was happily single, double, half-double, triple, and twisted-double crochet-ing away. Whoo!

So I made Sweeney (Niamh’s Very Special Bear) a scarf (teddies are great for small projects). Not the most amazing ‘crocheted thing’ in the world, but a good start! Maybe now I’ll get back to the amigurumi-ing, and make myself a teddy cupcake, or… um… one of these (what the…?!) !

October 04 2006 | Other Craft and Yarncraft | 3 Comments »