I was in-between crochet projects when the neighbours daughter gave birth to their first grand-daughter. I had seen on Pintrest a set of booties that were consider quick and extremely easy to make, so I thought I’d whip up a couple of pairs.
I have to say that I didn’t find the pattern very easy to follow, which seems surprising when you know that it’s a basic “T” shape, but I couldn’t understand the “ch 2” at the beginning of each row and then skipping the first SC from the previous row. If you google “Crossover Booties for Crochet” you’ll easily find the pattern which is by Louise Mac. I ended up ditching my efforts and searched for an alternative pattern.
I found another pattern on You Tube that used Half Double Crochet stitches, and logically the pattern made more sense to me. This pattern is by Jayda Institches and are called Wrap-Style booties. You can find the video here.
The second pair that I made were with 4 ply Merino yarn. I followed the basics of the pattern, but converted it to:
Ch 41, DC 39 x 4 rows.
ST into the 4th row to start the middle section. I can’t remember exactly which stitch I used, but I’m sure you can work it out. Then DC 9 stitches x 7 rows. I made some cute little flowers and stitched them on.
They certainly are extremely cute, and I think that you could easily adjust the pattern to make different sized booties. And there would of course be lots of fun options for little motifs to attach to them.
I wanted to challenge myself with some new patterns, and so found a pattern for a blanket that produced a cable effect that I’ve only previously associated with knitting.
Over the years I have managed to set an precedent that if I know you, and you’re having a baby, you can expect to get a pram sized baby blanket from me. This goes for all the men that I work with too.
I give the borders of my blankets quite a bit of consideration; not all edges suit all patterns and the wrong border can ruin the look of a great blanket. I thought that this blanket needed something simple, and I needed something that was going to be quick so went with the Reverse Single Crochet Stitch, which I’ve never used before. You can google it, or you can find it 
The New Zealand Summer of 2016/2017 will probably go down in records as being one of the lousiest Summers we’ve ever had. It was cold, wet and windy right through December, January and February. In March Summer decided to finally make a brief appearance before Autumn arrived.
I was very happy with the overall look of the blanket….so much so that it has been put away for now. I love the colour combination and some day I hope that it will brighten up someone’s nursery.
Last week I went on the second “Girl’s Road Trip” with my BFF. Last year we went to Napier which is on the east coast of New Zealand’s north island. So this year we decided to go to the west coast…..Raglan. Everyone I spoke to said that there was nothing to Raglan but a few shops and surfing, so we were on a mission to prove them wrong!
To accompany her coffee, BFF ordered a vegan, gluten-free, raw apricot and coconut slice. I nicked a piece to try…YUM! So, when I finally got home that day, I immediately googled for recipes and found one that I had all the ingredient for. It only took about 15 minutes to make and is a yummy guilt free snack. I see that the website also had a Mango and Coconut version, which I might try next time.
In my last post I mentioned that I’ve finally started to use Pintrest. Part of me thinks “Why didn’t I get into this earlier? I’ve missed out on finding all that inspiration”, but the other part of me thinks “Phew! Imagine who much more I would have spent on yarn!” Anyway, I’m now totally hooked, so no point dwelling on the past…. Whilst I was surfing around looking to continue with the theme of toys to crochet, I came across something called a Lovey. Here in New Zealand, I think kids tend to have a favourite “Blankie”, so maybe they are the same thing, but different terminology.
Anyway…..how cute!!! The first one I made was a super cute bunny, and was quick and easy to make with a basic granny square style blanket. The mistake I made with this one, was that I didn’t use machine washable wool….the drool factor should have been taken into account when selecting the yarn!
A few weeks ago I branched out to making a “3d” Poinsettia flower….just to try something new and challenge my crocheting skills. It was such fun, I thought I could continue somewhat on that theme and play round with making some crochet toys (‘scuse the pun); something I hadn’t done since my early days of crocheting. I’ve recently started using Pintrest (yes…I was slow on the uptake of it) and found loads of inspiration. Somewhere along the way I spotted these really cute Jellyfish, which subsequently I found on Ravelry too, along with a wonderful free pattern!
I had some 4 ply acrylic mix “cotton” (as opposed to “wool”) yarn in solid colours and matching multi-colored yarn which was perfect for this type of toy. The first one was so cute, the neighbour immediately offered to buy it for her a friend of hers. I then made a pink one, and she snatched that one up for her impending granddaughter. By then I was on a role, so I bought some more yarn in “ocean” type colours, and a beautiful pale yellow yarn that came with matching multi-colored yarn, both in 8 ply which made larger ones and seemed a bit more ‘substantial’.
They were easy to make, and quick. I varied the fourth one and added a little ‘fringe’ to the body of the jellyfish. I like the look, so will probably do that to any I make in the future.
You can find the wonderful easy to follow instructions 