I loved making that adorable cupcake pincushion so much, I decided to make another one for another friend’s birthday. She’s a crafty gal herself, and EVERYONE likes cake, so I knew she’d like it. She’s also diabetic so I figured this would be one birthday cake she could accept without worry

I think this one turned out just as yummy as the last one, and I like the pink frosting with the brown chocolatey cake…. yummmmmm. The only trouble with these darned cupcakes is that they make me want to eat real cake!

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My fantabulous friend Ruth had a birthday and asked her friends to give her plants, as she’s stocking up her garden. I have known Ruth for years and thought that I’d like to give something more than a plant, so I decided to make a flowerpot. I had saved some plastic tubs that some flapjacks and mini cakes came in, because I knew they could be reused somehow.

So I decided to knit an outer shell to cover the tub. I made it with acrylic yarn so it could be removed and washed, and would withstand being left on the patio. But it looked a little plain, as you can see.

I then decided to embroider some cherry blossoms on the outside, to jazz it up and make it look special. I added some matt glass seed beads in a vibrant red to bring the whole project to life. I think it looks really sophisticated with a red pelargonium inside.

This is one of my favourite projects, because I think the results show that recycled stuff doesn’t have to look cheap or all earth-mother-hippy-ish. I can’t imagine how many of these tubs get thrown away every day, when they could be used to make something really pretty. I reckon there’s loads of ways they could be customised, so I will have a think about how I can decorate the next one. And of course it’s another excuse to eat loads of flapjacks and mini swiss rolls. “But I NEED to eat them because I need to use the tub. Honest!”

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Here’s a project from my back-catalogue, one I made last year but forgot to post until now. It’s a stripey knitted case suitable for glasses, iPhone or iPods. I didn’t follow a pattern, but made it up as I went along, randomly alternating a few knit/purl rows to give a textured stripe.

I recycled a microfibre cloth sunglass case to form the lining, which you can also pull out and use to clean your iPhone or glasses. It also meant I had a ready-made drawstring and toggle, so I didn’t have to faff around making my own. I really love the candy colours and the cotton yarn means it can be easily washed if it gets dirty. Here’s another looksie:

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It was my friend Mairead’s birthday, and she simply LOVES sewing. She makes the best, most amazing fancy-dress costumes ever. Plus, she is as big a fan of cute kitsch as you could ever find, and she loves cakes, too. So I thought there could be no better gift than a crochet cupcake pincushion!

I made this one from two different patterns I found online. The top is from this pattern on the Bittersweet blog, and the cupcake base is made from another pattern that is no longer available online* (sadly). But this one from Good Housekeeping is pretty close. I liked the curly icing from the Bittersweet pattern, but wanted a stable base for the pincushion rather than a curved one. My other variation was to put a little piece of felt that had a 2p coin glued to it in the bottom, to weight the pincushion to keep it from toppling over when using it. I also looked all around to find some pearlised pins to put into the top – I wanted to make sure they looked like sprinkles or those little metallic sugar balls you find in cake decorating shops.

The coolest bit about this gift is that loads of Mairead’s friends had decided to group together and buy her a joint gift of sewing lessons at a London costumier, so my little pincushion present couldn’t have been more appropriate!

* If I can find the printout of the pattern I used, I will post it, because it really is good and I know that the original author said anyone could use it (I will be sure to credit if I can!).

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I have known Simon for years, and over the years, I am sure that he has acquired pretty much everything a man could need or want. Well, that’s not because he is some kind of stuff-hoarder, but maybe it’s just my impression because I could not think of a thing to get him. I find it hard to do gifts for men in general. Even harder is trying to come up with some kind of crafty thing for men. So I thought long & hard and then I figured that every man needs a place to put his keys and wallet when he comes home from work. What could be better for this that a sturdy felted bowl?

I made this one from crochet, which is not really how you are supposed to make felted things, but there you go. I think knitting rather than crochet probably makes a smoother felt, but as crochet is thicker and sturdier, I figured why not give it a go? I pretty much followed the same pattern as I did when I made the recycled jeans bowl – which is really easy: just crochet in the round and increase when you want to make the bowl sides go up & out, decrease when you want to make the opening narrower. Anyone could do it.

I picked nice manly colours and used Rowan Super Chunky wool. He loved it and it goes well with his decor. Yay – now what will I make him next year ?!?

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I went to visit my most fantastic friend ever, Ken Wilson, in glorious green Kentucky. I have known Ken since I was 16 years old, and he has been my friend through thick & thin, for years on end. I will always have fond memories of the years we spent hanging out together in Texas. I love him dearly!

It so happened that it was Ken’s birthday when I went to see him, so I just had to crochet him something… and quick. So I got out the ‘Happy Small Goods of Crochet’ book and whipped up a small cotton bowl in no time:

As luck would have it, the inside of the bowl is exactly the same circumference as a Mason jar, which Ken uses to store his sticks of incense. So I didn’t realise it at the time, but I made an incense cozy. I am pretty sure that’s a first . In any case, it looks rather sweet in that shade of duck-egg blue. It sure has smartened up the Mason jar.

Ken is such a wonderful caring friend – he kept a string bowl I crocheted for him a couple of Christmases ago. In fact, he even kept the little tag I put on it. It now sits at his bedside holding handy things like lip balm, so a little part of me is there with him every night, even though we now live more than 3000 miles apart.

I made it from cotton postal string – the kind you tie around parcels – so I reckon it will last for a while as that stuff is pretty durable. I love the slight texture you get with that string: little flecks of brown & black from the cotton seeds. I think it really gives the bowl a rustic charm. The pattern for this bowl is adapted from one in Erika Knight’s book Simple Crochet.

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Every so often, my girlfriends have a clearout of our closets and we have a Girlie Swap Shop: we all bring the clothes we don’t want – along with some cake and booze – to one of our houses and we have a good old rummage around to see if we can find any treasure in each other’s cast-offs. At the last one, I was going to take a pair of jeans I never wore much, but upon closer inspection, they had a small hole in the knee. I was secretly excited, actually: I knew they could be recycled into something fabulous.

So when it was my friend Jane’s birthday, I whipped out a mega huge crochet hook, some scissors, and made this groovy denim bowl out of the legs of those jeans. I just cut lengthways back & forth almost to the edge, resulting in a long strip that I crocheted in the round to make the bowl. I increased/decreased on each row to shape the bowl.

I think it looks pretty cool. When I gave it to Jane I filled it with some sachets of homemade bath salts, and I reckon it was a pretty darn good gift.

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So I’ve been inspired to get back in to crochet recently, perhaps because my life has been so hectic and crochet can be done so much more quickly than knitting. I picked up a copy of Stitch & Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker a while back, and ever since then, I’ve been doing bits of crochet here and there.

The real clincher for me switching to the hook has been the fact that you can no longer knit on airplanes anymore, due to the ludicrous security rules (oh come on, you can do more damage with a ballpoint pen than most knitting needles!). Anyway, I decided to take a few skeins of yarn and some crochet hooks with me on my recent trip to Japan, to try and whip out a project or two during my travels.

Here’s a crochet scarf I made one night when my insomnia struck again. I think this took me an hour or two, crochet by the light of a headtorch while my hubby snoozed away. I made it using some super chunky chartreuse yarn in a wool blend. In fact it’s so chunky, it only took 3 rows of double crochet to make it! It’s a really long skinny scarf that looks rather fetching in shocking chartreuse, especially when paired with my favourite peacock blue overcoat. I have another skein of this yarn left, so I am thinking of making a beret or perhaps some wrist-warmers to go with the scarf. Yet another in my long list of future projects!

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Scarves are among the easiest things to knit, so they tend to be ubiquitous amongst knitters, especially as gifts. But this scarf is very different, very special, and one I will never forget knitting.

A few weeks ago my hubby and I got back from an an extended trip to Japan to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary, and to meet up with my Japanese family. It has been nearly 15 years since I was last in Japan, and my family there have never met my hubby, so that in itself was a momentous occasion. To me, the other big deal about this trip was that it may be the last time I get to see my 93 year old grandmother (obachan in Japanese). She is an amazing woman, and I can see where my mother gets her amazing-ness. I hope that even just a little bit of this wow-factor has trickled down into me.

I started knitting this scarf for my obachan before I left England, hoping to finish it during my travels around Japan before we headed to Beppu, where she lives. I ended up frantically knitting on the train to Beppu, getting motion sickness as a result, and only finishing moments before we disembarked. It was worth it, though.

You see, my obachan was a keen crafter when she was younger, and my mother has some fantastically detailed amigurumi (little crocheted animals) that she made. I hope these will be passed down to me, just like the skill of crochet, which went from my obachan, to my mother, to me. My obachan also made all of her children’s clothes, when the family were forced out of Manchuria during the occupation in WWII. They had nothing but rags, yet my obachan made do, and managed to instill in all of the children an incredibly positive outlook on life that pervades the family to this day. The ability to make something from nothing was also passed down to my mother, and I like to think a little bit has rubbed off on me, too.

But I digress: back to the scarf. Because she has such an appreciation of handicrafts, my obachan was thrilled to receive the scarf. It didn’t matter that she speaks no English and my Japanese is pretty awful: we could both tell that the gift was something much more than just a little bit of fabric to wrap around your neck. It was something that transcends generations, cultures and time, and brought two people closer together.

She also loved it for other, more simple reasons: the colour is her favourite (which I had no idea), it was done in a stitch that she hadn’t learned herself (seed / moss stitch), and she was really intrigued by the keyhole, which she had never seen before. Overall, a resounding success, that made me want to knit even more. I only hope I get the chance to give her another gift made from my hands someday.

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My fantabulous friend Digger brought me some knitting magazines from her trip to Australia, and this is the second project I’ve finished using patterns from those mags. As usual, I couldn’t resist changing things up a bit so instead of using super-fine mohair for this shawl, I used a beautiful Noro Blossom yarn, which made it more durable and warm.

I love Noro yarn, and had purchased a load of this particular colourway, even without knowing what I would make with it. I think the self-striping effect looks pretty cool on this shawl, and the variegated colours mean it goes with most outfits.

The coolest part about this project is how quickly it knits up, because you use ginormous knitting needles and the holes are made by purposely dropping stitches. The result is like a really stretchy net, so I can imagine using this technique for something like a toy ‘hammock’… I used to have one hanging over my bed when I was a kid, filled with soft plush toys. I guess you could also make a handy string bag using the same approach. Or – God forbid – a string vest (aka fishnet tank top, for you American readers!)

Although it’s supposed to be a summer wrap, I think you can wear this pretty much year-round, either as a wrap or around your neck as a scarf. Here it is worn as a scarf, which I must say is very warm indeed.

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