My friend Ruth bought me a book called Amigurumi World for my birthday, so I was really looking forward to finally getting some amigurumi patterns that were in English, rather than me having to try to decipher the Japanese patterns using my limited Japanese reading skills. So when I heard my friend Catriona was pregnant, I thought it would be the perfect chance for me to use one of the patterns from the book.

I chose the owl pattern, and made it with felt eyes instead of plastic ones, as it would be for a newborn baby. I also added a rattle inside, by putting some beads into a little plastic spherical container and nestling this in the stuffing. The container is from one of those vending machines that looks like a gumball machine, which you sometimes find in petrol station loos (usually containing a wet wipe or a fuzzy brush). I knew it would come in handy for something & I hate throwing away plastic, so why not recycle it!

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It’s my friend Lucy’s birthday, so I decided to make something for her. She’s a real fashionista, so I thought I would make something she can wear. I have been wanting to make something from one of my Japanese craft books for ages, so I dug out one of them which is all about making different corsages (コサージュ).

As the current fashion seems to be for really bright almost fluorescent colours, I made this one in fluoro pink, with a grey leaf and purple centre. There’s no sewing involved: it’s all about cutting the pieces carefully then slotting the inner petals in place through the leaf/outer petal. The actual making of it was easy, but the cutting took the most time as you have to place the slots in exactly the right place. I think it looks pretty cool! The best thing was that when I gave it to Lucy, she was wearing a fluoro pink T-shirt, so it matched her perfectly.

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A few years ago I made soap for all my friends & family as Christmas gifts, so I decided to revive my soapmaking stuff to make something for a friend of mine. He’s a punk musician and a drum n bass DJ, so I figured he’d appreciate some ‘dirty’ soap to go with his basslines. I decided to add some thematic messages hidden in the soap by embedding a little plastic disc made from shrink plastic (also known as Shrinky Dinks in the US). Basically you just draw on a special plastic sheet with coloured pencils, then pop it into the oven on a low heat and it shrinks and hardens. It’s kinda fun and I picked up some sheets at a craft shop in Texas a few years ago when I was visiting my mother, but never quite knew what to do with it.

Here you can just about read the message inside: it says “Johnny Clash Rinsin’ It” which is a pun based on his DJ name. This soap was made with orange zest and essential oil for a fresh scent.

The other soap is clear on top, with an opaque ‘dirty’ base made with kaolin clay. You can’t yet read the message (it will appear as the soap is used) but it says “Dirty Punk Rocker” inside:

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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!”

Posted in finished projects, home and garden, knitting, recycling | 2 Comments »

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.

Posted in crochet, finished projects, home and garden, recycling | 1 Comment »