Weekly Update

Greetings Friends,


I hope you have enjoyed my no sew cowl tutorial, I had been wearing mine loads.


So in the continuing saga of the broken sewing machine, I am useless and still haven’t organised a box to send it to the manufacturers. Bad Maggie! It’s very frustrating not having it available to play with so my priority for this weekend is box hunting.

A few birthdays are coming up so I’ve been whipping up a few projects. My partners mum was thrilled with the Bias Blanket I knitted and it now takes pride of place on her sofa. I’m currently crocheting a lacy cowl from Inside Crochet for a friend’s birthday.

I am doing it in a brushed chunky grey yarn. She’s so stylish I knew she would like something original and she loves statement looks. It’s also my niece’s birthday coming up so I plan to get a doll for her and crochet a bunch of outfits for it so she can play dress up.

The hexagon patchwork is coming along slowly I have now joined two rows together and taken the card out of some to make it easier to work with.

As usual I have been distracted by another new craft and I have started a creative journal/smash book/art journal. I was inspired by the likes of Teesha Moore. She makes amazing patchwork journal covers and has videos on youtube of how you can make them yourself. The journal pages are also amazing, lots of lovely colours textures and layers. So far I have done two pages and very much enjoying it.

 This is the cover of my journal and I'm looking forward to making more pages.

No Sew Cowl Tutorial

So with the devastation of the broken sewing machine I have been forced to think more creatively about some of my crafting. So here is a tutorial I whipped up for a super easy no sew t-shirt cowl.

  You will need:

2 T-shirts
Scissors
a large crochet hook (between 5 and 8mm)

1.Take your t-shirts and cut off the bottom edge and cut across under the arms so you have two tubes.









2. Cut out the side seams so you have 4 rectangles of roughly the same size.

3. put all the pieces together lining up the short edges and cuts about 2cm deep and 3cm apart (this does not need to be accurate) on both sides, make sure you have the same number of cuts on both sides

4. Cut a small hole in the middle of each flap

5.Lay two pieces of fabric side by side. Put crochet hook through the bottom hole of the left hand piece of fabric and through the bottom hole of the right hand piece of fabric. Take the loop from the left side and bring it over the right side loop. Pick up the next loop on the left side and bring the right side loop over that.

6. Repeat the process to join the fabrics in a plat effect. Repeat with all of the pieces of fabric and join     in a loop.

This make a very long cowl, it goes around my neck 3 times comfortably, feel free to to amend the pattern to make it shorter if you wish and enjoy.

Weekly Update

Hello Friends,

I hope you have enjoyed the cloud pattern last week. Devastation has struck this week, I was happily sewing away on my lovely new sewing machine that I got in March when it jammed and the needle snapped, now it will not work at all. I guess that is the problem with fancy computerized sewing machines, the more they can do the more can go wrong with them. So I called the company I bought it from as I have a guarantee and they said they will not insure the machine in transit unless it is in the original packaging (which I do not have)  they offered to sell me the packaging but they don't have it in stock so not I need to arrange my own packaging and courier to take the machine to be fixed. Sigh! moral of the storey, read the small print, keep the packaging.

So just before my machine broke I did manage to whip up a few cool things. I made a reusable sandwich wrap with some oil cloth fabric I had. Here is the tutorial that I found on Pinterest from smashed peas and carrots

Its so very cute, I want to make a whole lunch set in matching fabric.

And since the machine is broken it's been all about the hand sewing. I whipped up this cute little phone cover:

Inspired by a phone cover on pinterest. I think my new phone is soon going to have a better wardrobe than me.

Works in Progress
The hexagon patchwork is coming along very well. I drew up a schematic for how it was all going to be laid out

Then I laid it all out and taped it together:

I have now started sewing together the flower shapes into the rows then sewing the rows together. It's going to be a long process but totally worth it in the end.

I have also started knitting a top by purlbee. I was going to buy some merino yarn to make it but thankfully managed to save myself some money by getting a cotton jumper at a charity shop for 99p and ripping it out, so now I have some lovely cotton yarn to knit with.

Much Love
Maggie

Cloud Amigurumi Pattern

Hello All,

I thought in order to celebrate this lovely bank holiday I would post a new pattern, This has been waiting in the wings for a while and I am glad to finally unleash it on the public.

May I introduce to you; My Amigurumi Clouds:

To make these cute little clouds you will need:

5mm safety eyes
double knit or worsted weight yarn in your chosen cloud colours
3.5mm hook
black embroidery floss and needle
fibre fill
and a stitch marker

Cloud
Beginning at the bottom of the cloud working in a continuous spiral
Chain 11
R1: sc in 2nd ch from hook, sc in next 9, 3 sc in last chain, work along other side of foundation chain, sc in next 8, 2 sc in last stitch.
R2: inc in first st, sc in next 8, inc in each of the next 3, sc in next 8, inc in last 2. (28 sc)
R3: sc in first, inc in next, sc in next 8, inc, sc, inc,sc, inc, sc in next 9, inc, sc inc, sc (34sc)
R4-7: sc around (34 sc)
R8: dec in first 2, sc in next 9, dec 4 times, sc in next 9, dec 2 times (26 sc)
R9:dec in first 2, sc in next 6, dec 3 times, sc in next 8, dec. (20sc)
R10-11: sc around (20sc)
R12: sc in first 3, dec in next, rep around (17sc)
R13: sc in first 2, dec in next, rep around
Add eyes and embroider mouth
R14: sc in first, dec in next, rep around
Stuff
R15: dec around untill closed make a chain to desired length if you with then FO.

Rain Drop
R1: 6sc in ring
R2: sc around increasing twice anywhere you wish (8sc)
R3: sc around
R4: dec, sc around (7sc)
R5: sc around decreasing twice anywhere you wish (5sc)
R6: dec once, sc around, slip stitch to close, make a chain to desired length and attach to cloud

Lightning
Ch 5 leave tail to sew.
R1: sc in 2nd chain from hook and in each chain, ch 1, turn (4sc)
R2:-3: sc across, ch1 turn (4sc)
R4: sc across, chain 3, turn
R5: sc in 2nd chain from hook and in next chain and all stitches across, ch1, turn (6sc)
R6: sc across, ch 1, turn (6sc)
R7: sc in next 4, ch 1 turn (4sc)
R8: dec in first, sc in next 2, ch 1, turn (3sc)
R9: sc across, ch 1, turn
R10: dec in first, sc, ch 1, turn (2sc)
R11: dec, ch 2, slip stitch in stitch you just decreased, slip stitch around the edges to tidy up doing 3 slip stitches to turn corners. FO attach to cloud.

Enjoy your new crochet weather system