More Prizes!!

Yesterday was the local village annual show. Last year I entered my Bender toilet roll holder and won a prize. This year I decided to enter again, and won more prizes :)

I entered this bookmark that I knit just after last years show, when I first received the list of items for this year.



The pattern is the Kunststricklesezeichen Lace Bookmark by Utlinde. Here's the photo from last year :)



It's been in a book for the past year blocking out, and it seems to have opened up quite a bit since then. I was so pleased when this won first prize!

I crocheted this baby cardi (although it's a bit thick, it's more like a jacket lol!)



This is the Lazy Daises Layette Sweater from 100 Crochet Projects (this pattern designed by Michele Thompson for Coats and Clark). The pattern doesn't appear to be in Ravelry yet though. I figured it would be a fast thing to make and enter, and people are always having babies so it'll get a proper use at some point (not from me, before you get any ideas lol!). This one won third prize :) I added the flower just by crocheting a chain, then pinning it onto the front of the sweater in the flower shape, then sewing it on. I like the black on the lilac, it's quite unusual for babies, I know, but it just seemed to fit :)

I improvised a couple of designs for the show as well, this necklace:



And this robot toy:



(this is him before sewing and stuffing)



He's been named Barnabus the Robot by my friend's son. I think it suits him :) He was made for the "something made from scraps of wool" section.

These didn't win any prizes, but I think they're kind of cute anyway :) I'm thinking of writing up designs for these, but it probably won't be for a little while. Unless I go mad, and just decide to drop everything else I need to do right now. Which could happen, you never know. It does kind of tend to happen that way :)

I've got next year's list of items already, so I'd better get started on them! There's a lot of sewing in next year's list, so it'll be a good chance to get better at my sewing :)

Not Feeling Well :(

My allergies are really playing up today. I'm allergic to a few things, I think, but I've never had a proper test. I know I'm allergic to cats, although that's not what's causing it today. I've got hayfever, and I'm probably allergic to dust and who knows what else. It doesn't help that Tupac sheds what seems like half his coat every day. My bf decided to get an air purifier to stop me sniffing so much. It arrived yesterday, and today I feel like death!!! I think it must be moving the dust and stuff around as it ionizes it and makes it fall to the floor, and it's irritating my nose something terrible! I've been sneezing and sniffing all day and I just feel pathetic and ill. Even antihistamines didn't help. So I've been lying around the house just feeling sorry for myself.

Big projects are out of the question today, as is anything that requires thinking. So I made another fan bookmark. My sister liked her bookmark so much she wants more! She gave me a big list of what colours they all had to be and everything. Since I have this pattern memorised, it's fairly easy to get on with even while sniffing. One of them is finished so far.

My other projects can wait for today. My BPT jacket just needs the zip put on now. I got a zip off ebay, but I think it might be too bright a green colour. Maybe I'll have to buy another zip, but that's too much thinking for today.

I've started Laminaria, in a lovely red laceweight yarn I got for a ridiculously low price off eBay ages ago. I'll post about that with pictures later, when I can navigate the whole picture uploady thingy.

I also started the February Lady Sweater, like about everyone else on the planet, it seems like! I'm just at the shoulders, for the second time, because for the life of me I cannot do top-down raglans properly. The first attempt is always the wrong size. I'm getting a bit sick of it to be honest, because you can't tell with top down sweaters if they're wrong till you get past the armholes, and then you have to rip it all back and start again. At least with bottom up sweaters you can tell after an inch or so how it's going to fit, and if you need to make a different size. I'm at the armhole seperating now, and I don't want to attempt it today in case it's the wrong size again, because I'll just cry if it is.

So bookmarks it is. I can make them while lying in bed and drinking hot chocolate and watching red dwarf. All that would be rather good if I wasn't sniffing at the same time, lol!

Crochet for the Bibliophile

Bookmarks! Lots and lots of bookmarks!




These are from this pattern: fan bookmark by crochetroo. I noticed that my bathroom book didn't have a bookmark in it, I was using old letters to mark my place, and that's just not good enough! I made two gray ones, because I was just getting used to the pattern by the end of the first one. I gave one to my mil, because she had seemed to like it when she saw me making it. Then I made two purple ones. I made one for my mum in purple because that's her favourite colour (I could make her anything in purple and she'd love it. The world's crappiest garter stitch scarf, with dropped stitches and uneven rows - so long as it was in purple, she'd love it!) She suggested I make one for my sister as well. I had to ask her what her favourite colour is (purple!) but I've learnt the pattern now, so it takes me less than an hour to make one. I posted it out to her yesterday. I didn't tell her I was making it for her so it'll be a surprise. I hope she likes it :)
Sidenote: my current bathroom read is A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous. I'll be writing a review of this as soon as I finish cos I have lots to say about it.

After making the gray fan bookmarks, I was getting quite into the whole crochet bookmark thing, so I made this one:



Pattern: fancy filigree bookmark by Cheri Mancini. This one was a bit harder, more fiddly and delicate. I like how mine turned out, but the pattern seems uneven with the picot spacing. I guess it's meant to be like that, because the picture on the pattern is the same, but it's a bit disconcerting to my inner OCDist. If I make another, I'll modify the pattern to space them evenly, I think. This bookmark is currently marking my place in my bedroom book, The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett. It's a really good book, the first discworld one that I've read, and I want to read more.



Next up, the remember the day bookmark by Ferosa Harold. (the link takes you to freepatterns.com, you have to register to get the pattern, but it's free, and they don't spam your email account or anything)
This one has bullions in it! My first time doing them. I was totally worried about this all the time while I was making it, because my bullions didn't look right, it didn't look the same as the one in the picture. I kept wondering if I should just rip it out. I kept thinking my yarn choice (mercerised crochet cotton thread) was wrong, and maybe I should have used unmercerised thread. As it happens, I think unmercerised might have been a better choice, but luckily, the bookmark totally came together when I started working the last round! I'm very happy with it, except the back is a little squiggly and uneven, due to my own inexperience with bullions, and the yarn choice. I think unmercerised cotton would have hidden the squiggles more.

I feel like the queen of crochet picots after all these bookmarks! I'm definitely a lot more comfortable with them, and with bullion stitches. What started off as a purely functional project seems to have become all educational all of a sudden!

And finally, something that didn't work out well :(



This is supposed to be the shamrock bookmark, by Michelle Ryan. (that link takes you to a free ravelry download, so you have to be a member of ravelry to access it).
I don't know if I did something wrong or anything, but this is huge! This one repeat is about six inches square, and there's supposed to be a few repeats stacked on top of each other. If I had done the full thing, there's no book in the world large enough for it to be used in! It's my first time trying filet, so it's entirely possible that I messed it up somehow, but I really can't see how. I used a 1.25mm hook and mercerised crochet cotton again, so there doesn't seem to be anything I could have done to make it smaller. So it won't work as a bookmark.
Also, the pattern in the middle doesn't show up as well in real life as it does in a photo. It's a bit undefined in real life. I'm going to see if there's something I can do to salvage it, maybe use it as a motif on a fabric bag or something. It's become a bit of a challenge to myself to save it somehow instead of just ripping it. :) Anyone out there have any other ideas how it can be saved?