Crochet hats!

Sorry I haven't been posting on here much, I have been very busy with my new job. What a rubbish phrase, and used far too often by too many people...


Anyway, I made the first of these hats much earlier in the year

This is my hat for me to wear, I made the butterfly using the most commonly found butterfly pattern and the hat was made using a pattern-plan as opposed to an actual pattern.
Magic ring with 10 dc (US sc), then 2dc in one stitch, dc in next stitch around into those ten, next round 2 dc, dc, dc, continuing each subsequent round with one extra dc before the 2 dc.
Once you get up to the size you want for the crown, plain dc into each stitch for as many rounds as necessary.

I made another one on this basis, which I will be sending out to my best friend from High School for her first baby, and I hope it will fit her!

 
I also crocheted this last one for the second baby that Amy, my school friend, is still cooking up and I must be a psychic because she told me two days after I finished the hat that baby 2 is a girl!

So here are the two little hats together.

I have been wondering if the little cream hat will be big enough, but since I didn't have a baby close to hand to check the sizes on I just have to hope.
If not, I guess bibbit #2 can have it once she is big enough

I have also been making lots of snowflakes, thanks to the wonderful Birthday present my sister bought me and once I have some photos of those done I will post them up in a blog. All design credits for those are reserved and I will make sure that is stated clearly, I also won't be able to share any patterns, but will give you the title and author of the book!
It really is wonderful though, I cannot thank my sister enough for such a thoughtful gift!

Cards

Emi's Birthday card - needs a beak though!

Mariko's Birthday card - a gerbera flower, one of her favourites

Mothers' Day card for my Mam, afternoon tea

All handmade by me in my flat.

Owl Biscuits

Two Blogs in one day? What madness is this??
Yes, well, I dunno, I just saw the owl biscuits photo when I was uploading my crochet photos and I just wanted to show you these guys

I baked them for my friend Emi for her birthday. She loves owls and I was visiting her home for dinner a few days after her birthday, a few of them were a bit overdone and I broke the first few I took out of the oven through careless handling so I was lucky enough to be able to profit slightly from my carelessness and munched the substandard ones myself!

The recipe is from here Halloween hoot owl biscuits

Crochet!

I've been inspired by my great friend Emi to take up crochet.
I started out last January just before I succumbed to De Quernan's Syndrome in my right hand - which is basically completely ruining the tendons that run through your wrist and into your thumb through over-use (stripping wallpaper and failing to rest at all when I got tendonitis).
With the stupidity of my GP (I've swapped since), the length of time waiting on specialist appointments and physiotherapy, I finally finished my treatment at the end of November.
So, I picked crochet back up properly in the lead up to my TOPCIMA exam (for relaxation purposes in the evenings) and after mastering the basic stitches with the aid of some great videos online,  I've managed to learn how to do Butterflies

First Butterfly I ever made!

...which I adapted to make a 5 petal flower too (no photos yet)

Tiny Whale hiding behind my husband's ear

Then there's also this little fella (the mini-whale, not my husband!)














He's for my Nephew because that's what he asked me to make for him when he saw me finish off the second butterfly (not featured here).
I think the eyes are a bit wonky, but it's difficult  to get them sorted if you put them on when the pattern tells you to. Those were made from one nice flat shiny bead and one tiny black bead.

My Dad asked for a dragon, so that's going to be one of the next projects I think.
In the meantime, I'm going to make lots of small flowers from the fine crochet yarn that I have so I can use them for card making and suchlike.

Big thanks to my Mammy for all of the ends of wool that she's donated to me from her knitting ball-ends, I'm really enjoying all of the different colours and will be making lots of different flowers and butterflies with them.

Stay tuned for Owl Biscuits!