Cosy Colourful Crochet

Hello there! 

Brrrr!!! It's soooooo chilly and cold here in Cork this week !!!

It's the perfect weather to snuggle up on the sofa, close to the fire,

hook in hand, adding a few rows to some colourful crochet.

I thought I'd update you on two of my crochet projects; here's a super-quick visual update on my
Wavy Blanket. I just started edging it last night. My dog Cooper has taken a BIG shine to this blanket
and I have to spend a lot of my time shooing her off the end of the work when I'm crocheting!
Here she is 'assisting' me below !!

Wavy Crochet Blanket & Cooper

I know its taken forever but this project was ENORMOUS !!
Ok - maybe not enormous but big enough for snuggling up in
and simply wayyy too big to lug around in your handbag for sneaky crochet sessions outside of the home
(I always find that's the fastest way to finish any crochet project super quick !!)
It's been a great way of getting rid of some of my stash of yarn though.

By the way, if you are looking for some inspirational ideas to use up YOUR yarn stash
then why not follow the clever folks at Stashdown here on Twitter or Pinterest

I'm already planning my next blanket - I'm thinking granny squares & a bit less girlie colours!!
Hopefully it'll be finished before the week is out and I'll take some more pictures then for you !

Wavy Crochet Blanket - Let the edging begin !!!

Next up - you may remember I also treated myself to some Debbie Bliss Cashmerino here
to make a little Christmas present just for myself.
Well, here's a quick look at the results now that I've finished !
A quick stripy hat and cowl made up of double and single rows of trebles. I just made up the pattern as I went along, can't even remember what hook I used !

CraftLee Hat & Cowl in Cashmerino

 A wee bit of soft focus editing does wonders to highlight the crochet flowers & diminish the 'laughter lines' !

I picked the colours to match my most beloved Orla Kiely bag, not an exact match perhaps, but close enough! I wear the cowl a lot more than the hat as its so soft and snuggly I tend to leave it on even when I'm indoors! Lots of people have admired it so I'm pretty happy with it as a project but the yarn was quite costly (about 40 Euros) and I'm not sure that it LOOKS that expensive

Hey!! is that a feather or a leaf on my new hat!!

Thanks for visiting & please do come back soon !

Love Siubhan x x x 

Wave Goodbye to Summer

Autumn is truly on the way so I decided to cheer myself up with a wonderful wavy project to keep my fingers busy as the nights close in (and use up some of the yarn stash that is now genuinely threatening to take over the house!).
I have long since been an admirer of the lovely & talented  Lucy over at Attic 24 and she has the best ever ripple pattern with idiot proof step by step directions.
Just look at the results !

 I have re-purposed my second Summer beach bag as a yarn bag & we're off !

I'm on the 38th row with a starting chain of 219 so that's um......8322 stitches of wavy fun so far!

My daughter has 'claimed' the finished blanket for her apartment  when she moves away to college ...... that should be in a mere 2 years time
so that's my deadline and I'm sticking to it!

Thanks for visiting! & hope you have a lovely week!

Siubhan x x x

Ma belle-sœur

Todays a very exciting day in the CraftLee house as we are all thinking about my sister in law, (ma belle-sœur in french) - I love that because she is indeed very belle & lovely! She goes into hospital to have her third child today.
Whilst she's in there, keeping herself busy and out of harms way, (with any luck painting her toenails & reading 'Grazia' though I doubt it somehow!!)

I thought I'd share with you one of the little presents I've made for the new arrival.....

We don't know if its a little baby boy or girl yet so I had to go with something 'gender neutral'....

A wavy blanket of baby zig-zags in shades of primrose, mocca, cream & aqua.
Its taken me about 3 weeks to get it made but I'm pretty delighted with the results !

I followed the pattern in Niki Trench's great book 'Cute and Easy Crochet'. I think I've made almost every project in this book by now. if your looking for a first book of crochet projects its really hard to beat!

Tempted to start another one straight away as theres something really relaxing about seeing all those waves growing into a lovely snuggly blanket.

If its a girl, I may add a few little flowers just to pretty it up a bit more...

 I know, I know its only one blanket HOW many pictures ?!?! I'm just delighted to have it finished in time before the little prince or princess arrives !

You get the picture! now, just for fun, heres Cooper napping at my feel in a lovely warm ray of sunshine !

Have a lovely Sunday & thank you for visiting !

 

Siubhán x x x

Committing to my craft

Hi there,
I am going to be blogging to myself for a while (I can tell!) but you've got to start somewhere & today...
yes! TODAY
is REALLY the start of my blogging career !

I'm going to post a few of the crafty projects I've been working on recently in the hopes that it will inspire me to do some more & maybe even start working towards getting an etsy shop up and running.

I've just finished this scarf/shawl with some purple kid mohair I found in a bargain bucket in Hickeys  in Cork.

My modelling career kicks off in ernest ...

Not too happy about her mothers new fame as a model - the photograher (& camera owner!)  struts her funky stuff

I've wanted to crochet s shawl for a long time - I have a mad notion about a complex pattern for a red shawl that I saw somewhere online but I dont know where it was !

This pattern is called fantasm by Cheri McEwan and was a free ravelry download.
It wasn't too difficult when you got into the pattern and at 2 Euros a ball it was a billy-bargain - costing only 6 Euros in total !  & now ALL I have to do is find something to do with the other 8 balls I couldn't leave behind me in the shop !
The colour fits in so nicely with my bedroom scheme I felt I had to take a photo of it on my bed too..
which I think came out pretty nice....

Oh! I love my bed! Spurred on withe the overwhelming success of my 'home styling' project above I decided to fling my other two larger crochet projects over some other furniture throughout the house.......



Zig-Zag baby blanket pattern from Nicki Trench's book  'Cute and easy Crochet' 




This pattern is also from the book above but sadly I ran out of wool so its more a useless strip than a blanket ! 


So the shawl being ticked off my to-do list I've moved onto bigger things though I've a feeling I'm going to get mightily distracted along the way ...