Frank and Josie's House

I'm writing a blogpost about crochet! I know!!! How long has that *^+&ing been? Ages. Too long my dear friends. You will be pleased to hear that I am determined to make all things in my life work and after last week's rainy day thoughts I decided to be a little more chipper. The sun heard me and decided to come out (even if a storm is brewing for this evening) and has helped me regain some energy. So onward and on to a new crochet technique I finally tried: corner to corner crochet or C2C as it is referred to in short hand. It was Frank's birthday in March and I decided that as loads of our cushions were falling apart and he loved his Avenger's logo cushion from last year that I'd bring to life another of his favourite super hero characters...well logos. And Batman it was. the decision was easy really as he's always saying to the kids: "Do you know why? Because I'm Batman!" in a silly, growly imitation of the Lego Batman. The kids love it. So ...

Hello all and how has your week been? It's been eventful in the Yarn household so we are all exhausted (I feel like I always say how tired we are!). Firstly the big kids started a new school. We moved them to the local village school as we felt they would get on better there. So we returned to France from the UK only to go straight in to school preparation mode. I had to make sure we'd done all the forms and the kids had the right stationary etc etc. Then, only one day after starting a new school, it was Merida's 10th birthday so the Christmas/celebration-phase couldn't abate just yet. She asked to keep the fairy lights up so we happily obliged and actually had a really good day at school. She's at the age where she isn't shy telling people it's her birthday and because of this the teacher wrote "Bon Anniversaire" on the board and they all sang 'Happy Birthday' to her in English and French in the canteen over lunch. What a lovely school we...

Firstly I want to say a massive thank you to everyone who sent me messages or left comments after my last post. Having that little extra support really helps. I'm learning as I go but am determined that endometriosis will not stop me living. Although I am also learning to allow myself to be ill. Today my hubby is working from home so I don't have to chase a toddler as I'm feeling particularly rubbish, but I thought talking to you lot and distracting myself with yarntales (yes, I made that word up) would cheer me up. So today I am talking about this: [caption id="attachment_1591" align="aligncenter" width="540"] different sized balls![/caption] Bernat blanket yarn is what I am using (or trying to use) to make the giant octopus pictured below. It's been more than a little tricky to get hold off or to be precise, to get hold of in the quantity and colour I want it. Now if you follow my blog you'll know that using the recommended yarn fro...

Well it's been a couple of weeks my lovelies and it's all been happening! There's been yarn shortages for Christmas projects and colds and jumpers for dogs and slippers for me and more. It's been a busy couple of weeks! Firstly the grownups have been suffering with illness. Luckily we took it in turns so at least one of us could feed the dependents and walk the dogs. Also, for me, this means lots of time to crochet. So I've been busy starting on Christmas and birthday presents, making the dog a jumper and starting him a coat (more in another post) and making me some slippers. [caption id="attachment_1565" align="aligncenter" width="654"] He's nice and cosy[/caption] He wasn't sure about the jumper at first as I'm sure he wondered what I was doing to him. But now he actually comes and asks for it to be put on and runs at us when we hold it up for him! It's nice to have my work appreciated. What else has been occurring I ...

Finally its finished! Regular followers of my Instagram feed will have seen increased activity in the African flower crochet side of things over the last two months. I decided (just as we were moving) to crochet my youngest a turtle for her birthday in October. Now, Rose loves turtles. Her obsession started with her favourite song about a turtle called Tiny Tim who has an unfortunate incident in the bath and eats all the soap. Although how Rose sings this is "Turtle, turtle, turtle. Turtle, turtle, swim! Turtle, turtle, soap!" It's got the cuteness only a 2 year old can get away with. Anyway she's been increasing her stuffed toy turtle collection over the past few months and I thought I'd add to it with a wonderful design from  Heidi Bears Design.  Now this talented designer uses the African flower motif (see picture below of some of the motifs) in most of her designs and it creates a wonderful array of patterns. From dinosaurs to owls and camels to teddy bears th...

Here it is: the crochet ukulele that I made for one of the kids' teachers. (Surrounded by the ruffle scarves I made for other teachers). Now this teacher was special. He'd taught both our kids and they had loved him and flourished under his tutorledge. He's one of those teachers who is special to everyone. Whenever I mentioned anything to him about the kids, no matter how trivial, he took it in and knew it was important to me. My concerns where valid and he got that. I also taught alongside him for a while when he asked for help with the school choir. He's a very enthusiastic musician and got many a child involved in the ukulele club and when other teacher got attention with glockenspiels or bells he used his ukulele. He is well known throughout the school for his ukulele prowess. So when I knew his goodbye gift needed to be something special I went straight for the ukulele link.  I used one of our ukuleles as a base for my pattern and found a couple of pictures online ...

It's finally finished - the crochet hoodie I've been working on for months. I'm so pleased and look how gorgeous my wonderful girl looks in it! I started the journey with this hoodie in late December, post Christmas rush. My daughter's birthday is in early January and she often gets slightly overlooked due to the Christmas craziness. Family are very good at remembering her birthday but we have to be extra organised to make sure the budget stretches to her birthday. This year (technically last year!) I decided to make her something special: a fairy hoodie. Merida loves fairies, pixies, elves and all such creatures. She's forever searching for them when we go to the woods.  I set about the search, as I so often do in these cases, on Pinterest . I found amazing pictures but few patterns I could either decipher or relate to or that was the right thing. Finally I found this pattern:  Lutine des Fleurs by Sylvia Damey . There was a eureka moment when I found this. It was ...

This year I went a bit crazy but I'm really proud of the fact I made so many Christmas presents. The picture below is a selection. So there's three adult hats,  three kids hats , one pair of gloves and an ear warmer. Add to it another hat for my dad, a pair of slipper boots, a toothless hat, a chunky cowl, a Shield logo cushion, another child's hat, and a partridge in a pear tree. (Not really but it felt appropriate). Today it's the Marvel hat and Shield logo cushion I want to show off about....I mean discuss! I found this awesome website whilst looking for patterns. It's called  The Happy Hooker . Basically the lady's who runs it (Jess) does tapestry crochet and puts up tons of free patterns, most of which have pictures showing you the finished projects. Some are really stunning. I was searching for a Marvel logo for Frank's hat and found one here . I like following chart patterns like this as they are so simple and you can really see what you're doing,...

So I can't show much of my Christmas makes just yet but I can show you some of the kids stuff. First is the Polka Dot Dog hat for my baby. This was one of the first presents I started for this year's Christmas haul. It's a really good detailed pattern. I had to alter it slightly as the yarn I had was double knit and not aran (or worsted as detailed). But it was enjoyable to make and the instructions were lovely and clear. I love how detailed the pattern is. Sometimes I feel patterns assume you know a lot about crochet. Whilst I've been crocheting a while I haven't made many hats for babies so it was good to have lots of pictures, which I like to refer to.  The best part was that Rose is young enough I can sneakily try it on her head without her realising what I'm doing! The little touches really make this hat for me. Well they make all the hats to be honest, otherwise they'd just be beanie hats! But I love how easy the details were to make and set in the ri...