By Helen

flower of the month...

Welcome to my brand new blog category: flower of the month.  Reading back through my previous posts, I realised just how neglected my garden category had become.  This is partly seasonal, I have to confess that my garden it looking somewhat sorry for itself: due to Winter neglect on my part.  This will be rectified as the world turns toward Spring. 

I decided that each month, in my blog, there will be a flower of the month: something seasonal which will inspire my crochet.  Here’s January’s…

The Snowdrop is one of the first flowers to bravely show itself from the cold Winter soil and remind us that Spring is on its way…

After taking the images of the Snowdrops in a local church yard: I looked to magazines and books for further inspiration…

I gathered together white and green yarns in various textures…

I settled down with my crochet hook in hand ready to put my inspiration into reality.  The aim is not to reproduce the Snowdrop.  This would be an impossible task with endless frustrations (especially as Mother Nature does it so well): but to make something, which might make someone say that looks like a Snowdrop.

You will have to wait until next time, to see how this one turns out, I have to go and figure out what I am going to do next..!

a quick crochet project...

Yesterday I was in the mood for a really quick crochet project, one that I could start and finish in the afternoon and that looked really great at the end of it.  After a delightful couple of hours browsing through my crochet books and magazines I decided to make up a pattern by the very talented Helda Panagary, which was featured in the January addition of Inside Crochet.  You might remember Helda's designs from the scarf I made a while ago.  This time the pattern was for a wonderful cowl...

I have to confess that I did make one change to Helda's pattern.  I hope she doesn't mind?  In the pattern you work with double yarn.  I decided to just work with a single yarn, so that the cowl was not overly chunky.  I want to be able to wear the cowl into spring: and just felt making it from double yarn, might make it a little too warm to be able to do this.  I am one of those strange people who prefers to be cold rather than too warm.

The pattern was really well written and very easy to follow.  I can't wait to start wearing it...

more brooches...

I love to crochet brooches.  They are just the perfect thing to make: they can be started and finished in just one afternoon and at the end of it you have something lovely to wear, to give away, or if you are lucky to sell. 

I think, to date, this has to be one of my favourites...

The pattern was adapted from one by the very talented Nicki Trench's book Cute and Easy Crochet.  In the book's pattern you are told to use wool, so that the brooch can be felted.  I didn't have any to hand, so made the leaves from wool and the cherries from cotton.  I love how the different textures of the yarn work together. 

I will give felting a try at some-point but, for now, I am really happy with how these turned out.

winter warmer...

It looks like winter is back: or at least it is for this weekend.  Waking up to frost on the roof tops and plants looking sparkly, if somewhat disheartened, makes it perfect weather for steaming hot porridge...

 

Porridge, this time of year, is a daily occurrence in our house, but today we thought we would indulge in topping of hot fruit compote.  Fruit compote is something that we usually have on re-enactments - it been very medieval and all of that, but who is to say that it should only be confined to the fifteenth century?  Fruit compote is berries (what ever you have to hand), soft fruit (again what ever you have to hand) warmed until they are soft: but not so much that they become jam.  A little port, honey and spices can and should be added.  Once eveything is combined, and you have a sticky thick pan of loveliness, then the compote is ready. 

Perfect on a cold winter morning.

making up challenge...

One of my friends is a brilliant knitter.  Somehow I managed to persuade/con/bribe her into knitting me my very own  gargoyle.  Somehow she agreed!  The deal was that she would knit and I would do the making up.  She fulfilled her part of the deal, so now it is my turn.

I have a bag full of gargoyle body parts, ready to turn into the finished article...

I'll let you know how things work out..!

Ps - a MASSIVE THANK YOU to S for knitting this: a MASSIVE THANK YOU for labelling all of the body parts: you are a true star :-)

making up challenge...

One of my friends is a brilliant knitter.  Somehow I managed to persuade/con/bribe her into knitting me my very own  gargoyle.  Somehow she agreed!  The deal was that she would knit and I would do the making up.  She fulfilled her part of the deal, so now it is my turn.

I have a bag full of gargoyle body parts, ready to turn into the finished article...

I'll let you know how things work out..!

Ps - a MASSIVE THANK YOU to S for knitting this: a MASSIVE THANK YOU for labelling all of the body parts: you are a true star :-)

crochet brooches...

So here are some more of the finished crochet projects that I gave you a sneaky peek of...

They were inspired by a pattern, for an Irish Rose, in one of my favourite crochet books, although as ever, I did adapt the pattern.

The brooches show one of the things I love most about crochet: the diversity you can achieve.  Both of the brooches are crocheted to the same pattern, but by using different yarn that finish is completely different.  I love the shimmer of the Lang Lanalux yarn, used on the darker brooch: the image doesn't do the shimmer justice!

Hope you like them..?

crochet purse...

Some of you might member that before Christmas I gave you a sneaky peek at some of the crochet projects that I was working on.  Over the next few posts I will be showing you the finished projects. 

Here's the first...

It is based on the pattern for a floral purse that appears the book, by the very talented Nicki Trench, Cute and Easy Crochet.  I adapted the pattern, choosing to embellish the purse with my own design of flowers, rather than the ones which Nicki suggests.  Hope she doesn't mind?

Ps - many apologies for the blurriness of the image.  If I had know what it looked like, I would have retaken the image but I gave the crochet purse as a Christmas gift to a friend!  Sorry x

 

happy new year...

Happy New Year!  Hope that 2012 brings all that you wish for.  My friend gave me this, painted glass, for Christmas...

I think that the message live, love, laugh is just perfect for the start of the New Year.

I don't make New Year resolutions, but I am making a crochet resolution...

• I will write down what I do: that way I can recreate some of the crochet projects that I make and that way I can share them with you...

So here's to a New Year, here's to 2012, here's to writing down what you do and here's to living, loving and laughing!

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