Crochet Alongs

I am forever putting my name down to take part in many Crochet Alongs (CALs) and Knit Alongs (KALs), I have even taken part in one Quilt Along (QAL) (although the quilt still needs to be backed and quilted!) and then never actually taking part.

However .... this year I have bitten the bullet and am taking part in three CALs!

The first one you have seen - it's my Spice of Life Crochet, which I am loving.  I am enjoying the change of stitch and colours ever so many rows.  It keeps the Gemini in me involved! 

http://www.ravelry.com/projects/LucyMc96/spice-of-life-blanket

The second one is a crochet shawl named The Sandpiper Shawl 

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/the-sandpiper-shawl  http://www.ravelry.com/projects/LucyMc96/the-sandpiper-shawl.   

This is working up to be a very pretty shawl.  I am using yarns in my stash from The Knitting Goddess  http://www.theknittinggoddess.co.uk/ You should visit!  She is based in Harrogate in the UK and has the most gorgeous yarns to drool over!  I am using various skeins of blues.

The third CAL that I am currently in the midst of is The Moorland Blanket by Lucy of Attic 24 http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/moorland-blanket  

Lucy has an inspiring blog where her love of colours just shines through! 

http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/  She, too, is well worth a visit.

I have named my Moorland Blanket "The Moors" as it is kind of reminding me of Dartmoor. It is created out of a beautiful palette of Stylecraft DK yarns in greens and heathers and blue hues.  It really does look gorgeous and I am thoroughly enjoying this as it works up.  It is so exciting when you crochet your first grape coloured row!  http://www.ravelry.com/projects/LucyMc96/moorland-blanket

The pictures above don't do the colours justice at all.  I hope to get better photos outside when it's completed!

And guess what ... there's another CAL starting at the weekend!  This is another shawl - a more chunkier one that looks so bohemian that I can't resist!  I'm going to have to plough through my stash to see if I have enough yarn to make this one! http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/sunday-shawl

I want to push myself this year and actually participate in these create - Alongs!  I feel that it is pushing me and my skills... and I'm loving it!  It is lovely to be part of a community that are creating the same - but different - creations as me.   

DeCluttering totals 

1 x big box
1 x medium box
5 x bags

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Handmade Hugs

I absolutely love making things!  Especially blankets and quilts.  

To me they are cosy and warm, and a hug of handmade love.

I can remember being poorly when I was young and having to stay off school.  My mum had two blankets that were invariably used when we were laid poorly in bed or on the sofa. One was a knitted blanket made of squares of garter stitch worked diagonally across the square.  So starting with one stitch and increasing each row to get the diagonal width and then decreased back down to one stitch.  The other one was a crochet granny square blanket.  These two blankets represented my mum's love and care for my brother and I.  I just loved tracing the colours and squares on these blankets.

So that feeling of security and love has attached itself to every blanket that I make.  They are all made with the hope that they are going to be used to cuddle up in.

I think that is why I make so many!

At the moment I am crocheting three blankets.  One is all purples - using up my purple oddments.  

The second is The Spice of Life CAL.  This has been sat in my ravelry library for quite some time now.   

 I knew which colours I wanted to use - I wanted to go down the spicy colours.  They are all Stylecraft DK and have been sat in a bag for some time too!

I love this pattern!  It has worked up really quickly. 

 It has kept me intrigued with all the different stitches and I think that is why I've completed so much!

I only started it last week and I'm nearly done with the main body of it, 

and once that's finished I just have to make the border.  

This pattern http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/spice-of-life-blanket 

is by Sandra Paul from Cherry Heart 

http://www.cherryheart.co.uk/p/welcome.html.  

You really should pop over and check out all her wonderful creations!

I am participating in two other Crochet Alongs - these are for this year.  I will post more about them soon.

PS  Charity Donation Update Total

3 x bags

1 x big box

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Happy New Year!

And I am hoping for a Happy New Improved Me!

I know it is the start of a brand new year and everyone has all these plans to quit this and quit that; to lose weight; to do all sorts of things ....

I wonder how long any of these last?  Does anyone actually make it to the end of the year having kept up all those resolutions?

Hmmm.  Well there are several things that I need to improve on.  And, of course, I have great ambitions to carry them through.  So, here I am baring some of my soul to you and hoping that having written it down on here .... I WILL SUCCEED!

So here goes, my confessions and my hopes for 2017 ....

My name is Lucy and ....

Firstly

I am a hoarder!  I really am.  I would almost guarantee that there is no-one (well other than those extreme hoarders that you see on telly that literally have boxes all up the walls and you can't get through their houses but give me a few more years and I will be!)  I always think that something will be used in some form or another, and not necessarily in the form that they were intended for.  I put this partly down to being a crafter - we will repurpose things!  I also put it down to a couple of controlling relationships where I had my belongings thrown away willy-nilly and with no regard to my feelings.  This has meant that I hold EVERYTHING that is mine close to me and don't want anyone else to touch them, move them or anything! This has been my way of reacting to a bad situation where I was not ME at all.  I was a dumbed-down tiny shadow of myself with no voice and no valid opinion.

I hasten to add - I am no longer like this.  I am so much stronger and more ME!  I am in an extremely happy and equal relationship with a beautiful man who loves me for me - and that includes my hoarding!

I do know that this does get him down sometimes, although he will never tell me to get rid of anything.  In fact he tries to find storage solutions for all and sundry to be put away in.  BUT I have decided this is the year that I am going to try and get on top of it.  I am planning to sort out; file; and throw out (OMG!)  I already have three bags full ready to go to the Charity Shop.  These will be going tomorrow.  I have thought that maybe a tally chart of how many bags/boxes go out of the house may be a good incentive for me.

Secondly

As I said previously (and you should know if you read this blog!) I am a crafter!  I don't think the ME I am can exist without the crafting side of me.  When my fibromyalgia flares up so much that I can't use my hands for long I get so down.  I really do need to be creating.

With every crafter - whatever you create - comes the inevitable WIP - Work in Progress.  Those projects that have been started with every intention of finishing them, only to be relegated to behind the sofa; in the airing cupboard; on any surface in the craft room ... And believe me I have WIPs!  Many many many of them! In fact I daren't even start counting them as I am really worried as to how many I actually have.

So the plan is that I am going to try to complete at least some of them.  I can't commit to all of them - that just isn't realistic.  There are no way there are enough months, days, hours in this year to be able to do that. And I do have to allow for the fact that I will be starting new projects too!  So I do have to allow time for those.  So posting my progress on here will be a good incentive too.

Thirdly

I am supposed to be a blogger.

To me being a blogger is regularly updating your blog.  Hmmm well I start off well, but slightly tail off towards the later part of the year.

I really do need to be more regular (blogging that is!) and keep this up to date throughout the whole year.  To me it is an outlet for my crafting adventures and hopefully to increase my little crafting business.  So in order to get more people reading my words I need to get this blog out there more regularly.  In this, you can help me too, by sharing my blog posts on facebook; pinterest; etc so that more people see my stuff!  I need to use the internet to help me and that's the plan for this year.  I am going to put an alert on my phone so that I get on here at least once a week.

Fourthly

I do need to lose a stone, or two... that is work in progress and not something I really want to throw out there in to the internet world.  But I am aware that I'm getting older and that weight is not going to fall off like it did when I was a wee spring chicken!  The fibromyalgia makes things hard sometimes and I find that I can't exercise like I could before.  However, I do need to start doing so more regularly as I feel this might build my strength up and hopefully improve the pains, the fitness levels and my weight.

Watch this space!

So for now there are four things I am planning to work on this year.

Any encouragement will be gladly accepted.

See you soon!

Sparkly Stars

How pretty and princess-y is this ...?! 

 

My latest crocheted throw!  

Using the most delicious jewel colours in Red Heart sparkly yarn.

Absolutely ideal for the little princess in your life

as a throw or an extra cosy layer on their royal bed, or even just a cuddly!

Measuring 44" x 42" using a star motif and worked with a join-as-you-go method. 

A joy to work with!

They really are the richest colours out and the yarn is thick so it is lovely and cosy. 

The department store in Yeovil are closing down their haberdashery department!  I know!  Nightmare!

However ... lucky for me ... lots of great great bargains have been had!  Including this sparkly Red Heart Yarn. 

  I still have odd bits of the balls left along with two full balls of white .... 

so I'm thinking of how I can use those together in another project!

So this is going into The Emporium with me tomorrow to go into my little unit

https://www.facebook.com/yeovilemporium/

  and I do hope it finds the right home with the best princess ever!

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Sea Blues and Greens

I decided I would use up some more of my odd balls of yarn.

And guess what ... I have lots in my favourite shades - blues and sea greens!  With a bit of grey too.

Fantastic ... I can work a scrap blanket using my favourite colours!  

Only snag ... the more I worked on it the more I thought I might just have to keep it!

I decided that I would just do a simple double crochet stitch/ (For anyone who is in the UK - I work with American terms!  I don't know why, I think I must have learnt and then worked from a book with American terms and now I find that I crochet the Amercian way!)  I thought this would be simple and almost mindless, meaning that I could watch the telly and not have to think too much!  Ideal for me come the evening!

The yarns that went into this were very varied - there's a bit of mohair; a bit of a more fuzzy one that I have no idea what yarn it is; acrylic; part wool ... all sorts ... I just thought I'd throw them all in together and make a really pretty blanket!

I love how it turned out and it really was a wrench for it to leave the house ... but my thinking on that is that I can always make another one...!

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An Etsy sale!

I have an Etsy shop.  There's not much in it at the moment as I've been testing the water so to speak.

I do, however, have two crochet blankets on there with the option to order one made especially for you. You can choose your favourite colours or go with similar to the blankets in the photos.

Well blow me down!  On 19 August I had an order for one of them!  I was so excited!  And chuffed to bits.

I had three weeks to make it.  

The customer wanted the same or similar colours to the one listed.

With all the yarn I have ... 

I didn't have these colours so had to put an order in and hope that they didn't take too long to arrive.

I spent the evenings making it and my shift at The Emporium 

- where lots of people commented on the colours and saying how much they liked it.

Well I did it!  I managed to make it in the time I'd said and get it off in the mail up to Scotland!

I sent it by mail to be signed for so that I knew it had arrived.

And it did!

And then I received my review ...

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/TheCraftyPhoenixLady/reviews/1121039336

 

 

 

 

Love this item. Not only does it go well but it is beautifully made. Can't reccomend enough.

Crochet Afghan/Throw/Blanket ~ 48" x 48" ~ Handmade to order

Another happy dance!

Now to see how many more orders come in .....!

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Antler People, Round Robins and Owls ...

I've been working on some more ATCs for swaps.

Sometimes there are the most unusual, strange, or just plain different swap titles.  

This one is run by an www.atcsforall.com member in Slovakia. 

And called "Antler People", which is basically what it says on the tin - people with antlers!

As usual we have to make three cards, and generally people make a fourth one 

as a gift to the person who hosts the swaps.

Running a swap is pretty hard work, as I found out for myself when I ran my first swap.

I decided to go for the theme "Folk ~ Primitive Art" as I hadn't seen any of those in 

recent art history on www.atcsforall.com

As it was my first swap I was allowed to have 12 players.  It was so exciting to see people signing up to play!  It showed me that it was a pretty good choice of theme!

Above (x 3) is all the cards I received in the swap.  So I had 12 x 4 as they all included a hostess card for me!  I absolutely loved receiving all the delightful creations in the post.  It was like my birthday every day.

I decided that I wanted to make a card for each of the players too - so I could send them three back and an extra from me to say thank you for joining the swap.

Above (x 2) are my Folk Art cards.

I had great fun sorting through the cards, deciding which ones I was going to have as the hostess card 

and then dealing out three different artists to each player.  

And even more exciting is that they are arriving at their new homes as I write this!

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I also participate in one to one trades. 

 So I trade one (or two, or three or however many we agree on) with another trader.  

I traded with a member in America.  She wanted owls.  So here are my three owls for her.

I love creating and drawing owls!  I think they are by far my most favourite bird!

There are also Round Robin swaps/trades going on.

Both in hand-drawn and hand-painted, and mixed media.

These consist of three cards where the first player draws the same picture on each card.

In the card above the first player drew the pirate.

I then received the three cards and decided to add a pirate ship.  These are now being sent to the third and final player.  She is going to draw the last item on the card and then all three of us get one of the cards!

I have also decided to be the starter on the set below. 

 I love Gorjuss and decided to draw my version of her on my three cards.  

Can't wait to see what is added to them!

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