A year in stitches weeks 13-17

May 1, 2018 | hookstitchsew

How can we be in May already, it doesn’t seem two minutes since it was the start of January and I was just getting started on this year in stitches journey.

Here’s a little update on what’s been going on over the last 5 weeks (weeks 13-17).

Week 13: saw the completion of the tulips and the addition of a branch ready for some other flowers to be added.

Week 14: the identity of the branch detail added in week 13 was revealed as a bleeding heart plant with the addition of the leaves and flower detail.

Week 15: fluttering in were some purple butterflies.

Week 16: leaf stitch leaves were added and some flowers using a petal stitch.

Week 17: some more autumn leaves and snowflakes were sewn on, along with some grass detail and the start of some thistles.

Am loving how this is all coming together, can’t wait to see it continue to grow over the next few weeks.

Bit of corner to corner crochet love with this hearts pattern mini blanket

April 23, 2018April 23, 2018 | hookstitchsew

I have been wanting to give corner to corner crochet a try for a while now but I’ve had too many other projects on the go to really give it a try, so a few weeks ago I found some wool that I really wanted to use for a corner to corner make so I got the wool and decided that the other projects could take a back seat for a while so that I could give it a try!

I dug out some graph paper – it’s amazing what you can find at the back of a craft cupboard and gathered some colouring pencils and set about drawing a pattern out. I didn’t want to do anything too crazy so decided to go with a repeating heart pattern mini blanket – can never have too many hearts about.

After the pattern was completed it was time to get going and surprisingly it went really well – I did manage to mess up a couple of times and got a bit carried away and forgot to change colour but luckily realised before I had got too far. Once I had finished the pattern I did a round of single crochet and a round of half treble (UK)/half double (US) around the edges in pink.

Can’t wait to start the next one of these – I’ve got a few half coloured designs already!

If you would like to make one here is the pattern I drew up:

Final size is 88 x 72 cm, you could duplicate the pattern to make it larger.

A few triangles later a folded star cushion emerged….

April 6, 2018 | hookstitchsew

I’ve been looking at folded star/pine burr quilt designs for a little while now and have been wanting to see if I could make one. I received some gorgeous floral fabric from The Craft Cotton Company and decided it was now or never and would give it a try by making a cushion cover.

I seriously underestimated just how many triangles would go into making the cushion cover, but after a few extra cutting out and ironing sessions I had enough to put it all together. I was surprised how easy it was to make the folded triangles and put the star pattern together – the effect looks much more complicated when you see it all finished, the main thing was trying to keep all the gaps between the triangles the same distance, if the gap started to change it effected the overall pattern.

I really enjoyed making this and will be making another one soon – possibly a square cushion or maybe a quilt, although the amount of triangles needed to make a quilt would take me a age to get all cut out and ironed, then there’s still all the sewing together….

The tutorial to make one of these is available over on The Craft Cotton Company blog:

https://www.craftcottonblog.co.uk

With a twit and a twoo these crochet owl storage baskets have happily flew out from my projects pile

March 28, 2018 | hookstitchsew

After finishing my rabbits, mice, and bear storage baskets I started on making some owl ones too, however, I got slightly distracted by a few other projects that have recently made their way into my projects pile (which is become more like a mountain!). It dawned on me the other day that I hadn’t finished them yet so decided to get cracking and get them completed. Took me a little while to get all their bits untangled and with the right owl but eventually I got them all sew on in the right places and completed.

The pattern is available over on my Etsy shop:

https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/HookStitchSew

A year in stitches weeks 9-12

March 26, 2018 | hookstitchsew

I’ve quite surprised myself so far with this year in stitches project, I thought I would have been way behind by now but I’ve actually managed to keep up with it – only just I must add, and we will see how long this lasts!

It’s great to watch the space filling in with all these different additions, and it’s been a great way to try out some new stitches some I look forward to trying again, others I will be avoiding at all costs!

Week 9 saw the completion of the ladybird and bee (finally managed to get some black thread) and a little nest was started.

Week 10 began with finishing the nest and adding some eggs and the start of some daffodils.

Week 11 was meant to see the completion of the daffodils but I got sidetracked with doing some other flowers!

Week 12 the daffodils finally got finished and I started on some tulips alongside them.

Still got quite a few flower ideas to go so am looking forward to the next few weeks!

Mosaic patchwork cushion tutorial

March 21, 2018 | hookstitchsew

Following on from camel bunting, sprocket cushions and camel toys I also used the Moroccan Bazaar fabric by The Craft Cotton Company to make a mosaic effect patchwork cushion. I would have loved to make a quilt in this pattern but it would have taken me much longer than the time I had, especially since I kept sewing the squares on wrong side around and had to spend my time unpicking – imagine how many I would get wrong on a big blanket!

Really pleased with how the mosaic effect turned out, might have to do a few more different patterns!.

Tutorial to make this is available over on The Craft Cotton Company blog:

https://www.craftcottonblog.co.uk

Crochet Granny cal18 comes to an end – finished just in time!

March 16, 2018March 16, 2018 | hookstitchsew

I’ve been working on a crochet granny along over the last 6 weeks by Zeens and Roger

https://zeensandroger.wordpress.com/2018/01/17/granny-is-a-go-go-a-crochet-along/

It’s been great fun getting all the granny squares made for this – I was a bit worried I would be tight on time for getting them all finished but I managed to get them all made and put together with a few days to spare!

Now it’s all finished you can see the final pattern of the blanket – a Minecraft earth block blanket. I do like my Minecraft makes – I’ve already made a creeper blanket, creeper, squid, ghast blanket, mooshroom cow blanket, and a wolf blanket and I still have a few more ideas for some more!

I made the blanket 10×10 grannies and completed 2 rows of sc stitches around the whole blanket once I had sewn it all together.

So glad I joined in with this CAL I’m looking forward to taking part in another one!

Camel soft toy tutorial – don’t think it’s possible to have too many camels!

March 13, 2018March 13, 2018 | hookstitchsew

Following on from my camel bunting I also made some soft toy camels!

On these I used buttons for the eyes and also made a tail out of the same fabric rather than use embroidery thread/ribbon. I couldn’t decide which way round to do the legs so opted to do them different ways on each of the camels!

The fabric is from the Moroccan Bazaar range by The Craft Cotton Company and there is a tutorial t make them over on their blog:

https://www.craftcottonblog.co.uk

Camel bunting tutorial

March 12, 2018 | hookstitchsew

Following on from making the sprocket cushions using The Craft Cotton Company Moroccan Bazaar fabric range I also made some camel bunting – I wasn’t too sure of i could get it to work out as I wanted but after a few goes of different camel shapes and layouts I managed to get it exactly as I was wanting. I opted to do separate legs as it looked much better than when I just did a solid camel shape, and the added bonus with these is that because they are sewn on separately and just with the cross stitch in the the middle the do wobble a little bit which I think really adds to them. A little embroidery thread tail really finishes them off – I did think of using ribbon, but it was just coming out too big for my liking so decided the use the thinner embroidery thread.