Innocent Big Knit Hats

This is my third year making hats for the Innocent Big Knit campaign (you can see my previous posts here and here).

If you don't know about the Big Knit campaign, every year Innocent ask people to knit tiny hats to send to them. They then pop these hats on their smoothie bottles, and give 25p from every bottle they sell to Age UK.

It's a great thing to be a part of, great for busting your stash, and super cute to see all the tiny hats when they appear in shops.

As I'm getting super organised with the baby on the way, and the deadline for sending in hats being December 11th, I thought I should make my little hats now to make sure they get done.

I made 3 my first year (all knitted) and 15 last year (1 knitted and 14 crocheted) so this year I decided to go for 10. I think 10 is a nice round number, and the one I will be aiming for when I take part in future years. This year I knitted 3 (as I'm a bit speedier at knitting now) and then crocheted the other 7.

First up are my knitted hats. I used the beginners hat pattern for these.

Next up are my crochet hats. I think these look better than the ones I did last year (possibly because last year I was still doing my treble crochets with an extra step!). For these I used the crochet flower on top hat pattern, but swapped the flower for a pom pom.

And here they are all together! They are so cute!

If you're interested in taking part, check out The Big Knit website for all the details, and make sure you get your hats posted off in plenty of time!

Yarn Used:

• Paton Fab.
• Lilac.
• Stylecraft Special DK.
• Wisteria.
• Aspen.
• Apricot.
• Sherbert.
• Silver.
• Fondant.
• Spring green.
• Rico Basic Acrylic.
• Neon orange.
• Blue cotton yarn I got in a free kit. 

Raverly project page for knitted hats.

Raverly project page for crochet hats.

Bathroom perler beads

I've been wanting to make some more perler beads for our bathroom since we moved into our new house. With a bigger window, there was more space to display some lovely perler creations. I had a few ideas pinned, it was just a matter of actually sitting down and making them. All our current bathroom perler beads are either Mario doing something bathroom related, or something ocean related, so I went with those themes and made a couple more additions.

Pattern for Jaws can be found here.

Pattern for Peach can be found here.

How cool does our window look now? I'll still keeping my eye out for more bathroom related Mario patterns though, as those are just the best.

Now we have a house, we also have a downstairs bathroom too. It used to be peach and boring, but Donald decided to decorate it Star Wars style.

While I was doing some perler bead research I thought how cool it would be to have some little Star Wars cuties on the bathroom door, to advertise it as the Start Wars bathroom.

Pattern for Yoda can be found here.

Pattern for Ewok can be found here.

Pattern for It's a Trap sign can be found here.

I could have covered the whole door in perler creations but I went with these three as they were my favourite/show-cased some the cutest characters.

I stuck them to the bathroom door using those clean remove sticky tab things, so hopefully they'll hold but also be easy to take off when we need to.

Felt Christmas Ornaments

I've been trying to clean out all the free kits and craft kits I've bought recently, as I have so much stuff just sitting there waiting to be made. I figured two time sensitive things that were coming up were the baby and Christmas, so I raked through all my kits and made a baby pile and a Christmas pile to try and make me focus on those first.

Well this week I made the last two Christmas related things I had! Yay! I have one other tiny knitting kit that's Christmas related which I got free in a magazine, but I'm not sure I like it so I think I'll use the wool for something else. So there are no more Christmas kits waiting to be made!

My last two Christmas makes were two felt Christmas ornament kits that I was given as Christmas presents last year.

I made them both in the one evening, so I'm super happy they were so fast to make. I love these little kits. I've been gifted a couple of them before and they always come with just the right amount of felt and super clear instructions.

I really love that little hedgehog! He's going to look awesome on our Christmas tree!

Yoshi amigurumi

While I don't do a lot of crafting on request (because usually people are asking me to make something I've just finished making again, and that can get a bit boring), I do actually like it when people ask me to make them something new. It's fun to make something that I don't have to find space for in my house, and it also gives me the chance to make something I might not have made otherwise.

A couple of weeks ago my friend Kirk asked if I could make him a Yoshi amigurumi, as he had wanted to get one of the new Yoshi amiibos but they are really hard to come across. I had a look for a good free pattern, discovered I had all the right wool without buying any additional stuff (always a bonus), and got to work!

There were quite a few patterns out there, but a lot of them looked a bit naff if I'm being honest. I went with this one from Mary Smith on Raverly. It was just the right size, free, and his face looked much cuter than all the other ones I had seen.

I really liked this pattern. It was really easy to follow, and got you to assemble as you went along, so you always had a little plushie to look at when you set the project aside, which I really liked.

I also learned how to do a reverse single crochet, which is what made the little white ridges on his shell. I had seen this stitch once before, when I made my crochet fox basket. I thought I had done it right then, but I definitely hadn't as it just looked the same as a normal single crochet! Oh well! It's nice to know how it's supposed to look now.

I was worried this would be quite hard as there was so many seperate parts, but it was really simple to follow, and I think I did a pretty good job. Kirk has since requested a Toad to go with Yoshi, so that might be coming soon too!

Yarn Used:

•  Robin Bonny Babe Aran:
• White.
• Caron Simply Soft:
• Lemonade.
• Autumn red.
• Kelly green.

Raverly project page.

Granny Ripple Baby Blanket

So I've already made one, slightly geeky, blanket for the baby, but I decided I wanted to make them just a plainish one as well. I wanted to do something granny but I've done so many granny squares so I decided to try a granny ripple instead.

I went with this Rainbow Blanket pattern from Raverly as it looked quite easy to follow for something I had never tried before. I decided to go with a coolish colour scheme and picked two shades of purple, green, and blue for the colours as they went really nicely together.

I'm really happy with how it turned out, but I wish I had done the start if it a little better, as it's not as pointy as the end row (the dark blue). I blocked it over the weekend, and was really happy with how those dark blue points turned out. I did get the light green side to be a bit more shapely, but I think I just did the starting chain and the first row a bit too tight, and it made the shape quite hard to get as the rows went on.

One side ended up quite tight as well, and seemed to get more squint the closer to the top I got, but overall I think it looks lovely, and I really doubt the baby is going to care if it's not super pointed on one side. I love the effect the zigzags have together, and the colour combo is just lush!

Yarn Used:

• Caron Simply Soft:
• Grape.
• Orchid.
• Blue mint.
• Robin's egg.
• Royal blue.
• Berry Blue.

Raverly project page.

Swimming Goggles Pouch

Have you guys ever gotten some free fabric from Spoonflower during one of their free swatch events? I first discovered it last year (I think) when they were giving away free swatches of their new eco-canvas fabric. I've yet to use it, but I have a cute little toast cushion by Asking For Trouble just waiting to get made. I was quite sensible in my choice last time because the toast cushion was test swatch size, so I basically got the whole kit for free.

However, a little while ago they were doing free swatches of their new sport lycra, and despite having no idea what I would make with a tiny square of lyrca, I ordered some in a Wild Olive print anyway, this cute Halloween one to be specific.

When it came I posted a photograph on Instagram and Mollie from Wild Oliver herself asked me what I was going to make. I had a little think and decided to make a pouch for my swimming goggles. I really want to try and swim more now I'm pregnant, and I thought lycra would be good for my swimming bag as it can cope with getting wet. I also thought it would mean as little cutting and sewing as possible, as stretch fabric is apparently quite hard to work with!

I'm quite impressed with how it turned out. I took my time so I didn't rage quit this one. I looked up my sewing book for how to sew stretch fabric, I swapped to a stretch needle for my sewing machine, I looked up the best stitch for stretch fabric (quite a tight zigzag one apparently) and got to work.

I just fold the fabric in half longways, and then sewed up the bottom and the other side, leaving a gap of a few inches at the top (which I had to snip on the folded side to make even) to make the drawstring area. I used some tips from this tutorial on the Purl Bee to give me an idea of how to sew the drawstring channels. Then I just trimmed the edges and fed some turquoise chord through the channels to make it tie.

The stitching could be a bit neater on the outside, but overall I think it looks good. It's all sewn together, it fits my goggles, and I only broke one needle while I was making it (I'm rubbish at not hitting pins!).

I also took the pictures on my desk in my craft room, and they definitely look a lot better than trying to take photos on my living room carpet!

This project is a step towards completing my New Year's List for 2015. You can check out my progress here.

Christmas Peg Doll

This week I decided to tackle the last two free Christmas kits I had in a bid to get rid of them. I still have a couple of decoration kits to make, but those were ones people gave me as presents, so obviously I don't count them as free kits.

First up, I tried to make a felt garland kit from Sew Magazine. Worth £7.99 it boasted! Honestly, it was the worst free kit ever. I ended up rage quitting and giving up on the whole thing.

The first step of the pattern was "trace shapes on paper based on the pictures". Oh come on! How long would it have taken you to draw up a template so we could at least get the same shapes on the go and work out where to place the template on the felt so it was going to leave me enough left over. The felt was cheap and nasty. The instructions were annoying. It was just awful. Teamed with me cutting the ribbon wrong and then forgetting to stuff the first decoration I made, I just gave up.

I had one other free kit from Sew Magazine, which was a peg doll Christmas tree decoration kit. She was super cute and I decided to give her a go.

Again I found the instructions not the best, and my kit was missing the screw to turn it into a decoration, but I decided to just stick the thing together the way I wanted, use mainly glue instead of lots of very visable sewing, and still come away with a cute little peg doll, after hunting down another screw that is.

She's quite wee, so it's quite hard to see her, but she's super cute. As with anything I make with a face, I really love her, even if her dress isn't as pretty as it should do and she's missing some wings. Whoops! But that's all my free Christmas kits finished!

And the lesson here is, Sew do rubbish free kits and should probably stick to the patterns they usually give away.

This project is a step towards completing my New Year's List for 2015. You can check out my progress here.