Latest project: Owl hat!

I have always loved the look of owl hats and have been meaning to make one myself.  Well, yesterday I finally did it!  I found a pattern but rather than doing the hat in the pattern I skipped ahead to the ears/eyes/nose and put them on a hat I made a while back.  The result?  Pre  tty freakin’ awesome, if I do say so myself!  I can see many more owl hats in my future…

 

And of course, you can check out the pattern at Repeat Crafter Me – Crochet Owl Hat
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I’m having a giveaway on Facebook!

I was just going to keep this to my Facebook page but I then decided to post up on my blog so everyone has a chance to be in to win!

I have reached 100 likes on my Facebook page and thought to say thank you I would do a little giveaway.  I was thinking something simple but Lauriel suggested one of the ruffle bags I made for Bronté and the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea!  I was going to just have the giveaway open to New Zealand likers because of the cost of international post (ridiculous!) but I am in a good mood and figured why not let EVERYONE have a chance!

So how do you enter?

Simple really.  All you need to do is like the The Anxious Hooker page on Facebook and then post a comment on the official giveaway post by 3pm on October 29th (NZ time).  I will select a winner using a random generator and then contact the winner on Facebook.  I am not making it until the winner has been announced because they will be given their choice of colours for the bag (I have a huge selection!).  If you are overseas and win you will probably be in for a bit of a wait, the bag will likely be posted around the 7th November and may take a week or two to arrive.  NZers you will hopefully have it in your hot little hands by the 7th November.

In case you don’t remember the bag, here it is.  I will post up a photo of my niecey-noo with her bag soon!

 

Made something for myself!

Yeap, you read that right.  After months of making things for other people (something I absolutely love being able to do!) I finally made something for myself.

I purchased some gorgeous yarn a couple of weeks ago and spent ages trying to find something to make with it… everything I found that appealed required chunky wool and I only had DK, it was disappointing but I figured I’d find something eventually.

THEN ‘Fiber Flux’ posted a link on Twitter to The Catarina Cowl and I knew I had found my project!!!

The cowl was super easy to make and would be a perfect project for a beginner, the only stitches required are a chain and double crochet.  I followed the pattern as far as length and width goes, but you can make it as long or wide as you want to.  I think if I did it again I would make it a little wider, but the length is pretty perfect.

(ugh excuse the major double chin in one of these photos…)

 

 

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Dear Bronté…

Today I finally got my niece’s little surprise package sent away!  The plan was to ‘just’ make her a crocheted bag, but I ended up getting a bit carried away and made her an applique Fish, Octopus and a Pig [that looks more like a fish and we called ‘FishPig’], I then made her a tiara, a headband and to top it off, a pair of slippers!  Oh.  And a bag of Skittles Desserts.

It makes me feel good to be able to do something for my niece, and for other people in general.  I don’t feel as if I have a hell of a lot to offer unless you enjoy reading my rugby articles or my erotica (oops, cover blown!).  I can’t draw, I can’t paint, I can’t model with clay, I can’t sing, I certainly can’t dance… but finally I have found something I can do to bring a tiny bit of joy to someone elses life.  Sure, a crocheted headband will probably be lost within the week, a crocheted bag will probably end up in the bottom of a toybox or wardrobe, a pair of crocheted slippers will no dobut become a single slipper within a matter of days…

– but for a moment there something I have created will bring someone joy or at least make them smile, and for me that is a pretty exciting thing!

 

Bronte’s ruffle bag

 

Bronté’s headband, as modelled by Emersyn

One of the slippers

The little applique buddies

Another completed project!

When one is given a whole lotta wool for her birthday, it is only right to make use of said wool!  I found a shawl on the bobwilson123 youtube channel  and decided to give it a go.

Like I have said before, we are huge fans of Outlander and I have a [not so] miniature obsession with Outlander-esque  items and decided I should probably make a shawl for Lauriel.  The shawl I made isn’t in Outlander-ish colours, but it is Outlander inspired.  Even though she doesn’t wear a lot of purple, I think she suits the colour, so a purple shawl it was!  I like the way the grey breaks it up a little bit!

 

 

If you want to check out the tutorial or the pattern, you can find them bobwilson123 ‘Crochet Rainbow Shawl’

A new project in the works…

This blog post could be long and drawn out, but instead I will make it short and sweet[ish].

Because October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, I thought it was a good time to make something in memory of my four angel babies.  I hate that I don’t have anything physical to hold on to (until recently anyway, Lauriel bought me a few little items because that is how awesome she is!) and I thought it might be nice to make a blanket in memory of each of them.  Nothing too extreme or big, just something simple that I can put away and take out when I feel the need to be ‘close’ to my babies.

I am going to do individual granny square blankets for each of my angels and perhaps a little hat for each.  I know a lot of people probably find the idea a little over the top, perhaps even plain ol’ weird, but it is what I feel I need to do to remember my babies.

I will, of course, post update photos along the way… my aim is to get the blankets all finished in October, hopefully it is manageable with exams to study for!

Pay it forward: Easy peasy barefoot sandals

I noticed a few days ago that Gabrielle and her friend were using loom bands to make… bracelety things for their feet, hooking around the toe and then going behind the foot, kind of like a sandal.  When looking on bobwilson123’s YouTube channel (something I do on a daily basis, I must confess!) I found some ‘barefoot sandals’, which let’s face it, look a LOT classier than bloody loom bands (yea, I’m not a loom band fan).  So I set about seeing just how ‘easy peasy’ these sandals are and was pleasantly surpised to find they were simple… so simple that if I had the patience, I could probably teach Gabrielle to make them herself.

But I do not have the patience required.  Trust me.

I made a pair for Gabrielle then decided to make a pair for her friend, Tilda, who she is having a sleepover with tonight.  Of course I can’t make something for one child without making something for the other kids, so Eloise and Emersyn also ended up with a pair… Aidan wasn’t such a fan so I am going to make him something else today.

Gabrielle’s barefoot sandals

Emersyn’s smaller barefoot sandals (I adjusted the # of stitches for these ones)

Eloise’s (on the left) are a different pattern but not a hell of a lot harder!

 

And it wouldn’t be a pay it forward post without the patterns, so here are links to the two tutorials, first for the ‘easy peasy barefoot sandals’, the second for the ‘triangle granny barefoot sandal’ that Eloise is wearing

bobwilson123 ‘Easy Peasy Barefoot Sandal’

bobwilson123 ‘Triangle Granny Barefoot Sandal’

I cannot recommend bobwilson123’s tutorials enough!!!  Prior to looking at her tutorials I could do a simple chain and a double crochet.  That was it.  But after looking through her channel and trying a couple of tutorials I found I could actually follow her step-by-step directions and create items that looked somewhat awesome!  She has hundreds of videos on her YT channel and all of the ones I have looked at have a link to a free written pattern.  I’m telling you, if I can follow her tutorials anyone can!

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Thanks for saving me from myself! Here, have a shawl.

Dear Wife…

 

How the hell do you thank the person who saved you from yourself?

I feel as though I wasn’t Lauriel’s wife for the first part of this year, rather I was the fifth child in the household.  I will probably always feel guilty for the way she had to prop me up over the first part of this year, mentally, emotionally, even sometimes physically while I cried.

How do you thank the person who lay in bed with you for hours while you cried?  How do you thank the person who told you repeatedly you weren’t stupid, an idiot, a moron, a waste of space.  How do you thank the person who put up with your mood swings?  How do you thank the person who didn’t yell back when you yelled at her?  How do you thank the person who essentially provided all the care for your children for a period of months?  How do you thank the person who always put you first and her kids last?

If you are me you shower that person with gifts of crochet.

Yeah, not exactly a fair trade is it?  You stopped me having a mental breakdown, here, have a capelet! And a shawl!

I feel as if I have nothing I can give, nothing that really explains or demonstrates just how grateful I am to have such an amazing woman in my life.  But I can crochet.  I can make her things.  I know a shawl or a capelet or… well, anything crocheted doesn’t seem like a big deal, but there is so much time and effort that goes in to each item.  More than that there is love.

While I am making something for her I find it impossible to not think about how lucky I am to have her, how lucky my kids are to have her, how lucky the world is to have her.  It takes a very special person to put themselves last and to spend so much time trying to reassure someone that they do matter, that their feelings are important… when most of the time it probably feels like talking to a brick wall.

One day I will find a way to truly thank her… but until then she will have to make do with a LOT of crocheted items…

A LOT.

Capelet – the finished product

I posted last week that I was going to make a capelet for Lauriel.  Surprisingly it was a lot easier than I thought it would be – and it was really fun to make – so I finished it in a very short space of time!  It used about 2 1/4 50gm balls of wall (at approx 100m per ball).  It was so fun to make I don’t think I would mind making another one!  That’s saying something!

Here is my beautiful wife modelling the capelet… I am thinking I may need to make her some Outlander-esque arm warmers to go with it now!

 

Pay it forward: Capelet (similar to one worn on Outlander)

This week we began watching Outlander and it is fair to say we were hooked from the first episode.  Along with the hot man in the kilt (duh) one of the things we love about the show is the costuming!  In the hunt scene Claire is wearing a cute little capelet and Lauriel mentioned on several occasions that she loved it.

So I did some searching online for a capelet pattern, hoping I would find one that was similar to the one worn by Claire in Outlander.

… and I think I found it!

photo credit: Mademoiselle Mermaid

 

Check the pattern out! Red Heart Yarns: Renaissance capelet