Knitted toddler hoody

 I haven't made anything for my son in quite a while now, and I really wanted this to turn out OK but..well you'll see. I picked this pattern, it has really good reviews on Ravelry and everyone else's seems to be brilliant...but for some reason I decided to do the 18 month size when my son is coming up to 24 months and is big! DOH

Way too small, the hood doesn't even go over his head lolol. Oh well I tried I'll add a bow on and save it for my daughter.

This is his camera face, whenever we take a photo of him now this is what we get!

Anyway, it really is a lovely and easy pattern I would recommend it, just pick the right size!

Stage one of wedding craft

Well I'm really not sure if I've mentioned it before but I am actually engaged, have been for 5 years now, we've done it a bit backwards and had the children first but we're now finally starting to plan our wedding..our extreme budget wedding I should probably add.
Like millions of other brides to be I've been scouring pinterest pinning endless ideas I'll never actually do but one I have attempted is the coffee filter roses that kept popping up.

I used this tutorial (which has the link to the free template) and well... to be honest mine have turned out a bit raggedy and ENORMOUS. The photo above is after one dip in red food colouring which has given the ends a nice pink tint but the rest of the petals have gone a dirty white...not exactly what I had in mind!
I'm persevering with it (well I have a packet of coffee filters, I may as well use them all! I think the main problem is the are so big, so next batch will have the last 2 layers of petals left off, we'll see how that looks..then of course theres the issues with the colouring. I might attempt a tea dip but I'm a bit worried that will just look like...well a used coffee filter lol

Heres some more pictures of my attempts anyway, the latest 3 havent been dyed yet.

And one final photo which is by far the best, I think I might end up just carrying my dd in front of me like a bouquet...

Toddler messy play

So my son is getting bigger and bigger, hes now started going to football classes, more and more identifiable words are coming out and hes getting harder to entertain! Having decided himself to drop his nap during the day, by 3pm hes grumpy, tired and irritable so what am I to do...MESSY PLAY! I'm pretty sure every toddler loves creating mess so an out of date bag of flour, a plastic serving tray and a whisk later we had this

Then we added water (and a lot more mess)

 He loved mixing it, squishing it in his hand, pouring the water and of course tasting it but it passed an afternoon, it was free and he loves it, Unfortunately afterwards I went in the kitchen to make a cup of tea and came back to this

Fast asleep, this quick 5 minute power nap added an hour onto his bedtime! sigh

Fan Lace Hat

Well we seem to have gone from Summer and straight into Winter here in England, its freezing, rainy and very very windy! Of course winter means...cute knitted baby hats yay!!!

Believe it or not this is the best photo I could get...

Overjoyed at her new hat as you can see but I love it anyway. Really quick to make and uses less than a skein of yarn! Click here for pattern.

Sew Prettty Homestyle baby quilt

So here it is.The quilt that has been on the go for YEARS! I originally started it as a gift for one of my neices, it is now for my own Daughter! Its from the Sew Pretty Homestyle book by Tilda, the embroidery designs are stolen from different projects in there (like this cafetiere)

Oh dear...I really should iron BEFORE I take the pictures! Also I swear its not wonky in real life!

All hand sewn using scraps from my stash so free, its in no way perfect but I am so proud of it! Also very relieved its finished as its been hanging around for years, been through..4 house moves with us (yeah we move alot)

My two favourite sections!

Crochet Shawl

Another catch up post, although this was made over a year ago, I have only just got round to posting it which is strange because it was actually one of my favourite makes!

No idea why its upside down, it wont turn round! Anyway I made this for my sister last christmas, really quick to make and nice and big so you can actually wrap it around you and not just drape it over your shoulders.

This is the pattern I used (free of course) Sidewalk Shawl from Red Heart.

If you are looking for something to make for christmas, this is fab and not too old fuddy duddy!

Im Back..this time I really am back I promise!

Ok looking back on my blog I see quite a few of these posts, saying I'm back and then disappearing. Well (hopefully) I am now back for good! I've gave birth to my beautiful (GIANT) daughter 5 weeks ago, a day after Prince George was born so just missed out on a coin, we've starting getting back to some normality now, getting a bit more sleep (thank god) so I've started crafting again!

At the moment I'm just finishing up a large project which has been on the back burner for about 3 years eeeeek, so that should be finished by the end of the week and I'm SO excited about posting the finished pictures, I'm so proud of it.

In the meantime I'll post the few projects I have completed during my time away from the blog, starting with my favourite, this beautiful knitted dress from Drops Designs (click for pattern)

 

No action shot yet as the weather has been unusually warm for England (yes I did give birth in a heatwave, I thought I was actually going to melt in hospital, we are not equiped for hot weather!) but I LOVE this dress and will definately be making it in bigger sizes as she grows. The pattern goes right up to age 3/4 so plenty of opportunities to make it again.

 

 

I'll be adding my other finished projects over the next few days.

 

 

 

 

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Worlds Slowest Crafter

I really cannot believe how slow I craft now. I currently have  projects I want to finish:

• Latch hook rug for Baby
• Crochet play mat for Son's cars
• embroidered throw from Sew pretty Homestyle book for Baby
• Cath Kidston Bag kit I got at Christmas..2 YEARS AGO! I haven't even started it. Its in the drawer mocking me...

This is without the MAHOOOSSIVEEE queue I am creating in Ravelry of things to knit for the baby! I at least need to buy some wool and print the patterns out to stick in my hospital bag...

I think I will prioritise my son's play mat. He really loves his toy cars so from now on that is No. 1 on my list!

My favourite sewing project...so far!

I thought I'd take a break from crochet, knitting and attempting to grow vegetables to show everyone the most useful thing I have ever made, my needle book.

It was one of the first 'proper' things I made. Its hand sewn, wonky and to be honest has seen better days but I just cannot bring myself to make a new one and replace it. The original pattern was from my trusty Sew Pretty Homestyle book by Tilda (one of my favourite pattern books to browse through, dreaming that my house actually looks like the pictures...) but there are many free patterns online if you search for them.

So if you are looking for a quick, useful project that uses hardly any material at all, make a needle book! Trust me it will get used.

Grow your own

Every year I have big plans on how I'm going to grow my own vegetables and come Summer/Autumn have an abundance of free veg to eat. Then every year my plants fail to grow and wither away and die having given off one pathetic shrivelled up tomato if I'm lucky!

Well this year I have a plan.. its not really money saving but I bought some grow your own kits...surely I cant do them wrong!! saying that this is what happened to a shop bought pot plant...

 

 

 

 Anyway, I'm being optimistic and this year have bought these

 

 

 

 

Courgettes, bell peppers, chilli peppers and the classic tomato. From reading the instructions they don't look too hard to start off...put the seeds in the dirt and leave on a windowsill. So this weekend I will be planting the ones that get sown in February and hoping for the best! I'm imagining in Summer being able to pop out to the garden with my new born baby to harvest some vegetables to make a lovely salad...

Granny Square Crochet Headband

Ok if you have seen my posts before you might guess I like a crochet granny square (here, and here) so when deciding what to make to start my crafting going again I of course had to turn to my trusty old friend, the granny square!

I wanted to make something useful and as this pregnancy seems to have made my hair CRAZY I decided on a hairband to mainly use when washing my face to keep my hair from getting wet and even more frizzy than it already is!

 

 

Mauv is NOT crafty!

I really think I should be renaming this blog Mauv is NOT Crafty! I have done nothing remotely craft related for months, I even BOUGHT a cake for my sons first birthday. Eugh whats happened to me!?!
I'm 17 weeks pregnant with a little girl and the tiredness kicked in at  4 weeks (as well as the horrendous morning sickness which thankfully has eased off now) that's what happened!! Being pregnant and looking after a toddler is very tiring!

Anyway, a very belated new years resolution - complete one small craft project per week OR one large project per month. That seems doable! I just need to decide on what to make now...


Mauv