Crackin’ Crafters

 

After my research the other week into knitted egg cosies I was fully prepared to get going on our work Easter project to decorate some eggs along the theme of the type of work we do.

For those that don’t know I am an agriculture PhD student in an agroecology department of a research institute. This means that the type of work we do, the theme around which the eggs should be decorated, is anything to do with agroecology. Essentially this is everything that is found in a wheat field, except the wheat. Not a simple task.

 

Together with some of my colleagues (also very crafty people!) we set to work to create a display on the theme of farmland biodiversity so we had a knitted soil together with colourful bacteria and fungi sewn on, crochet wheat and weeds and then for the main event we knitted egg cosy insects and sewed them on to the eggs so they could be suspended from above to create a 3D scene! I knitted an egg cosy to look like a greenfly or aphid. We also had a ladybird, a bee and a moth.

We also had to come up with a team name and as egg-related puns seemed to be the theme of the day we decided to go with “Crackin’ Crafters” and created an embroidery stitch sampler to showcase our team name!

We were all so proud of our display, despite its Blue Peter like appearance – and given the difficulty of the theme I thought we did really well. There were loads of amazing entries, no other knitted ones though!! It was a really fun day and a great way to make us all think differently about our work and get a it crafty!to create an egg themed display around the type of work we do.

If you want to find out more about what its like to work as a PhD student in my department you should definitely check out my friends blog about the trials and tribulations of an agriculture PhD (she’s the one who made that amazing ladybird!!)

Pinterest Inspiration: St. Patrick’s day

Happy St David’s day for yesterday!

St. Patrick’s Day is coming up on the 17th of March so now is the perfect time to get making some Ireland inspired goodies! Whether its knitting or crochet I have scoured Pinterest and found some fun makes for you to try,

St. Patricks Day – 17th March 2016

 

If it’s a quick make you are after this garland of shamrocks could be just the thing for you. The perfect way to show your love of everything Irish!

You can find the free tutorial over on Everything Etsy.

 

 

 

For a more advanced crochet make these little leprechauns are just adorable! They would make the perfect mantelpiece decoration or present.

 

 

If crochet is not really your thing – don’t worry! You can still make yourself a leprechaun if you really must. This knitted leprechaun is also available over on Alan Dart .

 

 

 

 

 

If decorations are not really your thing but you still want to celebrate St. Patrick’s day, why not go for a more subtle option and check out these shamrock inspired mittens by Spilly Jane. The pattern is available on Ravelry.

 

Do you love to get lost in the beautiful world of Pinterest? Leave your user name in the commetns below and I’ll be sure to check out your profile! If you want to see the rest of my pins you can find me here.

Pinterest Inspiration: Valentines

Pinterest inspiration is my place to show you what I’ve been falling in love with recently over on Pinterest. This is one of my favourite place for finding inspiration and I can easily loose a couple of hours pouring through all the beautiful things to make.

Valentines

I don’t like Valentines Day. There, I said it. I know loads of people love this sort of thing but I don’t like smushy stuff. I do however like making stuff, so I thought I’d see if I could find things to make that are Valentine’s day themed to see if I could be convinced in time for Valentines day!

I couldn’t bring myself to actually search for Valentines crafts in Pinterest so I decided to just trawl through my boards and see if I could find some tenuous links to Valentines-themed stuff. First up is this hat. I actually saved it because I really like this stitch pattern and I guess it kind of looks like little hearts! Team this with the dusty pink colour and you’ve got yourself a Valentines hat! This pattern is available over on Ravelry.

 

There’s also this cowl. It is not smushy at all even though it has heart shapes in the lace pattern. The super brains amongst you may remember that I started knitting up this pattern but grew frustrated with my poor lacework skills at the time. Now I have had a bit more practice I hope to return to this pattern soon so keep your eyes peeled for that! The pattern is by Ambah O’Brien and is available on Ravelry.

 

 

 

What says Valentines day more than jewellery and flowers? Well you can combine the two with this crochet flower ring! I found this via the Mollie Makes Pinterest account along with lots of other flower-based makes. Original post is here.

 

 

 

 

 

Well, that’s certainly enough Valentines-based crafting for me – and I didn’t even have to make any of them! What about you do you love Valentines day and all its smushy romanticness or do you like to stay away like me?

Do you love to get lost in the beautiful world of Pinterest? Leave your user name in the comments below and I’ll be sure to check out your profile! If you want to see the rest of my pins you can find me here.

Pinterest Inspiration: Christmas Crafting

I’m so excited its nearly Christmas!

In just one week I finish work and I cant wait to fully get into the Christmas spirit. In the meantime I have been scouring Pinterest for some Christmas crafting ideas and I thought I’d share some of them with you here:

First of all check out this great way to upcycle old jumpers into Christmas decorations!

I also love this cute Reindeer hat…do you think I could get away with making one for myself?

Or for the more mature amongst us what about these gorgeous Reindeer ornaments

There’s so many great ways to bring a little bit of Craftiness to Christmas, you can see even more great ideas on my new Pinterest board: Christmas crafting.

Do you make your own Christmas ornaments or do you love to buy new each year? If your anything like me you will have a mish mash from across the years of shiny trinkets that caught your eye, some home crafted ones and everything in between!

H.

Pinterest Inspiration: October

Sorry for the late post in my monthly Pinterest Roundup series. I probably sound a bit like a broken record at the moment but everything really is very busy at the moment. Decorating is well under way at the new house and I am now half way through my placement so my work will also be going back to normal after Christmas so hopefully then things will calm down a bit. For my October Pinterest roundup I would like to indulge in one of my guilty pleasures! Occasionally I get stuck in a bit of a Pinterest vortex and keep clicking through the related pins. This means that once I get stuck on a topic I can get lost for hours finding lots of pretty things to make. This month I got was caught in the trap of Big Bang Theory inspired crafts!

Here are some of my favourites:

Firstly this amazing cross stitch pattern featuring all of the gang! I love how you can immediately tell each character from their charicature despite the simplicity of the pattern.

Still on the embroidery theme is this chart explaining the rules of Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock. Amazing.

Finally, how adorable is amigurumi Sheldon!

What have you been pinning this month? Why not add a link to your Pinterest account in the comments, I’d love to see what you’ve all been admiring!

H.

Phone Cosy (aka Secret WIP reveal #1)

So, you might remember last week I mentioned I couldn’t really reveal too much of what I am working on at the moment as it is all for presents. Well, the first gift has been received (Happy Birthday for last week Mum) and so now I can reveal what it was.

My mum wanted a new phone cover as hers had got stained a yellowish colour from the material inside her handbag. So I decided to make one from this yellow yarn I had in my stash so that if the same were to happen again it would not be too noticeable.

I decided to follow this pattern over on Ravelry to make a lovely texture using a mixture of single and double crochet stitches.

 I really like the stitch patterns it makes as it looks really intricate but at the same time was quite simple to make.

Hopefully it fits my mum’s phone nicely and if I get a move on with making more presents I will have some more things to show you very soon!

H.

Amazing crochet designs

Dont you just love it when you find an amazing new designer! Well, this is what happenend to me today! As you do I was just browsing Ravelry, not because I needed to find a new project (I definitely dont – I have way to many WIPs on the go at the moment!) but just because its so easy to get absorbed in all the loveliness.

Any way I stumbled across a gorgeous blanket pattern and got lost in a rabbit warren of looking at all the projects associated with it!

This was the blanket that cost me a few hours of my life…but I think it was worth it!

Looking through everyones projects you begin to see what an amazing pattern it is and so versatile when done in different colours. I think if I were to make it I would stick with white (or maybe cream) as the main colour and then maybe some richer colours than those used here for the rest…perhaps some lovely jewel tones.

So after having spent quite a lot of time admiring this pattern I decided to investigate the designer. Her website provides a haven of beautiful crochet patterns.

Now I just need to find the time to make some of them. Perhaps these could end up as cushion covers?

Have you found a new designer recently I would love to here about them – after all I cant possibly have seen half of the great patterns on Ravelry yet!

H.

Pinterest Inspiration: September

Wow! Can you believe its October already and I didn’t even notice it coming until today!

As I didn’t realise it was nearly the end of the month I hadn’t really been thinking about this post but turns out I’ve found lots of lovely things on Pinterest in September. Mostly because I went down a bit of a rabbit hole looking at geometric crochet patterns. Not really because I have any intention of making something any time soon but just because I love them all!

Here are some of my favourites:

Don’t you just love those geometric patterns! I guess what I really like is how a traditional craft such as crochet can be made to look so modern

What have you been pinning this month? Why not add a link to your Pinterest account in the comments, I’d love to see what you’ve all been admiring!

H.

Pinterest Roundup: August 2015

August is almost over, and we get the keys to our new house tomorrow! Unfortunately this means my month has been largely free of crafting as most of my possessions are packed away ready for the move and I have been too busy packing and getting excited about the new house to do anything anyway! I’m guessing there will be a lot more home-décor crafting coming my way over the next few months!

Despite, my lack of actual crafting I have been able to fill the void by looking at all the beautiful things that I could be making over on Pinterest. Here’s a round up of some of my favourites from this month!

I think given the amount of time I have spent knitting my shawl recently (it is the only thing I haven’t packed) I should be fed up of shawls but look how beautiful this one is! I think its crochet rather than knit but the link through to the pin is not very detailed and the pattern is too small to read really but if any one figures it out it is beautiful!

 

 

 

I think I have definitely had crochet on the brain recently as the next  two pins that I have loved this month are also crochet and as I don’t really like hot weather I am getting really excited about the Autumn coming and being able to wrap up warm I have picked this lovely colourful blanket and these really cute hats!

 

Finally, (its another crochet one I’m afraid) perhaps a sign of things to come for the new house is this beautiful crochet cushion cover. I love how the stitch pattern creates diagonal checks whilst the colours are checked horizontally and vertically.

 

 

 

You can find these and more beautiful pins over on my Pinterest account.

H.

 

Pinterest Roundup: July 2015

Wow! July has been and gone and I’ve not made a great deal but I really love the things I have made like my Gingham blouse.  I have also seen so many great things over on Pinterest to fill me with inspiration for next month! here are some of my favourites:

Look at this cute crochet blanket, I really like the simplicity of it whilst still being bright and colourful!

I’m also loving the new Zeena dress pattern from ByHandLondon, aswell as this other new dress pattern (I think it might be Buttericks)

 

and what about this gorgeous cross stitch bee!

 

You can find these and more beautiful pins over on my Pinterest account and be sure to check out the new board I have just created filled with sewing tips!

H.