Friday round up 18/01/2019

Happy Friday! I’m finally crawling out from the cloud of flu I’ve been under for this past week or so, I’m so glad because I had to miss crochet group last week and I was gutted. I’ll be there tomorrow so back to normal.

I’ve actually had 2 finishes this week! The first one is this adorable Gumball Machine from Super Cute Design. For a change I actually used the recommended yarn (Scheepjes Catona)  though I did make all of the gumballs turquoise to give it a Crochet Sanctuary vibe!

My second completed project is Mabel bunny from Wool Couture, this was a project from one of our Crochet Sanctuary weekends and I decided it was time to get it finished so I could gift it. I haven’t taken any pictures of it yet as I’m hoping to take some outside and today isn’t a good day for it (we have some weird snow and rain mix happening).

I always have a good clean up in my craft room during January, I go through my stash and take anything out I’m not going to use and go through all my WIPS from the previous year. I then decide what I am going to keep and finish, then what I will frog or bin. So far I have binned one, frogged two and brought one downstairs to work on in spare minutes (a c2c bunny cushion) I’m also working on something for the February Sanctuary so I obviously can’t share until after the fact! Both Lisa and I are really excited about Feb, it’s our Birthday month and we have some fantastic things planned for our guests.

Thanks for stopping by!

Lynda-Rose

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Happy New Year!

Well it’s January 1st! I really hope I do a better job of blogging this year as 2018 wasn’t exactly full of posts. I haven’t even managed to post about our first one day Crochet Sanctuary or our workshop at Amanda Blooms Grand Sale! (this was largely down to an ME flair up from overdoing it that weekend, I’m only just getting over it really. I’ll gather my photos and post about them soon though).

Today I went for a long walk with my lovely other half to Wigg Island nature reserve in Runcorn, I’ve wanted to take photos of my latest amigurumi finish for a while but the weather has been shocking whenever I’ve had the time. Inside photos would have been no good for Luna the Fox!

Pattern is: Fibi the Fox by Lalylala

Yarn is: Womens Institute soft and smooth aran (though two of the colours I have used are discontinued)

To make her huge I decided to hold the yarn double stranded, boy did it hurt my hands after a while but I love her! I decided not to make her a scarf seen as it would take an age so I browsed through my scarf box to find her something suitable.

I often walk around the local nature reserves with a bag of amigurumis to take photos of but today was certainly an experience for me (she is way to big to put in a bag and I had several children pointing at me and staring as I carried her lol). I managed not to drop her in any mud so today was a win.

Thanks for stopping by!

Lynda-Rose xx

Marshmallows

For years now I’ve wanted to have a Christmas tree (even just a little one!) with all hand made decorations. I thought this year would be the one but sadly it hasn’t happened! I always run out of time, but I do add a little to my collection each year.

This year I’m adding a few cute marshmallows, rather than have them hanging I think I might thread some wire through the back to secure them to a branch! They take very little yarn to make and I think I might make more with cute facial impressions instead of safety eyes.

You will need:

Scraps of DK yarn (I used Stylecraft Special DK in White and Candyfloss)

3mm crochet hook

5mm safety eyes

Black thread or a scrap of black yarn

 

Abbreviations:

Dc – double crochet

Inc – Increase – two double crochet in one stitch

BLO – back loop only

Inv dec – invisible decrease – insert hook in front loop of first stitch then straight into front loop of second stitch (three loops on hook). Yarn over, pull through two loops, yarn over pull through two loops

 

Pattern notes:

Place eyes in round 7, 6 stitches apart

Embroider mouth on round 10

For a more defined shape place a circle of card in the top of the marshmallow before adding stuffing and place a circle of card in the bottom before staring round 14

If you struggle to crochet row 16 after adding a circle of card omit the round, using a needle to sew in and out of the stitches in round 15 and pull tight to close

 

Method:

Using your chosen colour make a magic ring

Round 1 – 6dc into ring (6)

Round 2 – Inc in each st around (12)

Round 3 – Dc, inc. Repeat around (18)

Round 4 – Dc x2, inc. Repeat around (24)

Round 5 – In BLO dc around (24)

Rounds 6-12 – Dc around (24)

Add stuffing

Round 13 – In BLO dc around (24)

Round 14 – Dc x2, inv dec. Repeat around (18)

Round 15 – Dc, inv dec. Repeat around (12)

Round 16 –  Inv dec around (6)

Fasten off yarn and sew in end.

I would love to see any marshmallows you make! Tag me on Instagram, use #lyndascraftroom or drop me an email! Maybe I need to make a cup of hot chocolate now!

Thanks for stopping by!

Lynda-Rose xx

Relax, Unwind & Crochet – The November Crochet Sanctuary

I cannot tell you how amazing the early Christmas Crochet Sanctuary was! I thoroughly enjoy every sanctuary we hold but there’s something magical about a Christmas theme.

We kicked off the Friday with many glasses of bubbles and opening a Christmas gift!

Everyone seemed super happy about opening their box of 109 Scheepjes Catona Minis! You can watch a hilarious video here, make sure you have your volume up! We did tell everyone they were welcome to use their minis to decorate their Friday night project (a Christmas wreath) but we also had more than enough yarn in the display unit for them to use if they just wanted to take their minis home! Lets be honest, who would want to break into that box! It needed to go home and be stared at for a while.

On Saturday morning we started another project, an adorable angel! We decided to name her Tallulah, we left the guests to finish her name off with their own spin. My angel is called Tallulah Twinkle Tush

We had her sitting on the tree on the Friday evening and a couple of people asked me about her so I had to be a bit cagey (especially when Jill asked me about getting the pattern!)

After lunch we started an amazing workshop with Eleonora from Coastal Crochet. Everyone had a lot of fun with this one!

Sunday was so relaxing, can you believe the hotel surprised us with a full on Christmas dinner! It was AMAZING, Lisa and I rarely get a surprise at the Sanctuary so it was so fantastic of them. There was crackers on the table and even Christmas pudding for afters! (I had a chocolate orange mousse as I don’t go for Christmas pud lol)

All in all it was a hugely successful weekend, so much so that we’ve sold out of all of our 2019 dates! We have now added some day events to the website and they are steadily selling too so who knows how long they’ll be available.

Thanks for stopping by!

Lynda-Rose xx

Wool Couture

Lisa and  were lucky enough to go along to the Wool Couture shop opening about 10 days ago, it took us quite a while to get there as the traffic was horrendous! It was well worth the trip though, the shop is beautiful and full of lots of beautiful things! (I really need one of those huge yarn balls to sit in the corner of my craft room!

I actually managed to curb my spending and only bought this really cute Christmas pudding wreath kit.

We then travelled back to the shop on the Saturday as we had booked ourselves in for a macrame workshop! Lisa spotted that Mrs G had booked on and quite fancied going too, so we did and it was absolutely fab! It’s something I’ve never tried before but I really enjoyed it, we all opted to make a wall hanging and could choose whatever colour we fancied (I, of course went for pink).

It took a little while to get used to the knots, I had a real issue doing one of them but Claire was such a patient tutor and kept coming back to show me over and over until I managed to crack it!

Lisas Daughter Abby joined us for the workshop and as usual she took to it really easily and raced a head of the both of us, she even put her own spin on things and finished hers differently! Abby an I both opted for pink, Lisa on the other hand went for grey.

We finished the workshop by enjoying a nice cup of tea and a HUGE scone made by David (Claires son), they smelled so good I don’t think anyone actually took a photo of them. We smothered them with jam and enjoyed them with a cup of tea and a natter.

When I got home I told Paul all about the workshop and showed him my hanging, he’s decided he’d like to go on one of the workshops so it looks like I’ll be booking another one soon!

Thanks for stopping by!

Lynda-Rose xx