Bow Ties and a trendy Mum

When your children ask that you make them something do you feel really proud that they want something made by you and jump to it straight away, forgetting everything else that needs doing? I don't get asked to make things very often now as my boys are both teenagers, and beyond the soft toys and dressing up costumes. So when my son asked me to make him a bow tie (thanks Dr Who!) I jumped at the chance to prove that I was not just the person who washes their clothes and puts dinner on the table, I too was once young and trendy and could do more than just homework supervision and taxi service.

This was my first attempt at making the bow tie.  I swear it took longer to learn to tie the thing than it did to make it.  Have you ever tried to tie a bow tie - we got so confused, but with the help of several diagrams and youtube videos, we managed it as you can see.

This is the second bow tie I made. I think I like this one better although it doesn't really show off the cartoon fabric very well, perhaps a smaller pattern would have looked better.  But my son was happy, and for once I was a trendy mum in life as well as my imagination.

butterflies

Wow, that was a long break in posts! But I'm back now and hope to update this blog a little more often.

I have a new blog up and running, click here to visit. The aim of this new blog is to showcase my own patterns and designs, many of which have been published in magazines, and some of which will soon be for sale through my Etsy shop, so its more of an online portfolio than a blog, but if you're interested, then hop on over and have a look.

I thought I'd share a couple of the things I have been working on today. I found a pattern for 3d butterflies here and so decided to make some.

I made this one using 4ply cotton (dmc natura, my favourite cotton for crocheting, and no i'm not sponsored by them in any way!), and popped it on a hair slide for my daughter.

Then I decided to make a tiny one using thin crochet cotton. This time I made it into a necklace

My mind works in very mysterious ways, and while I had the crochet yarn and tiny hook out, it turned to jewellery. Nothing at all to do with the butterflies I'd been enjoying making, but this time I made a flower ring. It was a little plain so I decided to add a few seed beads into the centre, and this is what I ended up with.

A quick and pretty ring. I think I'm going to make a few more of these as they were so quick and easy to make.

Winter Yarn bomb

After the success of our September yarn bomb, when the weather was nice and sunny, we decided in our wisdom that it would be a good idea to create a yarn bomb at the start of the term after Christmas.  So after deciding on a theme (snowflakes & icicles) we set to work. Big mistake! We ended up decorating yesterday in the coldest, wildest weather the UK has had for years.  We soon learned to hold tightly to every snowflake as we tied them to the tree or the wind would whip them across the playground, resulting in us charging through the mud and puddles to retrieve them. Our poor fingers were so frozen we had difficulty sewing the tree sock to the tree, and we had to make sure everything was well secured, or we risked the tree being bare by the next morning.  Luckily we had a few extra hands to help, and we were done in less than an hour.  Overnight here the weather was even worse – the wind was howling and the rain was absolutely hammering down and all I could think about was how our poor snowflakes were faring.  So this morning I went up to the school with my fingers firmly crossed and yippee – the tree was still dressed

and the quiet area still had its decorations too.

Phew, what a relief. 
Just for your amusement, here is the difference a term has made:
September

January

Lessons learned from the latest yarn bomb – wait until summer!