How do you make an elephant?

One stitch at a time, of course 😄

Well, I finally girded my loins and got started on the elephant Amanda (my sister) has asked me to make for a charity event.  I did a Google search for crochet elephant patterns and came across quite a few but I found this 1940s Crochet Elephant pattern rewrite very appealing, so decided to give it a whirl.  

This is my progress thus far.  I'm using Aran yarn leftover from the Christmas Gift Blanket, and a 4mm hook instead of the recommended 5mm to make a tighter fabric.  I'm quite pleased, to be honest, with how it's working out ~ as I've mentioned before, my crochet projects are usually very simple affairs!  This is a pretty straightforward pattern but when I read through the instructions before making a start, it did occur to me that I could perhaps make some slight alterations.

As you can see, the elephant's blanket is crocheted after the main part of the body has been worked and I must admit that I found the head-end in particular a tad unwieldy during the process.  I would much prefer to make the whole of the body in one piece, and make a separate, removable, blanket.  I decided to follow the pattern for this first attempt but will see if I can get my head around making those little alterations that have popped up in there.  Methinks I have some brain-scrambling ahead of me, judging by the number of attempts I had to make to get that last tissue-box cover how I had envisioned the bloody thing in my head!

My sister-in-law has asked if I could also make one for her birthday in June and Amanda's charity event isn't until later next year, so at least I have a few months to work it out 😉

A little bit of crochet

Just a handful of things I've cobbled together recently 😊

I've been thinking about the amount of empty plastic bottles we seem to generate and came to the conclusion that we really don't "need" shower gel when we could be using bars of soap.  By a stroke of good fortune I had already come across a pattern for soap-saver bags (unfortunately I can't now remember on which site I saw it), and decided to make a bag each for hubby and I to (hopefully!) make it easier using bars of soap in the shower.  I had a rummage around in my stash of natural fibre yarns and came across these variegated beauties in my favourite colour: blue!  Bonus points for our new upstairs bathroom having been painted blue and white LOL

It's a really simple pattern.  Just make a length of chain the same as the width of your bar of soap, crochet (I used UK double crochet)  along it as normal then continue back to the beginning along the other side of the starting chain stitches.  Keep going round and round until the bag is a suitable length for your soap.  Although I made these bags in the round, they could just as easily be made as a single piece of crochet (would have to make the starting chain twice the width of your bar of soap) with one side and the bottom sewn/crocheted together.  Or, of course, keep to the width of the soap and crochet the body of the bag twice the length and sew up the two long sides! I then crocheted a fairly long length  of chain and threaded it through the top to make a drawstring and hanging loop.  Easy-peasy!

We still have a couple of bottles of shower gel to use but I will try to remember to let you know how we get on with this soap bag option.

I also made some more dishcloths, two in a waffle stitch pattern and the other a simple rectangle of (UK) half trebles.  I do love  my handmade dishcloths!

And after all that, I had enough oddments left to finish off another little kitten blanket for Orkney Islands Cats Protection.

It seems that my crochet mojo is coming back, so I'm hoping to now get stuck into the two rather large WIPs that have been hanging around for quite some time.  I'll share more of those soon 😊

Kitty blankets

Orkney Islands Cats Protection put out a call for kitten-sized blankets some months back, and since I had a fair few balls of "oddments" I pitched in and crocheted a few:  

My odds and ends of yarn are all used up now, so no more kitty blankets for the time being.  I'm feeling the crochet-bug settling in again once more, though, so I guess it won't be too long before I have some oddments for yet more kitty blankets! 

Sawdust Hearts

WW1 Hearts

As I mentioned yesterday, I've been working on a contribution to an art project ~ my very first one!  It is to commemorate the centenary of Armistice Day, and also to help raise funds for Combat Stress who are a charity for veterans' mental health issues.

Untangled Threads have made sawdust-filled calico hearts ~ 1,568 in fact, which represent one heart for each day of the war ~ which are replicas of those made in WW1.  During WW1 thousands of these kits were commercially produced and distributed to both soldiers and civilians. 

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I have been strangely nervous about taking part in this exhibition, and put off actually doing anything with the pincushion right up to the last minute, bearing in mind it had to be back in Scarborough by the 31st July!  In the end I decided that the best way forward was to stop procrastinating, make something simple, and stick with what I know, hence the yarn 😉  It made it into the post on Thursday, so hopefully it'll be at its destination in time to meet the deadline!

I trawled online for a simple but effective crocheted poppy pattern, and changed it slightly by working the centre in black rather than red as in the original; I also made a black crochet granny heart.

I poked about on ebay and found some rather lovely vintage black buttons for the centre of the poppy.

In honour of the fact that this is a pincushion, I attached the heart and three poppies using black glass-headed pins.....

.....and added the date using the pins supplied with the kit.

As I say, in the end I made something very simple but nevertheless I'm still very pleased with the end result 😊

Chocolate & WIPs...

We are now on Day Four of retirement.....and we are still on speaking terms 😉

Despite Adrian being adament that he wanted no fuss over his retirement, his boss sent him home on his last day in the office with this rather sweet puffin cake ~ Adrian has a real soft spot for these comical little birds!  

He also received this rather yummy chocolate bottle from the staff of a company he has had regular dealings with over the many years he was in his last working position.

His own work colleagues were very sneaky and sent him a card signed by all of them, as well as some staff who no longer work in the office, which was rather lovely.  They also included a very nice birdwatching book ~ as I pointed out to him, there was no presentation in the office LOL

I'm still in blanket-making mode ~ this is destined to be a gift for my sister-in-law's birthday in June.  It's  the art deco crochet blanket pattern (which I have used before) from Jane Brocket's book The Gentle Art of Knitting.  I am using Stylecraft Special DK yarn (if I remember rightly, the pattern uses an aran-weight yarn) and a 4.5mm hook, and I decided to mimic the original colours fairly closely.

It's a nice, simple blanket to crochet.  Once the foundation and pattern-setting rows are in place, the work progresses with a rather lovely gentle rhythm and grows most satisfactorily.

I have also made a start on blanket number three for Blankets for the Homeless.  I shared blanket number two with you in this post yesterday, and my friend left the following interesting comment:

"One thing I don't understand, is why people are making crocheted and knitted blankets for the homeless? I don't like them for use outside, they snag and unless doubled are pretty cold in the wind. They also need extra care and are bulky. Personally, if I were on the road, in an alley, or in a box, I would want something easier to maintain and move from place to place. Is it just me?"

I hadn't really thought about the points she raised before, to be honest, so I had a little cogitate.  Blankets for the Homeless take all the completed blankets to various homeless shelters, so I would have thought that if they were unsuitable then the shelters would say something.  I think that if I were a homeless person, the very fact that someone, a complete stranger, had taken time to knit or crochet a 4'x6' blanket for a person in my position would be very comforting and appealing.  Every time I would wrap myself up in that colourful, cheerful, handmade blanket I would be reminded that I had been in someone's thoughts and kind actions, if only for a little while 😊   

Another blanket

This Gollum meme really tickled me so I thought I would share it with you, too 😄

I must admit that provided I make the effort to sew in yarn ends as I go along, I really don't mind doing it.  Leaving them all to the end, though, is just so demoralising and rather takes the joy out of making the project!

And here is my second blanket for Blankets for the Homeless.  I used one of my favourite patterns to make it: the ordinarily extrordinary blanket by Tif (aka Dottie Angel).  It's such a simple pattern and grows very quickly, which is always rather gratifying!  I still have grey yarn leftover from the granny square blanket I made for BftH, so I used it here to make a simple edging of one round of half-trebles followed by a round of double crochet. I'll get it sent off next week.

I have made a start on a third blanket (still got plenty of those single balls of yarn to use up!) but it has now been temporarily put to one side so that I can concentrate on the blanket I'm making for my sister-in-law's birthday.  Hopefully, photos of that one will be  coming shortly 😊 

Stash busting

I have a lot of yarn and a good deal of it seems to be single balls which have caught my eye for one reason or another.  So in the spirit of continuing the sorting-out ready for moving, I decided that the yarn stash really needs to be given a serious trim!  I thought that it would be good to use up some of those odd balls making blankets for a charity, and whilst doing a search for a charity looking for blankets I came across Blankets for the Homeless.  They are looking for folk to crochet/knit squares or strips, or to donate yarn.  The squares are then sewn together by volunteers to make into blankets of about 4' x 6'.    

I found quite a lot of smaller oddments of yarn in my stash, and decided to use up those first before moving on to the single balls.  To give a bit of unity to the squares, I crocheted the last round of each one using grey yarn.  I also used the grey yarn to join the squares together, and to make a narrow border around the completed blanket.

And here is the finished article!  It may not be the most attractive blanket in the world, but was made with love and will hopefully help to keep someone in need warm 😊