Happy Birthday, Cindy!

Time for me to do some more boasting about my hooky creations!

It was my youngest sister’s twenty-second birthday last month and I made her a hat.   This was my first attempt at making a hat for a grown up and I had a lot of fun with it.  I got the pattern off the Lincraft website, it’s called “Angora Beret” (see here).  My sister’s name isn’t ‘Cindy’ by the way, I had such fun creating pseudonyms for my children and husband (I named them after literary characters) that I thought I’d do the same for my siblings (named after our corresponding character in “The Brady Bunch”.  I would be Marcia.)

I spent a lot of time faffing about with the edging.  Everything I tried was either too over-the-top or too plain.  The final product is actually my original design!  It’s very simple (double, treble, picot, treble, repeat), but it came out of my own head!  I’m going to write it up as a proper pattern as I’m sure there’s a raging demand for patterns for lace edging.  Plus, this would seem like more of a legitimate blog if I had some bona fide patterns on it (instead of just boasting about projects and general natterings on)

Cindy, being a very kind sister, promptly plonked the hat on her head and said it would give her true hipster cred.  I didn’t mean for that last sentence to rhyme, but I’m so glad it did.

The Missing Messiah

I was talking to Mum yesterday and she said that the figurine of baby Jesus from her nativity set was missing.  Indeed, the young Messiah went AWOL directly after our last visit there when Christopher Robin had been playing with the figures.  You can do without a shepherd, perhaps, but a nativity scene really doesn’t work without a baby Jesus.  He really is one of the key players.  Perhaps Christopher Robin might know where it had been deposited?

Accordingly, after Christopher Robin came in from playing in the backyard, Grandma asks “Christopher Robin, do you know where baby Jesus is?”
Christopher Robin says “yes” tremulously.  Everyone catches their breath.
“Where’s Jesus, Christopher Robin?”
Christopher Robin pats his breast solemnly, “In my heart, Grandma”

Good to know his religious instruction is having an impact.

In case you were wondering, Grandma’s Baby Jesus is still at large.

Greetings from Beautiful Bells Beach

I thought I might send you a virtual postcard from this glorious section of paradise where we’ve been whiling away the past two weeks.

We’ve been really spoiled for holidays this year as Mr Knightley has taken long-service leave.  Speaking of Mr Knightley, this visual gag was his idea and I was so excited by his taking an interest in my humble blog that I almost fell over myself hooking these bells up.

This pattern is different from the one I used for Nan’s Christmas Bell. These were lots of fun to make and can be whipped up really quickly.  I found them at Handcrafted’s lovely blog.

After I took these pictures, in a rather lame attempt at yarnbombing, I decided to leave the bells there to brighten someone’s day, then immediately regretted it as we were pulling out of the carpark.  A surfer had stopped to glare at the display with his hand on his hip, shaking his head in disgust.  Oh no!  I didn’t mean it!  Had I just littered?  Was I destroying the fragile ecosystem of the coastal reserve?  Would I return to find echidnas strangled by my little bells and wallabies in the last stages of wool-poisoning?  Just what is the protocol for yarnbombing anyway?

Maybe I should go back after a bit and take them down.

And bring a shovel for all the dead endangered wildlife.

Manic

When we last left our hero, she was valiantly struggling with a colossal problem:  how to make this Christmas bell look less odd and forlorn?  And in only two days?

The answer?  Fight crochet with crochet!

Somehow, I got it into my head that the best way to lessen the impact of one wonky bell was to whip up SEVERAL wonky ornaments to put all over the tree.  At least then they’d be co-ordinated…

It was at this point that things got a little manic…

First of all, I hooked up a bunch of snowflakes whilst watching a very old and incredibly sexist James Bond movie with Mr Knightley (“Oh, James, it might seem like I am resisting your advances, it might sound like I’m saying ‘no’ emphatically, but just slap me round a bit and I’ll suddenly find you irresistible!”)

I love making these snowflakes.  There is an excellent tutorial for them here, at my beloved Attic 24 (incidentally, it was this very tutorial that first introduced me to the many wonders of this delightful blog)

I pinned them out for blocking. I usually spray them with laundry spray, but I couldn’t find any so I painted them with watered down PVA glue instead (when I found it.  The real life version of what went on here was much more manic).  Here you can see Harry going after one of the “lollypop” pins (not for the last time!).

After I made up this batch, I happened to read an awesome post by The Stitch Sharer on crochet snowflakes (by complete co-incidence, it was so weird!), which gave me the idea for this snowflake:

It’s basically Lucy’s “small” snowflake, but with treble stitches throughout instead of doubles and 5-chain loops in the last round.  I drew up a really-truly pattern for it here

Ah what fun!

So, things were looking a little better – but! – I thought, in renewed manic frenzy – what about the TOP?  It needs something on the TOP!  The whole thing is rubbish without something on the TOP!!

After much complicated deliberation (a-star-would-be-simpler-but-looks-too-much-like-a-snowflake) which I won’t bore you with here, I came up with this:

I had already been playing around with 6ichthusfish’s pattern for a nativity set (as you do) which I first saw here.  So I took my Mary head and body and put wings and a halo on her.  And I left the bottom open, so it’s kinda like a finger puppet.  Then I stuffed the Christmas tree up the skirt…

And what is the result?

Not too bad, I guess.

And my beautiful mother-in-law, of course, made all the appropriate exclaiming noises (of happiness, I mean, not of disgust).  So I guess things aren’t so bad after all.