Free flower pattern!

Hello there!

I've not been posting much recently, but I have been crocheting. As you can see above, I've made yet another pair of baby shoes, this time in a lovely yellow cotton/bamboo mix yarn that has been sitting in my stash box for a while, waiting for me to do something with it. You can't tell from the photo, but it is quite lovely and silky and soft. When I finished the shoes I had plenty left, so I decided to make a matching hat. A quick look through the many free patterns available on Ravelry, and I found the Josie Posy pattern and crocheted it in no time! Then I needed to make a flower to decorate it with, and I remembered a flower pattern I'd used for a pram blanket when my children were babies. That meant another search, this time through my own written-up patterns, and I found it! My mother had taken the time to type up the pattern on her old Remington typewriter, it must be around 25 years ago. She typed it on very thin "typing paper" (does anyone remember that?) so I'm amazed it was still in one piece. Anyway, I decided to reproduce the pattern here, so at least if the original does get ripped or lost, I'll be able to find it here on my computer. 

You can use any size of yarn and hook as long as they correspond to each other. I mean if you use a thick yarn you'll need a big hook, and if you use a finer yarn you'll use a smaller hook, of course. It uses two colours of the same weight yarn.

This pattern uses the following stitches:

Ch = chain

ss = slip stitch

dc = double crochet (US terms) treble (UK terms)

trc = triple crochet (US)  double treble (UK)

qrc = quadruple crochet (US) triple treble (UK)

With Colour A, make 7 ch and join in a ring with a ss.

Rnd 1: 3 ch, 19 dc into the ring, join with ss in top of 3 ch.

Rnd 2: * Miss next st (1 dc, 1 trc, 3 qrc, 1 trc, 1 dc) in back loop of next st and mark this st, miss next st, ss in back loop of next st, rep. from * to end but do not mark sts. Fasten off.

With Colour B, join yarn to front loop of marked st, and work as follows:

Rnd 3: * Miss next st, 7 dc in front loop of next st, miss next st, ss in front loop of next st, rep from * to end. Fasten off.

And the winner is...

Thanks to the people who took part in my first giveaway. There were only five of you, so the chance of winning was actually rather high, but there can only be one winner:

Well done Jen! Please let me know which felt owl brooch you would like and send me your mailing address so I can send the goodies to you.

I was initially a bit disappointed at the lack of interest in the giveaway, but there again I write the blog mostly for myself and for lovely people like you! I will continue to write the blog regardless, albeit not very regularly, and will post my creations and patterns and some thoughts and recipes too for my faithful folllowers.

Anyway, this weekend I made some red baby shoes:

and I bought a lovely Longchamp bag at a car boot sale for 2 euros:

Have a lovely week.

Giveaway reminder

This is the owl keychain that's up for grabs in my first blog anniversary giveaway. It comes with your choice of owl brooch and a few other goodies. See this post for details. There's only a week left so if you want to take part, please leave a comment before 12th June!

A walk around the château

Today I went for a very pleasant walk around the Château de Voltaire. It's a lovely historic building where the philosopher Voltaire lived from 1758 until his death, and it's very close to where I live. This weekend the gardens were open to the public all day (there are usually quite restrictive opening times) and I went for a wander.

The garden isn't one of these fancy French gardens, full of sculpted bushes and fountains. It's still fairly "sauvage" and is partly surrounded by woods. The sculpted hedges I did see look rather overgrown...

and the fountain was full of weeds and looked as if it hadn't seen water for decades (centuries?). I rather liked the little statue standing in the once-was fountain.

but it was obvious that no water had been through that sprinkler for quite some time.

There were some very nice secluded parts,

and I loved this seat.

A wander down this path

Brought me to a surprise... bee hives and bee keepers!

They were busy finding the new queen in a hive in which the previous queen had left, or died, and I had a very interesting conversation with the bee-keeper.  Once they had caught the new queen, they painted a white dot on her back so that she could be easily recognised. Here she is!

We are very lucky that there is not too much pollution, and the bees have easy access to the great variety of trees in the park, all of which grow naturally and with no pesticides or other chemicals.

While we're talking about plants and insects, I wanted to share a recent photo of my strawberries... since this picture was taken they've all been eaten, but we're usually lucky enough to get a second lot later in the summer. For now, admire these beauties:

Bye bye for now, and remember to take part in my giveaway! 

Happy Blogversary to me - and my first giveaway!

Today my blog is a year old!

When I started it on 29 May 2010, blogging was something new for me and I just thought I'd give it a try. I'd only learned about amigurumi a couple of months earlier and I'd not made anything out of felt since I was in primary school! And between you and me, it was rare that I keep anything going for more than a few weeks. However, with this blog, the novelty has not worn off.

One year later I'm on my 62nd post and I have written six original crochet patterns, not to mention my felt creations, and I've typed up five of my favourite recipes. The blog contains 113 comments, and to date I have 44 followers. The most popular page is the Chubby Teddy pattern, that has alone had almost 16,000 page views.

This special anniversary has prompted me to offer my first giveaway! The giveaway has an owl theme (just because I like owls). To enter, all you need to do is leave a comment below telling me how I can improve the blog. Would you like more free patterns? How about a felt creation tutorial? Or some more recipes? What do you think of the new free colouring pages? Would you like to buy anything on the blog? Should I think about opening a shop? Et si je bloguais en français?

You can leave a second comment if you're a follower, to increase your chances of winning. Please make sure I know how to contact you, either by including your email address in your comment or sending it to my email address (see my profile). The winner of the giveaway will be chosen randomly and will receive:

One felt owl brooch of your choice (remember to mention which one you would like if you win).

An owl keyholder (if you want to make your own, it's a free Ravelry download by Susanne Madsen)

An owl rubber stamp, and some free samples of my favourite French lotions and potions.

The giveaway is open until Sunday 12th June. Please share the news about it on your own blog so that everyone can join in. If this giveaway is a success, there will be more, I promise!

Free colouring pages, for a change

Sorry I've not been blogging recently. The explanation, or rather the explanations, are two small humans, aged 5 and 3 who are spending two weeks on holiday here with us. As my youngest child is now 14 and way taller than me, I'm used to having "grown-up" conversations with him, and having to explain and keep an eye on the little ones during every single instant that they're awake is very different! I've had no time to blog and hardly any time to crochet.

Instead, I've rediscovered colouring in (great fun!) and rather than printing stuff out, I prefer to draw pictures myself for the children to colour in with pencil crayons or felt-tip pens. I managed to scan three of them before they were used so that I could make them available here on my blog, and readers can print them out for your own little ones to colour in. If you click on the images they'll open up in a new window and I think you should be able to print them on A4 paper (you might have to "save as..."). As well as the fish at the top of the page, I drew a mandala:

And some funny little birds:

We've also had fun cutting out, and painting, and making and modelling play dough. We also brought the big box of Duplo up from the basement and the wonderful Fisher Price garage that I've kept for all these years is in full swing, with its great lift and the little bell that rings each time they turn the handle. My collection of amigurumi toys is also very popular. They each have their favourites, and each evening we get them out and play with them during the "quiet time" just before bedtime. They each asked me to make they a toy to take home with them, so I'm crocheting when I have time - mostly when they're in bed in the evening, and I just have to make sure I finish before their daddy comes to get them.

Anyway I must get along now and prepare our next activity. Even though I'll miss them when they've gone back home, I must admit that part of me is looking forward to things getting back to normal soon!

Little shoes in little boxes

More about these down below...

Well our weather has cooled down a bit this week - not a bad thing in my opinion. Of course everyone likes to have an early summer with deliciously warm temperatures, but it seems to have sprung from winter straight into summer without passing by spring. My strawberry plants are still thriving. There are some little green strawberries on them now, but with the cooler weather, I need to find a way to protect them from the damp soil. I remember my dad used to use straw, but I don't have any straw! I'm wondering if there's anything recyclable that would do the job. Any ideas? In the meantime I took this photo a couple of days ago when it was still very sunny - I think they look lovely from this angle. Tomorrow we're planning to buy some cherry tomato plants to put in some bigger pots on the balcony, despite the cooler weather.

Today I went into the chic shop I got past every day on my way to work and showed the shop owner my rainbow sandals. It was a bit late in the day so we didn't have time to talk for long, but she admired the little shoes and we've agreed that I should pass by another day and discuss what she can do for me. She's also going to advise me of the cost and has kind of offered to put them on display in her shop, and give people details of how to buy or order a pair directly from me. Wasn't that nice of her?

I have made another pair of these baby shoes - this time with organic cotton yarn. It's a bit thicker than my usual Catania yarn, so even though I used the same size hook, the finished shoes are a little bit bigger.  They're for my friend's baby boy who is four months old.

Following a question in the comments, I've taken a few (not very good quality) photos of how I make the strap. I hope this will make it a bit clearer.

First of all, make 18 ch (and when you join the other colour, do it more carefully than I did!)

Then dc back up the chain, and onto the heel of the shoe, until the marker

When you get to the marked stitch, work another 18 ch

Then dc back towards the shoe and attach the yarn to the base of the dc remaining on the heel

Now you just need to weave in the ends and add buttons and hey, presto!

I have a very old stash of children's magazines in French that my middle daughter was subscribed to when she was about six. For a while now I've been wondering what I could do with them, and then early this morning I had a brainwave! My initial plan was to use them to cover boxes I would make with old cereal boxes. But that would mean lots of measuring and cutting out and gluing and it seemed far too much like hard work. This morning's brainwave was a single word - ORIGAMI! And look at what I came up with:

The origami pattern I found is so, so easy. Since I made the box in the photos I've made two more. It would be more accurate to say I've made six boxes, actually, as you need two boxes when you count the lid, each of which is made separately. The pattern is the same, you just make the lid a bit bigger by starting off with a bigger square. Here's the page I chose (the video is especially useful), but if you just type origami box in any search engine you'll get lots of examples. The ones I've make with my comic book pages is just the right size for the baby shoes, so I'll be able to send them to my friend in their very own box. Cost of box - nothing at all, and it's recyclable. Oh and I forgot to mention that my wrist is a lot better. Happy, happy, happy.