My Lucky Dip Life!

I was on Pinterest a few months ago and came across this really cool crochet edging for a blanket.  Being close to Christmas I immediately thought - wow - would that work as a garland for my tree? You can check out  my inspiration  here. It didn't take much to turn the stitches from a beautiful edging to this cheerful garland.  The whole garland is something like 6 metres long - I used a whole 100g ball of red el cheapo acrylic yarn.  I really love it and glad I made it! So a week before Christmas all the decorations go on sale in the shops here...  I bought this tiny tree for 1 whole euro! I also picked up some cheap little baubles.. not perfect in size but good enough.  I consider this new tree a work in progress!  And so I couldn't resist crocheting a garland for this little cutie too! This time I used some green cotton yarn - being a novice crocheter I've no idea what the proper name is - just that standard thin croc...

OK.. I admit it.  I forgot about the blog.  I made lots of stuff last year.  I even took a whole bunch of pictures.  But man this blogging stuff is time consuming.  The actual sitting down in front of the pc, uploading pics so I can edit them and make them all pretty... either I'm not working smart or this is how long it takes and makes me admire those hard core daily bloggers even more! So I thought I'd give it another go.... perhaps fewer photos and more text, or less text and more photos. I recently had a big freak out over photos.. or lack thereof.  You know when you always say you're gonna back up your photos and then you never get round to it.... Back. up. your. photos! Last week our pc went a bit loco and I'll not bore you with the details but suffice it to say our photos were a casualty of the meltdown. Thank goodness my husband has a bit of pc savvy and after a very long and nerve-wracking week he recovered the photos off the drive. ...

A few weeks ago I was busy crocheting this scarf... and here is the end result! I love it - I really do!  A perfect match for the Urban Jungle beanie I made a few weeks ago...  I didn't use a pattern for this scarf, just sort of made it up as I went along.  You know, I'm still learning but if you fancy having a go at this scarf yourself, this is what I did.  Not a pattern exactly because I suspect if you make this you'll have a basic idea of how to go about doing it and I'm not exactly at the point of writing up a pattern. The Blue Scarf Abbreviations: dc  Double Crochet hdc  Half Double Crochet Puff Stitch Chain.  As many as you like to get the length you want. 1st row dc, turn. then 5 rows hdc, turn. then 1 row dc, turn. 2 rows hdc turn. 3 rows of puff stitch. then do everything a mirror of what you just did before the puff stitch... so: 2 rows hdc 1 row dc 5 rows hdc 1 row dc to finish Then I se...

I've recently learned to crochet.   My sister taught me the basics on a flying visit at the end of summer and thanks to the WWW I'm progressing well.  I think I might have a little addiction forming really.  I'm not the kind of person who can "just sit" and watch TV, so crochet is a great way of being busy whilst doing nothing!  I've made a few scarves for the girls, I've made a few scarves for myself....and this week I'm busy on another new scarf for yours truly! (aren't I lucky!) It is my own design - I'm just making it up as I go along.  I wanted an infinity scarf, but decided to crochet from side to side rather than continually as I've yet to master a neat finish when going up a new row... the one stitch I knew I needed to incorporate was this puff stitch .  It is the 3 rows of big chunky blobs on the right hand side for those who don't know it.  I learned it when I made the Urban Jungle slouch beanie, pictured below  - wha...