Rainbow baby.

A rainbow outfit and blanket for a rainbow baby called Maya. All made with Stylecraft yarns, the rainbow colour yarn is Wondersoft Merry Go Round, and there is a tiny bit of King Cole baby yarn on the blue headband because I ran out of rainbow.

The dress and bolero is a free pattern by Just Crochet. The booties were also made from a free pattern by Hopeful Honey, called Pink Lady Baby Booties, and the headband pattern, which goes up to adult size, is also free from Crochet Dreamz.

The star blanket was from a pattern in Inside Crochet magazine.

You can never own too many bags 😂.👜🎒

This one came with the Scheepjes yarn pack for the blanket crochet along, it's just a tote but big and strong with one inside pocket. Could be used for anything.

This shows the pink Artbin tote alongside the one I bought from eBay which was the exact same design as the ones everyone was buying back then but only around £12.

I think I paid about £15 for the Artbin one, and it was the one I bought first. At them time they were being advertised and raved about and mine came from the USA. It is lightweight and the one I grabbed to go to the A&E (emergency dept) every time I had to take my husband. It has a carry handle on the top, and a shoulder strap that can be attached in two different ways - or it could until one of the plastic D rings broke early on. I should try and find a replacement.

This tote comes in other colours and is widely available in the UK now. It is just one compartment inside, with a pocket on the front. It's lightweight and can hold quite a lot, but yarns do get tangled.

  It also comes with a detachable pencil case sized bag, this can be very annoying when full of hooks as it bangs against you or the bag and rattles as you walk.

It has two slots in the top with rounded ends for yarn to go through without opening it, unfortunately the yarn jumps out through the slots often as you crochet, things can fall out when it's carried sideways, and dogs can take yarn out through the slots as can children (so you could be sat next to kids somewhere and never know they have taken your yarn). It also has no ridgidity so flops when not so full.

This organiser has 6 compartments of clear pvc, divided by clear pvc which is not sealed at the bottom, so things could move possibly. three of the compartments have zipped openings at the front so you could shove more yarn in, or untangle jammed yarn I guess but not for all the compartments. It has a clear pocket either side, a shoulder strap but no carry handles apart from that, and there is a storage compartment behind the yarn compartments. The problem with this design is that if you are working on a project and it is attached to the yarn there is no way of putting it in the storage compartment without cutting the yarn and taking it out of the holes. I knew this was an issue when I bought it, but wanted to organise my Persian Tiles blanket yarn, that blanket is still unfinished by the way.

The lid has 6 holes to feed the yarn through to work. The lid doesn't fix down in any way and is rigid, as you work if you don't rewind your yarn into cakes or have centre pull yarn the yarn will jump out of the organiser, there is nothing to stop it, the lid just pops up. Also the clear pvc can build up static or a sort of stickyness and stop the yarns moving so freely.

A bag and box line up. Despite owning two lovely yarn bowls and these totes I am working out of the pvc storage bag at the very back which was in a pack of two for £2.99 from B&M lol, mainly to keep the dog away from the yarn!

I thought I would take some photos of the new bag with the iPad to make them easy to add to blogger - Nah! iPad photos not an option to add so I had to retake them.

It is by Teamoy and I got it on Amazon, no discounts or freebies for me but I keep hoping! These come in black or grey dots, and I kept adding to the basket, thinking about it then finding they were sold out again. I kept missing them. Then I could have had a black one, which strangely cost more. This one cost £27.99 and I had a voucher to use, the black one was £32 at one point but I waited until this one came back into stock and grabbed it right away!

It has pockets all round, front and back spotty pockets zipped, and each side one clear pocket and one spotty.

The top is clear, and has a clear zipped long pocket one side that can hold knitting needles or Tunisian crochet hooks, or just more crochet hooks.

It has two carry handles and a shoulder strap with attactive matching padded bit.

The front pocket contains more pockets and loops for crochet hooks or tools. The side pockets are large enough to take a magazine.

The yarn compartments are material, and each one is totally seperate, no gaps at the bottom of the dividers. The clear lid on this half zips closed and has 6 grommits to feed the yarn though, it also has little velcro straps on the edge to keep the yarn in place.

One of the best features is the storage compartment next to the yarn, behind the yarn if you like, is large and has it's own seperately opening clear lid, the one with the needles compartment. This is fixed by two poppers. I might add a bit of velcro to the centre which is not fixed at the moment, but it kind of overlaps so might not work, as there is a velcro strip already for the yarn loop holders a small bit with loops would be all that I need to add. This bag is so well designed and addresses all the problems that the other two have, the only issue will be the weight of this. It's fairly heavy with my pure wool blanket CAL in it, and I haven't added all the crochet hooks and tools. It would be great to take on holiday with everything you need in one place.

While I was looking for previous photos of the bags I found the previous photo I blogged of me wearing the cardigan and I though I would show them together so you can see the difference.

  

I was thinking of frogging it back then.

The belt thing not quite working lol.

I can see a difference and it fits better now but I've still got a way to go on my Slimming World journey.

T for Tuesday by the bag lady.

 I'm strangely excited by this new bag described as a knitting organiser. I'm going to post more details in a comparison of the bags I have so far.This is the new bag and my lovely sheep mug full of raw cacao hot chocolate. There seems to be a shortage of ground vanilla at the moment and I've nearly run out. Can't buy it anywhere! It's time for T on Tuesday at Elizabeth and Bleubeard's place and I have to apologise once more for not visiting all the lovely people who left me comments last time.

This was supposed to be a comparison shot, might have to redo these.

Sooty just had to be in the picture!

After the heatwave of the last week we had to have thunderstorms and torrential rain. Trapped in the greenhouse Luna decided to sample the bamboo which might have been a bad idea because she's now got an upset tummy!

I bought some cravats for the dogs which donates money to the D.O.G rescue charity in Cyprus and they badly need funds to pay the kennel fees for all the dogs in their care.

We went to another fun dig show and both dogs won a rosette this time. Sooty was so proud of his!

Finally some crochet. I made this cardigan from an Inside Crochet pattern ages ago and now I've lost more weight I like it. It's supposed to be worn with a narrow belt but I think I want a few buttons. I've done this post on my secondhand iPad and I now know it's not easy!

Another star is born!

A star blanket that is! This one is for my new Granddaughter's baby cousin who is due any day now. It had to be similar colours to the one I made for Lily. This time I kept the centre plain using a pale mint baby yarn from Aldi, then the Stripes yarn from Wilkinsons, the shimmer pink is from Aldi and the dark teal is Wilkinsons. The edge is crab stitch (known as reverse SC in the USA because they couldn't think of anything else to rename it to)! This is the first blanket that I have added the edging to, it wasn't in the pattern - which is in issue 47 of Inside Crochet, although there are plenty of free patterns about for 12 star blankets too. I didn't like the variegated centre of the last one, now I think I prefer it to the plain!

I ordered the yarn to make the Persian Tile blanket by Jane Crow, but instead of buying the kit I bought the individual yarns all in Stylecraft Life, and Deramores sent me a part order - just one ball of daffodil via courier! Why bother I wonder, why not send it all together?

Teeny tiny makes.

I haven't show you any crochet for a while, we went away to Torquay for a few days and I took my WIPs with me and managed to complete three of these little jackets.

 These are sleeveless cardigans for premature babies, I think up to 3 pounds in weight. I will probably be sending them to the group I found on Facebook, which sends out to any hospitals that need Preemie or angel babies supplies. I have only got started on these recently. The pattern was from Marianna's Lazy Daisy Days blog, she is also to be found on Ravelry.
The exciting news is that I have been in touch with the Royal United Hospital in Bath and I have a meeting in a few days with a lady from the "Friends" to discuss helping their premature babies, whether that is for the group to supply them or some other way of donating these little garments I am not sure yet.

Here they are with the little hats (from Job 1:21 blog) I showed you before and all of these fit in the space taken by my next jacket!

 This is a plain but pretty cardigan for a full size baby up to 6 months, it is a pattern from Lion Brand and is free, I made it in King Cole DK Cotton Soft. It is for my soon to be here Granddaughter, who is keeping us waiting just like her big brother did! She should be here by now.

 It matches the piggy slippers too.

 This is the second pair of piggy slippers, without the error, but why does one look much bigger than the other? I followed the pattern the same for both! This time I improved on my modified tail. I should mention that I don't break off the yarn when the sole is complete - I just carried on but I'm not sure if it makes a difference. I didn't like the tail given in the pattern, and for the first pair I made a little curly tail afterwards and stitched it on. This time on the last row when you join the last stitch to the first and fasten off, instead of fastening off I joined the stitches, slip stitched until I was in the centre of the back, just one or two at most, then chained 5, and then worked 3 sc (dc in UK) into second chain from the hook, and each of the remaining chains, then fastened off leaving a long enough piece of yarn to firmly attach the second side of the tail to the slipper. I embroidered the eyes on mine too, I can't imagine that safety eyes would be comfortable or truly safe on these.The pattern can be found at Croby's blog.

 Back to Preemies - this is a ventilator bonnet, I just need to add ribbon or cords. It has a buttoned flap for those wires to go through. The tiny vest is not finished, I have to add buttons to the shoulders and front, but I think it has come out too small so I will have to try again. It opens at the shoulders and front so it can be easily put onto a tiny baby in an incubator who is attached to wires and tubes. Pretty tricky to put on if it didn't open at the shoulders.

This isn't so teeny tiny, it is my WIP for me, it is a jumper from an Inside Crochet pattern that uses just one huge ball of Drops Verdi yarn. This is a bit tricky to work with, but it is very lightweight, I hope the mohair in it and I get on. I just love the colour and shading of this yarn.

Last of all, some books I recently bought. I just couldn't resist the Let's go Camping book by Kate Bruning, which contains tiny patterns for everything your toys need to go on outdoor holidays, the tents and sleeping bags, frying pan, the campsite and trees, a caravan, ice-cream van and even an canal boat and lots more! I also recently bought Boho Crochet where the bright colours attracted me and I was drawn in by the sad story of Wink who edited and contributed to this lovely book. Hook Stitch and Give has lots of patterns for the home, men, woman and children which you can make to keep or give for presents. Camping came from Amazon marketplace where it worked out around £7 and the other two came from The Works online and were only a few pounds each.

I have a lot of what are probably vintage crochet books, some of which I haven't used - maybe I need to clear some of them out now i am buying new ones. The old ones are mostly full of jumpers (sweaters), and the like.

Little boy blue - and pink, purple, tan, ivory, turquoise......

This is a 4 year old size jumper from an Inside Crochet pattern. The collar was also supposed to be the darker blue but I didn't quite have enough of it. I was thankful when I managed to complete both sleeves without running out of it. The yarn is King Cole Cotton Soft DK. I added stripes of various colours, and only added two stripes of the dark blue to try and save enough to finish. I hope the striped collar looks OK, can't do anything about it except make it all one colour maybe light blue.

I bought train buttons to finish it, I hope they will last and not scratch.

New blog and new jacket.

My Cazzytime blog was started when I got into paper crafting, and the paper crafting blog world (which took off like a storm when before it had only been happening on forums) and when I began crocheting again around 4 years ago after a long gap (I crocheted from aged 11 to my mid thirtys - then I started working full time and just didn't have the time). What started me crocheting again? Well I took early retirement from the Civil Service and I became a grandmother.

The Cazzytime blog had got a long crochet bloglist which I can't think is helpful, you have to go right down to the bottom of the blog to find it, and it is growing all the time, so I will put it on here and it will be visible.

I am starting off with one of my most recent projects, I will add the rest of them but I haven't decided how yet, maybe all in one long post, or maybe a separate page with links to the post in Cazzytime.

This jacket is made with James C Brett Lakeland chunky yarn, the pattern is from Inside Crochet Issue 47 which you may still be able to purchase electronically. The sheet you see with the photo is the errata sheet. I have learnt that it is best to check the Inside Crochet web site before starting any pattern, there are lots of errata on many patterns - but they haven't included everything as I found to my cost with a pattern in the same issue!

The jacket is originally worked in plain yarn, and it has fir trees round the yoke which I decided not to do. I had thought of working sheep instead of trees which is why I picked black and ivory for my contrast colours.
When I looked at the details of the trees it was obvious that the increases were part of the trees! The trees were quite complex, there were decreases and increases on the same row and different stitches that made them pop. I didn't like the look of them in the photo and didn't think they would go with my main yarn. So I had to work out the total increases per row then distribute them round the yoke so I increased it and ended up with the correct number of stitches. I did try out a sheep sample but I couldn't get it to be sheep shaped. I thought maybe I can add sheep later...

 This is the finished yoke, I started on a sleeve to make sure it was going to be big enough for my fat arms and I added six stitches, my arms are out of proportion to my body which makes clothes buying a nightmare and I hope when I lose the rest of my excess weight they will slim down and not end up with great flaps of loose skin - I am dreading that! Anyway I digress - I could see the effect of the yarn was different to the yoke, much more subtle blending of colours, the yarn is quite blocky and the stripes are really defined - can you see the difference?

 So I could see a travelling seam, I started it at the underarm and it ended up on the top side of the sleeve, which made the next few rows a bit of a challenge because they included decreases and I had to work out where to put them. After asking advice on the Crochet UK and the Chatty Knitters and Crocheters facebook groups where a couple of people said it looks fine (really, I can see it?) and one helpful person said if you turn the sleeve at every row start (it was worked continuously in rounds) the seam will stay put. In all my years of crochet I had never realised that one small tip, and when I was trying to explain the solution to another facebook pal and looking at the pattern to tell her what that said I spotted that one little word "turn" which I had missed in my enthusiasm to complete the sleeve, and even if I spotted it (or maybe I did spot it) I would have ignored it not realising the significance.
I began the second sleeve, turning at each new row and, guess what, the sleeve seam stayed put where it should be! So first sleeve was "frogged" (this is a fairly new term to me and means unpicked, or unravelled again - rip it, rip it - ribbit, ribbit - that is what a frog says). I started the sleeve again later.

 This photo shows that when I continued with the body, which was worked all in one piece, I was getting the same distinct strip effect as the yoke. I had expected that with the sleeve sections now taken out and the resulting shorter rows that made up the body that this wouldn't happen. So I had to decide if the sleeves would look silly against the body if I carried on and thought they would. So I frogged the body then split it into back and two fronts, of course that meant I would have side seams but the overall effect is much better and the stripes on the yoke don't look out of place.
I made the body a little longer than the pattern, and the sleeves had to be longer because I have long arms.

 This is me (badly needing a haircut) wearing the finished jacket, after a battle with the buttons I chose. I spent ages choosing buttons, it was between some art deco looking black and white ones with squares and lines on them, or these marbled green ones that pick out the green in the yarn. When I tried to sew them on the yarn would not go through the buttons, I found out that the red in some King Cole Riot DK that was the exact colour of the red on the button band, even then the needle I was using wouldn't go through and I had to change it down for a narrower needle with a big eye.

I haven't made any sheep to appliqué onto the yoke, and maybe it looks better without, what do you think? Another option was to make white Irish roses, but that might look silly.

I have worn the jacket twice and got a few compliments, I am very pleased with it, maybe I will make another one.

I have managed to add links to all of my old crochet posts below this post, had to fiddle the date on this post to make it appear after the rest.