In Remembrance

Once again the time has got away from me and it must be two weeks since I wrote a blog post but I have been busy these past few weeks and it will only get busier as Christmas approaches, there's not enough hours in the day! 

The knitting and crochet groups from our u3a got together to make poppies in order to make a display in Remembrance of those who lost their lives in conflict.

We started this a bit too late for it to have much of an impact but we were busy with the Station Display previous to this and we are also making warm woolly items for the homeless, I honestly didn't know which way to turn crochet wise I have had so much on my hook of late, but back to the poppies I did mention them back here. 

Although this is for a good cause I found myself  at poppy burnout, there comes a time when you just can't bring yourself to make another single one, I didn't actually count how many I made but there were a fair few made after I took this photo and I forgot to take another photograph at the end.

Last Sunday morning  members of the groups got together and assembled not one but two displays, the first onto the railings of a Primary school where Pamela the leader of the knitting group works, pupils will be encouraged to tie their own poppies to the fence too.

The second display was assembled in front of the war memorial outside our Town Hall.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,

We will remember them.

💓

excerpt from the poem For The Fallen by Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943)

I hope that you all have a lovely weekend 😘

 

Cute little Critters and Happy Halloween!

 I'm not one for making fiddly things but some of those fiddly things are so cute sometimes I really can't help myself.  

As I have mentioned before I run a crochet group for the u3a and as such I have a display board at the u3a's monthly meetings.  I try to make the board look attractive to encourage people to join the group, I usually have a garland pegged to the top of the board which is mostly seasonal like the one below which I showed you last year in this post

This time I went a step further, along with the leaf garland I decided to inject a little bit of Halloween fun into the proceedings and this is where cute came in. 

The pumpkins are so easy to make and to be honest I had to stop myself  from making more, but I do have other things on my hook so I reluctantly dragged myself away from the creating of pumpkins and  moved on to the mice, I have been wanting to make some little mice for a long time just because I think they are so darn cute and this seemed like the perfect time.

Amigurumi is amazing but so fiddly, making the bodies is easy enough but it's the sewing on of ears and other appendages  that gets me, and so for the pink mouse rather than crochet the ear and sew it on I surface crocheted them straight onto the mouse, so much easier and they look ok I think.

I  had to have a hedgehog to complete the display, I'm still looking for a  more realistic looking hedgehog pattern maybe I'll try and design one myself but this one had to do and I think he looks cute enough.

This small display caused quite a bit of laughter at the meeting last Wednesday especially when I told the Chairperson that we had an infestation of mice in the Town hall she looked horrified and said, have you reported it! then when she saw the display she just burst out laughing and announced it when she was addressing the members, it's amazing what a bit of crochet can do to raise the spirits and bring a bit of fun the the proceedings.

I found the mouse pattern in this book here but ended up doing it my own way anyway, here are some cute mouse patterns if you fancy hooking up a few.

Little Christmas Mouse

Tiny Crochet Mouse

There are lots of great pumpkin free patterns, I used this one by Planet June and adapted the size by using different weights of yarn and hook sizes.  More patterns below.

Autumn Pumpkin Pattern by Bella Coco

Medium Crochet Pumpkin Pattern by crochet 365

Crochet Pumpkin Pattern by Petals to Picots

The hedgehog pattern I made is like this one here Easy Crochet Hedgehog by the Whoot but I have since found  one I like better and am going to make more using this pattern The Hedgehog Hedda by Yarnhild

Unfortunately a few days after my last Crochet group session two of the members who had attended the meeting came down with Covid, there had been ten of us in a room much smaller than I would have liked but the large room where it is usually held was not available.  I had to get in touch with everyone concerned and ask them to do a lateral flow test and to watch out for symptoms, luckily now 14 days later we are all fine thank goodness. 

The two ladies in question had attended a birthday party and they think that that's where they caught it.  They have been quite poorly despite having two doses of the vaccine, they had just received their boosters but obviously the effects of those hadn't kicked in, on the bright side they will be both super charged with antibodies and thankfully they are both on the mend.

Thank you for the lovely comments about little Mikey's solar system outfit, he is getting lots of use out of it apparently he has already attended two Halloween Parties and my daughter in law has organised a neighbourhood Halloween trail so he will be wearing it again this weekend. 

If you are celebrating Have a Great Halloween. 😊😘😘

The Solar System In Crochet

 When my daughter in law asked me if I would crochet the solar system for my grandson everything else was immediately put to one side.  She wanted to make a solar system Halloween outfit for him for the Halloween party at his nursery.

If you can remember back in this post Mikey loves the solar system, he knows all the planets and everything about them right down to the number of moons and rings they all have.

I immediately set about making little planets but wondered if anyone had done anything similar before.  Making small spheres is simple enough but the planets are all different sizes and colours and I thought it would be great if I could find a pattern to help me on my way. if I got anything wrong Mikey would soon point it out haha

I found one which seemed to fit the bill here however the designer stated that it had been published in a back issue of Simply Crochet so rather that just buy the pattern on Ravelry it seemed a better option to buy the magazine  and get a whole load of other patterns too. 

I thought that I had plenty of time to make these right up till the end of the month in fact but for some strange reason the Nursery had their Halloween party yesterday, so in the end it was a mad rush to get them finished. 

As you can see my daughter in law has made a great job of attaching them it looks as if Saturn's rings have become a bit wobbly in the process 😂 but Mikey is delighted and sent me a thank you video, I can't wait to hear all about his party.

It was so much fun making these and there are lots of space related patterns in the magazine so I may be making a rocket and a star cushion too.

I hope you all have a great weekend 😘😘

Click here to see the parties I will be linking to this week.