Figuring out sizing for baby gear is kind of important.

During the pandemic it turns out a bunch of my friends ended up expecting their first little sprogs! Excited for them and also house bound I couldn't resist the urge to start making things for them. 

It has spiralled and I have made a few more bits here and there. But one of this challenging things with babies is how big are they? and how quickly will they grow out of it?

I really loved the idea of making a Blanket, but my mum is queen of granny squares so I knew she'd beat me to it. (and she did with a vengeance). So I started to think outside the box. 

My friend Cristina, absolutely loves bunnies and she has a little troop of adorable house bunnies. The baby would probably be kicked out the home before the bunnies. But maybe I could make her a disguise? 

I found this super cute baby Bunny Jacket pattern that I just couldn't resist by YouCrochetPatterns.

You can also get awesome super soft baby yarn - I still mourn my baby yarn blanket that eventually fell apart as a child. I like to fondle my yarns anyways as I am a bit of a wench for softness. Baby yarns always sucker me in. 

I went for Women's Institute Soft and Chunky Yarn in both pale grey and dusty pink. This was such a delight to work with because it was so super chunky. 

The other thing to think about is sizing. Because I wasn't sure how long this garment would take me, I decided to go for the bigger size just in case I over ran (which I did) and also to allow baby to get more than one wear out of it. I went for the size for age 2+. 

I picked up some matching pink buttons from Hobbycraft and attached them to finish the look. She loved it :)

Now on the flip side, here's an example if you don't think about the above. 

Another friend, had a very big baby. For his first birthday I found this super cute Aviator hat pattern by Repeat Crafter Me and as his dad loves his motorbikes so I was sure it would go down well. I followed the pattern to the T and adjusted where I needed to. Going for the size larger like I had done before. 

I used a very fluffy yarn for the edging. WHICH WAS AWFUL. It was so unforgiving if you had to undo a stitch as it would immediately knot.

You can still get a chance at receiving one of these little guys by filling out this form.

Before I have mentioned the wonderful beginner friendly book for Whimsical Stitches. 



By this time I was getting quite good at making little balls thanks to this book. Most crochet patterns seem to start with roughly this shape if you want to make toys! 

It was still covid and we were still going in and out of the office as new mini breakouts happened. Our work place was pretty awesome with the freebies. We got lots of activities planned online to keep the social scene going, lots of take out vouchers, and even little care packages. 

One of many little goodie bags that were sent to our doorstep from work.

There were a few members at work who were really on the ball for looking after the teams mental health. Shout out here to my dear friend Sam Sinclair who really helped me out loads when I first started there! It was through our fantastic Ops team we got little care packages of tea, biscuits and other pampered awesomeness (I still gloat about my home spa kit I received once). These might not seem terribly exciting to some but these little reminders in the post to look after yourself and take a moment to sit back and just be were well received!

Another superstar individual was the lovely Sarah Hammond,  Sarah had this fantastic idea to do a subscription box for mental health. In fact she launched the Better Brain Campaign! and was gathering all sorts of bits and pieces to put into this box. Mental Health advice, journaling prompts, emergency tea and chocolate. You name it! 

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I wanted to help, I thought it was a great idea. But what could I do? CROCHET OF COURSE! We came up with the idea of cute little crochet stress balls. I was inspired by the above book and went to work. The plan was to start with 50 boxes and see how it went from there. 50 little stress balls was a lot for me at the time so I hooked in my friend Naomi to help. She also thought these boxes were a fab idea. 



We started off making a variety to keep ourselves entertained. Little coffee mugs, cupcakes, blueberries, strawberries. All from this amazing little book. Naomi also did a lot of experimentation as she was using up old yarn she had laying around. She also had this ingenious idea of eco friendly stuffing and used beans and shells. For a stress ball this makes a great texture to play with. 

This journey is about shawls, hats and gloves!

In my early days of learning I was thinking about a) what would be fun to make and b) what would be a usable make. I didn't want to be inundated with random useless stuff. I was also still learning and wanted to learn new stitches that I could then have in my repertoire for other things. 

I get chilly in my office but not cold enough to warrant a hoodie or other jumper. Knit wear can be insanely warm and I've not had to wear those thick jumpers since I returned from living in Canada. Apparently I have been hardened to the colder climates! 

In my beginners book mentioned in my first crochet post Crochet for Mental Health

They had a shawl that looked like something I could use. The beauty of this stitch is that it works up quite quickly, so for an impatient newbie like me this was a great project to start with. 

I was a frequent visitor to hobbycraft for yarn by this point. Buying cheap and affordable yarn just in case I packed in this hobby as I got tired of it. (har har har!). This time I was just going by feel. Which meant I purchased some Wendy Lavnder Supreme DK it was so so soft. 

But.... I am always drawn to those beautiful ombre multicolour yarn skeins.... Today I fell in love with this beautiful mermaid like ocean coloured yarn. It was beautiful, magical and whimsical.. Perfect. James C Brett Evening Sky Shhh DK

Little did I know this Yarn Skein was very unforgiving as the fibres just wanted to felt if I ever needed to undo (frog) my work! However I persevered! 

Truth be told, I'm not sure how long I spent working on this but the dog was very happy to have cuddles under an ever increasing blanket.

But it was done! And essentially looked like a giant mermaid net... I'm ok with this.

By the end I still had some yarn left over. TIME FOR A HAT! The most simple and straight forward things to do when you are starting out. Its great how quickly these come up! This was just essentially a double crochet slowly increasing until it was big enough to fit my crown. Then double crochet down to the desired length. I loved how the fancy yarn just came out stripey for this one. 

And finally I still had more yarn. I have insanely small hands for an adult... in fact they are the same size as an average 8 year olds. With this in mind I can never find gloves that fit me so always opt for fingerless gloves. This is rather practical with todays touch screen gadgets so I just like to think I'm ahead of the curve. 

I found this particular pattern on etsy again I have mentioned this in my previous blog. But lets take a deeper dive into this. "Shell We Dance" Fingerless Glove Pattern
The pattern was perfect I was learn another new stitch. The shell stitch. This is a great stitch to use to frill-a-fy some edging and it creates a very cool scale effect. Perfect for my mermaid combo I had been working on! 

I later revisited this pattern with less chunky yarn and low and behold... it fits better... on my partners hands anyways!

What were the lessons I learned from this? Dear god pay attention to the type of yarn those patterns suggest! These gloves yes I still wear but they do make me look like a mole woman. The yarn despite beautiful was just too chunky for this pattern. I was also still figuring out my tension so one gloves is bigger than the other (annoying!!) however modelled on my partners hand who is lovely slender man hands... they look quite good. Just on my tiny hands they do get swallowed by all that yarn.

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However I am still pleased with this ensemble. And it was a great opt to have a photoshoot with the partner and the dog. I still wear these garments as well :) SUCCESS!

 Oh my gawd…. I can’t get over how much I loved this pattern.

Sitting on my window ledge.

Found in this book by Lauren Epsy, "Whimsical Stitches: A Modern Makers Book of Amigurumi"

 Not only is it a great piece for beginners as it introduces you to lots of techniques and stitches you can use on other projects but its also FREAKING ADORABLE. 

The book itself isn't just about cactus and other plants. It's great for kids or making young children's toys; and if you frequent the crochet TikTok scene you probably have seen many familiar makes from this book.

I love that with some simple spheres and imagination you can make pretty much anything from this, including the infamous jellyfish. This introduced me to some simple techniques using known stitches. 

A very early attempt at crochet using this jellyfish pattern.

I still have this little guy on my desk. He's been with me at my old work place where everything died from air conditioning and now in my home studio...where I'm a failed plant mum. 

Dramatic Cacti

Even when in assembly mode it was super cute. Can I just make a table runner of just cacti... oh no - the ideas!!!

Still I reminisce about this project and I have plans to perhaps make smaller cactus options of keyrings and earrings in the Etsy store. What would you guys think? 

My next big amigurumi project after my little Frankenstein starts!

To start off this blog I will be sharing with you some of my early crochet projects in my first year. I’ll also be linking my sources. I can’t emphasise enough how easy I found crochet to pick up once I got the basic stitch, magic circle and decreasing stitches. This is basically all you need to start your journey! 

My favourite early books were the Zoomigurumi collection. Not only are the plushies super cute with lots of character but each book has a reminder of how to do the stitches you need as well. Each book is filled with a variety of patterns from different creators so you get a nice selection of styles to work with. 

The one thing though that I was always struggling with? The dreaded magic circle (even um who has been crocheting since her 20s struggles to do this!) However with the power of YouTube I finally got it after watching this video over and over again until I finally got it!



Not having a huge amount of money I usually end up making gifts for friends and family. In the past I made soaps, creams, candles, art, sewing projects - now it was time for the crochet gifts!

I love giving and receiving hand made gifts, for me it means so much more than buying something as not only have you put money and thought into the gift, but also your time. When working on gifts for people I am always thinking about them when I am making it which helps fill the gift with love and joy. 

So what do you make for twin mum and aunt? Twin bears of course! I used the Panda pattern from the Zoomigurumi 9 book and Drops Paris Cotton yarn which is my go to for Amigurumi. It's cheap and easy to use so great for the prolific crocheter or someone just starting out like I was. 

Starting with the head. I had a funny shaped head and did all I could to mould and re-shape it! I'm still not great at placing things very evenly so the features aren't wonky!

Another reason why these patterns are great is that I learnt how to switch yarn colours in a project. Here you can see the results of a stripey body.

Feeling confident on my progress I decided to start on the next one at the same time!

With all the limbs attached. He was a bit scruffy and doing the toe beans was very fiddly. He came out so much bigger than I expected as well!

Second one down! This time in purple using scrap yarn for multi coloured toe beans. This one was for mum, she's always liked to be a bit different :P

Twinsies together! They went down a treat and although not perfect I learnt a hell of a lot from this pattern.

The Pandas were well received and still to this day sit in my mums and aunts homes. I love making gifts for people and this was such a huge learning experience for me in my crochet journey. They were a bit messy and a bit lop sided but they were still super cute!

Sometimes it's ok to be a bit wonky... My first crochet attempt using Roxy Crochets free pattern for a Pusheen

As long as I can remember I've chewed my nails, which eventually turned into picking the skin around my fingers. Often I was embarrassed as I'd have to hide how bad I had got with band-aids or hiding my hands in my pockets. Oddly enough I didn't acknowledge that this was a bad habit and a sign of stress and anxiety for the longest time. I didn't understand why my nails were getting ridges and were becoming more and more brittle. Turns out all related to this bad habit, which had become an obsessive behaviour I was hardly aware I was doing. 

Dermatillomania I didn't even realise was a thing for many years. It's not pretty folks.

I grew concerned this could develop into something more serious and started looking into things I could do to help stop the habit. The yucky tasting nail polish… didn't work. Keeping nails painted? Not for long. Gloves, plasters... for a little while but not forever! 

Even though I did a pretty ombre nail I'd still end up chewing or peeling off the polish.

Growing up my mum knitted and crocheted blankets, she had tried to teach me several times but to no avail. However someone had mentioned amigurumi and I thought it was super cute and could be a fun hobby for me. After some basic research I found that people use crochet to keep their hands busy from this habit. 

 

My Last of Us Survival Kit Stickers have been re-listed on my etsy store :) there are a few more prints left and they have been modified from the previous batch. 

I'm doing a bunch of test prints to figure out how to make my stickers look the best they can but also last longer! I noticed that after a year the stickers I had printed in the past the ink had faded to literally invisible on items exposed to lots of sun or wear and tear. This isn't ideal so I'm looking at adding a laminate protective cover to my stickers to avoid this. 

I'm also testing for new content! Going through my old sketches with ideas and plans to make cute ideas I've done into stickers and prints to sell in the store. Watch this space for future updates!

I'm delighted to announce that my Inprint Shop is now Live! (it's been for a while but I've sucked at doing anything with it)

There's not much there at the moment but hopefully as the weeks go on you'll slowly see this collection expand. Watch this space!

Inprint is a fantastic little site for artists to share their work on excellent high quality prints. As they specialise in prints only you get such wonderful quality for the price. 

However if you are looking for other wares and apparel check out my REDBUBBLE there is some truly ancient art work of mine on there so be sure to check it out before I start re-factoring my websites. 

Yes that is right, be witness to a slow but surely art presence overhaul as I am updating everything. Including how I create my at home stickers and goodies and improve their longevity. I am also making this blog more functional and informative to share my journey in other crafts I've been up to! See you there!

This is a bit late as there has been so much going on and I never got around to doing the cover page I wanted! For August spread in my bullet journal I had lots of ideas running through my head. After watching the movie again I settled on a Spirited Away bathhouse theme!