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. 

 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.