Hooker Status: Official!

The week up in Lapland (Saariselkä), plus the assistance of a knitting friend did the trick. The latter was very important - I knew she'd pick it up quicker than me and so the competitive spirit got a hold of me good and proper. I've now made samplers of the most common stitches and am planning my first real project. I'll post some pictures of the samplers later. They aren't great by any means, but they are crochet and that's what matters to me. I'm off to the wool shop today to buy some odd balls (heh) and some stitch markers. It appears that...

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First Baby Ring Sling Completed!

At last started (and then finished a few hours later) the baby ring sling. I had bought a special hemming foot for my machine, but found out that it didn't fit. After a short sulk, I came back all the more determined and did the hemming by hand. Dead easy, so easy in fact that it seems a bit pointless to exchange the foot for the right one. The pleating was pretty tricky, mainly because the material I chose is very thick. Two machine needles later though and it's all fine and dandy. Tried it out with Monkey (the Chihuahua) and an Elmo toy (less...

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I Will Become a Hooker

Not an ambition one hears often! Of course I am referring to knitting's supposedly lesser cousin, crochet. I am now the proud owner of 3 books about crochet and still I cannot get beyond one row.So, since I am spending next week in Lapland with H and two close friends, I hereby declare that I will become a hooker during that time. We're going to laze around, reading and having...

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Origami Boxes Made from Magazines

Spotted these on Craftster a couple of weeks ago and thought they looked cool. You just tear out a page from an old magazine and a few quick folds later, you've got a folded up box. Then watch something inane on the telly for 30 mins and you end up with a stack of them. Open one of them out into a box and you've got a storage box for them.I'm sure there must be lots of uses...

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Mini Christmas Tree with Origami Cranes

A bit late, but here it is - our origami Christmas tree. I started out with grand ideas of a proper sized tree with hundreds of traditional origami cranes, but scaled down to this cute tree in a pot in the end. And that had a lot to do with mis-ordering of origami paper (always pay attention to the sizes!).I'm pretty pleased with it and my fingers now know how to make cranes...

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