shaggy ink caps

Nothing "crafty" in this post - unless of course I draw inspiration for a new beanie design called the shaggy ink cap ;p lol! I found these mushrooms (toadstools???) in the lawn this this morning. Last winter several of them appeared overnight out of nowhere. I did a bit of research to find out what they are and apparently they're called "Shaggy Ink Caps". They are also supposedly edible when young and still white. I'm not brave enough to eat them though! They end up opening and turning black - obviously where the "ink" part comes from. You can't really tell from the photos, but they are quite big - about 15-20cm tall!

frilly dilly bag

This is another "old" project. I made this bag about a year ago using Janelle Wind's Frilly Dilly Bag pattern.

Earlier this year I started making another of Janelle's bag patterns - Thelma's Day Out. But after starting uni, it kind of got pushed to the side. I really should finish it now that I'm having a break.

I love Janelle's work. Her patterns are gorgeous and really easy to follow. She has a new book out that I might buy as an early birthday present for myself :)

Felt Folios

I made these a couple of years ago...back when I used to scrapbook a whole lot more than I do now. They were designed by Janelle Wind for an online class at Kim Archer's site . The folios are designed to fit a bunch of 6x4 photos in them. I'm thinking of making something similar for storing my growing collection of crochet hooks :)

old stuff...

I came across some old photos from my old blog that I thought I would post here before I delete the old one...

technicolour beanie

I made another beanie last night. I love how quick and easy they are to make. I need to find a few new patterns/variations to try now. I used some wool that I picked up at Big W a couple of weeks ago. It was really cheap, from memory only around $2 or $3. It's actually designed for felting, but it worked quite well for this beanie and was surprisingly easy to crochet with. I used about 1.5 balls - so pretty cheap for a wool beanie! The manufacturer is Sean Sheep and this particular wool is called Beulah. It comes in quite a few different shade combinations.

getting there...

...with the blanket. I haven't crocheted for years and after looking at a few youtube granny square tutorials, I thought I had the right idea and winged it from there. I wasn't entirely happy with my first squares and couldn't quite work out why they didn't look very neat. Then I looked at an actual pattern and realised my mistake straight away. Between each group of treble stitches, I'd been doing 3 chains - you're only supposed to do 1!!! I'd done about 30 squares incorrectly so I'm now in the process of unraveling then redoing them - I wish I'd realised my error sooner. I only have 12 more to redo now :) So below are all the squares I've done so far - the 2 piles in the top left are the bad ones that I still need to redo. You can see the difference between those and the rest - they are so big and messy!!!

Here are my squares so far all stacked up. I'm finally feeling like I'm getting somewhere. Although this is only about a third of my orginal target - not sure I'll end up making it as big as I planned. (that ugly green wall in the background is another big project I need to get onto - repainting)

Here they all are laid out (minus the 12 still to be redone). I'm really happy with how it's turning out - nice and bright!