A Fun Pattern Review

The inhabitants of the toybox heard a whisper that there were some new toys on their way to join them so they all got together to share the gossip and form a welcoming comittee.  The bears were excited because they'd heard there were to be some more bears and little Gulliver, the smallest pink elephant, heard there was someone just the right size for him to play with.

Here they are whispering among themselves.

Dermot the Frog was disappointed the newcomers weren't green but he got over it when he found there was a blue bear - his second favourite colour!

Gulliver was thrilled to meet his new tiny playmate and Microdot jumped for joy to meet another pink bear.  Heffalump, the big pink elephant found a soulmate in the white bear and they can often be found whispering together.  The floor of the nursery is busy with toys!

I often feel sad that I can't make enough crocheted things to share with everyone so it's been on my mind to buy some patterns and do a review so you can try to crochet some things too. 

Mariella 

kindly agreed to allow me to make a post about her patterns.

These are the ones I chose.  They are so cute!

 Bear

Gingerbreadman

Not wanting to add yet more thread to my already impressive thread stash I decided to go with what I had on hand.  That meant I had to use different hook sizes to the ones mentioned in the pattern but when you are making toys it isn't important to have exactly the same thread as long as the hook size suits your thread.  I used a 0.6mm hook for the bears and for the gingerbreadman a 0.4mm hook.  I'm a self taught crocheter and often have trouble understanding patterns but Mariella's patterns were very easy to understand.  As with all miniatures, it's the finishing touches that make all the difference.  By changing the position of the ears and muzzle the bears each have slightly different faces.  My gingerbreadman is precisely 12mm tall and the bears are 18mm.

Thanks Mariella, I had fun with your patterns!

Another surprise and other things

I don't believe it, the postman delivered another surprise early this week!  I can't begin to tell you how amazed I was!!   There was a gorgeous shabby chic tray, a darling decorated coat hanger and a shabby style flower bucket.  My eyes popped out and my face smiled all day.  Surprises warm the soul.  Thankyou so much dear Carmen  Your gift was a much appreciated surprise and I absolutely love everything.

Right after sending a thankyou note to Carmen our internet dropped out so I couldn't post a photo to my blog to share my pleasure.  The 'Grumpy' old bloke came home a little later and said he'd seen a very large truck bring down the phone lines just around the corner from our street......no internet, no phone.  It felt like I'd had a lobotomy, cut off from blogs and all my friends who live in my computer! :))

Now I'm feeling all virtuous because I used the time to actually try to make something to display with those beautiful gifts from Carmen. 

Well, I tried..........

Carmens heart shaped shabby chic tray needed pretty ladies things on it so I made perfume bottles.  That pretty coathanger is perfect for a baby romper.  The lovely flower bucket needed flowers.  I'm not great at making miniature flowers but I thought lavender might be easy enought for me to try and it would suit the colour of the bucket so I searched my files for a tutorial - to no avail.  No internet, unable to search!  Ok then, I'll have to try to make lavender from memory.  I'm sorry my poor lavender doesn't do justice to this lovely bucket :(

Thankyou Carmen, your gifts are beautiful and you made me try to make something I never did before.

The second day, still no internet.  What to do?  Practise making lavender and see if I can do any better.  No, I'm afraid my second effort isn't any better than the first attempt :((  Well, I won't throw it out so, what to do with it?  There are some of those ugly little wooden pots in my stash but if I paint them they will still be ugly and look like painted wood because I'm not that great at paint effects either.  Hmmm, they're a bit on the small side too.  If I cover them with paper clay they'll look bigger so, out came the paper clay.  Just cheap stuff.  Glue and paperclay up to the elbows, paint in my hair, I forgot to make lunch but having a lovely time and in the end I like that little wooden flower pot now :))  And it's all thanks to Carmen for giving me the impetus to do something else besides crochet!

If anyone can help me learn to make nice lavender I'd be grateful!

Now I'm off to catch up with all the blogposts I've missed.