Lariath- Live a Little.

Not blogged in over a month! Busy busy busy. Haven't had time to craft but I've been trying to squeeze bits in here and there.  The second piece of clothing I have made, if you can call Slippers  clothing, is a shawl. I wanted a thin breezy shawl for spring/summer wear so nothing very warm. After looking at many crochet stitches I decided to give Solomon's knot a go. I'd heard this wasn't an easy stitch to complete but I wanted to give it a try. The good thing about this stitch is that the knot can be as big or as small as you want.  Here is the beginning of the shawl:  At the beginning I  found it quite difficult to keep track of where in the pattern I was, especially as this was a new stitch for me. To help with this I tied a piece of contrasting yarn to the point of the shawl (as seen in the picture). This was especially useful if I stopped crocheting and went back to it later on. However as the shawl got bigger I found it easier to pick up fro...

My 5 month old hamster Tim has time out of his cage every night depending on my working hours. If I'm on earlies (6am starts) I struggle to get him out as he doesn't wake up till after 9:30pm and I'm normally asleep myself...  Anyway I get him out for at least an hour. 15minutes running around on me and the sofa, then into the playpen for food and water and then in the ball for 15minutes. He goes back in the play pen for a while if time allows. Here he is eating his veg in the DIY playpen: This playpen is really easy to make and pretty much free if you can get hold of cardboard boxes. I used boxes from post deliveries, recycling! The cardboard boxes have to be tall enough so that the hamster cannot climb out. To make this playpen I cut down the corner of the box: With the box was completely flat I cut the flaps off one edge of the box (I used these later):   I cut the other box exactly the same. I positioned the two boxes so that all the flaps wer...

I love the look of aged paper but who has time to wait for paper to start looking old? Here's how I made paper look old, in about an hour, using instant coffee. What I used Plain white paper Instant coffee A tray - must fit size of paper  A kettle or saucepan - to boil water Somewhere to dry the paper that wont stain Paper I used normal plain white printer paper for this, although more absorbent paper would work better, printer paper worked fine for what I need. I ripped my paper in half as this is the size that I wanted and the ripping added to the aged effect. Staining The tray I used was a tin food tray, recycling! I placed a piece of paper in the tray then sprinkled some coffee on top, I then placed the next piece of paper on top and sprinkled some coffee on that and continued this using 5 pieces of paper in total (and a few extra bits). The colour of the paper will darken the more coffee used. I boiled some water, waited for this to cool a little so no...

In the mood for making bracelets again, it's been a while. I wanted to make one that was like a heartbeat. This took me ages to make as the pattern is quite complicated compared to what I've done before. The pattern I used for this can be found  Here The buckle I used for this was simple. For the loop I twisted the threads together and tied a knot. The tails were just braided and then knotted.  Wrap Bracelet I wanted to have a go at a wrapped bracelet, I've never tried this before so thought I'd give it a try. It's exactly the same as hair wrapping, you know those coloured hair wraps that young girls get on holiday.... yeah that, I had a few.  Bracelet wraps are really easy and quite quick to make; a lot quicker than the friendship bracelets like the one above anyway. It is what it says on the tin, wrapping. I watched this Tutorial  to learn the basic wrap bracelet and this Tutorial  to make the crosses in the centre of the bracelet....

I crochet squares for  Knit-a-square  charity between crochet projects. I'm using these squares to try out/ practice new stitches that I haven't used before. I started a Square using bobble stitch . I used bobble stitch (also called puff and popcorn stitch) to make the  Dalek , I struggled with the bobble stitch on the Dalek so thought this would give me some more practice. However I started the square and struggled and struggled with the stitch. One row was taking me a long time and considering 1 row of the square is only 8inches long this wasn't fun. I just can't seem to get my hook through that many loops without a lot of effort. I crochet quite tightly so I tried crocheting the bobbles looser but still no luck. So after a few different ways of trying I gave up as it was making me angry. I will still use bobble stitch in my project it will just take me longer to do. I don't think I will be making a square that is made up of bobble stitch though. Shell Sti...

I haven't been blogging much recently due to lack of time. However I have managed to finish my biggest crochet project yet! A draught excluder. It is not the most exciting thing in the world, I know, and even though it's bigger than my other crochet projects it was definitely not as complicated as others. It did, however, take a long time to complete. Click  Here  for the pattern I based this draught excluder on. For this project I used scrap DK yarn. I chose colours that I thought would look OK when used together. The width of the stripes were chosen as I went along. To stuff the draught excluder instead of spending money on that much stuffing I used old T-shirts. The T-shirts also made the excluder heavy which is very useful. I didn't crochet the draught excluder closed, instead I crochet a sort of rope; crochet a chain to the wanted length, turn, single crochet in each chain along, finish off. I weaved the rope through the last round of stitched, pulled tigh...

As in an earlier post I mentioned that Tim was my VERY shy hamster. Due to his timidness I was struggling to get him out of his cage for taming and exercise etc. Honestly it was taking me up to an hour to try and coax him out of his nest/tube so that I could scoop him up out of the cage. A waste of time for me and a bit stressful for him. To overcome this I decided that a cage door would be so much more efficient to get him out of the bin cage rather than taking the lid of and trying to scoop him up. To do this I used: An old wire cage (that I was never going to use again) Some wire cutters A drill A pen Sandpaper Some wire Part of the old wire cage: Using wire cutters I cut the door off the old wire cage leaving enough wire either side of the door to attach it to the bin cage: I then placed the door onto the bin cage where I wanted the door to be and using a pen marked where to cut the opening for the door and where I needed to drill holes to attach the door wi...