Yummyness And Craftyness!

What a lovely afternoon I've just had! I finished German class and then came back home for a spot of yummyness, followed up by some craftyness! Sounds like a perfect way to spend a wet and rainy Monday!

I wasn't alone, I had some rather splendid company from my new friend Lerryn.
Lerryn is in the same German class as me and is an artist from England. We get along like a house on fire! The crazy thing is she lives across the road from me! We can literally hang out of our windows and wave to each other (It's a small world)! I'm thinking we could make some bunting and attach it from my apartment to hers?.....that could be fun?!
Anyway.........I'm getting sidelined with the thought of bunting :-).
We spent a lovely afternoon together, chit chit chatting and munching our way through some yummy cupcakes!!!

Lerryn bought over a book of hers. "Let's Make Art" by Marion Deuchers. What a delightful book it is! A book full of project ideas, illustrations and fun information about different artists and styles.

I asked Lerryn if I could borrow the book for the evening. I'm having a great time flicking through the pages and am enchanted by its fun and playful style.

There are lots of fun ideas, some of which I would definitely like to play around with in the near future!

Once Lerryn had left, I got to work finishing a little something crafty.
It's a bright project, maybe overly bright? But it's certainly a fun project! I can't wait to reveal all a little later in the week!
I felt like giving you a little teaser to wet your creative appetite :-)
My project includes LOTS of crocheted flowers.

Mini bunting/flags.

Bright and bold stripes!

A crocheted clock face?

And some felted cuteness, to top it all off!

I'm adding the finishing touches as we speak and am looking forward to sharing it with you soon! I'm thinking the "Big Reveal" will be on Saturday, how does that suit you all?
Until then........Have a VERY CHEEKY week!!!

Matt xxx

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Granny Square Button Cushion!

Guess who spent a lovely Friday afternoon with Dennis?.......MEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
Dennis' cruise ship was in Hamburg for the day, so we had a chance to catch up. We spent a lovely afternoon sharing stories and enjoying each others company, it was sooooo  great to see him!
He is doing fine and is rather enjoying his current contract. He promises that once rehearsals are finished he will pop by 'the blog' and say hello to you all!

Friday really was a lovely day! Not only did I see Dennis in the afternoon, I also took the evening off form work and had a little time to myself. I spent some time working on my current WIP and made some scrummy home cooked food.

I also took a venture up the road to explore the local yarn cafe, they were having a 'Knit Night'.
Knit night happens twice a month at this store and I was extremely curious to see what it was all about.
I have to be honest, not only was I curious..... I was also a little nervous. Nervous about the fact I would probably be the only guy and nervous about the thought of having to speak German! 
I didn't have to worry about a thing! The ladies were extremely accommodating, they spoke to me slowly and were patient as I sometimes struggled to find the correct German words.  We spoke about our projects and worked on them whilst having a laugh and drinking good coffee. I didn't always understand everything that was said but I laughed along all the same! :-)

On the way home, I stopped off at a bar and listened to some live music whilst sipping a beer. It was a perfect way to end an evening free from work.

Would you like to see what I was working on at the knit cafe?
I started this project last week, It's made using the leftover yarn from my blanket.

This project had two purposes. The first was to be quick and easy and the second was to use up the last of this yarn. It fulfilled both!
I planned on making a cushion that would match my blanket. I decided to keep to a similar theme and made the pillow out of Granny Squares.
49 squares in total.

I made 24 colourful squares

 Then I added 25 white squares to the equation.

I stitched the squares together using single crochet. I wanted to create the same raised ridges that my blanket also has.

I rummaged the 'bits and bobs' box for all of the left over buttons we had. Some buttons I had bought, some I had found and some were salvaged from old clothing. 

I'm totally fascinated with buttons at the moment. I love the endless amount of colours and sizes. I love that  randomly you may see one whilst walking to work or find one down the back of the sofa. I think they're rather enchanting!

I sewed the buttons to the white Granny squares. 

Once the front of the cushion was complete I got to work on the back.
I simply made a large granny square out of my left over yarn. Changing colour for each round.

Isn't that just so stunningly sunny! I'm loving the back of the pillow almost as much as the front!
Once the back was finished I stitched the front to the back (cushion in the middle) also using single crochet. I finished it off with a simple picot border.
Wanna have a look?

 I'm very pleased with it! The buttons add a rather playful touch!
 Here's the back:

I'm not sure which side a love most?

It compliments the blanket nicely and sits fittingly with its sibling cushions!

With this cheery cushion it really doesn't matter that its so gloomy outside!
Apparently these days, sunshine comes in the form of granny squares and buttons!

Matt xxx

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Marvellous May.

Hello Lovelies!!
Just wanted to touch base with you all!
I've been struggling to find time to work on the blog this week. I've missed you all dearly!
Balancing work with German language school is proving a little tricky.  It's really not leaving me very much crafty time :-(
When I have had a free moment,  my head has been somewhere else. I haven't been able to focus on any ideas or even attempt to make my crafty dreams a reality.
However, this evening, I've not had to work and have spent the evening getting organised.
The idea 'flood gates' have opened and I'm once again swamped with creative crochet ideas.

May should be an exciting month! I have a a couple of patterns I'm working on and will hopefully be heading your way very soon!
I also have this gorgeous  'Baby Alpaca' wool to play around with. It's going to be worked up into a glorious frenzy of gorgeousness.

Not as bright and bold as my usual colour choices. A little more classic! Isn't it delicious looking?

Before I get working with the Baby Alpaca, I must finish my current WIP. I'm working on another Granny Square project using the left over wool from my blanket! I'll be sharing this with you very soon!

So...lots planned and happening for the month of May!!!
I can't wait!
What creative craziness have you all got planned for the upcoming month? I'd love to know!
I say "BRING ON THE MARVELLOUS MONTH OF MAY!" It's going to be exciting!

Matt xxx

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Crochet O'clock!

Hello gorgeous people!
WOW!!! I can't believe we have reached the 500 followers mark!!! That's really fantastic! I simply love how you all take the time to pop by and see what's happening. Isn't it amazing how we all connect through our hobbies and passions, people from all corners of the world!!!
A massive SQUEEZY HUG for the continuous support and for taking the time to come visit Dennis and I.

I've been a busy boy over the last couple of days, completely and utterly obsessed with my new project! A quick and cheery project that I hope will bring me lots of sunshine for months to come!
You may remember at the weekend I mentioned that I had bought a crafting clock from the craft store.

Its been really fun having this clock to play around with. Not making something from scratch, but building on an already existing product makes for a different perspective to crocheting.
I raided the yarn box and found our stash of 'creative cotton'. The colours are so bold and summery, I knew that they were exactly what I wanted for my clock.

My initial idea was to attempt to crochet one of the scenes from one of my 'Sunny Pictures'. 

After throwing that idea around in my head,  I soon realised that I would have to simplify the picture immensely. I decided rather than recreate one of the pictures, I would simply try and keep to the style of the pictures. I made a couple of quick sketches and decided upon something similar to this.

(Not a great drawing, but sketching out my ideas really helps me to visualise what I'm aiming for)

I got cracking with the design and started by crocheting a big circle out of two brilliant shades of blue cotton. This would act as the base colour to my clock face.

As I got further with the circle, I changed colours to add a rainbow to my blue circle.
Once the circle had the same circumference as the clock face, I added a little wavy border.
With the help of my trusty glue gun, I glued my crocheted circle to the clock:

At this stage, I was already loving the mix of rainbow colours against the blue sky background! I'm a sucker for a Rainbow!
I had reached the part that I was most excited about....decorating!!!
I had bought some inexpensive wooden numbers and painted them a shocking pink.

 

I searched the web for some crochet flower designs but settled on two designs I had previously used:

Attic 24's Teeny Tiny Flowers; They are sooooo cute, quick and easy to make.

'Mollie Makes' Crochet Flowers. These flowers are a little fiddly at first, but the step by step guide had some wonderfully clear pictures. The Mollie makes website is full of free tutorials and articles! Its really worth checking out for inspiration (if nothing else).

 

I bought this large ladybug and bee from the craft store. I thought they would go perfect with the ladybugs I already had lying around at home.

Finally I rummaged around for all of the bright buttons we had hiding aroung in our boxes. I thought they would fit this project :-)

How about I show you what I came up with?

I used shocking pink numbers as well as little ladybugs to symbolise the numbers.

 

The bigger Ladybug sat playfully on the hands of the clock. 

 

I made many gloriously bright flowers finished off with the bold buttons!

Here it is in its full glory!!!!

I'm so very very happy with it!!! Bright and cheery! Summery and simple!

Brings a touch of Spring/ Summer to the screen, don't ya think?!
Hope you're all having a FAB weekend!!!

Matt xxx

Crochet O'clock pattern available here!!!!

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Love is..... Felt Hearts!

I remember it well. It was about a week ago when I logged in to Pinterest. I'm pretty new to the whole concept, and not following so many people yet, but there were some new pins posted by Lucy. One of them immediately stood out. There were so many colorful pictures on my screen, but somehow they all seemed black and white compared to this one. The pin linked to this wonderful tutorial! It's made by Revlie over at REVolution. I knew it right away... we had to make it!

Matt and I went to two different craft stores in town, to buy as many colors of felt that we could get our hands on. We were lucky that both stores sold different colors, so we were able to get a nice and varied palette of colorful happiness. Twenty-one beautiful sheets of felt.

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The pattern doesn't link to a heart shape, but we found one on the lovely blog of Francine Clouden.

Here's a link to the page with the heart on it. At the bottom there's a PDF link to a heart cut out. We made a print at 40% to get the size we wanted for our hearts. 

We both are not very experienced in sewing, so it was a little fiddly and fidgety to sew these tiny hearts together, but after a couple we got the hang of it. We didn't have a big range of colors for sewing so we popped over to the craft store again, and bought a beautiful range of Embroidery Floss colors. It's crazy how many colors they sell, it must have been about 150!

We spent about 3 days sewing every morning and every evening, until we were satisfied with the amount of hearts. They were so satisfying to make! We loved the moment when you get to stuff them, as they become thick, squishy and even cuter!

The craft store also had a great range of wooden sticks, and we ended up going for the 4mm ones. We sawed them in many different lengths to get a random and varied looking 'forest'.

Attaching the cute hearts to the sticks turned out really easy with the help of a glue gun. The pattern called for glue dots, but we've never seen those here in Germany, not even in our gigantic craft store. The glue gun worked just fine however! 

And than we needed some jars and bottles. Luckily we hadn't brought any of our glass to the recycling yet, so we had plenty to choose from. We chose from a selection of juice bottles, jam jars and German sausage jars (I love German sausages!). We washed out our favorites and than it came to the exciting moment of filling them with the hearts! What a disappointment! All the hearts turned backwards and nothing stayed in it's place. 

Let's read the pattern again... There it was, you had to glue the sticks into the jars so they would stay in place. But gluing?

Matt came up with the most wonderful idea. Sand in the jars! And not just normal sand, colored sand! So off we went, back to the craft store (they really sell everything!), and we bought 6 colors of sand to match our hearts.

 Look at these gorgeous rainbowy shades! Don't they make you happy?

The sand worked like a charm. It made it very easy to adjust and arrange the hearts as much as we wanted.

How gorgeous do they look all clumped together! It was so much fun to play with all the possibilities. We had 28 hearts to play with (we've used some colors twice) and it gave us a lot of options.

But sometimes, the simplest arrangements can be the prettiest. So we went for a rainbow! Here's a final picture of our "Love is... Felt Hearts" forest.

What a great time we had working together on this fabulous project! It's a quick and easy project, and the end results are so very rewarding!

Matt & Dennis xxx

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