Paper & needle crafts among other handmade things

Last year I put together my own organizer using free online printables and as it worked fine for me  I'm doing the same again this year and then I thought it might be a good idea to try and make my own wall calendar too. After a quick search online I found a brilliant calendar blank which I bought and have been embellishing with images cut out from old books, the names of the months and days are stamped.

I have the pages for January, February and March finished and have been choosing and cutting the images for the following months. My plan is to recycle this calendar at the end of the year so I can use it next year although I haven't yet thought how exactly I'm going to do that.

This is what it looks like so far (sorry, I know the pictures aren't very good!). I really like my calendar, I like the process of choosing the images and puting them together on the page.

I've also been making new slippers for me to wear around the house, they're very comfortable and warm and they're a good way of using up leftover wool of which I seem to have a lot!

 

I can't stop admiring my new cushion and thinking that these little squares are just perfect to use up any leftover wool from previous crochet or knitting projects.

Simple as they are though it did take me several attempts to figure out the maths for this, I am that terrible with numbers! So for my future reference and for anyone else's too who might be interested here's how I made them.

Crochet 12 treble stitches into sliding loop. Here's a cool tutorial that teaches you how the sliding loop is done.

Pull end of yarn to close the ring, join with a slip stitch introducing a different colour at this stage.

Chain 3, 1 treble stitch in the next space, then 2 treble stitches into same space, chain 2 and 2 more treble stitches in the same space to make the corner. I think the pictures may be more helpful than my explanations

Carry on to finish the square and there you have it, a mini square with a circle in the middle.

Make lots and lots of these and join them together to make cushion covers, scarves, small blankets or even big blankets if you don't mind all that joining, etc.

Have fun

I just love, love, love my new cushion and can't stop admiring it.

As you can see I made lots of little squares which started out as circles,  I love the idea of a circle transforming into a square. The only part of this project I didn't enjoy as much as weaving in all those ends and there were so many of them but I got there in the end and I'm very happy with the result.

On a bid to try and use up as much of the bits and pieces of yarn I have I'm working on another cushion cover and loving how it's coming along. Here's a sneak peek, do you see all those ends needing to be woven in? Help!!

Here's the 1st Time capsule for 2012, all of the items shown below were made in January last year although it seems it was only yesterday. Time does fly by!

Mum's crochet wrap and knitted log cabin lap blanket.

Decoupage address book, the tutorial can be found here.

The tutorial for the flower pincushion is here.

First I'd like to say a big Thank you to everyone who took the time to visit my blog and to leave a comment on my crochet patchwork cushion cover, I also received a few questions so I hope the photos and the instructions below will help.

Initially I thought I'd make lots of little squares but then I wasn't too keen on having to join them all up somehow so I came up with this instead.

Chain 9 and skip the 1st chain, work in rows of dc to form a square.

Change colour as shown below and turn.

When working your 1st row in a different colour make sure you crochet over the ends of your yarn, this way you won't have to worry about weaving in all those ends at the end.

When you reach the end of your 1st row cut the ends and carry on changing colours at regular intervals until you have your strip as long as you want it.

Join the strips together by sewing or slip stitching and make sure you align the squares correctly.

You could also play with this idea and instead of squares go for a "crazy patchwork" look by making each section of your crochet strip a different height, just make sure all your strips are the same length.

Happy New Year everyone!

I want to start 2012 with a new craft project finished just before the New Year, my crochet patchwork cover for a cushion and here it is.

You might recognise the colours from previous crochet projects. I want to use up all my yarn leftovers instead of having them take up space in the drawers and this is the perfect use for them. I hope to be able to show the pair for this cushion very soon.