My Creative Space...

...this week is a lesson in perseverance. As you may remember, I have been trying to master the art of crochet, for quite some time now. I fell in love with the Granny Shrug, printed out Lara's pattern, dilligently read Kirsty's fab instructions, purchased some Paton's Wilderness in Mulberry and a rather large hook, and have practiced and practiced. All I seem to make is a big pile of Mulberry Tangles. I have finally come to the disappointing realisation that I suck at crochet.

Determined not to be the biggest loser in the yarn battle, I have taken up a new weapon. I learnt to knit as a teenager, and to be honest, I wasn't very good at it. Probably because I found it a bit boring and time consuming, when really, I much preferred to spend my time at my besty's place, crimping my hair, dancing madly to 'Papa Don't Preach' and singing into a hairbrush.

These days my priorities seem to have changed somewhat (thank goodness, I hear you say), and the thought of sitting quietly, enjoying the rythmic click clack of the knitting needles seems like heaven on a stick. Okay, so I haven't knitted for...a really long time, and when I did knit, I never actually completed anything, but nothing was going to stop me now!

...except when my stitches strayed so far that the pattern was barely recognisable. This was how far I got on my first attempt before deciding to unravel and start again. And let me tell you, I don't knit very fast, so this attempt took me hours. Unravelling it was awful.

My second attempt was unravelled before I'd invested quite so much time:

Can you see the big hole and tangle where a stitch is supposed to be?

Here's my third attempt right before I unravelled it: 

Honestly, who thought that knitting a scarf would be so difficult??? It's almost enough

to make a girl dig out her Best Of Madonna CD from storage.

Okay, so I persevered. Which is not something I usually do. I'm more of a 'do it perfectly the first time or don't bother at all' kind of gal. Which, all in all, is not a very productive attitude. So here I am, in my creative space, persevering. And actually enjoying it a little...

For more creative spaces, visit Kirsty, who's a whiz with yarn and hook.

Feeling much better

Thank you for the lovely messages about my unfortunate accident (and resulting Dedicated Crafter Award).

So now an update. Since neither the doctor's office or the hospital has called me with any results from my x-rays, I am presuming that my foot is not actually fractured. Or possibly this is simply our overworked and underfunded public health system at its finest. Do you think either Julia or Tony are at all interested in my x-rays? Either way, my foot seems to be improving (coincidentally, my disposition seems also somewhat improved after two days of lying about on the couch watching bad daytime tv and eating Tim Tams).

I am afraid I have been failing miserably at keeping my blog up to date, so will endeavour to bring you up to speed with all the latest goings on here at D4C during the next few days.

I have a few lovely balls of Patons Wilderness and a 15mm hook in hand to finally have a crack at Kirsty's Granny Shrug. Hope you too are enjoying a cosy winter's evening by the fire, maybe with some handcraft to keep you company.

Kirsty's Granny Shrug

 I was super impressed when I saw the Granny Shrug that Kirsty has whipped up over at Kootoyoo, and I'm looking forward to the tutorial she has very kindly promised to share.

This morning Kirsty set a little shopping list for the Granny Shrug. Oooh, I read it with great excitement and amidst visions of whipping up my own gorgeous Shrug was grabbing the car keys to go buy some supplies, when...darn it...common sense crept in...only momentarily, of course, but long enough for me to glance in the direction of my pile of UFO's. Which seems to currently be a decent size (by which I mean I can't get to the craft cupboard due to the enormous pile of projects in varying states of completion which is blocking the way. I'm keeping Cheese Boy well away lest it actually topple and bury him, never to be seen again).

Not even rating a mention is the fact that I can barely crochet, and have yet to complete more than one granny square. I'm never one to let lack of experience/knowledge/ability get in the way of crafting fun!

The Great Pencil Roll Experiment...

Here is a little pencil roll I whipped up on Sunday evening. I used this excellent tutorial from Kirsty over at Kootoyoo (which is actually for an embroidered carry all!) but the instructions lend themselves to a pencil roll just as well, the instructions are very easy to follow and the pencil roll came together in about half an hour. Thanks Kirsty!

Please take no notice of the fact that I only stitched enough pockets to hold eleven pencils. Clearly I need a tutorial which reminds me to count the number of pencils in my child's pack before marking and stitching all the rows.

  

Here it is rolled up.

Next time I would use ribbon to tie around the roll instead of elastic, I think it would be prettier.

Since I am pretty much a complete novice when it comes to sewing, this was actually a practice run for a knitting needle roll which I want to make for my mum, so I will keep you updated with the progress of that, but I'm feeling more confident after the pencil roll experiment!

**Apologies to Kirsty for completely disregarding the 'embroidery' section of her tutorial - despite the wonderful instructions I'm just not that confident yet!