Unveiling...

As promised, pics of the apron - both sides. You can imagine lots of pictures were taken before I was even marginally happy with the results. (Although, I'm still not really. Anything that has me in it will not be a good photo). Thank you John for taking the pictures and having the patience!!!

I like how you can wear this both ways round. Although I think the wide red stripe is meant to be the main front, I quite like having the overlap/wrap side front so I can see the buttons!

And as I was dressing for the occassion.....

Had to match the daisies now, didn't I?

PS. I was trying out a link to my flickr slide show. If you want to see it, just click on the top picture of this post and it will take you straight there. If the 'i' is in the middle of the picture, you can click and it gives you information on each picture. (If you want it out the way, just move the cursor off the picture.)

Buttons!

At last my buttons have arrived from Ebay! Now I can finish the apron properly. A trip to the fabric shop did render up some nice buttons - the strawberry ones, the green, white and small red simple flower shapes and the hand painted wooden ones at the top of the picture, but none of them seemed right on the dress.

So I resorted to hunting on ebay. There I found the big plastic ones, the daisies and twelve red flowers with white centres. The new ones all looked nice BUT still didn't look right. They didn't have enough presence, even the lovely daisies. Because the button size has to be no bigger than 2cm wide to fit through the crochet stitches, the button looks too small and floats on the background. Then I thought, "Do I really need to unbutton this anyway? I can pull it over my head." So maybe I can use the bigger size for just decoration purposes.

So that's what I've done. Big daisies, it holds everything together and it looks right!

If you are really lucky, you might get photos of me wearing it - but as I don't really like modelling, it might well be the tailors dummy!

Finished!

At last! The red apron is finished! Well, it was finished at 1am this morning but it was a bit too dark for photos! I'm really pleased with it and the colours are lovely. The red is a bit over bright in this photo but not by much!! I added the darker red stripes on each edge at the back and made the top band darker too. Now I'm thinking, maybe I should have put a dark border on the bottom to balance it out - give it a more finished feel? What do you think?

I'm thinking yes at the moment...

I also want to change the buttons as they don't stand out at all but I didn't have any funky ones to hand and wanted to try it out! Something with more definition - I did try white ones but they looked too tacky and cheap. Flower shaped ones would be good but quite hard to button through the crochet stitches I'd imagine! I'll have a look in the shops tomorrow and see what I can find. If not, I'll try ebay -you never know!

Now I've finished this one, I'll have to find another project to do. I have the ongoing ripple blanket - which has been neglected of late - but it is getting a bit heavy now and I like the feel of getting something made in a shorter time span! I'm thinking of a more fitted crochet top or a small 3/4 length sleeve knitted cardi/wrap/shrug - any ideas or links to patterns?

While I'm in town tomorrow, I'll have to get some rechargeable batteries for the MP3 player... yes, already! Too much listening to the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack whilst crocheting, I think! (good motivator for fast crocheting!)

This week, I have to go back to work as the colleges are back for the new term. So, from wednesday, I will have to hoard my spare time for creative endeavours, whatever they will be. I'm intending to work on some new cards and do some sampling for new ideas - I'll let you know how I get on. But first I have to think of a taster session for my new textiles class on wednesday....

Back soon, hopefully with some new buttons and some cards to show you.

Aprons and MP3's

All of a sudden the weekend is rolling around and I'm wondering just what I've done with this week. It's more a feeling that I have nothing tangible or very creative to show for it. So here's a little run down of the ongoing things that are eating up the time...


I have been working on the apron dress - it took me ages just to decide just what colour to use and unusually for me I chose reds (instead of pinks!). The next trouble was "do I have enough yarn to complete the project?" The pattern says 9 x 100gm balls of the main colour and 1 x 100gm ball of contrast. Well, that seems a lot to me but I haven't made anything garment wise for a while so what do I know?

So, off I go. I have now got to 3/4's of the way through this really clear and easy to follow pattern but the yarn is lasting and lasting...... I'm thinking maybe the pattern should have said 50gms instead of 100gms?


I decided I wanted to use red chenille with the strong red wool colour and I have kept the stripe in the middle of the dress but also added two darker chenille edge stripes at both ends. It is a bit of a tester garment and I will work my way up to more complex crochet patterns. I have found this one very easy to visualise and follow, so that's promising!!


I have also been making some cards - the fact that this month has a plethora of birthdays in it, may have something to do with this! I intended to put them in my website shop but most of them have been used! They are posted on Flickr though if you want to have a look.


Talking of Flickr, I have just found a nifty link to http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/ They have all kinds of toys to manipulate your images: calendars, wallpaper, warholiser.... The one I tried was the mosaic maker. You get your photos from Flickr and literally place them into a grid of your choosing. Then you can upload it back to Flickr or save the image. You can edit, change, whatever! Here's my mosaic, you can see a better quality image on my flickr site.


Doing this made me realise that I need to take more photos!

Another thing that has been eating up the time is downloading music! Having just got a small MP3 player yesterday, I suddenly felt the need for new music and old music I don't have on cd. So I have been searching and downloading for two days - while crocheting - and realised just how slowwww the whole process is. I have been using some open source free sites so maybe if I paid it would be quicker?! Apparently it has been sunny outside while I have been lost in the gloom of downloading land! Tomorrow it's off to the beach, or something.... Being a sunny bank holiday weekend, I don't know if I will find any space on the beach in Cornwall!


Anyway, another evening or three of crochet and the apron should be done and now I have just the right music to listen to while I work.....

Enjoy your bank holiday whatever you decide to do!

More than an apron....

Just wanted to share this new free pattern from Monica at Crochet me! Okay, you're thinking "crocheted apron? What on earth?" but just look....

Isn't that lovely? And a simple but clever idea to cross at the back. Thank you Monica for the freebie! That's my weekend sorted. There is also a new crochet book coming out that you will find on the Interweave site - http://www.interweave.com/crochet/books/CrochetMe/ It is full of designs that actually consider the figure and look fashionable.

You can look inside the book and there are links to contact the individual designers too. I really like the '5 o'clock tank' designed by Megan Granholm - but maybe that's just because its pink! Go and have a look!

It's really got me thinking about the shaping in garments and how we have this mental image of crochet=granny. Okay, I do like the irony of deliberately crocheting a granny afghan but I'm glad there are new designs out there that are considered, modern and fashionable. Makes you think about the design and shape of what you wear or create - knit or crochet - and how the basic elements are put together. I feel some experimentation coming on.......

Let you know how it goes!