A most piratical birthday ::

So my little boy turned 4 on Sunday.  We're big birthday celebrators here, and why not eh? It only happens once a year, and for that reason I feel you need to spend as much time as possible over the days before and after the big event doing so.

My Lego obsessed (accessed as he says) boy, wanted of course a lego themed birthday, only we kind of did that already last year, so as we've recently been reading Peter Pan, I managed to persuade him a pirate lego party was the way to go.

With a little lot of help from my friends (one special lady in particular) ::

We built a super amazing and rather spectacular cardboard pirate ship ::

With some borrowed pirate lego, we Johnny made a delicious cake ::

On the food side, there were also, parrot pizzas ::

Marshmallow, lego pirate heads ::

and pirate hat biscuits (recipe) ::

We played pin the X on the treasure ::

Tug of war ::

and un-photographed (due to having too much fun!) a game of stairs snakes and ladders and pass the parcel.

Many friends raided their dressing up boxes and treasure chests to supply us with some fantastic decorations and my lovely sister made Milo a super special birthday banner.

On the day of his actual birthday we did the usual gift opening and pancake breakfast, before spending the rest of day building lego, only stopping for a lunch date at Jamie's with more friends.

It's times like these I really how blessed we really are, not only to have spent 4 fabulous years with this awesome boy but also to be surrounded by so many wonderful folks to celebrate this life with us.

Inside Crochet Issue 40 ::

Issue 40 of Inside Crochet went on sale just in time for the Easter Holidays and as usual it is packed full of gorgeous makes and fabulous articles.

You can also find 2 patterns by my within the pages this month.

These super useful baskets ::

Made by working parcel string, double crochet, around super chunky brightly coloured yarn.  The samples have already been put to good use in my house, storing lego (though this wasn't my original intention for them, everything in my house seems to be consumed by lego these days!).

And this luxurious crocodile stitch shawl ::

I adore this shawl and have been wearing it lots!  It can double as a scarf and the yarn is so incredibly delicious I could happily wear it all the time!

I know that I have been a particularly absent blogger of late, I really do intend to be better, promise.

Crochet! Gifts to go ::

My first (but by no means last) crochet sock pattern can now be found in this lovely collection of portable crochet projects, which make great gift ideas in this Crochet! Magazine, special collection available now.

These lovely lacy socks are made in Knit Picks Stroll Sport and use a shell, picot, lace repeat, making them a great summer accessory.  Worked cuff down, with a stretchy ribbing on the cuff and double(single) crochet heel and toe, they are crocheted in the round and as they are in a sport weight yarn are super quick to make up, with no finishing (well aside from weaving in those pesky ends!).

As an extra bonus I have a spare copy of this lovely magazine to give away!  All you need to do for a chance to win, is sign up to join my mailing list, that way you'll also receive my newsletter, so you'll hear all about my new patterns first.

Just pop your details in below and I'll pick winner on the 14th March.

Good luck x

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Beatrice Cardigan ::

My Beatrice Cardigan (originally published in issue 36 of Inside Crochet) is now available for individual purchase over in the usual places :

Ravelry
Etsy
Craftsy

I used Rowan, wool cotton, for the sample which I absolutely adore, but any double knit weight yarn could be used in it's place.  The Pattern is available in both US and UK terms and comes in sizes 30(34, 38, 42, 46)" bust

Photography by Britt Spring

Not So Granny : Crochet A Long ::

After having so much fun on the Woolly Wormhead mystery knit-a-long at the end of last year, when I saw Joanne Scrace of Not So Granny was doing a crochet-a-long for her new space inspired pattern collection for Malabrigo yarns, decided to jump on in.

Granted I barely have time to sleep amongst the mountains of work and masses of work based crochet I am already doing, but well...I wanted to do it...so there!

I've chosen to take on Galactica, I would have loved to have time to make Neptune, but it's just not feasible. I don't mind too much though, I'm a big shawl/shawlette/scarf fan (as you can tell by my wardrobe) and I love the look of this stitch.

I was going to use this as an excuse to make a new yarn purchase, but my conscience got the better of me and I decided to have a look in my stash. Just after Christmas I purchased a few bargain skeins of one of my favourite Rowan 'cashsoft' in mustard yellow (sunny) and blue (lake), so with fingers crossed I have enough to see me through I'm using these.

Cannot wait to get started.

If you fancy joining in you can find Joanne's Ravelry group here and details of the CAL itself here (including a little discount incentive) there are also lots of fabulous prizes up for grabs, including the gorgeous shawl pin by NovaSteel (if you have a love of scarfs/shawls as big as mine, you should definitely check out her shop).

Craft Hobby and Stitch ::

One very sunny day last week I went over to Birmingham for Craft Hobby and Stitch trade show, I usually go with my Mum and sister, we've been going for a good 6 years I think.  It's always loads of fun and great to get a look at lots of exciting new craft products for my Mum's shop.  This year however it clashed with half term in Norfolk so I was dispatched to seek out the new products by myself (though I'm not going to lie I spent most of the time admiring gorgeous yarns).

I also got to listen to Perri Lewis talk about blogging, which was pretty ace.

Some of the highlights for me, were the gorgeous Erika Knight stand ::

The crochet samples on the the DMC stand ::

Super delicious Fyberspates ::

(I recently crocheted a sample in Scrumptious and can categorically say that it is indeed Scrumptious)

New Rowan sock yarn ::

 All in all a great (though utterly exhausting day).

Lego Head ::

I recently purchased Fresh Stitches' amigurumi course from Craftsy.  I'm not a massive fan of making amigurumi, I can totally see it's attraction and that so many people love it, but I don't know why it just hasn't ever really appealed to me, so when I saw that Stacey Trock's 'Design your own monster' course was super discounted on valentines week, I thought I'd see if I could be inspired to give it a go.

And needless to say I was, if you haven't heard of craftsy of looked at the courses they have on offer, I suggest you go on over there and have a peek.  I loved Stacey's class, her manner and explanations were perfect and though I doubt you'll see me churning out masses of amigurumi monsters or animals any time soon, it certainly gave me a lot to think about and who knows I may even write up a pattern or two.  But for now I'm happy creating cuties for the toddler.

He's away this week, so I made him this soft and cuddly lego head, using the techniques I learned in the class, he's not perfect, but he's a close enough resemblance and hopefully the boy will give him the thumbs up when he returns.