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Friday 29 January 2016

Crochet Car Basket

I'm a member of the UK Survival Network (UKSN) and one of their posts in January was asking us all to start a DIY project that either allowed us to develop new skills, or improve our existing ones. I decided to take this as an opportunity to try a crochet technique I'd not used before.

Recently we went from having one large family car to having two smaller ones. I now have a little Fiat Panda all to myself, which I love, but I haven't put any 'emergency supplies' in it yet. With Winter finally starting to bite, I want to leave some items permanently in the car in case I was stuck in it for a prolonged period.

My problem is that space is VERY limited. My pram just fits into the boot with a small triangle left over. To prevent things I want to store from falling over and going everywhere when I take the pram out I decided to make a crochet basket that fits the space exactly. This will save me from repacking the boot constantly and means all of my 'emergency' items are to hand when I need them.



I wanted the basket to be sturdy and to have handles, so I decided to use 7mm polypropelene rope, and to crochet over it with gardeners twine. I've wanted to try crocheting with twine for a long time and this seemed like the perfect project to finally give it a go. In the end I used 100m of Poly rope and roughly 320m of twine.


As I wasn't following a pattern I put paper down in my boot and drew out the shape that I wanted the basket to be. This meant I could check my work against this when making the base, without running out to the car all the time. I used a 4.5mm hook on the base as I wanted it to be fairly sturdy and a 6mm hook on the sides as I wanted it to be a little looser and more flexible.



It may look a bit odd as it's not a conventional shape due to fitting round the pram, but I'm really happy with it. It might not be pretty, but it's functional! And I do love using something that I made myself rather than bought.



I had a big ponder about what supplies I would permanently leave in there as I had to be pretty ruthless with not having much space. I made a quick video about what I decided. If you fancy a nosy, click on the video below. And if anyone has any suggestions of things to add/switch out, please leave a comment and let me know.









Grey Flecked Crochet Scarf / Shawl


Roughly a year ago I posted asking for help, because I wasn't sure what to make with some yarn I bought. Well, I finally used it!

I ended up using a pattern called Coraline In The Wine Country from simplycollectiblecrochet.com, which Clare from the Youtube channel BobWilson123 has also done a video tutorial of.

I made mine in a chunky yarn with a 9mm hook, and I also made it slightly smaller as I wanted it to be a triangular scarf and not big enough to be a proper shawl. A wrap at most.

One of the things that I think is so wonderful about crochet is how a simple change of yarn or hook size can make the results of the project so different.

Anyway, voila! What do you think? It's a lovely pattern to follow. Simple and straightforward, so you can watch TV while you're crocheting and actually get to watch and not just listen! It worked up very quickly too.











Friday 8 January 2016

I'm A Big Nerd And I Don't Care!

So, I usually tend to write about crochet. I have many varied interests that make me happy too and I've only just realised that the only thing stopping me from writing about them was myelf!

I adore Bethesda video games. Most of all, the Fallout franchise. Jumping-up-and-down squeaking-with-glee-when-the-postman-delivered-my shiny-new-copy-of-Fallout 4-on-release-day kind of joy. After playing it, I keep coming up with crochet ideas. For those not as cool as me, it's set in a post apocalyptic world which is populated by the decendants of people who had survived an atomic bomb by sheltering in vaults. 

After falling in love with the new installment I have a burning desire to make a grey and black blanket that looks like it has been issued to a vault dweller by Vault-Tec. My inner voice told me not to blog about that because 'the internet' would think I was weird for being thirty and playing video games, and then making crochet projects based on them. A few day ago I suddenly decided I don't really care anymore.

I have other non-crafty interests besides Fallout. I really like survival/bushcraft/prepping, whaterver you want to call it. The great outdoors and all that.

After watching many videos about the items other people carry about their person every day, I decided to make my own. Which I posted yesterday. And, I made it in my pyjamas, with no make-up on. Even though I was tempted to put uncharacteristic amounts of slap on I thought if I'm going to be brave about all parts of the real me, I really sould be the real me, right? Sot, no make-up. and as I made it at night after my little ones were asleep, I'm in my jim jams, and half whispering.


If you're into that sort of thing too, feel free to have a look. Or if you're just generally wondering what's in my bag after reading all of this, knock yourself out.

So basically, I'll be posting a lot more, and not just about crochet. It could be cooking, or books, or my favourite mods for a fictional sniper rifle. Just giving you all fair warning.