Re-introductions

I thought, being as it’s been so long since I posted, that it might be nice to do an ‘Introductory Post’, a bit like I would on a new blog… A ‘Re-Introductory Post’ if you will.

Having looked at my ‘About Me’ section, I noticed that when I wrote it, Mo was 9…. Well, Amber has just turned 9 now, so that means I must have written it at least THREE WHOLE YEARS AGO!!!  Eek!  We’re all different to how we were three years ago, especially the children.  Plus the fact that I’ve always tried to not use their real names on the blog in true ‘blog style’.  But I’m not very good at being consistent and discreet, and often drop their names on Instagram and stuff, so I figure I may as well introduce y’all properly!

Slightly fuzzy photo, but it’s all I have!

So here goes!  First up….. ME!

I’m Laura.  I’m in my early thirties (totally my best decade yet, I’m loving it) and have a crazy Loopy Home full of crazy loopy people.  I love to crochet, bake, do colouring in, embaress my kids in public places, stuff like that!  I go crazy for rainbows, glitter, Moomins, and Care Bears.

Here’s me looking all gorgeous and stuff-

 

Next up, Brian.  He’s a little bit older than me, and his hobbies include being grumpy, not telling me he doesn’t like a food until after I’ve cooked it, and sitting quietly.  He’s very tolerant of my lunacy and craziness though 😉 .

Here he is looking unimpressed-

 

And here is devouring a freakshake-

 

Not doing too badly for someone who claims not to like chocolate! 

Well now, who’s next?  Ah yes, Mo!  She’s coming up to 12 now, just started High School, and fully believes this makes her an adult.  She loves to sing, play guitar, take selfies, and write ‘novellas’. She’s just getting to the nightmare stroppy stage god help us, and flits between evil teenager and sweet little Mo every hour or two.

In teenage mode, taking selfies!

In sweet little geek mode, with her crocheted science project!

 

Next in line is Amber!  She’s just turned 9.  She’s a complete little maths boffin.  Honestly, she wanted a ‘Maths themed birthday cake’!! 🙂  She loves maths, homework, gymnastics, and horses!

 

And then come the gruesome twosome….. Our little suprise additions.  They’re almost 4 now!

Oldest by two minutes is Henry.  He loves Superman and Spiderman!  He’s also just discovered the concept of answering back with smarty pants comments, cheeky little bugger.  For example:
Me: Did you eat your lunchbox at nursery today?
Henry: What?
Me:  You heard me, did you eat all your lunchbox?
Henry:…… Mommy I did not eat the box!

 

And last but by no means least is Raymond.  He loves Batman and Nemo and Dory. He is the master of hilarious facial expressions!

 

 

So that’s my family, the occupants of The Loopy Home!

I do, however, also have a pretty cool supporting cast too! My two best friends who you will often hear me talk about, deserve an introduction too I reckon.  They’re both crazy hookers just like me, and we’re currently brainstorming the idea of starting an online shop and website together.

First up, Helen.  We met years ago when we worked at the Library.  Helen is quite quiet and just like my kids, very easily embaressed by me!

Here we are looking very sexy at our Choir Christmas party. 

And of course, there’s Melody.  She is very like me- crazy and rainbow loving.

Here we are looking very sweaty after completing the Race for Life! 

And there we go! That’s us!  Hopefully you will now be able to put faces to names when I’m waffling on, and also, you’ll have a bit more of an up to date representation of us all.

🙂 🙂 🙂

 

March: Taking Stock

Gosh, it’s been a little while hasn’t it?!  Very nearly a year in fact!   I’ve been busy, you know, living life, all that jazz.
I’m going to try and give the blog a bit of a jump start and get it going again, because I HAVE missed it, and fingers crossed perhaps one or two of you lot have as well.

So, here is a little ‘stock-taking’ update to give you a quick update, and to dip my toe back in the bloggy waters! 🙂

Making : As always, I have been busy hooking.  Right this second I am making a hippy boho cardigan from a back issue of Simply Crochet.  I’ll show you properly when it’s finished, and also, at some point we’ll have to have a round up of all my makes that you’ve missed in the last year !

Cooking : Well, today is Little Tron (Amber)’s 9th birthday!  So I have been very busy cake baking for her.  She has had 48 cupcakes to take to school, and I’ve just been putting the finishing touches to her main cake for later on.

 

Drinking :  I’ve been drinking diet shakes.  But we’ll come back to that later 😉
Reading:  I gave up trying to read books because I never find time in between the kids, crochet, life in general.  I discovered Audible though, and it’s been brilliant!  The last book I ‘read’ was Blood Sweat and Tyres by The Hairy Bikers, and you know how I love those guys ❤ x

Wanting:  More money?!  More wool?!

Looking:  Good actually.  Remember I mentioned those diet shakes?  I’ve been on them since August and have lost 8stone and 9lb so far.  I’ll give this a blog post all of it’s own at some point too.

Playing:  My whole life is spent playing at being a real life adult!  Am I convincing anyone?!
Deciding: When to go to our new allotment.  Every time we get there it chucks down!

Wishing: Spring would hurry up and arrive.

 

Considering:  A new blog and online shop with my hooker friends. 🙂
Enjoying:  Life in general.  Even though it is very hectic at the moment, and we are particularly poor at present.

 

See you again soon Fluffies! xxx

 

The Elmer Blanket

Ooh this is a good one! I’ve been dying to show it to you since I finished it a fortnight back, but I do like the recipient to see it first, y’know, no spoilers and all that.

Anyway, my friend received this in the mail yesterday and was suitably pleased with it (Phew!) so I can yarn porn you with it now!

Kymberley, my lovely friend, has just found out that she’s having a girl (YAY!) but when I began the blanket we were still in the dark.  However Kym said she was all about the brights and unisex, which I also LURRRRRVE so I thought she and the mini bean would suit a nice Elmer blanket.

I bust out my graph paper and felt pens and drew up a plan.  I wouldn’t like to wing it because even ‘random’ squares need a bit of thinking through so they are distributed just right.  Also, I wouldn’t want to over make or under make any colour, that would be infuriating!

 

 

I don’t know if you can see from the picture, but the shades I used were Aster, Spice, Kelly, Violet, Matador, Black, Fondant, Saffron, and White. All Stylecraft Special DK as usual 😉 .

The colours worked beautifully, the only thing I might change if I were to make another, would be to use Citron rather than Saffron.  The saffron is fine but I do prefer the nice bright Citron shade, it just so happened when I was making the squares I din’t have much Citron but had tonnes of Saffron!

 

 

The squares, as you can see there, are solid grannies.  I substituted the middle treble on each side for a chain space just to mix it up a bit really. I’d seen them made like that before and thought I’d give it a go.

 

 

Some quality testing occuring there.  These boys of mine do like to come and have a snuggle and check all new projects out!

It came together very quickly: Actually making the squares only took a few days but then weaving in all the ends, slip stitching the squares together, and edging the blanket added another three or four days.  It took a total of a week all in all.

 

 

The squares are slip stitched together.  It’s my prefered joining method for a neat finish (have a look on Attic24 for a tutorial), although I’ll be honest I HATE slipstitching!

They’re joined with black aswell, which you don’t see from the front but gives the back a very pleasing look which reminds me of a Rubiks Cube!

 

 

So are you ready to see the final photo? The supersonic Elmer Blanket or colourful woolly wonder?!!

Ok then!

 

 

Pleasing isn’t it?!  The colours pop so beautifully, and I love the patterns made by the little gaps!

Happy hooking y’all! xx

Four Years!

Well spank my ass and tickle my fancy, GUESS WHAT?!

THIS popped up on my Facebook memories this morning…

 

 

How mad is that?

I can’t believe its only been four years since I taught myself (successfully) to crochet.  I really do feel like I have always done it, like it has always been part of me.

 

I had tried and failed to learn many many times.  Several people had tried to teach me, I’d had a book, I’d watched videos, but I just could not do it!

Then, four years ago today, I went to a craft event at the church we attended at the time.  There was lots going on and I had an amazing time, but the thing that influenced me the most was a lady who was sat crocheting.

As this lady hooked away, her mum was sat by me chatting, and she said “Sue taught herself to crochet and she loves it, never puts it down, she’s made some beautiful things”.  And then Sue looked up and told us she was currently making a shawl, which she lifted up to show us.

Let me tell you, it was the FUGLIEST thing you ever saw.  Proper mank it was; brown and shapeless, ugh!

And that was my moment.  I smiled politely and lied through my teeth about how beautiful and delicate it was, but my inner voice said to me, “If she can do it, then I can bloody do it!”

When we left church that day I went straight to The Range and bought a cheap hook, and a cheap ball of bright green wool and that evening, with the help of The Crochet Crowd YouTube channel, I actually managed to pick it up!

I’m so glad I finally got it.  I’ve made so many fun things in those four years, and I really can’t see a time where I will ever NOT crochet!

And on that note, I am signing off from this post now, and off to work on my next, about another baby blanket I recently made!

See you again shortly! xx

Crochet Now!

Hiya Fluffies!

I’ve come back super quick, as promised, to show you my latest make.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been making mostly baby things just lately for my GAZILLION pregnant friends, so when a pattern in here caught my eye I decided to take a little break from my current baby blanket and GO FOR IT.

 

Its a nice magazine.  I guess being issue 1 it will need time to find it’s feet, but I found it pretty super actually.  One of my main critisizms with crochet magazines (one in particular who I won’t mention) is how mind numbingly simple everything tends to be.  I realise that it must be tricky to reach such a wide audience of hookers of all abilities, but sadly it often leads to erring on the side of caution and going simple.

I really like how Crochet Now seems to encompass the audience more.  I consider myself pretty advanced these days (and of course very modest 🙂 ) and the good range of patterns was nice and refreshing to see.

 

Ha!  There’s me being foolish enough to think I could just lay this out and photograph it without interference from twintastic terrible toddlers!

 

Oh, and again!

Third time lucky?

 

 

Ah yes there we go!

The magazine calls this a ‘Boho Chic Mosaic Scarf’, so I’ll go with that being as my alternative would be ‘backward shawl scarf type affair’.

I changed up the colour scheme to something more ‘me’ and kinda ‘spring-like’.  It looks pretty ace if I say so myself, and I’ve never seen granny stripes and clusters used to make a pattern in this way before, it’s really clever!

Here’s some more pictures of it being modelled.

 

 

Brian wasn’t being fully cooperative.  But Mini Moo obliged and modelled it, and even with her onesie its pretty snazzy huh?!

 

Outtake!

 

All in all, I’d say “Big thumbs up!” to Crochet Now magazine.  There’s some good subscription deals if you jump in early aswell, so I fully intend to go for it.

Loves to all! xx

Easter Weekend Pootlings

Hello everyone, Happy Easter to you all!

How is your weekend panning out?  Ours hasn’t been the greatest really.  It’s not been BAD, just not amazing you know.  Perhaps I’m comparing to last Easter, which if you cast your mind back to THIS post, you might remember was particularly super.  Or perhaps it’s just the skanky weather? Who knows hey?!

 

Our Easter seemed to begin with everybody being very very sleepy!  Daddy and Disco Boy, AND the girls, all slept in until 10am which is completely unheard of, and it was just me and my little buddy Thunderpants up and about, drinking tea and juice, and chomping toast.

 

Little Tron has been having a go at some supersonic Dot to Dots, in a magazine we saw in Tesco and couldn’t resist.  They’re very clever!  Although, I was hoping we’d be able to colour them once we’d done them but they’re not really up to that. Perhaps we’ll have to get a bit more artistically creative?  I’ll report back…

 

I treated myself to a new magazine that has just come out called Crochet Now.  I’ve been busy making one of the projects in it, and actually I just finished it before writing this post!  So stay tuned because I intend to honour that with a post all of its own 🙂 .

I’ve kept the children as entertained as possible.  Here they are making rice crispy easter cakes… Hmm, too many cooks?!  Well, they all enjoyed having a stir, although it meant I had a tonne of extra spoons to wash.

And when all else fails, I have bribed them  promised them some extra pocket-money if they’ll help me knot all my crochet offcuts together for my tatty blanket, so Little Tron especially has been helping  lots with that!

 

We have ventured out though, despite the rain, and pootled over to Wightwick Manor for their Easter Bunny hunt.  The kids had a great time, although there were a few showers but nothing we couldn’t handle.

 

Right said Fred.  That’s a round-up of our weekend, I’m going to write another post now about my latest make from that lovely Crochet Now magazine!

See you later! x

 

 

The Neutral Baby Set

 

I have a LOT of pregnant friends right now! So,  lots of baby goodies to crochet and lots to show you- Hooray!

First off, the neutral set.  The blanket is from a Sirdar pattern in this book-

There’s some really gorgeous patterns in this book; a couple of blankets, cardigans, booties etc.  Definitely money well spent!

I started the blanket a while back, before I had a recipient in mind, just because I really liked the look of it.  It was the first time I’d used Sirdar Snuggly and I really really liked it.  It’s an acrylic yarn but it’s so soft, really lovely.  There’s a good colour range too actually, which you don’t always get with baby soft yarn.

Surprisingly though, I went for ‘Oatmeal’, a very neutral colour.  I’m so glad I did because it really turned out well!

 

The wooden button was a little flash of inspiration I had which I think accented it really nicely.

 

My only (very slight) criticism of the pattern would be that there is no border.  You just work the rows and that’s that.  I couldn’t bring myself to leave it like that though, so I just edged it with a couple of rounds of double crochet.  I don’t know, perhaps I’m a bit strange, but it felt properly finished once I’d done that!

To go with the blanket I finished off the Sirdar Snuggly by making a comforter (or ‘lovey’ as I’ve also seen them called).

 

 

The ‘blankety’ part is just a basic granny square, and the head is a unicorn made from an Edward’s Menagerie pattern.  Actually it’s a pony’s head and I made up the horn to turn her into a unicorn 😉 .

I was really pleased with how it turned out.  Like I said before, it’s not what I’d usually go for, the neutrals, but it turned out to be really nice!  And the recipient was really pleased to receive it so that’s the main thing!

Here’s a couple more pics to leave you with, and I’ll be back again tomorrow.

 

Loves! xx

 

 

 

Today I WILL write a blog post!

Hello there flowers!

Or perhaps I should say ‘Hello there Daffofils!’ because it seems that spring has very much sprung has it not?!

It’s so nice to see y’all.  Long time no see and all that.
I’m not going to start making excuses as to why it’s taken so long for me to come back.  It’s just one of those things you know, I needed a bit of a break.  I got a bit bogged down with orders before Christmas.  Not wanting to sound ungrateful because of course the money was jolly nice to have to spend on the lovely Christmas away that we had, but I was getting a bit stressed and my crochet hooks were smoking from all the speed hooking I had to do.

The joy of putting up the Christmas tree!

Consequently, one of my new years resolutions was to be a bit more selfish this year, and look after myself more.  This has definitely led to me feeling a bit better!  On the crochet front I’ve been hooking selfishly!  Not ONLY things for myself, but things I want to make.  I have plenty to show you so stay tuned and Over the next week or so I’d love to share some of my makes from the past few months. 🙂

On the beach on Boxing Day!

I’m also updating my Etsy shop.  I think after a few months break I may be ready to take an order or two.

So I shall be back later today or maybe tomorrow, to show you the first few makes I have in the ‘back catalogue’!!!

Loves! x

The Minecraft Scarf!

 

Just to let you know that the ‘pattern’ / ‘how to’ guide for how I made this is now available in my Patterns tab above.  Here’s the direct link aswell MINECRAFT SCARF .

 

 

 

 

Rough Times

Hi y’all.

This is going to be a quick one, but I just wanted to check in and say hello. Things here aren’t great at the minute. The twins have been poorly for about a month now, Disco Boy especially.

Colds, coughs, tonsilitis have all passed through. Now it’s an ear infection and the discovery of a heart murmur.

So please bear with me. I will be back soon I promise. I have lots of finished projects and current projects to show you soon. 🙂