76 • Crochet & Knitting Podcast • What I've Been Knitting & Crocheting the Past Two Weeks!

[Music] hello and welcome to the little drops of wonderful podcast this is my place on youtube to talk about all the things i'm making all the knitty things all the crochet things all the crafty things sometimes things i'm reading and all the lovely good stuff in life my name is ali and i live in kent in the very south east of the uk where it is currently pouring with rain which is just how i like it and i live with my husband and our two daughters and none of them are here i'm on my own in the house which is incredible it's saturday my eldest is at drama school and dan has taken the youngest out to the shops to get some food for later so that i had a bit of time to film i should be doing housework but instead i'm going to sit here for an hour and talk about knitting and crochet because given the choice who wouldn't i've got timestamps and show notes in the description box underneath so you can check things i'm talking about and jump about if you need to find something or come back later and to find a particular thing and i put all the links and things underneath there as well and all kinds of interesting things so make sure you take a look in the description box and you can find me on ravelry and instagram as starry eyes ally although i'm feeling a bit tired of both instagram and ravelry at the moment oh it's a bit steamy by the way mug of dreams this was a gift a birthday gift for my friend annette in denmark it is a bucket so i've got a bucket of yorkshire tea here but that suits me fine because um i am tired today and slightly overwhelmed well very overwhelmed oh it's too hot i'll have to come back to it i am back in my usual podcasting spot in the bedroom except you'll notice that behind me everything's looking a bit more neat and tidy because the wardrobes are now in i took a little film actually to show you so i'll pop that in now so you can see the wardrobes in case you don't know we've been doing our bedroom up and it's been total and utter chaos and we ripped everything out and then put everything back in again so we've got built-in wardrobes from shops and i'm now going through the very lengthy process of working out where everything's going to go in those wardrobes and i've had a massive sort out of all of my yarn and crafty stuff so i'm going to talk a little bit about stuff i've found along the way today but i'll just quickly um hop over to me showing you the wardrobes and have a sip of tea so this is my tripod and here are the wardrobes just behind where i was sitting it's still got a ton of stuff that i'm still sorting out as you can see i've got a box here paint because i've got a touch up around the fireplace and bits that are still looking for a home and then this is the wardrobe outside that you can't see and it's all cut in up there it's quite hard to show you from this angle whilst also avoiding showing you all the myths but and obviously we've got the carpet still to go in as well um and the skirting boards so still a fair bit to do but we've done the hard bit so what do you think it's still a bit of a mess and we've still got to get the skirting boards done in the carpet um but we've got so much more space than we did um but yeah i'm looking forward to everything having its place i feel happy when everything has its place and and all the rest of the furniture sorted out and we've done the curtains and all the you know then it's all done and we've got the pictures up on the wall um because some bits of furniture that looked okay before we decorated are now looking very tired anyway this is not an interiors podcast it's a crafty podcast so let's get stuck in with finished objects originally when i wrote my show notes i had no finished objects because i've been too absorbed in doing the bedroom and i've been doing a lot of sketching and drawing and reading about that and doing some sort of courses um on youtube and stuff so that's been absorbing a lot of my time um but that's the story that's the story for another day i talk about sketching a lot on my um vloggy channel this little wonderful lie um where am i going with this oh yeah so originally i had no fos and then during the clear out where i was pulling out all my yarn i found some cotton yarn that my same friend annette who bought me the mug of dreams also got me where is it it is a cotton it's one of these kind of dish cloth cotton yarns it's premier home um it's an it's an aran weight i think doesn't say anyway that's it still got hook stuck in it there it is there's the label uh so i had two balls of this uh that would that focus on me please thank you that were a gift so i decided i was going to make myself a new pot holder because i've made these before and most of them are now kind of worn out quite a bit so i thought i'm going to make a couple of more pot holders for the kitchen because we use them all the time so this is the one i made now i'm going to try and link the pattern if i can find it because i thought i'd found the pattern and i was merely using it until i realized it wasn't the pattern and then i had to kind of wing it a bit because it's one of these where you crochet a kind of oblong and you work round and round until eventually fold it in on itself and then you sew it down this diagonal line here so if i can find the original pattern i used years ago i'll link it underneath it's very very simple and then i just added the loop and my friend cherie who has the ollie and bella podcast when i sent her a picture of it i said look at my garish new pot holder i love it and she said oh my goodness it's really 90s the colors it looks like saved by the bell i was like yes 90s pot holder so i'm really pleased with that i'm going to make this took um all but this of one ball so we've got quite a bit left enough to make a little scrubby or something that's not going to focus um so i'll definitely get another pot holder out of the other ball and then maybe have enough left to either make a small pot holder or like a dish cloth or scrubby so that is my finished object and i didn't think i was going to have one so very good but before i managed to produce a finished object i was going to do something very clever and say well i don't have any finished objects fos but i do have found objects efos did you did you see the do you see what i'm doing there trying to be very clever which is basically stuff i found when clearing out the wardrobes which has basically just given me more works in progress to consider so that's what i'm going to do now i'm going to talk about my works in progress but i'm also going to talk about stuff i found during the big yarn clear up of 2021 and um explain to you what i'm thinking about them so basically i was determined not to in my original wardrobe configuration i had half of like the bottom half of one wardrobe where i kept all of my yarn and crafty stuff but it wasn't all there there was other stuff around the house in bags and stuffed in other places so what i did when we did the bedroom was i went and got all the crafty stuff all the yarn from everywhere and i brought it into the bedroom and in and i thought right i'm not shoving it back in corners not knowing what i've got where i'm gonna properly organize it so i've got all my yarn out and i've got three boxes of yarn um in one of the cupboards and that is all yarn that i know i'm likely to use in the foreseeable future and all the yarn that i can't see myself using just yet but we'll use in the future which is a lot i am going to vacuum pack down and put like right at the top of the wardrobes out of the way but i'm going to make i take a picture and make a list of everything i've got before i do that and then there was other things i was like well i don't want to pack it away i kind of just want to use it now because it's been it's been too long this is getting ridiculous and one of those things was this tub of little french meadow minis now little french meadow a yarn dying company that no longer die but when they did die i loved them allison and yola and they were the one of the first sort of hand dyed yarn people that i discovered when i first sort of got into knitting and the hand dyed stuff and and all of this lovely community and i signed up to there they used to do a monthly mini skiing club and i signed up to it for a good two or three years and some of the minis i got went into different projects or um i used them in little things and i made um a a big a big shawl scarf oh what was it called that scarf i love it it's like a chevrony thing i'll have to look it up and put on the screen what the name of that project was it'll be on my rivalry um and i did that with an advent that i got for them one year but i've still got all of these minis left some of them are from that advent and most of them are from the mini skin club and they're a real mishmash of colors because each month they've had a different theme but it didn't you know so it was a theme for that month but it wasn't like an overall theme so they're all really different colors and tonal values and i'll just give you an example here uh and also some of the ones the lighter kind of ones went into other projects where lighter delicate colors were required so i tend to have some of the stronger brighter colors you're gonna see a lot of bright blues and greens and yellows um in this so my idea was and always was with these minis is to make one project with them and what i'm thinking is a project i really really enjoyed making last year and that was my most worn thing over winter was the just feel better shawl by kalisha ryan and she's um the podcaster behind the quirky monday podcast it's an absolutely lovely mainly crochet-based podcast and she's and she's actually a big plant person as well which is um intriguing for me because i kill every plant i look at just about terrible at it but she's really good at it um and crossover too so she's got a free pattern it's called the just feel better sure i made it um out of a quaint corner of craft you know let me double check this i would have written it down quaint corner of craft um yarn cake which is a fully fingering weight acrylic young cake in a gradient so it goes from red to black it was the red velvet color i used it's so soft it's so lovely it was a massively long cake i think um i can't remember how many meters it was but i made i just used the whole cake because that's the joy of this pattern as well as you can just keep going until it's as big as you want to uh or until you run out of yarn and it's such a lovely it's designed to be a soothing project you know that you can work on when you've just had that hell of a day you've got no energy left and it's just i i so enjoyed making it and i've wanted to make another one for quite a while so i'm thinking i might might make one with my little french meadow minis but so that it doesn't look too garish and jarring with all the different colors maybe holding it double with something like a sip of tea so i could hold them all double with say a neutral type color this is a an untreated yarn again from annette in denmark it's the annette show today so i can hold it double with a a neutral or maybe a grey but i don't have a gray and i don't want to buy any more yarn or because obviously that would make it a dk weight which i'm worried might make it a bit too bulky for me to wear often because one of the things i really love about my original just feel better sure is just the drape of it and it just fits so well i love it it really is probably one of my most favorite things i've ever crocheted um and then the other idea i had was quite a while ago i got a lovely gift in the post from a lady called patricia she sent me some lovely yarn and along with it she sent some mohair from her stash that she wasn't going to be using or i think because she didn't get on with it i think either with the knitting of it or against her skin so she sent it on to me so i've got i don't know why i'm getting all these now you don't need to see them take my word for it there are four um cakes of this or four balls of it it is rowing kids kid silk haze and i've got four times 25 grams so it's obviously very thin so how many meters is that can you hear the wind whistling down the chimney behind me we've just bought a chimney sheep have you heard of those it's kind of relevant for a podcast about knitting and yarn because it's made of sheep's all [Applause] um it says there's your sheep up your chimney looks like this it's made of pure sheep's wool and you can get them in all different sizes and it's basically a natural compostable alternative to a balloon to put up your chimney so dan's measured it and he assures me he's measured it correctly and later on today we're going to shut this off the chimney that was a bit of an aside anyway rowing kids silk haze does not inform me how many meters is in 25 grams oh here we go uh it's about 210 meters um so and i've got four of we've got four of those then and i'm going to have about 800 meters which might make it a bit shorter than my original one but that's fine and i'm thinking maybe i could hold this double with all the minis and that might sort of soften the colors a bit but also make it nice and soft and furry well that is nice and soft oh i like that so what do you reckon i think that might be a good use of this yarn and a good use of the minis and it'll be a project that i really really love and enjoy so that's one of my wicks in in my head okay i'm going to show you an actual width now one that already exists and that is my featherweight cardigan so i showed you this last time i am so chuffed with this because this is a um knitted project it's the feather featherweight is it featherweight or feather light i can never remember let's check it featherweight yeah featherweight cardigan by hanafetic who is knit bot um and as you can see my my coffee is somewhat scribbled on and all over the place and it is a really simple little cardigan and i've never made a proper i've never made a knitted cardigan before i've made one knitted garment which was the as if t and i loved that um and i really really like it and the choice i made with my as if t i was really pleased with because i chose a color i knew i would absolutely 100 like to wear which was like a blue color and again with this one the yarn oh my goodness i've had it in my sash for so long and i just i love it so basically it's called i've got three different colors in here i explained my obsession with this yarn in the last episode um it's called mazakin well two of them are called mazakin and it's by um third vault yarns who's a uk based dyer uh lola and she's um one of the first i think one of the first people i she might have even been the first person i bought hand dyed yarn from at my very first knitting festival um i bought mazakin and lucifer because this is um they're based on characters um from the tv series lucifer and a lot of her or nearly all of her yarn in fact if you can hear that it's something reversing outside probably someone having shopping delivered because it's saturday and everyone's home probably gonna hear all kinds of ambient noise uh yeah so yeah so a lot of her yarn is based on sort of kind of geeky stuff board games and sci-fi stuff and tv shows and things so mazzaquin i'm obsessed with i absolutely love this color it's this one here at the end this is the original masakeen i bought isn't that lovely and then i went back to get some more but she only had a different dye lot which was this one so actually you can see the two mazakines together there mazaqueen one and mazakin too i love both of them i'm still obsessed with this color and i can see me buy more of it and then i wanted a third one but she didn't have any the third time so i bought this one and it's a one of a kind and i think it was called coffee so i'm striping them which is making it quite interesting to knit because obviously i don't have any just long boring sections because i've always got every 26 rows i change the stripe so i've done the body um to sit basically just on my hips because i wanted it to be just a little throw on cardigan and i've done the arms um i've done i've done the right arm up to where i think i want it to be i want it to be just past my elbow and the left arm i'm nearly up to there it's got a very slow um and small decrease as you go and then when i've done that i'm going to make a decision about which ball of yarn i have enough of to do the rib that goes around the collar with it i can actually put it on and it looks like a cardigan i can't put it on over a jumper to show you because it's quite a snug fit but i can't even tell you how much i've enjoyed this it reminds me of the easter holidays because i'm showing you the wrong side that's what it looks like all striped um it reminds me of the easter holidays um dan and i made a conscious effort during the two two week easter break to get up early every morning as we would normally uh before the girls got up well dad had to get up anyway because he's working but i was only working a couple of the days and we get up early make a cup of tea um speaking of which i'm really enjoying my tea today it must be the mug of dreams making it taste better uh yes we get up early and we'd sit down we watch um alaskan homestead rescue and i've knit on my cardigan so it really holds some lovely memories and it was during quite a difficult period of overwhelm and anxiety and this has been a a project that has i don't know a lot of a lot of memories and thoughts and stuff in knit into it i'm sure you know what i mean when i say that and i love it and i can't wait for it to be finished so i can wear it and show it to you hopefully next time maybe if i put in maybe if i put down the paints stop sketching for a bit and start knitting again and this will pick up momentum again and that's all living in my bag that was made for me a couple years ago my lovely donna of you know pickle knitting it's got hydrangeas on it and this is very special bag and i love using this bag and having it on the sofa where i can see it and it's one of my very favorite project bags and i have a lot of project bags as i discovered when i amalgamated them all from all the bags and different places they were in around the house as well as the ones that were in the wardrobes i have a lot of project bags a lot i mean not too many because you can't have too many but a lot so that's the feather light cardigan featherweight for the weight cardigan uh right mitten design that's what i want to tell you about i didn't mention this last time so let me just sort this out right okay so this the bag first of all i love this bag so this is the bag that is housing my mitten design project um and it was made for me as a little thank you from someone who appreciated my vlogs during lockdown name's callie thank you callie um and i absolutely love this bag she made me another little one as well with the zip and in here is my mitten design now i never do anything quickly i've been talking about this design for ages and a seasoned crochet designer which i am not i'm not actually a crochet designer the idea behind this is that i want to do a little tutorial uh or a series you know a tutorial series uh that would be kind of for beginners um starting out you know wanting to branch out a bit into patterns and making actual things rather than just swatches um and do a really nice detailed tutorial about how to do it um so i started to think right a nice simple granny square me and i came up with a design that i really really liked um and i wrote the pattern and i was really pleased with it and it is this one i shall show you this yarn is gorgeous we got them on the right way round yeah so they're different on the front and the back because i made um two i alternated the colors differently so they look like this on the palm and they look like this on the back or depending what hand you wear them on it could be the other way around i can't tell you what the yarn is because i don't think i have um the thing it was a gift from my friend ellie and it was left over um some socks that she made it's so annoying because i do know what it's called so if i can find the thing afterwards i'll put it on the screen so i came up with it make the granny squares easy pick up the stitches around the bottom to do the sew them together leaving a gap for the thumb pick up the stitches around here pick up the stitches here and do um front post back post double crochet rib which sounds complicated but it's really really easy once you know how and then a very simple little um edging for the thumb and i was like yay i have my pattern now all i need to do is write it up double check it maybe get my sister to check it for me and then i can start the tutorial and then i put them on to test them out because it was cold and i was working at home in the kitchen and i was typing away and then they began to bug me um because i don't know if you can see the seam at the edge looks like that it's a very neat seam and that was something i wanted to achieve let me cover my face there we go i wanted to achieve a really neat scene and i and i did and i was like great this is how i want it to look this is marvelous but look it's kind of sitting off center because obviously if you make two squares and fit them to a hand which is not square or you know it's curved it kind of pulls it round so then i played about for ages putting in extra stitches and extra rows and sewing it together differently and i couldn't solve it and it was annoying me so even though i've got a lovely pair of mittens it wasn't right for me as a pattern because it would annoy me as a simple pattern so i went back to the drawing board um i i'm going to put that over there now because now i've shown you them i can just start wearing them muddy it's too warm to wear them now but i went back to the drawing board and i've come up with another design just got to get it around the white right way i haven't done the thumb edging yet that's the bit that i haven't come up with hopefully i hope you can see this because it's i made it a dark green which is probably not too wise so this is the final idea that i had which is going to be a bit harder to show you because i did use a dark green which is really really lovely and a beautiful color and i wear a lot but it is not going to come out very easily on the camera it's going to blow everything that was kind of 80s 80s video there wasn't it these are like 80s mix um yeah so this time it's not granny squares i've worked the whole thing in 19 rounds and there is no sewing apart from a little bit of sewing in of ends and we um sewing up a little gap but there are there's also three different ways to kind of start the cast on edge um so yeah so these i'm really pleased with this now because obviously it's not a square i'm working in the round or actually it's not in the round it's in rows backwards and forwards um and because i'm doing that there's no risk of any seams working no way around the side of my hand so i was really pleased with that so it's 19 rounds or more or less if you want to if you want you could start and the more that you could make them elbow length or you know you could make them so they cover your fingers it's up to you i will be explaining how to do that once i write up the pattern and in the tutorial so i'm pleased with my design really really pleased so now i'm going to make another pair in stripes i found this yarn ages ago and talked about it and then never did anything with it um the variegated one is little french meadow and the blue is mrs s creations i just thought they look so nice together so i'm going to do another version stripey to sort of show how you can use color to make them look a bit different um and then i'm going to write out the pattern and double check it and then i'm going to do tutorial and i need to work out if i want to do an edge around the thumb or not i'm not entirely sure it needs it you could just leave it i suppose i could do an edge but then give the option can i just sort of say um you can just leave it like that or you can add an edge actually looking at it i think they do need an edge but they're super comfortable for if you're working at home and it's cold or in the office and you still want to be able to type they're just supposed to be tiny little warmers rather than you know full-blown winter things so they don't obviously they're quite gappy because it's grammy um grammy stitch and i'm really really pleased with them then it occurred to me i wasn't supposed to talk about the mitten design for so long i've only written five minutes i'm pretty sure i've already been going 10 minutes and then it occurred to me that i have freakishly small hands so i've done the whole pattern based on what fits me really well but i mean i it's a family thing i have really small hands so then it occurred to me that this is probably quite a small design for a normal person so then i had to start working out how to do it slightly bigger so this one here which i have done a thumb on but i think it's too big but that might be because my hands are small and the mittens bigger this is why i'll never be a crochet designer properly because i think about things too much and so this is the bigger version so big ish so i'm going to do two sizes as well in my pattern there's going to be smallish and biggish i'm wovening the ends yet and i've just done a little two round um rib for the thumb let me see i just think it's a little bit too much so i might just bring that back a bit i think it's a bit too bulky i might just do a couple of rows of single crochet oh i've got all fluff on me now so yeah that's why i am with the mitten design i've just got to finalize it um hopefully over the weekend and next week and then once i've done that and i know that i can write up a pattern i might just get my sister and maybe like a crochet friend or two to just check that it'll make sense and then i'm gonna start filming tutorials for it how exciting and i'm pretty sure i'm going to call them the heath mitts because all through lockdown um a big feature of our life was walking on the heath just um around the corner from us and all the heat land that surrounds us so i'm pretty sure i'm going to call them the heath mix even though dan thinks i should call them little drops of warmth okay what else have we got oh yes to frog or not to frog actually this isn't a question i've decided i am going to frog this but i thought i'd just show you living in my lovely bag by our minty um this is our minty is a lovely friend of this podcast and we've done a couple of swaps and i think this was in one of the swaps we did she lives in canada so it's got all the there's owls on here and then i've got a little canadian flag here and then inside the lining is all maple leaves it's really cute because it's white but it's kind of two different shades of white and i've got a blanket living in here oh it is pretty though well i'll tell you why i'm gonna frog it it's a granny stripe blanket she's something i've not done in ages and it's for phoebe um and the reason i'm going to frog it is it's too big um she she recently adopted the multiplication square blanket i made which i showed last podcast and it's perfect perfect single bed size she absolutely loves it she drags it down to the sofa with her she puts it on her bed every night she doesn't need a gigantic blanket to drag about with her um and also it makes it really boring to work on because look so here we go if i keep going like this you can hear that rattling i just hit a little bird ornament that's hanging on the wardrobe door it is it is too long sorry my throat is going it is too long um so each row just takes forever to do and i think by the time i'd finished it would be such a massive thing and so heavy and it would be basically it would cover our king size bed it's too big so i think i'm going to frog it i've got some beautiful yarn i basically went through all my minis and pulled out all the really pastely pinky yellowy greeny shades and put them all together um so they're really lovely colors but i just think you know i frog it and start again and make it smaller or just frog it and forget it i'm not sure it's really windy yeah so that's something i'm going to frog which is going to be a bit painful but i'd rather forget it than persevere or something that's just going to spend another five years hanging around like the multiplication blanket did by the way um a few people have asked about my multiplication blanket i will do a tutorial on that um i've just got to work out how i will do that because i don't really want to make another one because it took forever to make the first one so what i might do is make a very small version like a lap blanket or um just make a doll's blanket for phoebe so that i can demonstrate the squares and then demonstrate how i sew them together and edge them um there is a tutorial on it on a blog that i set up really for the purpose of writing that tutorial but when i went back to revisit it it had all kinds of mistakes in it so you might be able to make sense of it if you're a seasoned crocheter but otherwise i would just stay away from it and wait until i reworded it and done a video tutorial but thank you for asking and thank you for watching by the way i didn't say that at the beginning there were so many other wonderful podcasters out there and if you're here spending a bit of time with me i really really appreciate it thank you okay i want to talk about some of the alongs that i've got going on well some more there's two there's two alongs that we're doing two make alongs um first of all i wanted to say that the dodgy bag now 2021 is in full swing it started on the first of may and it's running until oh when's it running until i can't remember is it the 7th of june 4th of june can't remember let's face it i'll probably shut the threads too late anyway so sometime at the beginning of june um there's loads of bags popping up on the chatter and el by the way we were originally going to have a chatter thread in my group and an fo thread in claudia's group but claudia's actually making a move away from ravelry and also we just thought why are we doing it like that just seems a bit complicated so the fos and the chatter thread is all one thread in my ravelry thread now so poster efforts there chatter there we're each going to draw a winner from that thread and we're also each going to draw a winner from the instagram hashtag as well which is on the screen now and so there's a chance to win up to four prizes so that's really exciting uh and my prize is i've got a lovely lovely bag from a lady called barbara which i showed last time and i'm going to make a dodgy bag as well so if you win the barber bag yay and if you win the dodgy bag from me i'm very sorry um and what else to say oh i wanted to show you when i was clearing out the wardrobes which is fast becoming something like my catchphrase when i was clearing out the wardrobes i found one of my very first dodgy bags and i wanted to show it to you because it i mean it is severely dodgy and i thought we could all have a little giggle and then i thought i'd show you my work in progress that i am making at the moment for the dodgy bag now i also want to remind you that i have two tutorials on this channel which i will link underneath um for how to make a dodgy bag and honestly they're quite um detailed tutorials because i really wanted to show you how i do it because i am not a sewer in any way shape or form can i say that i'm in the only thing i can really make is bags and they're really straightforward and i have quite a busy life i work and i do this and i've got kids all over the place and stuff going on and i filmed it as that was all going on show you how to make it um and i've had really good feedback on those and it's really lovely to see bags popping up but use the tutorials so there's one with the drawstring and one with a zip and i will link them underneath i'm just going to plug my camera in there we go it's a sure sign i've been talking for too long isn't it brevity is not a skill that i possess anyway here's one of my original dodgy bags actually looking at it i really love it it's it's kind it's a very tall and thin bag um i just realized i'm probably sitting too low in the screen i hope i haven't been filming the whole time holding projects here where you can't see them um it's quite a long and thin bag so it's not terribly practical it's also got quite a narrow zip um i love this lobster fabric and the blue here and the green on the inside they're both organic cotton uh but i lined it with a really kind of can you hear crispy this kind of crispy um iron-on interfacing it's a bit weird and then i added these bonkers um bright pink pom-poms which are so bonkers i love them and i love the bright pink with that sort of teal color i do think that's nice but it is a bit of a bonkers bag and there's quite a lot wrong with it but i i didn't even remember i had it i think i also did the box bottom too big so that it kind of goes downwards like in a triangle towards the box bottom so it doesn't sit very well um but it's fun i shall put it with my large collection of projects bags project bags and maybe one day i shall use it or maybe i'll use it for something else it might be handy short to keep things on when i'm packing to go on holiday or something like that and so that's my one of my first dodgy bags and it didn't put me on i was just so pleased to have constructed something that actually functioned so uh yeah and now i'm making so my whip at the moment for the dodgy bag now is a project bag not for me because i think we've established i don't need one but for dan so he's been going on and on at me about me teaching him to knit which i didn't think he would ever want me to do because well because for years he told me he would never want to learn but he's changed his mind and um he wants to learn to knit so i've got him some yarn obviously i have an abundance of needles and then i had some star wars fabric that was sent to me uh by lovely loma and echo who are the rogan camp girls podcast at christmas they were they did like a fabric advent and there was some um uh sort of already kind of part sewn together blocks of star wars fabric so i put them to use to make dan a star wars project bag so this up to two of the blocks but actually this is just one piece of fabric and then that is one of the blocks and i've sewn those together to form one side of the bag and then on this side of the bag is one one block that they already did so i just kind of made it all fit together and i'm not going to box the bottom because i want to keep that nice design around it like that and then i've just got um a grey lining which is inside out at the moment and then for the drawstring casings because i'm not going to trust down with yarn and zips i've just got the this star wars fabric so i've just got to sew the ends and i'm making this all in accordance with my own drawstring bag tutorial that i've done so i'm at the stage now i'm about to sew along this double folded edge to make sure when the drawstrings are going in and out you don't get any frayed bits and so that's where i am that is my whip and my next whip will be a bag that i want to make i promised someone i'd make them a bag and i want to make one for the prize as well and i'm going to paint that with this new new pattern that i've been uh i shall i made it up but i don't have any examples of it because i gave it as a gift i wanted a pattern that would involve not having to box the bottom and then when i was clearing out the wardrobes before um this is ages and ages ago when i'd started to do a bit of clearing out i found a bag that belonged to lilia that i've made for her and it had round bottom and i don't think i used a pattern at the time so i decided to copy that i was really really pleased with it as a little kind of useful little sock type bag so i think i'm going to do um for the that bag now so if you're joining in let me know in the comments don't forget to use the hashtag on instagram it's a really fun make along it's quite quick it's only a few weeks well you know it's just over a month long and um everyone always really enjoys it and it's all about just encouraging you to have a go at sewing a bag because it really isn't that hard and we embraced the wonky corners and we embraced the you know miss stitches and the holes in the lining and all of that and we just appreciate our bags for what they are they don't have to be perfect because they're not shop made they're handmade and we're not experts we're just enjoying ourselves and having fun and you know perfection is overrated anyway and the other along we've got going on this kind of an accident i ran an ami along and i'm amigurumi along which is crocheted 3d things um all knitted knitted things are welcome too and i ran that in the early part of the year and it was so much fun i just didn't want to stop it so i've just kept the thread open and i'm gonna maybe draw a winner at the end of each quarter so all the prizes for quarter one have been sent and i'll draw another winner at the end of june so keep posting your things it's so nice to see them still popping up we did a really fun montage of everything in the last episode if you want to go and see and um if i can bring myself to do it again i will at the end of june but it was quite a lot of work i might do it without the names maybe i could just do it as a picture montage but um yeah i don't know anyway it was uh i'm loving it so if you want to have a go at ama guru me there is a lot of help in that thread which i will link below on ravelry and you can use the hashtag which is on the screen as well because i'll draw um i include um the instagram hashtag when i'm drawing a winner and um and it's just nice for me because i follow that hashtag and i can see what you're all making and there's a lot of helpful people talking about things or if they're stuck and sort of like what do you think this means and just brilliant things cropping up in that group i love it so if you want to join in with that all the information is underneath i also wanted to talk about some books and stuff because i ran out of time in the last episode so i just um wanted to briefly mention what i'm reading what i have read what i'm listening to and so on i also wanted to say that last night it was friday night pizza and a movie night we watched yesterday which i think was on netflix and it was really good it was it was jennifer garner uh i can't remember the guy's name that's in it and it was just it was a really really funny film the girls loved it and now they want a yes day as well and so that's a good film if you've got even if you haven't got kids it was quite funny okay new book i didn't have had this in my podcasting box for a while on my other channel um we did a vlog a little while ago about books on my bookshelf and we did some book recommendations and things like that and i talked about a book called gathering blue by lois lowry and loads of people were like it's part of a series that book is part of a series you need to get the other one um so i did it's called the giver this is the book that comes before gathering blue i believe and i'm really looking forward to reading it um i i read gathering blue so long ago i can i only have a sort of vague recollection of what it was about but i remember i loved it so much and i really like the um oh it's a film now a major motion picture so film as well anyway it says jonas lives safely within the community a place where there's no war no hunger and no pain but when he's selected as the receiver of memory he starts to discover dark secrets that lie beneath the surface of his perfect world secrets that will lead him to undertake an incredible journey and it's not too long you know actually maybe i'll take this on holiday with me because we've just booked a holiday an actual holiday we're going to scotland going to aberdeenshire in the second week of august couldn't be more thrilled so excited at last we have something to look forward to can you hear the wind oh my goodness we need to get that chimney sheep up there so the giver i was going i'm gonna start packing already i am currently reading the valley of the horses um which is the second book in the cut after the clan of the cave there is the earth children series by jean m-a-u-e-l how do you say that all you'll really loving it um not reading it as fast as i have been previously because i've just been getting into bed and passing out basically i've been so tired lately but i'm really really enjoying uh the story i'm kind of like one was halfway through it and um she still hasn't sort of found the main character hasn't found the other people that she's looking for yet i am getting a bit kind of like come on then when's she gonna meet the other people but i am really enjoying it and then my sister sent me a book which i'm probably gonna read next because she said it was one of the best books that she's read in a long time and it's only on loan i have to send it back i'll go and get it it's by oh young oh goodness oh yin can braithwaite oyen can braithwaite and it's my sister the serial killer um she said it she said it's one of these books that's written in such short bursts that you can't help but go i'll just read one more bit i'll just read one more bit so then you end up reading like it really quickly and she said it was just like nothing she'd ever read um so i thought she thought i would like it and sent it to me to read so i'm probably going to read this after the one i'm currently reading because i'm intrigued by that one i've also been listening to a lot of audio books recently i've used up a load of my credits that i had i bought a load of autobiographies and i've been very very happily listening to them as i walked to the post office or as i'm doing housework or the washing up it just makes monday and things seem so much more interesting so i started off with tom allen uh no shame which i absolutely loved he's very funny comedian um quite young young but his the autobiography is very very funny and i really enjoy listening to him read it and after that i went on to lenny henry um which was very very strange because basically i think i know lenny henry because i grew up with it in my life he's like a member of the family surely and then you realize i know nothing about the man nothing i just he's just always been there and his voice is so familiar to me that it was just a pleasure to listen to i felt like um you know some like i say a member of the family was just reading me a story um and i really enjoyed it it was very interesting some of the things that he done in his life that i didn't realize and um i think it only went up to a certain point as well so i think he's going to write another one because it only went up to like it was he he's very well known for his work with amnesty international and comic relief and and all the kinds of charity stuff that he does and he hasn't even got to that so i'm assuming there'll be another part to his autobiography i really hope so because i was well into it and it ended and i was a bit like but i was reading that i want to listen to more um so yeah loved that one and then i went from that completely different michelle obama becoming and that was a bit of a culture shock to begin with because i went from really familiar brummie accent british guy to american accent female and someone i have no knowledge of at all um but i really enjoyed it i really found it fascinating her her story and the way she speaks and reads she's got a very kind of i don't know lulling and sort of um relaxing voice to listen to i think it's so important with audio books that you enjoy the person's voice and yeah she has she's very very good at speaking you know reading something um i was i was quite upset when that finished i was quite upset and then i went on something completely different and a lot shorter actually um and quite an old book because it was written in 2010 was michael mcintyre's autobiography which i literally just walked around the house with my earphones on laughing because he's ridiculous and his life is ridiculous and and his performance of the book was very very funny it was just like listening to a stand-up show um and i loved it absolutely loved it but it was really quite short in comparison with the other books um so yeah so those are four audio books so if you're interested in autobiographies um then that's three comedians and one american first lady i was gonna say political figure but she's not a political figure at all was she uh yeah american first lady and i loved every one of them i'm still listening to black and british on audiobook as well i think i've found my place now it's a very long book about 25 hours and i lost my place when i um updated my phone but i think i'm back on track now i'm also back in the office um once a week and from next week i'll be back two days a week um so i've got time now in the car to listen to it again and i'm still loving it um yeah so that's everything i wanted to say i think about books i just like to share that because i really love getting book recommendations i actually put a note up on instagram and loads of people gave me some really good ideas i've got this long list of stuff that i've been writing down i wanted to move on to and finally okay i wanted to tell you a few things about the etsy shop that uh about pins and so on and then rel who is doubling hook tagged me in uh what's the tag ten crochet hook questions tag um so uh should i do that now or should i tag it on to the end i might do it now and then when i'm editing it if it seems too long i'll cut it out and just do it as a separate little video maybe i'm supposed to do it as a separate video if it's a tag no i'll tag it on to the end of this video and like i say if it's like turning up to be two hours long i'll just do it separately so i wanted to say thank you to everyone who ordered phoebe's tree pins they're now sold out and just picking up the one that i've saved for me this is phoebe's tree pins have happy adventures and i don't know if you can see but the stars are glittery so phoebe my ten-year-old daughter designed this pin because she really wanted to get involved in the etsy shop and i just thought her little design was so lovely and then we have the help of a lovely lady a graphic designer on um uh on etsy called michelle okay so i was just looking up what the name of her shop was because i wanted to let you know just because she's got some really interesting stuff for sale and she does a lot of um custom illustrations and stuff so she helped us to get the design to where we really wanted it to be and sharpen it all up ready because she knows what they need um you know when you send it off to the batch company her shop is called heartfelty shop i'll link to her underneath she's based in barnsley here in the uk uh and she was i couldn't i couldn't recommend her highly enough she was absolutely brilliant she was quick she was efficient she was professional and she did she just got what we wanted straight away so we were really really happy with that um or more importantly bibi was so she's been completely involved phoebe she's the one that's designed the packaging the pin and everyone that's ordered a pin so far phoebe has passed it up and written the little thank you note so she's been absolutely thrilled that you've been buying them and because they sold out so quickly we've ordered another batch they won't be here until june but as soon as they are i'll let you know um because i've had a lot of questions about when they'll be back in stock something that will be in stock a bit sooner though is we've done a badge version here it is the colors are slightly different they're a bit lighter because that just works better on this kind of badge um and again absolutely delighted with these um so these would be quite a low cost option and they will be here in a couple of weeks so um i'll let you know when they're in the shop or keep an eye on the shop and these will be available um i ordered quite a few of them focus on me please camera thank you and because i just thought they'd be so good for like you know uh young children or classes or brownie packs or scalp packs and stuff like that i just thought they you know going on pack holiday or i don't know i just think they have a variety of uses with the message that she's uh that she's put on them so they'll be available in the next couple of weeks and i also branched out and got some postcards done of my little drop of wonderful design um i don't know why i've got two um it looks like this they're glossy um and they're a pound or you can buy five for four pounds and these have been really popular too so i've ordered a load of these um yeah really really um fun little things to send to people as a oh my camera's overheating now i'm gonna have to shut up yeah so they're available too isn't that amazing i feel like a proper grown-up shop person now i've got things in an etsy shop i'm a grown-up okay hopefully we have enough time before my camera explodes um to do the uh crochet ten crochet hook questions tag so i was tagged by rel um oh am i supposed to tag someone else well i'm not sure oh now i'm on the spot okay i tag um claudia croche luna and i would like to tag um i don't know if she watches but if she does watch i will tag kalisha of the quirky monday podcast and um i will tag or we need a uk one i will tag sandra of cherry hot there you go but you don't have to do it but i really wanted to because i've never done i've never been tagged in anything i was like oh look at this how exciting so the first question what is your favorite brand of crochet hook now first of all i wanted to show you i keep all my hooks and i can tell you these are all my hooks because i've just sorted out the wardrobes and i collected them all together in one place or two places i've got a hook roll which i've had forever it's from rachel of sorry raymie my lovely friend rachel and i bought this years ago and it is just as lovely as the day i bought it and i use it constantly there she is i'm not sure if she still sells them um but i love it i love this crochet roll so i've got tons of hooks in here and then the rest of them live in a lobster pencil case because why not and and i i don't have a favorite brand basically i use all kinds um i could tell you that my least favorite one is this one which is an adi addy color is it addy color i'm not sure it's an adi one this is my least favorite um it's just a bit weird and it comes undone and i didn't really like the tip a bit um i i'm more than happy i this is a knick pro waves i quite like knit pro waves but i don't like whatever the material is they use to make the handle my my hands get very hot very sweaty and this seems to set that off a bit and sometimes depending on the color i've got black one um it's a different color depending on the size and it kind of goes sticky and things get stuck to it so i'm not a big fan of those i love just normal ones just aluminium ones i'm quite happy holding that with no cushioning at all but probably if i had to choose um i would probably go for the clover soft touch which is this one because you've got that nice ergonomic grip um and then it's a very sturdy kind of plastic and it's not got that kind of soft um funny rubbery stuff that makes my hands go funny so that's the clover soft touch so probably i would say the clover soft touch would be my favorite but i am not fussy at all i will crochet with anything um i've got a lot of tiny ones as well and all of my tiny ones like this is a one millimeter one and i do do a lot of stuff with one millimeter hooks see how tiny it is and that's a clover soft touch and it makes it a lot easier to to deal with when you're doing really tiny crochet so that's question number one question number two what is your favorite hook size oh my goodness um i don't know if i have a favorite hook size but the one i use most is probably a three millimeter so it'd be about two and a half millimeter for ammo guru me if i was using a fingering weight yarn or three millimeter um so i'd say probably around three two five three points yeah probably about three to five would be my favorite that's the one i use most for things that are for fingering weight crochet projects but my favorite hook is whatever the hook that is required whatever hook gets me gauge will be my favorite hook of the day do you prefer tapered or incline i don't know what that means i don't know how do you grip your hook pencil grip or knife grip how do i grip my hook knife grip that's a knife grip isn't it yeah knife grip no i couldn't crochet like that i know a lot of people do but no i'm definitely a night knife grip person um does you the style of hook dictate how you crochet no unless i really hate the hook and i feel miserable about it but then i'll just get rid of it and use a different one so no it doesn't do you prefer ergonomic hooks or regular hooks okay so again i'm honestly not that fussy i would happily crochet something for hours with this type of hook which is a regular aluminium hook which is just straight down um you always get that little um indent um to place your thumb and otherwise it's just straight and there's a lot to be said for um working with the hook like this i i do find them very comfortable to hold and i work with them quite well um but at the same time it's nice to have one would you have me said that this is quite a lot shorter so actually i wonder if i might prefer a regular one because it's got that length rather than being shorter well that's funny isn't it it's shorter than that one as well oh okay so we've just established then i actually prefer a longer hook i think i need to investigate hooks more i've never tried a tulip and do a proper short test of this i've never really thought about my crocheting tools i just kind of select whatever i've got on get on with it um yeah so undecided on that i like ergonomic hooks but apparently i prefer if they were longer uh what are your thoughts on light up hooks my first thought is there are light up hooks i had no idea um have you ever used a hook with interchangeable heads no if so what are your thoughts i've never used one uh number nine do you like projects that require small stainless steel hooks or larger hooks if i had to choose um i would always go for the small and fiddly i do like the small stainless steel hooks but um a large hook project is fun and i do have a lot of large hooks i've got up to a nine millimeter one here and i've got larger than that i think i've got 12 15 20. um but yeah i'd always go more small and fiddly with crochet um if you were only allowed to use two hooks for the rest of your life what size and brand would they be now obviously i'm not loyal to any brands and so that wouldn't really matter to me so we're going to take brands out of the equation but probably having said that um yeah yeah we're going to take brands out of the equation and say that i would probably just go for a basic hook so that i've got that length and i would i would go for a three millimeter so i've always have something to crochet quite tight and a four millimeter but i can't really tell you one quite interesting i'll post the questions underneath so that if anyone that i've tagged wishes to join in you can screenshot the questions as i have done and thank you so much well for tagging me in that it was really good fun i really enjoyed hearing about your hooks and how you store them and i mean i think i've got a lot of hooks because i've got my my roll of hooks here and then in the lobster's belly he's eaten all of these ashley do you know what i'm just looking at this i have to say that this is one of the most comfortable hooks that i have ever used phoebe bought me this it's proper chunky fimo one it's 3.5 millimeter hook um it says best mom ever on it i think it was my birthday on mother's day um [Music] oh it's so cute and this i really enjoyed working with this it's by a company called what were they called and i'll look it up and put it on the screen because i can't remember but they're based in cornwall yeah so i do like a fimo covered hook i've done a few fimo covered hooks myself i shall show you i found some um fimo quite recently and i was just messing about so i've done i've done a hook that looks like it's just made of granite did like a little raised bit around the edge there i was quite pleased with that and that feels really nice to hold and um it's a good length as well oh maybe we're going down the route of i really like fimo covered hooks and then i did this one so again it's granite and then i did roses no not roses i decided i think at the time i was going for roses and failed and decided it was a christmas hook now and these are poinsettias on granite because you know um so that's another little one that i made i just really like the granite look chemo and then there's another one here that i did ages ago along a similar vein with the red flowers around it i should do that more often i enjoy doing it i'm not very good at it but i do enjoy doing that and i do enjoy um using a hook with that fimo on it i like the feel of it so there you go that is my crochet hook 10 questions i hope you enjoyed that a little bit at the end there and uh thank you for watching um hopefully this isn't going to be too long but let's face it it always is i'll be back in a couple of weeks with another update and hopefully a finished cardigan and let me know your thoughts on all the questions that i've asked about projects and frogging and mohair and other things tell me what your favorite crochet hook is and let me know if you're joining in with the dodgy bag now and the other alongs and just tell me how you are how are you doing what you're making um i'd love to hear from you in the comments it's always really lovely i know it sometimes takes me a while to get around to reading them but i do really like it anytime i'm in a waiting room or like find myself five minutes over a cup of tea in the morning just love to catch up with you so um thanks for watching i will see you in a couple of weeks until then happy knitting and happy crocheting bye [Music] you

Channel: Little Drops of Wonderful

Views: 10,099

Rating: 4.9625168 out of 5

Keywords: little drops of wonderful podcast knitting podcast crochet podcast, crochet vlog, knitting vlog, UK, knitting, yarn, crochet, yarn dyeing, starryeyesali, knitting podcast, crochet podcast, UK podcast, UK vlog, vlog, crafts, England, vlogger, daily vlogs, vlogging, podcast, knitter, knitting chat, crocheter, crochet chat

Id: rXiaskDybo8

Length: 62min 40sec (3760 seconds)

Published: Mon May 10 2021