Author: Irish Bees Don't Do Mondays

A blog for me, about the things I like. After Effects, Procreate, Illustrator, Photoshop, Drawing, Painting, Paper Cutting, Sewing, Embroidering, up-cycling old furniture. Whatever grabs me in the moment/

A sunny side up, crochet cherry on top, kind of day

by Irish Bees Don't Do Mondays, posted in Crochet

Today is a cherry on top kind of day even though the sun has stayed in bed and left the sky looking like a big bruise. I’ve crocheted up a little bunch of cherries with leaves and stalks based on a vintage pattern called Cherries Boutonniere #2249.  

These squares are still a favourite – you can get the free pattern on Ravelry.

Then I found these plumpy dumpy bobble tops. A double row  of popcorn stitches – worked in trebles rather than DCs for really boppy bobbles.

Anyway, these bobble tops are worth the time and effort for the fabbiness they bring to all sorts of projects.

The pattern is on Ravelry: Lily Pad Hexagons. For information, mine are made with a 4mm hook and Baby Bamboo which is soft and comes in a lovely selection of colours. 🙂

What did the hat say to the afghan? You stay here and I’ll go on a-head… 🙂

Crochet Granny Squares

by Irish Bees Don't Do Mondays, posted in Crochet

The squares below make 6″ squares (using the same hooks and yarn).

 

Butterfly Garden: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/17-butterfly-garden-square

I can’t remember what this one was called. Sorry 😦

The Victorian Lattice Square: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/victorian-lattice-square

The latest one to catch my eye was this one from Haafner: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/smitten-blanket

She calls it her Smitten blanket (she made several squares and joined them together). It’s really lovely. 

Cushion Applique

by Irish Bees Don't Do Mondays, posted in Sewing

Appliqued letters on tweed. I used Bondaweb fused onto A4-sized pieces of fabric and put them through my printer to print a letter (in outline)  onto each of them. This made cutting the letterform out fairly easy and sharp.

I folded the cushion front horizontally and then vertically to find the centre front and then used tailor’s chalk to draw a couple of straight lines to align the tops of the letters to.

The letters were fused, one at a time with a press of a steamy iron over a clean linen tea towel.

I zig-zaged around the outline of each letter on my sewingmachine.

Once the appliqué was stitched down, all that was left to do was to sew the cushion pieces together. It was an envelope-closure and so was made in three pieces.  A couple of hems and then the outsides – double-stitched. Regular straight stitch with an overlock stitch around the edges.

Gracie popped up for some attention 🙂

More yarn in.

I’ve already made a Victorian Lattice Square (Ravelry – designed by Destany Wymore).

It’s not blocked so is a bit wobbly looking. Or maybe it just is wobbly.

I also got a lovely crochet bowl recently.

Small packages

by Irish Bees Don't Do Mondays, posted in Chatting

Nice things in small packages. I made the little label in Illustrator using a rough brush to stroke the outline of a rectangle to surround the text. The text was measured to ensure it fitted inside the new textbox.  I used  a font called Delfinah. https://www.dafont.com/delfinah.font

The pink paper is a mulberry mix. Notice the flecks of gold and silver in it? It’s so pretty.

Jess is enjoying a saunter round the garden more often these days. She takes her time and smells the flowers as she goes along. Gracie is the complete opposite. She runs about like a loon.

There are plenty of yellow poppies. They self-seed and are quite happy doing their own thing as and where and when they want.

These sunshiny poppies brighten the garden. The hydrangeas have lots of buds, alls colouring up, and soon they will pop and be proud, loud, brash and ostentatious as they always are. They’re always surrounded by some flame-coloured  Crocosmia, or Orange Devils. Them and the hydrangeas dominate the front garden. Looks like a lovely garden party 🙂

Crochet bits

by Irish Bees Don't Do Mondays, posted in Chatting, Crochet

This crochet heart has some dried lavender with a few drops of pure lavender oil to give it some sweet smelling scent with calming properties as well.

The tiny yellow flower is from Attic24 and is called ‘Teeny Tiny Flower’.  The white flower behind it is a variation of the Flax flower pattern that can be found in ‘100 Lace Flowers to Crochet: A Beautiful Collection of Decorative Floral and Leaf Patterns for Thread Crochet’ by Caitlin Sainio.

I made this one, also with lavender, to pop onto a little wooden coat hanger with the cardi.

And, just because I have conquered crocodile stitch, another pair of croc booties.

Ruffled bootees

by Irish Bees Don't Do Mondays, posted in Crochet

I always wanted to make a pair of these bootees having seen them on Ravelry a while back.

The wool is from Elann: Pippi Longcolors : ‘crystal spring’.  ***Update: This wool has been rebranded to ‘Impromptu Lite’ and is available from Amazon). I love how gently the shades blend into a smooth gradation but have made each row of ruffles a band of colour.

They were made using a 4.5 mm hook. The sole length is 8 cm with a width of 4 cm. The height of the bootee (measuring right up to the top of the upper row of ruffles) is 10 cm.

The pattern can be found on B.hooked crochet page or on Ravelry – click the link below:

Crocheted ruffled bootee pattern