Latest news... and I need your help!

It has been an epic couple of weeks since my last post - celebrating my brother's 22nd birthday, starting with the Fatigue Centre at the University of Sydney, preparing for our big annual meeting at work and the usual crochet shenanigans :) 

I do need your help with a crucial decision, but first...

Today I finished a little pair of hippo twins who are heading to their new home tomorrow.  The client wanted two hippos exactly the same, and so they pretty much are! Of course, handmade things will never be exactly like anything else, or perfectly made.  Although, in my experience the clothes and other craft things that you can buy in the shop are also rarely perfectly made!

Here are Herbert and Harry, the twin camouflage happypotami, ready to wreak havoc on the world:

But now, I need your help! I have been commissioned to make a hippo and blanket set for a client's grandson whose favourite colour is orange.  Which colour sequence do you think I should use for the hippo?

 

Comment below with "Left" or "Right"! The option with the most responses will make it into a full size hippo :)

Blankets, Beanies, Snowflakes and Stars

Hey you all!

It has been a long time since I posted here. I had many ideas but never got around to actually write it. Fortunately I have today off (hurray!), so I get to spent some time with my yarn and hooks…

Last week was a week of happy days which I kind of celebrated in form of two blankets. For once my grand-dad turned 100 year last Sunday. One hundred years! Can you imagine it? He has seen so much in his life! Two world wars, five different government systems, joy and grief… He also lived both in Germany and France, traveled to Africa in his youth for work and wanted to immigrate to Australia. The last thing didn’t happen though because my grandmum wanted to stay in her home village. Well, lucky me, because otherwise my dad wouldn’t have met my mum… :P

I made him a lap blanket for his birthday. There really isn’t much you can give old people and I figured he really could use a blanket. I modified the baby blanket from AlisonLoBianco. I started with 92 chains, added a different border and used two strands of dk-yarn (might have been aran. Not sure) at once. In the first place I wanted to use this cotton colour pack from Junghans Wolle but it didn’t work out. I ordered it early September and they said it would be delievered within one week. Well that didn’t happen. Instead I got four emails during the next weeks each of them delaying the delievery date even further. In the end I was so upset that I cancelled my order. It would have been fine if they said right from the beginning that they could only deliver mid-November, but with this email-by-email-delay I always got my hopes up it would be here soon. Anyway, I ended up using acryl-yarn (Alpina) which I got from Wollrabe. The quality is nice and the price is quite reasonable! What do you think of the result?

The other happy occasion was the birth of my grand-cousin who is almost 100 years younger than our grand-dad! How awesome is that? Little Thees will also receive a blanket from me but I haven’t yet decided on the color. Thus no picture for you yet!

******

I told about my beanie production some weeks ago. Well I finished three by now – you only get two pictures though because one of them is in the car.

This is the Brain Wave Beanie from Ravelry. The pattern is really good and I highly recommend it. I like my beanie but unfortunatly I used different kind of yarns that is the green one has a different size then the other two. It results in some "bumbs" in the beanie but it's not that bad...

 

This is the Basket Weaves Beanie from Ravelry. I quite like the pattern and I think I will use it again! Once I got the pattern, it was very easy to make.I reckon it will make a very cute baby beanie too!

I used this Pronto yarn which is very soft but unfortunatly it also splits a lot. And... this happened:

Don't you just hate knots in your yarn too?!

******

Also, I have made tons of snowflakes and stars for a secret project, I can’t tell you about yet… Wait and see! 

Take care everyone! 

~ Anne ~

P.S. I would love, love, love some comments!

Hippos and Rhinos and Giraffes, oh my!

Hello everybody!

I recently discovered the joys of addiction-enabling groups on Facebook! Anne introduced me to a group called Creative Crochet Crew - a group of crocheters and crafty people from all over the world, sharing ideas, pictures and links to patterns of the most amazing array of crochet craft! 

It was on this group that I started seeing photos of the cutest little hippos. 

I tracked down the pattern to the very talented Heidi Bears and splashed out on several of her patterns based on the african flower hexagon - a hippo, rhino, elephant and giraffe.

My animals started off veeery large:

Grunhilda, 8ply acrylic with 3.5mm hook

But I eventually got the hang of it, and the right yarn (fine 4ply), and the right hook (1.5mm), and the right tension (tight as tight can be!), and now my little beasties are about 25cm long and 15cm high, and have the option of matching corner to corner cot blankets!

Bessie, fine 4ply acrylic with 2mm hook

I still think the hippo is my favourite, but I do like the others as well! Here are some more sample pictures:

I am selling my little monsters, and you can see all the photos, the colour selections and prices on my Facebook page: Wrapped with Love - Baby Gifts by Michelle .

Happy browsing!

Holidays in the Netherlands

 
The boyfriend and I took a four-day holiday to the Netherland. We went to Scheveningen to be exact which is a suburb from Den Haag. I kind of missed the later when I booked the B&B and was thus a bit surprised when we drove through Den Haag. As you might guess, the holiday wasn't that long planed ahead. Fortunatly Scheveningen really isn't very townish... It's located directly at the nothern sea which is why we went to said town. It's actually closer to go to the Northern Sea in the Netherland than in Germany... Also I like to leave the country every now and then!

Unfortunatly I only took photos of the sea and beach (I was lazy) but I will tell you about the town houses which were absolutly amazing! We enjoyed walking past these old town houses and also got a bit jealous... Most of the houses had beautiful large windows and one could see the nice chandeliers. Every house seemed to have one! Also the rooms bathed in beautiful yellowish light. The light seems to be different than in Germany. More yellowish. Over here the light from the light bulbs is more white. I think I will look for the yellowish light bulbs. It looked far more cosy.

The B&B we stayed in was also in a town house. I really enjoyed the high ceilings there and they had a brilliant long table out of oldish wood panels. Take a look at the pictures.The room itself was nice too. In some ways it gave me flashbacks to the room at Michelle's parents house (where I stayed when I lived in Sydney) - the walls, the carpet and even the ceiling were quite the same. Not the same colour or decoration but somehow close. Whenever I was walking barefood on the floor I was waiting for "my" cat, Lena, to show up or someone of Michelle's family to call... I guess I really need to go back to Sydney soonish... :P

The weather wasn't too nice but I guess that's to expected in November. We spent some time at the beach, some in Den Haag and a lot of time sleeping (=me) or reading (=Alex). It was a great holiday... just too short as always! :-)