Crochet Clothes / Coat Hanger - Tutorial

I love crochet and I love giving old objects a new lease of life so this project is perfect for me, it makes my soul happy.  I was given some old fabric covered coat hangers years ago, my great Auntie had covered them in fabric but the padding was started to break down so I decided to pimp them up.   

The wooden coat hangers hidden underneath are lovely but the clothes just keep sliding off them, this project stops that issue whilst looking oh so pretty.  I thought I would type up a little tutorial for you all , so here we go.

Take one wooden coat hanger, some yarn of your choice, a crochet hook (I used my favourite 4 mm Tulip hook) and a yarn needle.  Now chain enough stitches to go around the hanger.   Not too few as you don't want loads of gaps showing if you have to pull it to go round and not many as you don't want a saggy coat hanger, no one wants to look at a saggy coat hanger lol.  I chained 12 stitches here.

Now add one turning chain and then single crochet all the way back to the beginning.

Keep added new rows of single crochet ....... now is the time you can mix it up a bit, why not add some new colours for fun?

To do this pull in the new colour just before you finish the last stitch on your previous row as shown above.  You can then either cut the old colour leaving a few inches tail to thread into the hanger cover at the end or leave it and pick it back up later in the pattern if you are using the colour again.

As you go along keep checking if you have made it long enough, it is easy to get carried away on the creative wave.  You need it to be a couple of rows longer than the hanger each end.  When you have finished pull your yarn through to lock the stiches off.  Then sew in any loose ends.

Fold your creation over so the top touches the bottom length ways.

Then fold it again so the start touches the finish.  This will show you where the centre of your creation is, I have marked it above with my wool needle.  

Feed your creation over your clothes hook so that the hook is where you marked the centre. 

 

Now you need to cut a long length of yarn that matches you creation best.  Make sure it is at least twice the length of your coat hanger.  Thread your yarn onto a yarn needle and then run a running stitch along the end of your clothes hanger cover, pull the yarn all the way through leaving enough tail to knot off when you have finished.

I then run a satin stitch (I think that is the name of it) along the length of the hanger to close the cover over the hanger.  Make sure you pull the yarn all the way through as you go along.  When you get to the end knot off both ends and feed the tails into the inside of of the hanger cover.

You can add some pretty flowers, pom poms or what ever your heart desires to your creation to finish it off.

Now run off, find a lovely old vintage dress and hang it on your new hanger ........ it will make your heart skip a little beat in joy.

PS Before you run off pop over to www.lemonadeyarns.co.uk where the owner is offering 25% off all her cotton yarn until mid March 2015.  Cotton yarn is perfect for this project !

Creative Therapy

I have a lot to thank for finding my creativity again a few years ago.  I am not sure what it is about creating things, whether it is the rhythm whilst creating a crochet blanket, the satisfaction of having something to show for your time or the beautiful distraction that wonderful coloured wool is but crochet, sewing, knitting etc is certainly a wonderful thing indeed.

This last few months has seen me being pulled towards my creative side even more than ever.  Crochet has been my main go to craft but sewing and cross-stitch have had their moments too.

On 1 December whilst waiting in for a delivery that was late a big glass jar full of sewing threads fell onto my big toe.  I nearly leapt through the roof due to the pain that followed but was pottering (well hobbling around a week later).  Fast forward a doctors appointment that I had to wait a week for and an xray that was a further 2 days wait and I am sat in a minor injuries unit feeling rather shell shocked after being told that I had, in fact, managed to break my big toe all the way through and crush it a bit too for good measure.

The following days saw me using crutches as if I had had a few swigs of vodka before I set off (the joys of having ligaments that don't work properly).  I must confess I had to laugh at what I must have looked like on the school run that first day ...... I was literally bouncing off peoples garden fences trying to get to grips with how to use these things.

I got rather good on them in the end thank goodness and did contemplate doing some break dancing moves whilst using them ...... I didn't feel it wise to follow this idea through in the end.

Christmas and New Year passed by in a bit of a blur of guilt, pain and a lot of feeling fed up.  The poor kids were stuck in with me as I couldn't drive (hence the feeling of guilt).  We snuggled up in front of the fire most days watching films whilst I crocheted the time away.

On a brighter note the time at home did mean I found some hidden treasure, just look at this lovely wool stash I found hidden away !

This of course had to be turned into a scarf from me and I also created some sparkly, jingle jangly (they have some cute little bells on them) wrist warmers for my little one.

The days turned into weeks and another xray showed that my toe had done nothing, zilch, nada mending ...... maybe a teensy bit of mending but nothing that really showed up on the xray.

I was then told to come off the crutches and walk on my foot. This meant me having to try and erase the image I had seen on the xray, putting my trust in the consultant and as he told me.  I have another xray lined up in a few weeks time ...... I am hoping above all hopes that this will show that my toe has been behaving and doing some mending.  I am missing pottering around, I am missing work and my work mates, I am also concerned with my sanity, I have crocheted scarfs, wrist warmers, beards, red noses ........... what on earth will be created next if it isn't mending !?!

Now I am wondering, do they give yarn out on prescription???

Crochet Bertie Blanket Ta Dah!

It has become a tradition of mine to take a crochet project on holiday with us each year, you see, I am not very good at sitting still and doing nothing.  I do find relaxing is quite an art.

This year was no different, after accidentally coming across a lovely page on facebook called Little Doolally I knew I had I just HAD to create one of her gorgeously gorgeous blanket patterns.

So off I went to buy the Bertie blanket pattern which I found in her Etsy shop for just over £3, what a bargain! Then came the time to pick the yarn and colours ...... Amy, who runs this fab shop told us on her page that she loved Drops Paris, a lovely cotton yarn.  I love the look of cotton yarn with its stitch definition and after a lot of deliberation (making colour decisions isn't my strong point :-)) I chose:

Light Turquoise
Light Purple
Shocking Pink
Opal Green
Strong Yellow
Medium Pick
White

I have a real thing at the moment about bright colours set off against white so these colours seemed perfect.

The pattern supplied is for a baby blanket but I upped the scale of mine as I wanted to create a lap blanket so I started with around 200 (or 210, sorry can't remember) stitches to kick off.

 As the holiday progressed the blanket grew with lots of happy memories intertwined within it .... those memories include family fun and laughter, the sound of the sea lapping against the shore, drinking champers with Suzi Quatro on the flight home (I didn't realise it was her until we landed and yes I do crochet on flights lol) and my crochet hook being passed back to me on that same flight by Jamie Oliver's Mum who sat behind me along with Jamie and his family (a rather odd Easyjet flight indeed).

I went for a strong white edging to set off the colours even more and LOVE the finished result.  The blanket is quite heavy using the cotton yarn so if I did create one this large again I would possibly use a wool based yarn but I do adore the colours that Drops Paris sell, I am not sure you would get the vivid colours and texture you do with a wool based yarn.

This blanket really does remind me of summer holidays...... for instance the green reminds me of this Mojito

The vivid blue of the sky against the bright pink of the Oleander.

The sandy yellow reminds me of the beach and our summer awning.

And the blue also reminds me of our guard Hippo out in Mallorca :-)

The yarn comes in 50g balls and I bought roughly 2 of each colour and 7 white balls.  The pattern was super easy to follow with lots of info and photos to help you along the way.

PS I haven't been paid to write this blog, I just love sharing good products when I find them :-D

PPS If you love crochet as much as me you may like to join me over at my facebook page as the lovely Amy from Little Doolally is having a giveaway on my page in early December :-)

https://www.facebook.com/ScentedSweetpeas

Take care
Zoe
x

I have an urge .......

First thanks for all your lovely caring and complimentary comments on my last blog post, they made me feel a lot better :-)  Mr Sweetpea is nearly better now and is back to work with his sore foot - just hope he can drive home again!  We buried Petal under Eldest Sweetpeas oak tree behind the beach hut - I hope she likes it there.

Now I have to share with you an urge that I have.  Is the urge to bungee jump ...... visit faraway lands ....... learn to fly a helicopter .....  do a degree in astro-physics ... buy a Camper van and pootle off around the country in it .... ?   

Nope it is none of the above, my urge is to create my very own crochet ripple blanket (well to be honest the last thing on the above list is also an urge but I need to save up for that one for some time first :-().  This is where I need your help :-)  I know a lot of you are very good at the crochet thing, can you help me with the following questions:

Do you know of a good yarn that doesn't cost a lot (as I want to save for that Camper :-)). 
Does anyone know how many balls I may need for an average sized blanket?
Anyone know of where to buy yarn at a good price?

Thanks very much for reading about my urge :-)

Take care
Zoe
x

Still addicted to Crochet!

Thanks for all your comments on my last blog post, I hope you all get to see the butterfly life cycle, it really is amazing.   If you only want to see one or two caterpillars turn into butterflies you can always potter around the garden and collect caterpillars, make sure you check what food you took them off and feed them until they are ready to turn into cocoons - they will hang in a J shape when they are getting ready for this.  Eldest Sweetpea has done this a few times but as this project is for a pre-school and has to run in term time so all the kiddies see the magic we buy the kits.

As you may know from reading this blog I recently wanted to learn crochet.  I bought this book to start me off:

and created quite a few things from it whilst learning the stitches ...

Above is me learning a chain, single crochet, double, half treble and treble crochet.  The circle is to learn increases in stitches and the wavy one is a pattern in the book that could be used for edging.

I then gave granny squares a go, loved making these.

And here are a few flowers and a pattern that started as a circle but ended up looking like an Ammonite (see the one of the right - eldest Sweetpea's fav as it looks like a fossil lol).  A lot of mistakes were made on the way, a lot of growling at the wool not wanting to do what I wanted it to do but slowly and surely I got there.

I then went to our local library to see if there were any good books there and wow was I amazed!  There are loads of fab crochet books there and if they aren't I can look them up on the Library stock list on-line and search for a book I want and order it - how fantastic is that!

I picked this book up from there, it is full or lovely flowers and ideas.

I then created these cute flowers from a pattern in the book ..... well actually you won't find this exact flower pattern as I made a mistake creating the flower (due to getting muddled with US/UK crochet terms)  but then preferred my bodged flower design so kept going with it :-)  You can see a bigger photo at the top of this post of the flower ...... hhmmm I might do a tutorial for it as it is my own bodged design :-)

I have made a few of them now, not sure what to make with them but I love them.

I also got this book, it has some lovely throws in it.

I especially like this one:

Not sure I am quite up to that standard yet but practice makes perfect I suppose, I just have to get my head round the more complicated patterns :-) 

I hope you are all well and life isn't too hectic for you all - thanks again for your comments, they really are appreciated.

x

Swept away by time ....

Well goodness me, I do apologise, I didn't realise I had been away for so long :-(  Time really does seem to be going incredibly fast and I can't keep up.  I thought I would do a little catch up with what we have been up to in the Sweetpea household.

Well as you will see above I have turned my cute little crochet hearts into bunting for my bookcase, I popped some beads on the end of the bunting too for a finishing touch.  In fact I loved this bunting so much I made some for my friend's little girls first birthday a couple of weeks back :-)

We have also been strawberry picking a few times , here are some that are from a local farm and also eldest Sweetpeas patch.

Of course that meant we had to have some scones and cream with them as well as jam.  I made the scones without raisins in them as eldest sweetpea hates them for some reason.  This all lead to a picnic in the garden :-)

My friends have been rather busy too over the last few weeks so little Sweetpea has had the pleasure of some playmates coming round whilst their mummies are busy bees.  Here is little Sweetpea with her mad hair and one of her best friends James.  I just loved how they held hands on the way home.

And then we had little Sweetpeas other best mate round that week too,  this is the gorgeous Bear, is he going to melt hearts or what!

They had a lot of giggles.....

Then Bear had to sit and watch one of little Sweetpeas dance routines lol..... If you pop over to my friend's blog here you will see piccies of Bear and Sweetpea Strawberry picking, excuse the photo of me in my scruffy clothes :-)

In the garden Scented Sweetpeas have been flowering, oohhh one of my fav flowers, I love cutting them and bringing them into the house.  They don't seem as prolific as previous years but we still had enough to receive 2nd prize in our local Gala competition.

Talking of the Gala, I spent many an hour last week down the local Strawberry farm helping to create our Cubs gala float.  Middle Sweetpea is the only one left in cubs of my brood at the moment and the only girl in the group - she always was a tomboy :-)  We had to create a float with the theme of Dennis the Menace as it was his 60th Birthday this year.  I had great fun creating bunting for the whole float - Helen (Bear's Mum mentioned above) also came to help.

One of my friends dressed up as Minnie the Minx, we all thought she looked rather fetching in her red wig :-)  She seemed to enjoy that role far too much lol.  Middle Sweetpea was also a Minnie the Minx.

I also went into pre-school and helped the kiddies create items for their float too.  It is a shame more parents don't help as although I found it very tiring with all the extra things to do last week it certainly was a lot of fun :-)  Unfortunately poor little Sweetpea couldn't go on the pre-school float after all as after going to do some more work on the Float the other friday she became sick and was sick from lunchtime that day until early evening on Saturday - it wasn't much fun taking her around the Gala (she didn't want to stay home with her nanny as she didn't want to miss the fun) with a bowl poor thing.

Whilst there Middle and Eldest Sweetpea joined the fun run (why on earth is it called a fun run - can't see anything fun about it myself lol).  I was really proud of them as Middle Sweetpea came 2nd and Eldest Sweetpea came 9th in their groups - goodness knows who they take after as I run like Phoebe out of Friends!

Before I go I just wanted to say a thank you to the lovely Harmony and Rosie.  A long time ago I took part in something called PIF, in fact I think I took part in it twice.  Well I posted off a few parcels as a random surprise for people and then when I returned from holiday recently I was greeted with a surprise package.  'Oooohh what could it be' I thought to myself, on opening it I found a gorgeously soft crocheted cuff and a very cute notepad with birdies all over it, they were all wrapped up in some lovely blue tissue paper.  Thanks very much Harmony and Rosie.

Also thank you for all your comments, although I can't comment quite as often as I used to I am really enjoying catching up reading all your blogs and also reading your comments here.  Take care. xxx