it has been chundering away in the back of my mind.  I’ve been wanting to ‘make-over’ the side board for a while but not sure how, till I saw that!

So, a bit of lace from the stash and a bit off an old dress and a can of spray paint and hey presto, what do you think?

Before: Tired, neglected, bashed about through several house moves

during:

(a picture of some of the ‘important’ junk that came out of the drawers, I mean, who needs so many cables and more importantly – for what end?)

Ta-darr!

How much better!  I’m not pleased with the handles, I just sprayed them to get rid of the black, I’m not sure what to do with them yet, obviously older style ones would look better, but the holes are pre drilled so I’d have to find some exactly the same size as the ones on now, any ideas let me know!  But the rest – I love, it’s simple, it goes and I did it!

The sock blanket is finished and I love it.

I spent so long deciding the placement of the squares; randomly, tonally from the centre, tonally from a corner, opposing… Then I crocheted them all together in the sort of pale sea blue colour, finished the edging in the grey and realised the blue made it look more disjointed.  So carefully unpicked the joins (with the edging till in place) and re crocheted the joins in the grey.  Much better.  The colours are fairly random, being left over oddments from numerous projects and I think the grey does bring some sort of cohesion to it all, and I love the lacy edging, just what I’d pictured in my head.

With it being sock wool it is really quite soft and lacy to the touch, I love it and want to do another one with lots of different patterns again, but all in cream, that would be lush!

What else…

Another good friend is pregnant so I am crocheting a blanket.  For some reason I couldn’tfind a pattern I liked or a stitch.  After lots of samples I decided on this one.

I wanted a pattern that was lacy but not too lacy, not flowery, not too simple or too complicated, and found this in my old copy of Vogue dictionary of crochet stitches.  It doesn’t have a name but is a fairly simple 4 row pattern.  I’m doing it in a lovely and soft 4 ply, 3.5mm hook. 

I want to do this: (link here)

in this wool:

those eagle eyed will spot 2 balls re wound.  I did 2 lines to test the tension and hook size, though the 4mm was too big so went down to a 3 1/4.  I gotdown to the armholes and it was too small, aaarrrggghhhh!  But like I say, every cloud… so it means I can get on and finish the baby blanket without any distractions, as I want to do the cardy!!

Lastly for today, we are away camping next week for the school holidays and everytime we go I pack all our clothes/bedding/towels in bin bags as space is a premium and proper bags take up space.  So I made 4 large bags out of an old duvet cover, they fold up small and carry a suprising amount and are washable so can carry the muddy and dirty returns back home too – sorted!

 I sorted them into  piles, one of cottons and one of colours that went and one of ones that didn’t.  Well, I’ve made a gorgeously soft hot water bottle out of the cottons, what do you think?

I really like the uniformity of  the grey circles and I do like pink and grey together, very pretty!

And out of most of the rest I started a load of granny squares, as really some of the reminents were hardly enough for a round.  The aim was  a cushion cover, but an idea has started developing for a bag.  I know, I know, another bag, but really – its going to be gorgeous isn’t it!

I love making these and can envisage a glorious blanket however I am running out of scraps now, typical, so the idea will wait till I have gathered more scraps!  It is perfect for keeping my latest crochet project (or one of them!) in and both created from scraps, recycling at its best!

Spurred on by something I’ve been working on for a magazine article, one thing led to another and before you knew it I was cutting up plastic bags.

I kinda have done something similar for the folksy upcycle christmas challange last year, where I cut up a duvet and made that doily floor rug, but this had to be something new, so I thought more delicate.

So this

became this

 became this

and with the aid of a crochet hook became this

and with the addition of bits from charity shops and an old chandelier – became this!

What do you think?  I really like it, the flowers look pearlescent and rich and feel gloriously soft and light.  which I think contrasts nicly with the chunky chain. 

Glamorous evening wear, just don’t tell anyone its from a Morrisons plastic bag!

Mad busy at the minute with replenishing depleating scarf stocks (which is great news, but not for my fingers) and trying to finish my entry into Folksy Upcycle Christmas Competition.

 Its a great idea, take something from a charity shop and upcycle it!  There are some great judges,  Wayne Hemingway MBE and India Knight among others so i’m very excited!  You can see other entries on Folksy – and here is a little taster of what i’m creating….

What do you think?