Aha!

Hello from a windy, wintry South Africa!  It is summer and the season of sunshine, beach, picnics and endless barbeques, but somehow the weather continues to play up and it is far too cold for the time of the year.  It makes for great hooky time though, something no hooker should be complaining about. I have been hooking up a storm to finish my impromptu, unplanned project so that I can focus on what I really wanted to hook - a charcoal tablecloth for a dining table seating eight people. I will be sad once the roly poly is finished, it is a fun project and a real pleasure to hook!

 Nine out of twelve pentagons that will form the roly poly pillow seat - I will be adding one last round in colour "natural" before I block the lot. Each pentagon will also be getting a  hand stitched  cotton lining to ensure the ball holds it shape well.  

 

 

Aha! Caught red-handed! Isn't she adorable, not quite three yet and already hooking up a storm. She has been watching me quietly for weeks now and then last week as soon as I got up to make her a hot chocolate, she grabbed hold of the hook! 

Cheers, have a great weekend! 

Frogging and a fab find

Bonjour, Good Morning, Asalaama Alaikum, Hej! 

After completing a quarter of the pentagons for the stripey roly poly pillow seat [giant crochet ball], I decided that the random stripes in random stitches wasn't doing it for me. The subtle colour changes in the handspun, hand dyed yarn sadly disappeared in the pattern.  It looked 'meh'.

One of the new Pentagons - there will be 12 colour combinations in total

I decided to frog the lot and start again with a simpler pentagon.  The new ones are hooked using 4 colours, 4 rows per colour for a cleaner colour blocking look and feel.  I fell in love with the new effect straight away and will be visiting the yarn shop in another hour to pick up two more colours to add to a more vibrant look. Take a look at the above photo to see the variation in the yarn, I am HOOKED on hand dyed cotton - it is scrummy!

Another pentagon was taking up space in my handbag during a trip to town recently and woopeee, the below bowl jumped out of the shelves, sporting the exact same colours of that specific pentagon.  Of course the bowl belongs to The Teen now. On my way to the yarn shop, I am once again popping into the same shop to see whether there are any new stock . . . ;-)

 See how the crochet pentagon matches the colours of the bowl!

Cheers, have a great Friday and weekend!

Ball and sort of a Holdall

My fingers did the walking and before I knew it, I was hooking away on a Pentagon. I am hooking a big ball, a rolypoly pillow seat, yip another one! My fourth and I still think this is the one item I want to be associated with in the land of hooky - huge roly poly pillow seats.

 The ball will again consist of 12 Pentagons, each measuring 15cm from any of it's corners to the center or alternatively 30cm across and the final ball will hold nearly 2 normal pillows [the kind we sleep on] worth of stuffing.

This is a teaser of some of the Vinnis Colours Nikkim 100% hand dyed cotton I am using. I am following instinct, combining sc, hdc and dc stitches and simply enjoy the motion of going round and round and round.

Don't you just love my fabulous leather bag in which I can stuff a whole project, my I-pad, a camera and still have space left over for shopping?!  Thanks to the Husband I am now the proud owner of this great holdall. I love Tsonga, the shop where this bag comes from.  The Tsonga stores and project is all about a "A thread of hope" - it is yet another upliftment project involving a community of women who will eventually pass on their skills to ensure a real future for their children. Check it out.

Have a great weekend. Cheers!

Handbag Orgy!

Handbag orgy definitely describes how I view the 5 bags I whipped up over the past month! Wow, I have a weakness for anything round in the land of hooky.  I hooked this specific bag during the past week and it is ready to be lined, zipped and handled.  I am stumped though as to exactly how I should be handling the erm handles. Any ideas?

I bought a pair of Bamboo handles, 100% round and smooth that I intend to use on the tiny hexagon bag.  I could always pick up another pair and use it on this bag too. I prefer bamboo handles to be smooth - I really REALLY do not like the ones with the knots and prefer all my handles as clean looking as possible but mimicking the shape of the bag or the structure in some way. 

I also bought a couple of meters of clear, translucent tube - the type that is used in fish-tanks - that I am using on another stripey bag.  I need to line, zip and handle three bags and wished I had planned them better.  Anyhow, that is what tailors are there for!

See how great my scarf and blouse look with the bag. The outfit is completed with a pair of Aldo wedges, white linen pants and a hat. I am ready for summer in the Southern Hemisphere!

I am thinking that the lining should also form an extension of the "wand/sides" of the bag and that it will get a zip.  It is safer roaming the streets with bags that close properly. I squashed the sides [above], but after assembling, one should only see the round discs.  Do I use some sort of boning to keep the shape?

 I love these silver earrings [above] I picked up from a coffee shop/trinket shop last week. I also love my new straw and linen hat [below]. These will go great with my summer wardrobe!

It is Friday again, we are off to diner at a Turkish restaurant tonight, tomorrow we are digging our heels in the sand, tucking into seafood at a local Seafood Beach Restaurant.  Bag Orgy, Food Porn, such is the life of a Hooker!  Cheers, enjoy your weekends wherever in the world you are!

Colourful Coasters

Wow, what a busy week.  Driving the Teen to ballet classes 4 times a week is taking chunks out of my day, but on the other hand, it allows me a full hour of hooky time.  I used the time this week to hook another doily [as per previous posting, only bigger] and also 12 coasters that will just go along quite nicely with Moroccan, Indian or Turkish tea glasses!  I hooked these with hook size 3 and used Elle Premier Cotton, Double Knit.

This is actually a vintage pattern that has been reworked and is doing the rounds on the internet at the moment.  It resembles the Yvestown Flower but this one has 10 petals, 2 more than the Yvestown flower and having hooked both I can confirm that I definitely like this one more.

Hello also to all my new followers!  To say thank you, I will try and hook patterns from your blogs over time.  Hello then today to teszek-veszek-vacakolok on whose blog I found this coaster pattern.  Thank you for the pattern!  Just switch on Google translate if you haven't quite mastered Hungarian yet, take a look at her hand drawn pattern and away you go!  Easy peasy. You definitely want to be scrolling through her blog to see all of her fabulous work and patterns.

Have a great weekend. Cheers!