A Sneaky Peek

Just to make things easier (or perhaps pimp them, who knows? Shh!) here are my Etsy listings...

Etsy LucyAnnabel

It's Here!

Okay so 'it' has been here for a few days now, but I'm glad to say I've already had five sales. Yes, that's right, I have an...

Etsy Shop!

The majority of sales there have been crocheted breasts, which are teaching aids for student midwives, midwives, doulas, health visitors etc. to teach new Mum how to breastfeed. Each one takes pretty much exactly one hour of repetitive spirals, but it's so therapeutic, especially when you loop the last stitch on the nipple! I've placed an order with Deramores* for some different coloured yarns, so that I can start selling Caucasian, African-American and Asian breasts.

This will have to be a short post as I need to get to bed (and sew an ear onto a baby beanie first). But here's the latest addition to my Etsy shop...

Baby Sailor Beanie and Booties 0-6 Months

Enjoy! x

*Deramores - an awesome site. I won their competition on twitter a couple of weeks ago and won this: Baby Cashmerino

Crafty Bloggers Returns!

I, Lucy Wallace, am a terrible blogger. Perhaps as I'm a copywriter by day (and sometimes long into the night), writing for myself has lost its appeal.

Whatever the reason, Crafty Bloggers is back! Hopefully for good this time.

Since I last wrote, my yarn collection has grown. Unfortunately Nan had to stop knitting due to arthritis, so the drawer of wonders in her room is now 'mine'. Did I mention I learned to crochet and got obsessed with it too? Well I did, and made baby hooded jumpers for my nephew (more news! He's 8 months old now) and boyfriend's cousin's baby girl. Boyf's sister is now expecting, and I've made a car seat blanket (adapted from a pattern in Stitch & Bitch's The Happy Hooker) for them.

What I meant to get round to a paragraph ago was that I'm now knitting products, and thinking of making crochet beaded jewellery for Etsy. None are listed or sold yet, but I have two scarves in the making, and am planning on a baby girl's blanket, wire crochet necklaces and bracelets, and crochet catnip filled cat toys.

Anyway, I will stop going on about what I'm GOING to do and actually go and do it...

Louie

Catch Up

I've recently been diagnosed with a stomach infection (Helicobacter Pylori) and was prescribed antibiotics last week, that made me horribly ill and four days in I had to give up. I'm almost completely recovered now but it meant a LOT of TV, absolutely no work and very little knitting!

Despite that I have been working on a two pieces of knitting. These are essentially cylindrical covers for containers, which I've used to store my knitting and crochet needles, as well as scissors, pens and pencils. I used an empty Tetley Earl Grey pot and a similar one (slightly wider) that held those long cigar-type biscuits you have with ice cream (all suggestions on what these are called welcome!). The pattern is VERY simple; I just knitted a square that went all the way around these pots and sewed it together when finished. Here's one that's just been cast off:

I don't know if you can see, but I've managed to knit a diagonal pattern. Okay, so it may be zig-zag in places, but being a beginner I tend to make mistakes. What was odd was that the mistake turned out to be a blessing as I was trying to knit double moss stitch, but got it wrong and discovered something completely new! I later worked out that I'd simply picked up one stitch somewhere, resulting in this....

Instructions:
CO 61 stitches (or any multiple of 6 stitches + 1). You could choose 7, 13, 19, 25, 31, 37, 43, 49, 55, 61 etc. depending on how wide the pot is. Try to use circular needles, so that once you've cast on you can measure the length against the pot itself. Don't make it too long or the cover will be loose (like mine on the right).

R1 - *K2, P2. Repeat from * to end.
R2 - Repeat R1
R3 - *P2, K2. Repeat from * to end.
R4 - Repeat R3.

Simple!

DON'T try this at home!

Over the past three weeks I've been collecting ingredients to make James Wong's Viola Eczema cream. I won't link to it, for reasons you're about to discover.

In total they almost £15 but I was willing to try it, having heard the good reviews it got on the 'Grow Your Own Drugs' programme. Also, I've tried one of James' recipes before and found it works really well. However, this morning I've spend 3 hours stirring what I can only describe as oily, brown water in a desperate attempt to turn it into cream. Wong, your recipe is WRONG.

Furious is not quite the word to use regarding my mood, but the less said about that the better. Unfortunately I've missed out on the opportunity to guest post on a great eczema website about it, but I'd rather this post was read and eczema sufferers don't waste their time and money on another remedy that doesn't work. Okay perhaps the actual cream does help, but how on earth are we meant to make it?

Anyway, enough of the ranting. I'm almost getting to the bottom of the eczema, nausea and anxiety mystery as I'm seeing a pattern in symptoms after I eat wheat. It could be IBS, it could be an H.Pylori infection but either way I'm sticking to snacking on raisins and I have lots of time for knitting; so keep reading!


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Another recommendation

It's been a while since I last wrote and I apologise for that. It's mainly because I'm in Swansea with no phone (long and boring story = lack of a charger), which means no photographs and I'm reluctant to update what's happening without letting you see it too!

Also, what IS happening isn't much to write home about. I've almost finished one more square and have done diddly squat with the patterns because I've been writing so much. So there you are, a blog post with no real purpose. How exciting.

So to liven things up a bit I thought I'd let you know about one of the inspirations behind my pattern adventure. It's the Knitting Daily website and e-newsletter that gets posted to my inbox every day. It's one of the few emails I really look forward to reading and there are often free patterns included within it. If you're interested in knitting, crocheting or felting in any way I highly recommend it!

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