I got the pattern from a booklet in a magazine earlier this year (sorry, can’t remember which one) and they are really simple to make.  The basic shape is really simple as it starts off as just a few circular rounds then the last one makes the curvy apple shape with a combination of slip stitches, doubles, half trebles and trebles.  Simple but very effective in my opinion!  I have tried to adapt the basic pattern to make a pear shape too but haven’t quite mastered that yet, but it isn’t far off.  I’ll share pics of that if I ever master it.

And in case you’re wondering, all the rubbishy stuff is still going on, but I have decided that as crafting and blogging are what keeps me sane and clinging onto the planet, I am not going to let them be affected!

I’ve just completed my first ever commission!  How exciting!  So I decided to make a little step by step guide for you to share it!

I was recently persuaded to take my stock box into work to show the girls what I make.  They were very complimentary about my bits and pieces and bought quite a few things which was really lovely.  I do find it hard taking money from people I know but as they said I can’t just give things away and I don’t charge over the odds for them.  I really just cover the costs of materials and not much more.

Anyway, my friend at work was telling me that it was her neice’s first birthday was coming up when I was showing her the little embroidered pillows I’d made.  She said she would love one with her neice’s name and stars on it, so I set to work.   Here’s how I did it…

What you need:

• Felt – for main body plus different colours for decoration
• Embroidery needle
• Embroidery thread – matching and contrasting shades
• Stuffing / wadding
• Buttons – 2
• Ribbon – 1.5 x width of cushion

What to do:

1.  Cut two pieces of felt to the finished size you want the cushion to be (this one was approx 15cm x 11cm)

2.  Cut a variety of stars in contrasting felt in different sizes

3.  Lightly mark the name / text on the front side of one piece of felt

4.  Using back stitch, embroider the letters in a contrasting colour (I separated the floss down to two threads) 

5.  Embroider one of the stars to the back of the cushion

6.  Place stars around the text until you are happy with the layout and colour placement

7.  Embroider the stars in place using a variety of stitches and colours of thread

8.  Join front to back with running stitch, adding ends of ribbon at top right and left corners between the two layers (don’t worry if ribbon isn’t very secure, you’ll fix that later)

9.  Fill with stuffing before joining final edge (you could add lavender at this stage too)

10.  Sew a little button to each corner where the ribbon is joined, making sure you go through all the layers including the ribbon.

11.  Hang up and enjoy!

Various friends were consulted and advice given, tried, tested and ruled out.  There was only one thing for it – practical hands on technical support!  And there was only one person for that job - Warren!

After lots of tea, a few cakes (well, it was hard work) and three hours, I present you with a fully working and fully restored frou-frou service.  And to go with it a re-invigorated blogging me!

‘What’s been the problem?’ I hear you ask! (OK you may not be but I’m going to tell you anyway.  Actually, I’m not going to tell you – these are Warren’s words below!)

‘Here’s pretty much a summary of what I did to fix it.  I think the firewall and winsock ones were the most likely to sort it, but here goes from the top:

Go to a Command Prompt (start / run / cmd) and then type:
* netsh winsock reset
* netsh interface ip reset
* netsh routingip  reset
* netsh firewall reset

Once all done, restart the PC and then check the site access.  I also enabled routing and remote access in Services (services.msc) but possibly that wasn’t necessary to do.’

It seems that this may be caused by an Orange mobile broadband dongle install that somehow corrupted the winsock interface or the firewall settings.  When we  then turned the Windows firewall off, as the settings were persisting and stopping certain items from downloading quickly, it seemed to be cured!

The most annoying thing in it all was that the site that it had the most impact on was the one I own and run.  I probably wouldn’t have been so wound up by it if any another site affected!

So now you can look forward to all the posts that I’ve had in draft in various forms awaiting pictures, editing and publishing.  I shall try not to splurge all at once, got a craft fair this weekend to get ready if nothing else. 

Oh, and see those green crochet coasters in the pic above… watch this space!

Until the next time, which I am already looking forward to, ta-ra!

Last night I emailed Anka, from Happy hang around, who I have made the donut pincushion for to let her know that I am her swap partner and that I was concerned that it hasn’t arrived.  You may have spotted Anka before as she commented on my pincushion make post!  I really didn’t want to have to reveal that the donut was for her until she received it, but given the passage of time I wanted her to know its on its way!

Anka was delighted to know the donut was for her, having already spotted it on flickr and here, and said that Romanian post can take aaaaaaaaaaaaages.  She has promised to let me know as soon as it arrives.

In a strange twist of fate while I was writing my email to Anka I got a comment on the site from Tracylea from Homegrown-insanity who has made a pincushion for lil’ ole me!  Turns out that the postal service has failed somewhere and the parcel aiming for me was returned to Traceylea in Idaho, USA.  That’s going to be one well travelled little pincushion when it arrives.

So it seems mystery solved and we are all at the mercy of our respective postal serivces.  However, despite that, I love the thought of the new connections I now have with people in Bucharest and Idaho, all because of 2 humble pincushions!  You’ve got to love that!

So I was delighted when my friend Claire asked me to show her the basics!  Last night we had a great evening of 3 c’s – crochet, cuppas and catching up!  Perfect!

I crochet without thinking about the movements and actions you do to actually form different stitches any more, as most come automatically now, so it was a bit of a challenge initially to show someone how to do that.  But by actually doing it in slow motion I was able to break down all the steps to show Claire.  After a couple of hours we had covered foundation chains, turning chains, double, half treble and treble crochet, as well as that basic that anyone starting crochet needs to master – where to stick the hook!

Claire’s just text to say she’s been crocheting today, so I hope I’ve found another ‘crocheteer’!  I read on a blog this week that instead of ‘crocheters’ we should be ‘crocheteers’!  I love it!!  Apologies though, as I can’t remember where I read it and went through all recent posts on my RSS reader and can’t find the article, so I can’t credit it.  If it was you then drop me a line!

On that note, this crocheteer is off to crochet!

Here are a couple of pictures of version 1 of my display.  After I set up I had the opportunity to move to the ‘pitch’ of someone who cancelled at the last minute so I had more space.  Unfortunately by then Caveman had left with the camera, but it was just a more spread out version of this.

The Horse and Jockey Fair is a regular event, on the last Saturday of every month.  I am not able to do February but I have booked for March.  I have lots of ideas and plans for new stock, so keep reading over the next couple of months for an idea of what is coming up, and put 27th March in your diary!