Crocuses

At Quarry Bank Mill, Styal, UK.

Moss

Moss growing on a little stone bridge lit by beautiful spring sunlight, in the Styal countryside near Manchester, UK.

Minecraft Crochet || Creeper (Free Pattern)

OK, time for some background story! I have mentioned before that my husband and I used to play a lot of Minecraft. To this end, all the way back in 2011 I started a crochet series for my husband, with the plan to make each of the characters. I started by making a sheep, and I never blogged about him because I wanted to release him with all his companions and complete patterns. Yeh, I've never been well enough to do that.

Fast forward to now, and my Minecraft-obsessed nephew's birthday. I thought I'd revisit this series that I abandoned and make my nephew a crochet Creeper. Of course, husband saw him and also wanted one. I'm not well enough to carefully write and rewrite, check and recheck patterns. I'm not well enough to put together perfect photo tutorials for the fiddly sections. But I can offer you the notes I made as I went along, and hope someone finds them useful on their own Minecraft crochet adventures.

My big word of advice is polystyrene. I have tried making these characters with normal stuffing. I have tried making these characters with upholstery foam. Nothing gets them as square and well formed as cutting out sturdy polystyrene cubes and cuboids, pinning your crochet to them, and stitching round the edges. If you really cannot get hold of polystyrene, stiff cardboard panels against the crochet and filled with stuffing may work for you. This is obviously coming from the perspective of them looking right for display, rather than being super cuddly!

Pattern Notes

I use a 5mm crochet hook, and 2 strands of double knitting wool. I like the effect this gives. I use one strand of double knitting wool to stitch on the toes and the facial features, as shown at the end.

Head piece (make 6)

Chain 9. 

Row 1-9: sc 8, use a turning chain of 1.

Body front/back (i.e. make 2)

Chain 9.

Row 1-13: sc 8, use a turning chain of 1.

Body side (make 2)

Chain 5.

Row 1-13: sc 4, use a turning chain of 1.

Body end (make 1)

Chain 9.

Row 1-4: sc 8, use a turning chain of 1.

Feet front/back (make 4, 2 for each pair of feet)

Chain 9.

Row 1-7: sc 8, use a turning chain of 1.

Feet top/bottom (make 4, 2 for each pair of feet)

Chain 9.

Row 1-4: sc 8, use a turning chain of 1.

Feet sides (make 4, 2 for each pair of feet)

Chain 5.

Row 1-7: sc 4, use a turning chain of 1.

When you have made your parts, stitch on any extra details such as those shown. Pin your piece to your polystyrene shapes and simply stitch the edges together. because you have used two strands of wool this is quite forgiving. You will notice the body piece only has one end covered - the other you are attaching to the head so it is unnecessary.

Pattern copyright to Helen Morris at Creative Chaos Art. It is not to be used for commercial gains.

Minecraft Card - Cake Recipe

Time for another geeky Minecraft post! One of my nephews has just turned 7 and he loves Minecraft - helpful for me as I used to be an addict myself! I thought what better way to celebrate than with cake. For those who don't know, in Minecraft there are things called crafting tables. This is represented by a 3x3 square, and putting items in each square in different arrangements creates new things. When you put in 3 buckets of milk, an egg, 2 sugar and 3 wheat, you make...

a (Birthday) cake! This image is inside the card, just in case he didn't recognise the recipe straight away! Who said gamers couldn't bake, haha! This was quite a fiddly card to cut out, but if you are interested I'm sharing a PDF with the images I sourced here, so if you want to craft your own card, all you need to do is print, cut, and stick! (For true authenticity, make sure you mount them on some nice grey card, as crafting tables are always grey!)

Tin Inspired Tenth Wedding Anniversary Card

I'm a hoarder. The first step to recovery is admission, right?! As a hoarder, when I knew my sister's 10th wedding anniversary was approaching, and I found out the theme was tin, I knew I would have something lying around that would be appropriate! And sure enough, in one of my many boxes I have a stash of old foil trays from shop bought pies - you never know when you might need something ;) I recently got my personal collection of templates organised, so (once I'd remembered where I'd decided to store it) I was able to quickly grab a heart shape and use it to cut a heart out of "tin". I decorated the heart by simply indenting using a sharp pencil, and mounted it on some maroon and cream cards I have. I added the number '10' using silver peel-offs - it's always handy to have some in stock!

Floral Cards || Mother's Day

Included in the large stash I inherited last year were an array of stickers. Now, I don't normally like using stickers on cards as I think they look cheap, but these stickers are printed on fabric and I think they look absolutely beautiful.

I mounted this sticker on some cream card, cut around it and attached a small pink brad, so it almost looks like a hanging gift card, before mounting on some complementary green card too.

This sticker I mounted on some dark green card before cutting out. I also had this beautiful white and gold tissue paper in my stash which I glued to the main body of the card for some extra texture and interest. I like the combination of gold and green, and the lace and script. I wanted the flowers to pop slightly, so I added some detail with gold Liquid Pearls paint - another new addition to my stash which I think will be getting more use!