Confession time! and a ‘Thank You’

Recently I didn’t have anything at a suitable point to take to the ‘Crafty Coffee’ morning so I decided I would take a copy of my Christmas bauble pattern and some #10 crochet cotton and start making some more crochet baubles for that special time of year.

However as I followed the pattern – shock horror! – there was a mistake. On row 3 the pattern said to repeat five times when it should have been eleven and this mistake was repeated on the following rows.

I have now corrected this but if anyone tried the pattern and got totally confused I apologise.

I will include here a few extra suggestions for anyone who wants to make some baubles based on my recent experience.

The original bauble was made to fit over a ball I begged off my daughter.

But since my original attempt at covering the ball with vaseline had made it go soft, I decided to buy some polystyrene balls from Hobbycraft as this way I could stiffen a few at once and have a better ball. The size I thought was closest to the original was 70mm.

Having made a new bauble this time in red, I covered the ball with cling film as before. This time I decided that I would stiffen both halves at one to make an even join. And to ensure that I knew where the  halves fitted I used a bit of old fuse wire to hold them together. (This was a little hard to remove at the end as it had stuck firm so I broke the wire.)

I also sewed a piece of thread round the joining edges to keep them close together, to help them fit closely.

I remove this at the end before sticking the two halves together with polystyrene glue. [I need a new tube my present glue has gone a bit thick.]

I had to stretch the crochet more to fit this size ball which is obviously a little larger than the one I used before, as you can see, but I think it makes for a better bauble.

End of apology!

However on a brighter note Lisa Victoria from yarnchick40  has just made a very pretty crochet hook case from my pattern – http://yarnchic40.wordpress.com/2014/09/05/crochet-hooker-storage/ so at least that one works and I have seen crochet crosses and granny ripple blankets made from my patterns on Ravelry so at least some of my patterns work.

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I also want to thank say a big THANK YOU to Marianne of maRRose CCC who sent me this bracelet as part of her recent giveaway. Her’s is a blog I follow as she makes lots of lovely colourful things.

 I just love the flower beads and the colours are my favourite ones – so pretty and dainty.

Here I am wearing it.