vintage crochet and knitting inspiration

A while ago I was gifted a collection of old knitting and crochet magazines. The Hungarian 'Furge Ujjak' (='Quick Vingers') magazine was the first one promoting crochet, knitting and embroidery projects in the country. The first edition appeared in march 1957.
When I was a child my grandma used to buy the magazine every month. That was back in the 80's and the main focus was on garment knitting projects and fashionable use of traditional embroidery on garments.
When the magazine started in the 50's the main focus was on crocheting: they offered countless patterns for doilies, traycloths, tablecloths, crochet gloves and edgings with an amazing variation of different techniques, like Irish crochet, Bruges crochet (like above on the first cover), clones lace crochet and many more.
Each month they included a few knitted garments as well, embroidery projects, a few short stories and recipes. There are interesting projects as well, like knitted doilies and 3d shaped crochet items stiffened with sugar-water.


Now how pretty is this one, named 'Granny's lace':

diy: crib sheet with crochet edging - crochet pattern from 1965

I was looking for a pretty crochet edging to decorate one of the sheets for the family-crib. Here in the Netherlands you are supposed to use a well fitted sheet for your matress and a cotton baby blanket in combination with an upper sheet. The upper sheet is 75x100 cm and usually has some type of decoration on one of the edges which you can fold back over the blanket. The decoration can be a printed fabric stroke, embroidery, stripes of satin or lace...



Nicely decorated and better quality baby crib sheets costs around 20-25 euro's. My crib sheets are made out of a new, fine sateen-woven cotton 'GASPA' sheet from IKEA which was the wrong size for our bed (160x200cm). It was a little less than 20 euro's. The standard size is 75x100 cm, I've cut 4 of mine.
The crochet edging pattern I used is from an 1965 Australian Women's Weekly.
What I like about it is that you crochet one half circle at the time, so you can adjust the length as you go. There is no need to start with an certain amount of chains.

I used a metric size 2.5 needle, since I wanted a bit of structure instead of a really fine lace. 

the original pattern:

When crocheting it seems like every other half-circle turns upside down, like one is facing the right and every other facing the wrong side of the work. when blocking/steaming you need to turn them back in the normal position and everything will look right.

After finishing crocheting the right length I added an extra row at the top to make easier to sew it to the sheet. I used a simple pattern I made up:

- turn at the end with 4 ch (this will replace the first dc and 1 chain),

3 dc into space below, 1 ch, 3 dc into space below, 1 ch, 1 dc between two half circles *1 ch, 3 dc into space below, 1 ch, 3 dc into space below, 1 ch, 1 dc between two half circles*

- repeat between **

diy: hot bottle cover - 'Koeka Antwerp' kruikenzak knock-off!

Now that I'm finally on maternity leave I have the time to finish my list of baby-related sewing projects. The first one is making hot water bottle bags!
In The Netherlands, you need to purchase two, stainless steel hot water bottles for the baby's bed, to keep the temperature warm and comfortable during the first weeks after birth.
Metal bottles seems odd and old fashioned, but when handled properly, they are safer to use than the rubber ones: there is no risk of tearing, leaking,  and they stay warm longer. I've got mine second hand, from a friend.

Of course, the bottles can't be placed in the baby's bed without a cover. You can buy all kinds of bottle bags, from really cheap and simple to quite expensive, like those of the Dutch brand 'Koeka'. Their 'Antwerp' series of baby textiles features waffle cotton with blanket-stitch edges.
Unfortunately it is a fashionable, and expensive brand. Their hot water bag above costs 16 euros (!) a piece. Making my own knock-off version was an easy choice. I also added an extra bathtowel lining to reduce the heat on the outside a bit. Im really happy how my hot-bottle covers turned out! They costs about 3 euro's and some left-over fabric. (The piece of bathtowel was a leftover from my baby badcape project, the cotton waffle fabric was a sample which I've got for about 1 euro)


step-by-step:

First I made the two layers. The inner layer is stitched to a width of 13.5 cm, with the seam allowances on the outside. Clipped the corners and pressed the seams open.
Then I made the outer layer from the waffle cotton (which I prewashed and put in the hot dryer to let it shrink as much as possible). For a snug fit it is just slightly larger than the inner layer: 14 cm wide.

The layers were assembled with the seam allowances between the two layers. (the bathtowel layer with the s.a. on the outside and the outer layer with the s.a. on the inside.
Before doing that I added a little crochet flower embellishment (about 9 cm from the bottom up) I used this free crochet flower pattern.


Since I love handsewing and my bathtowel layer was a little shorter than the other layer I hand-stitched the edges (bonus: the stitches are not visible from the outside) Before stitching I've put a bottle in the bag to make sure everything was pulled tightly and was free of wrinkles.


I stitched the two layers together all around, went a few times over the upper right seam to strenghten it, and then cut only the waffle layer open between the stitched lines to place the 50 cm long twill tape:


As a finishing touch I added a blanket stitch edging with white embroidery thread:


They are cute, right?

Owl pram spanner: finally finished!!!

Finally enough time and light to finish my pram-spanner project!
I hate the dark mornings and early dark evenings during these months, since I prefer daylight to do anything else than knitting...
I used little amigurumi hearts instead of the leaves the pattern suggests and love the look!
Pulling the elastic rope through the owls was not easy but I managed. Also, I had to widen the opening of the wooden beads but other than that had no problems.

Crochet autumn apples - an in-between project

A fun little project using a free pattern: Lily Sugar'n cream Apple Wreath.
Using a smaller needle than suggested with Lana Grossa 'Cotone' yarn my apples turned out smaller than the originals. I guess I'm going to use about 3 pieces to decorate a plain wooden wreath with. Nevertheless, quick to knit and the instructions are clear.

owl pram spanner and discovering amigurumi

These little hearts are still part of my owl pram spanner project. The original pattern uses little flat flowers for the girls and flat leaves for the boys in combination with wooden beads to separate the owls. Part of my owl-family will be used for a mobile above the crib, so I wanted some extra shapes to put on that too. I quickly decided that I'd rather like to have something 3-dimensional there, and finally settled on little stuffed hearts.
I must say, it wasn't easy to find a suitable, free pattern on the internet. I quickly learned that all little, stuffed things are called 'amigurumi' and there are a lot of people making and selling patterns for almost everything you can imagine.

did you know...
...that Amigurumi is the Japanese art of crocheting small stuffed animals and fantasy creatures? The Japanese word 'ami' means crocheted or knitted, and 'nuigurumi' means stuffed doll. Amigurumi are typically animals, but can be anything with a 3-dimensional shape. Amigurumi first started appealing to the masses in 2003. 

Amigurumi are usually crocheted out of yarn using the single crochet stitch (double crochet in UK terminology). Click for a comparison of the terminology here. In order to achieve a tight gauge that retains stuffing and does not allow the stuffing to show through the fabric you need to use a smaller needle.

free amigurumi heart pattern
Most of the free heart patterns weren't the right size or shape to my taste or the surface looked not right (since using SC all around it is important where you increase/decrease the stitches). Finally I've found this great and easy pattern through Pinterest. The decreasing is mostly done at the sides which makes a nice surface from the front and back. Also the shape is pretty to look at, nice and wide. It is easy to crochet, since it goes in a spiral. You only need to mark the first stitch in every new round (I used a paperclip as a stitchmarker). You start with crocheting two separate round tops for your hearts, then attach them and start to decrease right away.
I used the smallest size (the pattern comes in 3 different sizes) which I think looks just perfect! Also, this was the first time I used a 'magic ring' or 'magic loop' to start out instead of chains an. You find a tutorial for that here.

struggle with safety eyes
It was the first time I used 'safety eyes' and of course I had no idea how they exactly worked. Apparently, the little 'screws' have a back fixation too. I was eager to sew on the crochet eyes to my little owls while waiting for the post to arrive, and the idea would be to attach the safety eyes first, secured from the back and then sew it on. Tried to perform 'eye-surgery' on the little ones by attempting to push the back rings underneath the (already attached) white crochet rings, unfortunately without any success. Lesson learned... At the end of the day I just used sewing thread to fix the back of the little screws, by pulling tight loops around them. No way they will fall out, or get lost now, for sure!
All that has left is to assembly my pram spanner!

Crochet owls - progress

This week I finished the little 'owl-family' for the pram-spanner and the crib-mobile. Finally ordered the extra stuff needed, like black safety-eyes (little plastic screws which stay safely in place), colored wooden beads and elastic thread...

a crochet project: owl pram spanner

Started another quick little project this week: crocheting little owls!
I bought this amigurumi-type pattern a while ago here. (There is also a Ravelry site for this pattern but the link doesn't seem to work...) The designer sells other accessories too, like the safety-eyes, clips and little wooden balls for the finishing touches.

For this project I use a cotton crochet yarn in the colors of the nursery (our stroller is black): Lana Grossa Cotone and crochet with metric size 2 needles. The stuffing comes from my trusty IKEA pillows (weird, but if you don't need large amounts it is way cheaper to buy the cheapest IKEA pillow than to buy a small bag of stuffing...)