Progression of design

 I can't believe how long it is since I last posted on my Blog, it shows how hard it is balancing a full time job with being a mum and trying to make money selling your crafts. I am afraid that the time spent making things to sell takes priority over Blogging about making things.

Recently I haven't had a chance to do much of either this year due to illness, but I am on the mend so get a chance to do both.

Some of my friends seem to think that when they want something I can just whip up a pattern in a few minutes and make something for them, they don’t seem to realize what it takes (for me anyway) to create a pattern for knitted of crochet items. A good example is my attempt to create an owl chocolate egg cosy.

 

This was my first attempt. It took a couple of attempts to get the correct number of stitches to fit round the egg but I didn’t have to rip it out all the way at least This one I decided looked more like a Furby than an owl, so I suppose I will keep the idea in the back of my head in case anyone takes a fancy to it. You may think that I should just add wings to make it more owl like however I make these to sell along with other egg covers and did not want it to vary too much in materials or time so that they could all be sold at the same price.

 

 My second attempt did have a bit more of an owl look however I felt that it needed something a bit more to emphasis the chest area.I knew he wasn't right so I didn't even finish off his beak, poor fellow.This was where I had to be a bit more creative with my stitches which can be hard as believe it or not I am still quite a novice when it comes to Crochet.

I only graduated from traditional granny squares to being able to read patterns a few years ago when I had to make a Christmas toy which I could only find crochet patterns for. I remembered seeing a cluster stitch a while ago when seeing some tutorials on YouTube (the great teacher of all things crafty) and decided it would be a quick easy way to give some texture and definition to the owl. Again it did take a few attempts to work out how may clusters to use and how wide they would be in the pattern but it worked out well in the end. The effect is not picked up very well in the picture but my friend was very impressed that I managed to make her an owl for the same price as the other designs and that was the point of the exercise. If anyone wishes the pattern post in the comments section and I will edit this to add it. Hopefully I will get enough time to do another post before Easter and show a few more designs and include the patterns.