BOOM! 1 hr Snood/cowl....

Last night I made a Snood / Cowl for a colleague at work as a thank-you for all her help during Men's fashion week, without her support our job would have been so much harder last week and would have meant me travelling on a grueling two day trip to Milan, which I really didn't want to do!

The design for this snood was really easy and only took me 1 hour, so gratifying :)

It was inspired by *THIS* design, the Around the way Cowl from *Pickles.no* and is just garter stitch on 12mm needles, knit using Lion Brand Thick & Quick yarn (which I bought in March last year in NYC!) and I just kept knitting until it was wide enough to go around the neck, plus a bit more, and then seamed the ends together, I'm calling it the 'BOOM! - 1hr snood/cowl'.

This year I am trying to make more effort with wrapping and presenting gifts for people, so my new favourite thing to do is to use textures from a Jpeg library that my friends and I have built up over the last year, which I then alter or resize in Photoshop and then print out and use as gift-wrap, above is how I wrapped Giulia's snood to present to her today.... I hope she likes it!

Wishlist....

Current faves, all reasonably priced I think (click on the prices to link to the websites).

Matroyshka measuring spoons - £5.50

Glass bell jars - Small £16, large £22

Love birds cushion (although I could definitely make this one myself for a lot less) - £69.95

Mini Patchwork pouffe (another one I could make if I put my mind to it) - £35

2011 inspiration.....Sewing

I can feel the sewing urge approaching again, and this year it's earlier than usual and competing with all the knitting I am doing and have queuing up....

My amazing sister gave me 'Built By Wendy Dresses' book for xmas, and there are so many projects I want to make already!

A big slouchy canvas tote bag to replace my XL gold tote of wonder which bit the dust a while ago, this one is by Built by Wendy and is very similar to what I would like to make.

A dress like this for my best friend's wedding....

Customising some existing items of clothing that need a little revamping....

I loved this idea from Cal Patch of Hodge Podge Farm, it looks like she uses crocheted doilies as templates to create bleached out prints on jersey which she makes into leggings, I think this would look good on a plain black t-shirt or washed out black jersey items like vests, old leggings and jeans too.... I plan to try this on one of my old black cardigans to give it a new lease of life and change up the buttons too.

I'm a twit....

I finally did it.

I joined Twitter.

For the good of all things creative, I do solemnly swear to make no comments regarding the boring minutiae of my daily life and make 'tweets' only about things I have made or work I admire from other creatives.

You can 'follow' me at : http://twitter.com/#!/lululovesmaking

splasher....

It is raining cats and dogs this morning, I think its about time I invested in some decent rainboots, and these black ones by Fouganza from Decathlon are perfect, and at the ridiculously cheap price of £12.99 there is nothing to feel guilty about with this purchase!

No more tiptoe-ing through the puddles on wet mornings for me, I will be able to stride with confidence on my way to work...

2011 inspiration.....Crochet

These pics are my idea of colour and crochet heaven.... this year I intend to :

Make a blanket of many colours...inspired by this beautiful work by Lucy of Attic24

Finish my hexagon cushion, which was also inspired by Lucy of Attic24

Make a crochet covered Ikea stool like this one by block a day blog

Make a Crochet bag like this one from the Japanese book 'Pretty colour crochet & knit goods'

My favourites of 2010....

Here are some of my favourite projects from 2010, and here's to many more in 2011!