Pimped up Flip Flops

Flip flops are great summertime footwear but do you ever struggle to find a nice pair that you like or that will go with most of your summer wardrobe? I do, but maybe I'm just picky. I came across a little tutorial on how to spruce up a pair of flip flops with a bit of crochet and just knew I had to give it a go!

I got my hook out and a few leftover bits of yarn and got to it.

Rubbish late night Instagram pic

It's a quick and easy projects and you could easily make a whole wardrobe of crochet flip flops! Sometimes the straps are a but plastic-y and can make your feet sweaty, so covering them in this way is a great way to avoid that.

Pimped up flip flops

In hindsight, I should have used a cotton yarn rather than acrylic but they still work well. I just feel these look a bit woolly for flip flops, but I think they're cute! I quite like them and will certainly be stocking up on flip flops to jazz up!

To do these, I simply double crocheted (single crochet if using US terms) around the straps, making sure to bunch the stitches up so the rubber part didn't show through. Avoid crocheting around the toe post as I think that would be uncomfy to wear. For the bow, I made a strip of 12 double crochets and did 5 rows and then bunched it up in the middle by wrapping yarn around to make it bow shaped. Then I sewed the bow onto the straps and hey presto!

Who's been inspired to pimp theirs up?

Pram Hydration Station

I always have a bottle of water with me whenever I leave the house. It's a habit I've had for years, and it greatly contributes to my drinking 2-3 litres a day. Pushing a pram around, especially in the heat we've had recently, is thirsty work and in a bid to make my life a bit easier when it comes to rehydrating, I have been on the lookout for a nice but practical water bottle holder. Well, they apparently don't exist! So I decided to make my own based on a few ideas I found floating around on Pinterest.

As I've mentioned in the past, I'm not a great sewer and me and my sewing machine have a love/hate relationship, but I decided to look past that and get making. And boy am I pleased with my first water bottle holder!!

Pram Hydration Station

The way my pram (I drive a Mothercare Spin in limited edition black jacquard, for those of you who may be interested) folds, I need something that can quickly and easily be taken off the handle bar, and many of the shop bought items I've seen just don't offer that, hence my own creation. This bottle holder wraps around the handle bar and secures with two popper studs. It literally takes 5 seconds to put on/take off and that's just what us Mummies want when packing and unpacking the pram for a trip out of the house.

I used some scraps of floral fabric I had in my stash and borrowed Mr PC's popper stud gadget, so this wee project didn't cost a penny! Those are the best kind of projects, aren't they? 

What I really like best about this bottle holder is that it's so versatile. It will fit onto pretty much any type of pram and can be positioned anywhere you want it, unlike so many branded bottle holders which have to go on a specific part of the pram chassis. You can also use it for a baby bottle, and possibly for your takeaway coffee cup, although I have yet to test it for this purpose.

I uploaded a pic onto my Instagram feed and it was very well received with several people wanting to purchase one, which was a great surprise! I am currently working on some ideas and they will be appearing in my Etsy shop in the near future, so keep an eye out there for them. 

My First Baking Competition

Last weekend we headed off to the Essex Food and Drink Festival for a family day out. It was the cloudiest day we've had in months and yet I managed to get sunburn... no idea how that happened!

Our main reason for going to the event, apart from wanting to stuff our faces, was to see Paul Hollywood who was going to be doing some bread demos. I also decided to enter the baking competition as he was judging. It seems the competition was a great attraction as there were about 60 lemon drizzle cakes entered (the category was pre-determined)! Sadly I didn't win, which is ok considering the competition. But if there was a prize for presentation, I would have deserved to win as my cake was the only one displayed on a fine bone china plate. Just saying.

My lovely plate and cake

These are some of the other entries:

Yes, that would be HALF a cake at the bottom! Who does that?!

Some folk didn't even take them out the boxes they brought them in!

The bread category wasn't very popular

The youth category was scones and this little cake stand was so cute!

The man himself put on a great show, he told loads of funny stories about Bake Off and had many anecdotes about Mary Berry too which amused us all. He demonstrated flat breads as that's about all you can make in terms of bread, in just 45 mins. He's a pretty cool guy, regardless of whatever the tabloids have said about him. He knows his stuff and did a Q&A session at the end which was good. He was particularly impressed with the 12 year old boy who makes all the bread for his family on a weekly basis and the 11 year old boy who makes the 8 strand plaited loaf on a regular basis. The boys both asked very good detailed questions which really amazed everyone. Good for them, I say!

The rest of the day was good too but I have no pictures of that as I was too busy looking and eating my way round the stalls. It's certainly worth the £8 entry ticket! I wonder who they'll have there next year?

Sublime Baby Poncho

Oohh, look at me blogging twice in a row!

Today I'm showing off my latest make for Poppet, a poncho! When I was a teenager, ponchos were all the rage but not crochet ones. Crochet was not cool. I had a grey fleece one with a funnel neck, it was tres chic because it was from Next and it cost me several weeks pocket money in the sale. Anyway, I digress. Apparently ponchos are back and they are cool and crochet is cool again, so when I saw a pattern in my copy of Cute and Easy Crochet Baby Clothes, I just had to make it!

As usual, I didn't have the suggested yarn, but I did still have some gorgeous Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk DK  (I think this is my top fave yarn ever) which I've previously mentioned here and here and here. This stuff is utterly sublime to work with and it washes up pretty well. I also made Poppet a turban with it and it still looks pretty good after umpteen washes.

The stitch is a cluster stitch I hadn't tried before but once I got the hang of it, I flew through the patten. It took a lot of yarn to make, I used four 50g balls which I think is a lot consideing it's a baby item. It was a quick project as it only took a few hours to hook up and it is absolutely adorable! 

I added a couple of rows of dc around the neckline as the foundation row was a bit stretchy and I think I added a few rows on the bottom as Poppet is quite tall and I want it to last that wee bit longer. I wish you could feel the srumptiousness of this stitch, it's just lovely. I don't have any pics to share of Poppet modelling as a) it's summer and way too hot for a poncho! and b) Mr PC and I have decided not to feature her on the blog for reasons I'm sure I don't have to explain. I hope you can imagine the poncho's loveliness from the below pic.

Roll on the return of poncho season! I may even work out how to make one in mummy size!

Giant Granny Square Rug

Hello! My crafty endeavours are regularly gazumped by a lack of time/energy by the time my Mummy duties are done for the day. However, I do manage to get some things done from time to time and today I want to show you my giant granny square rug which I made for our bedroom.

This rug has a bit of a back story in that I've wanted to make a giant doily rug for the longest time and finally got my hands on a pattern and then realised it was just going plain wrong! The particular pattern I chose is, in my opinion, not suited to being a rug as it came out too flimsy and would have been a major trip hazard. So after rethinking and making it again using another pattern and that failing, I decided to make it into a granny square. If in doubt, do a granny!

It proved rather difficult to photograph the rug in situ but here are the best shots I got!

I used DMC Zpagetti in Fuchsia to make this and used about 1.5 spools. I've previously used Hoopla for smaller projects, and Zpagetti is very similar. I found it to be less stretchy than Hoopla which I thought important for a rug. It is also easily washable which is handy. I was, however, very disappointed in the number of knots in the yarn. I'm talking dozens! This meant that I had a LOT of ends to sew in as cutting them out was the only option, they were so unsightly. But apart from that, Zpagetti is pretty good stuff to work with, altho it is a workout on your wrists!

Here's some pics of the rug's original incarnations:

You get more per spool than you do with Hoopla!

The original pattern, it looked lovely but not very practical

The second attempt, different pattern but I had issues up scaling it. 

It looks great in our bedroom but it took a while to get used to is as we kept walking round it for about two weeks! Poppet loves it as she can stick her fingers in the gaps and it feels kinda squishy!

The clusters are so touchy-feely!

The best aerial view, as modelled by Sophie Giraffe

Rug Facts
Yarn: Zpagetti, in Fuchsia 1.5 spools
Measures: 1metre x 1metre, 13 rounds made
Hook: 12mm

If you'd like to have a go at making your own rug and need large crochet hook, checkout my Etsy shop where you can purchase a lovely handmade hook perfect for some extreme crochet!