My Taste Is Sometimes Bizarre

If I were to dress the way that my inner me wants to dress then I think most people would find it a bit bizarre. As it is I dress like a normal 66yr old conventional woman does. Inside though I am still have hippy bohemian tendencies hence the name of my Etsy shop Urban Gypsy Crochet. I am not gypsy minded in the travellers kind of way but more the old Romanian gypsies as portrayed in the old movies. I love the flamboyant colours of the skirts and headdresses. I think this is why I love to crochet colourful things even though I don't actually wear them. I just hope that other people share my love of the colourful and unusual and want to buy some of my things. I am trying to give in to my inner boho self and actually wear some of the crochet that I want to wear despite knowing that people will view me as a little bit crazy. I just wish that I had more self confidence to be the inner me instead of the conventional me who dresses like people expect me to dress.

The red fingerless mitts in the centre are an example of my creativity running wild. I wanted a pair of gloves that hinted of the burlesque. They are lacy with a black fun fur edging and laced up the centre with ribbon corset style. The other mitts that I have designed are a bit more conventional to perhaps appeal to more people.

The hats are for the craft fair. What I call bread and butter crochet. The scarf pattern is Doris Chan's Sweet Lorraine and the is hat is one that I improvised to match the scarf. I added a flower to please my inner me. I think that I still have time to make a couple of lacy summer hats with flowers before Sunday.

I made this shawl from the Dudley Do Wright pattern that I bought from either Etsy or Ravelry. It is a very simple shawl to crochet but if I made it again then I would use finer yarn than the aran yarn that I used here. Whilst this version is a lovely warm shawl I think that it would drape better if done in a finer yarn. It is a top down shawl so could be adapted to any size of hook and any thickness of yarn just by altering the number of pattern repeats.

At the moment I am in the middle of crocheting another chunky shawl for the fair. I am also re-organising my yarn stash once again. I bought one of those shelving units with a cover designed as temporary storage for students and am using it for all my full balls of colourful acrylic yarns that I use for shawls, granny squares etc. Of course I underestimated my stash of single balls and so I have ordered another one today. I will post photos of  them both once they are in place and filled. I also bought a 4 tiered plastic vegetable tray on castors that I am using to store the part balls of yarns that I am working with. This idea works so well I am going to get another one to store the patterns that I am using at the moment as opposed to the ones that are stored away in boxes. I will post photos of those once they are all set up in place.

I do try my best to keep organised even though to an uncrafty eye my house is still untidy. I do feel slightly better about this when I watch the You Tube videos of the Cast Off Crew and Fresh Off The Hook as the backgrounds of their videos look equally as messy as mine. I know now that I am not alone in my crafty mess.

Today is nice and sunny although still quite chilly. The gardener has been today for the first time this season. I don't have her visit during the winter. It all sounds rather posh having a gardener but she just comes once a fortnight for an hour just to keep the lawn and the small  bit of garden tidy. I don't have a beautiful garden but at least it is neat and tidy when she comes. I just could not manage it before and I could not keep relying on the generosity of neighbours. I like to be as self sufficient as I can.

It will soon be the craft fair on Sunday and I need to sort out what I am going to take with me and make sure that things are labelled. I am not taking my baby things this time apart from a couple of newer items. I am trying out a different theme with the retro crochet items to see how they are received.

Thank you all for your comments. I do appreciate them. I am trying to blog more frequently after my long lay off but still not got back in the swing of things yet.

Creative crochet

Thank you to everyone who sent me cards, e mails, Ravelry messages and blog comments for my birthday yesterday. I had a brilliant day finished off with a lovely Italian meal courtesy of my niece Vic and friend Louise.

As promised I am posting some photos of my new crochet books as I have absolutely nothing to report on my knitting or crochet as I didn't pick up a hook or a knitting needle yesterday.

I will start with Creative Crochet by Darla Sims. This book will be useful for those of you who have lots of bits and bats of similar colours that you don't quite know what to do with. I like some of the patterns but I wouldn't feel like buying wool especially for any of the garments although my eyes are drawn to the purple cardigan I must confess. I think it is a book that might come in useful if I can keep my eye on the sale items of 1 or 2 balls that I see and like but can't quite think what I would make with them except a hat. I should probably decide on a colourway and stick with that. These designs could look rather messy if I got the colour wrong or too many colours instead of shades of one.

Darla Sims uses a cut and tie method of joining in her colours and prefers to move her colours about in a slanted fashion mid row rather than do complete rows. I don't think I could bear to leave all the knots tied at the back so it would turn out to be a darning in frenzy for me if I made anything from this book.

I must apologise for the quality of my photos today. In my defence I will say that it is rather dark this morning so I had to put the light on plus the book pages are rather shiny. I have posted an Amazon link to the book (click on the blog title) should anyone like the book and want to buy it.

I am glad that a couple of fellow crocheters managed to get hold of the Glorious sweater book that I am crocheting from at the moment. That is a book well worth getting hold of if you can find it.

This afternoon I am off to the hospital for X rays to see if my spine has healed up correctly after the op. I am going to see if I can get them to refer me to someone about my knee which at the moment is causing more problems than my back is.