Crochet ipad case for Father's Day - free pattern

With just three weeks to go until Father's Day, it's on the 19th June in case you were wondering, now's the perfect time to hook up this quick handmade gift to keep his ipad looking stylish and cosy. Although looks-wise this one has been designed with men in mind (as they can be so difficult to find good crochet patterns for), swap the buttons and colours and it can be customised for anyone! 
You'll be pleased to know it comes pre-approved by my Dad as I actually wrote the pattern back in December and gave it to him as a Christmas gift - and have since had to borrow it back to take photographs because I wasn't organised enough to do it before!

The finished case measures 26mm deep and 18cm wide and is designed to fit an ipad 2 with or without a official apple ipad 2 case, but if you need it bigger or smaller just work with a tape measure to hand and adjust the stitch numbers as you go.
Hook: 4mm crochet hook Wool: DK weight You will also need a button, tape measure and yarn needle
Pattern (UK terms) Foundation double crochet 63 - there's a great video tutorial here (it's known as foundation single crochet in the US). It's basically a way of creating your chain and first row of dcs at the same time, which is much less fiddly.
Slip stitch into the first foundation double crochet to form a circle. Make sure the work isn't twisted as you do so. 
Work continuous rounds of dc in back loop only until your crochet sleeve measures 22cm long.
Change colour to grey and continue to work rounds of dc in the back loop until the grey stripe is 4.5cm deep. Fasten off.
Turn inside out and seam along the bottom. Weave in all ends.
Sew on chunky button where the two colours meet. 
With your grey wool chain 30 and test the length around the button and up to the back of the case to make sure it fits. Once you're happy with the length form a loop, then slip stitch both ends to the back of your case. Weave in all ends.

And you're done. As ever I'd love to know if you make one.
Right I better go and give this one back to my Dad now!


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The Maker Place wish list*

While we're still busy decorating all the rooms in our house (to all of you who told me it's a slow process, I believe you now!) earlier this year we made a bit of a resolution to think more about our purchases and focus on investing in a few key pieces, particularly from local and UK based makers and designers. And The Maker Place is a new online site where you can do just that. 

With everything from kitchenware to office accessories and wallpaper to decorative prints, it's bursting with handmade pieces from some incredibly talented makers. Each maker has their own profile page so you can find out a bit more about who you're buying from and they feature in-depth interviews on their blog, the most recent with potter Kara Leigh Ford is well worth a read - she got down to the final 20 auditions for the Great Pottery Showdown and I love her organic style (and her striped shed/studio)! 

Here's a little pre-payday wish list of some of my favourite pieces:

Clockwise from top left: stoneware speckle teapot, nest building materials cushion, classic Swedish butter knives, peg it all little in green peg board, great tit screen print, sea foam dinner plate
What handmade pieces are you keen to pick up for your home this season?
*Affiliate links - if you're thinking of making a purchase I'd be honoured if you'd use the links in this post to do so and I'll receive a little bit of commission.

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Recently I’ve been…

Seeing as I haven’t managed to blog for nearly a month, it’s safe to assume that recently I’ve been... fairly busy. So thought I’d better hop on the blog today to apologise and explain the reason for the radio silence.
Firstly, a couple of weeks ago my laptop finally decided it had seen enough photos of crochet and flowers and announced it was full. Some rather desperate deleting ensued but it was clear I wanted to keep more photographs than it would allow. Luckily this was just before my birthday, so the boyfriend’s present to me was to buy and fit a new larger hard drive. Unfortunately this took longer than expected as it also coincided with the start of redecorating our bathroom…
I mentioned when writing this post that we’d be getting our bathroom redecorated this year, and while I planned what we’d need doing back in January it took us a good few months to get quotes and book in a plumber.  To save money we’re doing a lot of the work ourselves, so my evening and weekend blog time has now been taken over by removing  tiles and plasterboard, putting up new plasterboard, removing the tiled floor and many, many DIY shop and tip trips. There’s still a very long way to go as you can see in the picture below! 

But aside from manual labour, I have also been…

Crocheting this cushion for a friend’s birthday, the colours are inspired our local bluebell wood and I’m pleased to say she liked it. I also kind of wanted to keep it for myself.

Visiting Nymans a nearby National Trust garden, which I’ve blogged about several times before, including here. I love that there’s always something different in bloom and took home lots of inspiration for our garden (the next project after the bathroom).

Growing tomato seedlings, I did also try and grow some last year but they seemed to give up the ghost just after I re-potted them. Since re-potting these ones it’s so far so good and they're much bigger than last year's already! 
What have you been up to? 
I’m also terribly behind on blog reading so feel free to add your latest post in the comments so I can catch-up.


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Living room update - easy gallery wall

What else is a bank holiday for if not a bit of DIY? So over the Easter weekend we put up this super simple but highly effective (if I do say so myself) gallery wall. I'm a bit ashamed to admit that despite living in our house for over a year, these are the first pictures we've put up. And considering how much more homely they make the place feel, I'm kicking myself for not doing it sooner! 

As promised, they were really easy (and cheap) to do. The frames are from The Range and were a bargain at just £3 each for a 10x8" frame, Wilko and Ikea would also be good places to look for cheap but stylish frames. The photographs are all ones taken by me (most have featured on the blog in one post or another) on various holidays over the last few years. I ordered them from Truprint for just 99p each meaning the whole thing cost less than £25.
As the frames are all the same it made placing them so much quicker than trying to design a mix and match gallery wall. I also wanted a cleaner, more uniform look for the living room. Plus I'm saving the mix and match gallery wall for our hallway!

To put them up we started with the middle two frames and worked outwards, making sure the gaps between the frames were all 4cm. We also made sure to measure each frame individually rather than just assume all the hanging hooks were in the same place – which was a good call as they weren't! 
I think we did a pretty good job and as a bonus they make the room feel bigger and taller too.
Would you have a uniform gallery wall in your home or do you prefer the mix and match style? 

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Crochet phone case pattern

Because phones need stylish knitwear too.
This easy crochet phone case is perfect for stash busting and uses a simple double crochet (UK) stitch throughout. It's embellished with a pale pink crochet chrysanthemum, but the decoration for yours is completely up to you. Get creative with beads, cross stitch style motifs, flowers, bows, anything you like! 
I love a quick project that you can finish in a few evenings and this would make a great (dare I say it…) Christmas gift, just customise the colours and decoration for each lucky recipient. The pattern is intended for an iphone, mine is a 5c and it fits perfectly but for any other phone just widen or shorten as needed. The finished case measures 7cm x 15cm.

Hook: 3.5mm Yarn: Sirdar simply recycled 
Pattern The case is worked continuously in the round so a stitch marker is essential, unless you have an absolutely amazing memory. 
Foundation round: work 30 foundation single crochet stitches (this is a US term, I assume the UK equivalent would be foundation double crochet, either way there’s a great tutorial here – scroll to the bottom of the page for the video version). It basically creates your foundation chain and the first row of double crochet stitches at the same time, which is a lot less fiddly than creating a long chain and working into that.
Join at the bottom of the first foundation crochet stitch and place your marker.
Work 30 rounds of double crochet into the back loop only.
Slip stitch into the first stitch of the last round and fasten off.
Seam along the bottom and turn inside out.

Flower The chrysanthemum is from 100 flowers to knit and crochet by Lesley Stanfield. I’m constantly stealing borrowing this book from my Mum as there are so many cute flowers to make, next on my list are lavender stems and a poppy in time for November. 
What would you customise yours with?

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DIY leather tassel key ring

How to make a leather tassel key ring (without a glue gun) in less than 30 minutes

Add a pop of colour to your outfit with this simple leather tassel key ring DIY. I needed a bit of yellow to add to a recent party outfit, so decided a little handmade leather tassel charm was the answer. It's easy, quick and cheap to make. Most other leather tassel tutorials require a glue gun, but as I don't own one you can make this simply by using a slipknot and needle! 

You will need: Small piece of leather or leather type fabric  Keyring or similar (I used the clip from an old lanyard) Scissors Needle with a large eye

How to: Cut your leather into long thin strips and set one strip aside.

Thread the strips through the keyring and hold in place.

Create a slip knot in the piece of leather you have put aside making sure one end has a long tail.

Thread your slipknot over the top of the key ring and pull tight. Cut the short tail from the slipknot.

Thread the longer tail through your needle, wrap around the tassel to cover the knot then thread underneath to secure.

Attach to your bag or keys! 
I'm loving this sunshine yellow at the moment, what colour would you make? 




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