A Box of Budgies on Etsy

I am very happy to announce that A Box of Budgies now has an Etsy store! I have decided to put my crochet skills to good use and have a go at selling my wares.

Currently for sale is a cute little collection of iPhone covers in a variety of colourful zig-zag designs. I worked hard to perfect this design and use one for my own phone every day. They provide excellent protection against dirt and scratches from keys and other pointy items that lurk in the infinite depths of your handbag.

The designs in-store at the moment are perfectly sized for iPhones or smaller hardware, but I will be making a batch of covers for slightly larger phones shortly. In the meantime, I am happy to take custom orders for any of the colourways listed.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/ABoxOfBudgies

Crochet Gift Tie Tutorial

Here's a quick and easy way to pretty-up plain wrapping paper instead of using ribbons.

Normally, I just wrap gifts in brown paper with a bit of jute string because I really like that simple, clean look (or maybe I'm just cheap). But recently I wanted to try something a bit fancier, so I grabbed a bit of scrap yarn and worked up one of these:

Not bad eh! Making one of these will only set you back about 10 mins (that's how long it took me anyway and I'm definitely not a speedy crocheter).

This is also great if, like me, you are totally crap at gift wrapping. The person getting the present will (hopefully) be so blown away by your amazing crochet skills that they won't notice all the crinkles, rips and wonky tape. Hopefully.

Anyway, here's the pattern. There's not much to it.

1.  Crochet a flower (pattern below).
2.  Make a chain JUST long enough to wrap around the gift. Leave about 3 inches of yarn on each end.
3.  Wrap chain around gift and thread the ends through opposite petals of the flower.
4.  Tighten and tie a bow.

Flower Pattern
Round 1:  Ch4. Join with slst to first chain to form a small ring.
Round 2:  [Ch3, sc into ring] 5 times.
You should have 5 ch3 spaces evenly spread around the ring now.
Round 3:  [Sc, 3dc, sc into ch3 space. Slst into next sc] 5 times.
That's it! Weave the ends in and you're done.

Grid Bag

After a nice long holiday back in NZ, I am back with a new project! 

It rained pretty much the whole time I was in Auckland. Actually I think it rained every day. Even the days that started out sunny ended up rainy. Disappointed. 

But at least I got plenty of time to make this bag which has been in my Ravelry queue for ages. 

It's made up of a grid of 16 crocheted squares which are sewn up the sides to form this kind of zig-zag opening. It was easy to make – the only part I struggled with was the lining because I've never done that before. 

Meet Gnorman.

Gnorman is a Gnome. He is about 4 inches tall and has a massive beard that kind of looks like a bib. I just finished making him and he is going to be a Christmas present for someone I know who is totally into gnomes (ok, my nana actually).

Maybe I will write up a pattern for this project in a future post. If you are keen to see the pattern, leave me a comment and let me know!

Fish Scales Pendant

Here's a little pendant I have just finished making using crocheted half-circles. Pretty stoked with how this came out! If you'd like to make one too, it's really easy. Here's how...

Crochet 6 small half circles:

Row 1: Work 5 sc into a magic loop (plenty of tutorials for this on youtube). Pull the loop tight so there is no hole. 

Row 2: Ch 3 (counts as first dc), turn, dc in first sc, 2 dc in each of the next 4 sc. Change to a contrasting colour. Ch 1, turn.

Row 3: Sl st in each of the next 10 dc (including the top of the ch 3 you made at the beginning of row 2). Fasten off and weave in ends.

Join the scales together:

Take one scale and using the first colour, slip stitch along the flat edge. A couple of stitches before you get to the end, grab another scale and place it over the first one so the corners are overlapping slightly, then continue to slip stich through the top of both layers so that the scales are joined. Do the same with a third scale and you will have your top row.

Do this again for the second row, using just 2 scales.

Sew the 3 layers together using needle & thread.

Tips:

• The smaller the thread used, the smaller the pendant will be. I used a finer crochet cotton with a 1.5mm hook.

• If your scales are floppy, starch them and leave to dry before joining them together.

I hope this pattern works for you! It's pretty basic - you might have to wing it a bit as everyone seems to have a slightly different way of doing things. Experiment with colours! Add beads! Make really big scales! Make really small scales! Actually I would love to see how small these can actually go - each of my scales measures about 17mm but I reckon you could go smaller!

A Cross Stitch Domokun!

A while back when I was playing around with cross stitch I got a trial of this software called MacStitch, which helps you to convert images into patterns. For this piece I used a screen grab from one of the Domokun movies (You can watch them on NHK's official site, here!) Turned out pretty well, eh?

I've got my (googly) eyes on you...

I was really stuck for Halloween costume ideas this year... until I saw this awesome idea featured on Craftzine. I took it a step further and put eyes all over my 'dress'* and in my hair as well. I was going to glue them to my nails too but I ran out of time (probably just as well). I finished the look off with radioactive-slime-green leggings.

I liked the shoes so much I wanted to wear them to work but the eyes have started to fall off so maybe not...

*Cheapo black nightie from BigW.