My African Flower Soccer Ball for Michelangelo!

Gwenda is 16 days old now & we were both pretty surprised 

how big this football has become!

We thought it would be average football size

but wow:

Almost as big as the little princess Gwenda!

I always wanted to make such a ball since 

I discovered the pattern by Crochetbug!

Just so pretty!

Click here to find the pattern!
It's so easy, after some hexagons & pentagons
you don't need the pattern anymore!
Just perfect for a fresh Mami like me
with a lack of sleep & a baby brain!
You still get some pieces done half asleep
in between two breastfeeds!

We were invited to Gwenda's first party today:
Our friend Michelangelo has celebrated his first birthday
& I think I really picked the perfect pattern
for his present.
The kids were throwing it,
squashing it,
used it as a pillow
or were just jumping around on it!
Mami & Daddy will have to make another one
for the first birthday of our little princess!

I used Stylecraft Special DK yarns for this ball.

The actual challenge of this project was to create

the pentagons & hexagons in a way

that the border colours are different

while attaching.

I recommend crocheting them together as you go!

I've used the visible join method,

makes quite a nice contrast! ;-)

I hope you are all doing fine

& I'm sending much love to all

my princesses & princes!

Your friend Dada!

My new psychedelic crochet coat!

I haven't blogged in a while,

just so much going on & so I needed a social media break!

I'm working in a shelter for homeless Ladies now

& it's a real touching work experience.

Your own problems are becoming so tiny

compared to the situation of these brave women.

They all had a home once.

Normal family lifes.

Depression, divorce, depts -

many different reasons

can cause homelessness.

Homelessness,

what a sad sad word

for something

that can happen to anyone of us.

Winter is coming,

it's getting cold out there.

There will be little notes

in the newspapers again

about homeless persons frozen to death.

And there's little we can do against it.

But there's something important

we all can give:

Respect, some warm words & a smile. 

Some people give a little

bit of money to a homeless person

but only a few really talk to them.

Look them in the eyes.

Invite them for having some food

or a hot drink in a warm place.

Treat them like a human being.

Let's make a difference!

♥♥♥

I don't have much time

& my crochet life is producing less stitches

these weeks...

 ...and I still have to spin some kilos of the sheep wool

I have cleaned months ago

but I'm on my way! ;-)

I've already dyed a kilo or so,

so exciting to create your own personal yarn!

I'm experimenting with crepe paper as a dye

& I'm really in awe about this

cheap, easy & effective option!

Crepe paper is fantastic,

I even dyed my flatmate Marie's hair green! :-)

I will blog about this method soon!

My WIPs are growing slowly

but today I managed to complete

this colourful coat!

Actually I wanted to crochet

this beautiful Lion Brand pattern:

While crocheting some squares for it 

I thought it would become too huge for me...

I've already crocheted 27 of the 79 motifs 

of this pattern to this point -

& just used them to turn them

into this funny neon coat!

I really love it,

so much fun to grow

something without any plan

how it will look in the end. 

Just some stripes here,

some granny stitches there

& now I have a new

unique coat!

Sooo happy!

:-)

Haha, some more photos! :-)

My beloved flatmates

Fabi & Marie took so many

good & funny pictures outside in the garden before

that it's hard to choose the best shots!

...crazy moves!

I'm a psychedelic princess!!!

Neon!

Just my favourite "colour"! :-)

What else to write?

I FINALLY MANAGED TO QUIT SMOKING!
For the first time without suffering
& being nervous all the time...

My method was quite easy:
I just said:
"I'm a non-smoker now!"
& got rid of my smoking stuff.

Crocheting is the best addiction anyway! :-)

Sending much love to my princesses
& princes,

your friend
Dada
♥♥♥

A yarnpainting - with buttons!

My flatmate & good friend 

has celebrated his birthday yesterday!

Actually I wanted to create a crochet-only-painting

as a present but time was working against me

(as always)!

Instead of crocheting

I used a less time consuming technique

to fill the missing parts with colours:

Buttons!

I have thousands of buttons,

a few hundreds less

don't make a real difference! ;-)

A pretty fast technique -

I just put some glue on the canvas

& pressed the buttons on it!

Completed it just in time, yay! :-)

I see the head of a psychedelic bird in this yarnpainting

by the way!

Funny how things just appear while creating dadaistic art!

Sending much love:

Dada

♥♥♥

Polymer Crochet Hooks!

Alex & me had so much

fun making & baking

our own personal hook sets!

Crochet hooks with a polymer clay handle

are quite often to find on etsy

- for ONE hook you sometimes pay more than 20 Euro!

Some hooks are really worth it

because real polymer clay artists

have made a real outstanding hook.

But even you have never worked

with polymer clay:

You can create your own art hooks yourself

- even ergonomic hooks

which often cost so much money!

This is a real low budget project,

you will need:

- Aluminium foil (for the ergonomic hooks)

- Polymer Clay (We have used the brand "Fimo")

- Nail art polymer clay sticks

- REAL cheap hook sets

(Search for "colourful crochet hook set"

on amazon, ours have only

cost 2 Euro for 12 hooks!)

- an oven

I've bought these four "Fimo" colours,

blue & purple

have even glitter within!

("Fimo effects")

By accident I've seen

these cheap nail art sticks

on amazon...

You get them in sets of 50 or 100 sticks

for a little money.

And they last for thousands of

decorated crochet hooks! :-)

(Just search for "Nail art polymer clay sticks")

First a look at the pretty hook set

Alex has made!

For this hooks you

only need polymer clay,

a hook set

& an oven!

For his handles he used a brilliant technique

by Donna Wolfe from Naztazia!

It's a real good video

if you wanna go for this technique as well!

He has used more than 2 colours

as you can see here:

 

After he wrapped & rolled this

multicoloured "sausage"

he cut it into little pieces

& attached these tiny bits

to his hook:

Then he just rolled it on an even surface...

& then they came into the oven!

(Fimo needs 130 °C for 20 minutes)

And look how happy he is

about his fabulous selfmade hook set! :-)

I was experimenting quite a lot,

none of my hooks looks the same, yay!

I will show you close ups now

& explain how I made my hooks!

Alex was so kind to help me:

The Polymer Clay Nail Art set

has included a cutter

& so he cut REAL thin decorations

for my hook handles!

***

This was my first hook:

I'm crocheting most of my projects

with a 4,5 mm hook

so it needed to be an thick ergonomic one!

To save polymer clay

I wrapped aluminium foil

around the hook.

I've also wrapped together

polymer clay in purple,

neon green & neon orange...

& I simply wrapped it around

the foil & pressed the fimo

with my fingers...

And because I love flowers

I added some in the end!

I just pressed them onto the fimo!

***

The next ones were really simple to do:

Basically I just wrapped the hooks

in fimo (quite thick!),

rolled them

& have pressed the tiny flowers

& smileys

on the fimo with a tweezer!

That's it! ;-)

***

The next one was this flower hook:

After I've covered this hook in fimo

& rolled it to give it a regular shape

I've put little fimo balls on it:

And then I just rolled it

with my hands

on a flat surface again!

There are prettier flowers

on this planet but

for an experiment they

look pretty nice! :-)

***

I really love how this ergonomic hook

feels while crocheting

& I think I will make more

of these!

I simply formed a foil ball

with my hands

and wrapped it with fimo.

Roll it in your hands

& take sharp scissors...

...you can just stick the balls

on your hook now!

In the end I formed a spike with

aluminium foil

on the end of the hook

& kneaded fimo around...

***

 Loads of psychedelic fried eggs!

I don't have progress pics

but I just covered the hook with purple,

rolled it until the shape was perfect,

added little balls of neon green,

rolled it again

& added even tinier orange balls

to the center of the green spots.

Roll it again & have fun!

***

The hook on the left was covered

by Alex for me!

(I was just so much slower than him, haha!)

The other three are easy to create...

I just formed "worms" of fimo with my hands,

wrapped them around

& rolled the hook with my hands!

***

If you cover the hook sizes

with polymer clay don't forget

to add the size

with a needle before baking!

(Or like Alex:

Write the sizes on the hooks

after baking with

a permanent marker!)

All these hooks were baked in the oven

at 130 °C for 20 minutes

but check the details

on the package of your polymer clay!

My friend Lisbeth has also made

polymer clay hooks

a while ago & has made these pretty

personal hooks!

She also added the hook sizes

with a needle!

It's great to inspire each other,

when you make a personal set

of hooks now as well

send me a photo on Facebook!

I will just add your work to this blogpost here! ;-)

I loved playing around with fimo,

so many possibilities!

Just experiment with your fantasy

& find out funny new techniques! ;-)

Sending love & greets:

Dada (or Julia)

My crazy Pineapple Shawl!

This Pinapple Shawl was such a fun project!

And I got rid of loads of scrap yarn!

I've started it with a pattern

I sadly can't recommend here.

In the second row I was struggling

because the written pattern didn't make sense

at some point.

I looked up this pattern on Ravelry

& many crocheters have suggested different edits -

the designer has never replied

& as the corrections haven't been made

I googled for a pineapple shawl chart.

With some little changes I followed

this chart!

I highly recommend using a chart for pinapple projects

- so much easier to follow!

As you can see my shawl has become pretty colourful!

I just used scrap yarn -

whenever a yarn came to it's end

I just attached another colour with a knot!

I tried to change the yarn colour

whenever there were a few

dc stitches next to each other.

You can perfectly hide a knot

& also the yarn ends

if you just crochet the followings dcs

above it!

Some yarn ends couldn't be hidden this way

but my friend Silviane Radtke

has an amazing technique

to avoid weaving them in:

Just add beads to yarn strings!

Hard to see in the beads in this colourful mess

so here is another photo:

My naked Nana Venus

wearing my crazy shawl in progress!

And she has met Luna from the first floor!

Nanas LOVE doggies!

In the end I just crocheted granny square stitches

all around my triangle scarf.

And here is the result:

I REALLY love my new shawl!

And also this Lady looks pretty cool wearing it:

And of course we can also wear it as a skirt!

This world needs more colours
& if you will also create such a funky scarf
please show me photos on Facebook!