Sunday 10 February 2013

Crochet And Pom-Pom Hearts


Couldn't pass up the opportunity to hook up a few of these cushiony hearts after seeing Lucy's post here last month. The pattern is the same lovely one by BeaG that Lucy used which you can find here. I've used my favourite Cascade Ultra Pima cotton yarn in a range of Spring-inspired colours and a 4mm hook and I love them!


I thought they would make nice lavender bags, both to keep and to give away as small presents, but of course the crochet is a bit porous and the lavender flowers have an unhelpful tendency to make their way out through the crochet again instead of staying fragrantly put. Not being keen on finding bits of scratchy lavender in my clothes and suspecting that anyone to whom I might give one of these, might not either, I made little pillows out of loose weave muslin to fit inside. The muslin was in fact an unused jelly-straining bag that I cut up, and stitched by hand into small pillow shapes, filling them up with lavender before the final seam - perfect, loose-meshed fabric for allowing juice to drip through for jellies or to keep lavender from making its way out of my crocheted hearts!


The little lavender pillows sit nicely within the crocheted hearts and I just filled out the remaining space with soft toy filling. This was also an economical way to use my precious Provençal lavender, as you don't need so much just to fill the little pillows as you would to stuff the entire heart and they are still beautifully scented.

I played around with various flower patterns to embellish the hearts and in the end plumped for the Centifolia Rose in Lesley Stanfield's 100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet, making some in two colours and some in single ones.




This coming week, with Valentine's Day in it, is my excuse to go fuzzy, pink and girly.


In a predominantly male household, "fuzzy, pink and girly" is not often welcome, but every once in a while I feel the urge to give in to it, regardless of disapproval ... so I've also had a go at making some pink heart-shaped pom-poms with ... a pile of pink yarn


... and a pair of those heart-shaped pom-pom-making gizmos.


The heart-shaped pom-pom-making gizmo is slightly daunting compared to the simple spherical and oval pom-pom-making gizmos I had as a child (and still use). But with a bit of perseverance I managed, more or less, to get it to work. If you acquire one of these to have a go yourself, (you can get them from Purplelinda Crafts here), do read and follow the accompanying detailed instructions carefully and take my advice: not a single word in them is superfluous!


There is quite a bit of happy snipping involved in order to shape the results properly which was rather enjoyable and created a lot of pink fluffy mess everywhere.


I've always loved wielding scissors and snipping away, whether it's paper, fabric, yarn or hair on the receiving end of my attentions!

As a small child I was so taken with the glamour of using scissors that Really Cut instead of those dreadful plastic "safety" scissors that wouldn't cut anything and with which I was generally fobbed off, that I tried to "help" my mother's dressmaking efforts by copying what I'd seen her do when cutting out a summer dress for me. It was rather unfortunate that the fabric I cut was the pieces she had already cut out for the dress! As you can imagine, I was not very popular! Not that I blame her. I would have been pretty livid in her shoes, I can tell you!

Nor was my popularity rating high when I led my sister astray into cutting the hair on a pair of dolls we had. My doll ended up with quite a pretty, gamin kind of bob, but L didn't know when to stop nor, aged only three at the time, did she realise that the doll's hair would not grow back after cutting, so it ended up with a very comical, and irrevocably drastic, crew-cut! I am afraid, at all of six years old, I unkindly laughed the superior laugh of the knowing older sibling but my poor sister was rather upset and my mother was not at all pleased!


As you can see, I need outlets for my happy snipping tendencies and these pom-poms fit the bill nicely - I particularly love the ones made with the variegated pink yarn - Patons Fairytale Dreamtime Baby DK, if you're interested - and there were no tears or fall-out apart from the pile of drifting pink fluff all over the floor!
Pink dust bunnies anyone?!



26 comments:

  1. Hello Mrs tt. Your little hearts are simply lovable. I too have made some of those roses out the flower book. They are beautifully quick to make! I also adore you pompoms ..... Oh be still my beating heart!

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    1. Thank you Kate! Yes, that book is great. I love the way the patterns really do emulate the different flower species. E x

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  2. What delicious pink and girly fun..........the little crochet lavender hearts with the beautiful roses are delightful.........I wish there were more hours in the day for making some valentine pretties.
    kim x

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    1. Thank you, Kim! A few more hours for creativity in every day would suit me just fine! E x

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  3. Hi Mrs. TT!
    Your Valentine art is lovely! Cushy pink! Dreamy!

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    1. Glad you like them! There's just something about their pink woolliness that I find very appealing! E x

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  4. Such sweet hearts! and the heart-shaped pompoms are adorable and fluffy...

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    1. Thank you Ana! Thinking about adding some more from your lovely recent heart patterns! E x

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  5. I love the heart pom poms. Actually I love the crochet hearts too and lavender *sighs* Helen x

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    1. So glad you like them, Helen! They were both great fun to make! E x

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  6. Dear E
    The hearts and pom poms are absolutely gorgeous (and there's nothing wrong with a bit of 'pink and girly' every now and again!) I share the doll hair-cutting experiences - several of my dolls ended up with rather bizarre lopsided cuts and of course, they had them forever. I still have a couple of the dolls squirrelled away in my memories box.
    Best wishes
    Ellie

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    1. Thank you, Ellie! Glad to know I am in good company with dolls' hairdressing! Still remember it as a happy afternoon's work despite my sister overdoing it! E x

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  7. Pompom making seems an excellent pastime for a snipper! I always associate pompoms with woolly hats or hanging in a Ford Capri but seems I shall have to rethink them. Love the hearts too.

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    1. Good thinking Anne about the Ford Capri decs! You've given me the idea of hanging a few in my own car even though it isn't the requisite model. When I mentioned this to H however it went down poorly and a rather comical look of sheer horror crossed his face. He is clearly anticipating the sheer awfulness of being picked up from school in a car with heart-shaped pom-poms hanging from the rear view mirror!! But I like the idea of a few happy pom-pom hearts in my car...! E x

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  8. such sweet hearts!!!!! and the pom poms heart are absolutley a dream!!!!
    best wishes,
    regina

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  9. I just love your crochet hearts! They are lovely and the colours are just perfect.
    M xxx

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    1. Thank you so much! They were so easy to hook up too - have a go! E x

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  10. Lovely crochet hearts...and even more lovely heart pompoms!
    Jill

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  11. Your crochet hearts are really lovely - bet they smell fab too. Thinking of hooking up hearts in some way to make bunting this year.
    Your poor mother, having to oversee such a scissor-wielding maniac of a daughter!!

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    1. I know, it's bad isn't it?! All I can say is I am glad I didn't pass on the scissor mania to my own son - I am not sure I would have coped as well as my mother! E x

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  12. I loved making pom poms as a child, I must do it with my daughter! Yours are lovely.

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  13. You should save the snippings and use them to stuff the 'corners' of the next batch of lavender hearts! Loved this girly post E, a dose of pink is sometimes just the right tonic. And what a perfect way to scent your clothes :)

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  14. I love the pompoms and there is nothing wrong with a bit of pink now and then! It took me years to be ok with the fact that I really like the colour pink. Your crochet hearts will make such sweet gifts and I'm sure they will be well received.

    Gillian x

    ps. I got into lots of trouble as a child for giving my Sindy dolls haircuts. But the dolls were boring - it was always the Sindy house I was interested in!

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  15. Love those pompoms and your scissor stories:) As I child I never cut my own hair but I did give my younger sister a haircut:)

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