No. 55 - Crochet Remote Control Caddy

Made this using the remainder of the fabric yarn which I made from cloth, using a 10mm hook.

No. 54 - Crochet Chainlink Necklace

Rico Essentials Cotton DK, with 2.75 mm hook.

Each loop:  6 rows of 24 sc on 24 chain.

Made entirely in Sri Lanka and gave it to Aunty Yvonne for so kindly having the five of us stay at her place during our recent trip there.

No. 53 - Crochet Disc-and-Loop Necklace

Rico Essentials Crochet thread, 100% mercerized cotton, no. 10, with 1.25 mm hook.

Discs: 6 rows of 30 sc + 1 row of 15 inc

Fat loops: 8 rows of 30 sc

Skinny loops: 3 rows of 30 sc

No. 52 - Crochet Snow Flake IV

No. 51 - Crochet Snow Flake III

Photo to be added.

No. 50 - Crochet Snow Flake II

Another one from the same book.

No. 49 - Crochet Snow Flake I

Small one! 100% cotton yarn, 4 mm hook. Followed one of the patterns from the book "100 Snowflakes to crochet" by Caitlin Sainio.

No. 48 - Crochet Pink Elephant

100% acrylic yarn, 3.5 mm hook.

Made this for eldest niece's 15th birthday. Again, I had to ask her to take a photo after it was given to her. I keep forgetting!!

No. 47 - Crochet Phone Case

100% cotton yarn, 3.5 mm hook. For my own phone, as I gave mine to Sarah and hers was passed to Matthew.

No. 46 - Crochet Chainlink Necklace

100% cotton yarn, I think 2.75 mm hook. Red-orange-yellow-orange repeated. Receive lots of compliments every time I wear it, even from complete strangers!

No. 45 - Crochet Arm Warmer for Sophie

Sophie liked the pair I made for Sarah, so I made this one for her. Only one side, haha, because I didn't get around to the second one and she said one was enough. 100% acrylic yarn, 3.75 mm hook.

No. 44 - Crochet Water Bottle Strap for Sophie

Another water bottle strap, also 100% acrylic yarn and 3.75 mm hook. My own pattern.

No. 43 - Crochet Water Bottle Strap for Rachel

Made this one with 100% acrylic yarn with a 3.75mm hook, I think. The topmost section in turquoise was added on when it turned out a tad short for taller bottles. My own pattern.

No. 42 - Crochet Rainbow Rabbit

Made this one with 100% acrylic DK, I think 3.25mm hook. I always can't remember because I'll be onto my next project by the time I type them up and usually it'll be some other hook size.

So excited to give it to my sister-in-law, I again forgot to take photos before handing it over. That turned out to be a good thing because when she kindly took photos to send back to me, they were much better than I could possibly have taken indoors. Love the grassy background that she chose, from her rooftop garden, as you can see above!

The pattern is my own, although inspired by the creatures from Bobi Craft that we saw sold at a gift shop at West Coast Plaza.

No. 41 - Crochet Elephant

Made this with 100% acrylic DK yarn, I think 3.5mm hook. Got the pattern from allaboutami. It's a great site with many cute animal patterns. Giving it to a little boy I will be visiting in San Francisco end of this month.

No. 40 - Crochet Basket

Finally got around to using the fabric yarn that I "made" from a few metres of knit material. Used a 10mm hook.

The original plan was to make a floor cushion, but I soon found that there wouldn't be enough yarn. So I turned it into a basket with handles instead, for Andrew's toy cars. It's great for him to lug around by himself, something he couldn't do when the cars were kept in a big plastic box. I especially like the sound absorption when you throw cars back in the basket - they make only a soft dull chink compared to the great clatter of the plastic box.

The base was single stitched in continuous rounds, starting with a magic circle of 6sc, up to 54 sc for the last round. For the wall, first round was sc into front loop only of the 54sc base round, subsequent were dc in continuous rounds. For the handles, I chained 6 and skipped 6 stitches, spacing the handles equally apart, then finished with sc all around and over the chains.

There's still a goodish-sized ball of the fabric yarn left so I'll probably make a smaller basket with that. It's a very heavy yarn for some reason, so it wouldn't be as ideal for a bag. Nice and sturdy for baskets. Not something I will want to do again in a hurry. Making the yarn was extremely time consuming, and working with it was really very "eat-strength." Ugh. Lesson learnt.

No. 39 - Crochet Phone Case

Made this one for my new HTC A9 phone, that came free with recontracting the mobile plan.

Black and off-white are Red Heart Miami 100% cotton yarn, wine is Drops Muscat 100% mercerised cotton yarn. I think it was a 3.75mm hook. I really like the Drops Muscat - so sheeny and full looking!

No. 38 - Crochet Arm Warmers

Sarah wanted these so I made them out of 100% acrylic DK yarn (Stylecraft Special DK), with a 4mm hook.

They're not exactly the same as I just estimated the amount of taper as I went along for each one. I didn't record what I did for the first one in order to replicate it with the second. I started with a foundation chain instead of an ordinary chain so that it would have a bit more stretch. She's about my size now, so I just used my own arm/hand as a gauge to position the thumb hole and size the entire thing.

She's using them in school!

No. 37 - Crochet Doily

I really enjoyed making this one. 100% Cotton No. 12 thread, 1.25mm steel hook.

Followed a pattern in a book that a fellow crochet friend gave me, because she had an extra copy.

Reminds me again how amazing blocking is - just soak the curly piece of work in water and press it flat between a towel to dry.

I mailed this to a sweet colleague who is recovering at home from a bad insect bite on her leg.

No. 37 - Crochet Master Luke

I had fun with this guy! Chose my own colours while following the basic pattern for the blackoutfit Skywalker made earlier. For his shirt, I used 100% Cotton DK yarn and adapted the pattern from Yoda's robe. His hair is a separately crocheted piece that was later attached. I found the close cropped look of the integrally crocheted hair not quite fitting with the seventies lanky look sported by Luke in Star Wars, before he lost is hand. Decided not to fix any features on his face, so that he can project whatever feelings one may have.

No. 36 - Crochet Luke Skywalker

Made this guy quite quickly as he had little detail to his outfit. Matthew suggested the shape of his eyes, and I executed it in blue according to Skywalker's eyes. Not too fond of the effect though. The light sabre was fiddly to do but the technique was interesting.

Fabric Yarn

After searching online and at department stores for T-shirts to cut up and make fabric yarn, I finally found a shop on Arab Street (Bamadhaj Brothers) that sold a stretchy sort of jersey fabric. I don't think it's cotton, but that might be better at repelling dirt when I use it to make a floor cushion. I got 4 metres of about 1.6m wide for $35. I think that makes more yarn than 4 or 5 t-shirts.

Cutting it into a single strip was painful! I think it took about 6 hours, more or less. Couldn't do it in one go. Considering I bought it on the 2nd of July and it's now the 24th, I suppose I can say it takes me roughly 3 weeks to make a batch of fabric yarn, life included.

Wound as I went, to prevent a horrible mess of loose yarn accumulating, especially since I knew it couldn't be finished in one go. Grabbed the nearest handy thing to serve as a spindle, which happened to be a kids kaleidescope.

Took care to wind it as a centre pulling ball. It was tight around the spindle at first, but pulling out some of the middle yarn opened up more space in the centre so the kaleidescope could be pushed/pulled out.

SO glad it's done. Now I really hope it will crochet up well! More importantly, I hope there'll be enough for the entire project. Really don't relish the idea of buying more fabric to cut. Ugh. Next time I'll just go with the t-shirts, saw some at Giant Supermarket. T-shirts will cut up much more quickly as you can cut multiple layers at once. This fabric was rather thin and floppy. Maybe if I had folded and pinned it down properly it might have cut up faster. Oh well. That comes of barging ahead without really thinking it through first.

No. 35 - Crochet First Order Stormtrooper

Original stormtrooper had gone to Matthew's friend (who broke his leg in two places while trampolining at Matthew's birthday party at a trampoline park). Made a replacement, 100% acrylic yarn, 3.25mm hook. Worked into back loops only for the immediate white round after black rounds. The helmet detail was a little tricky. I should have made a thinner black band above the eyes instead of following the pattern blindly. I always make the elbows higher than indicated in the pattern.

No. 34 - Crochet Flared Skirt for Baby Bop

3.25mm hook, 100% acrylic yarn. Used a foundation chain for the waist band so that it would be more stretchy than starting with a regular chain. Finished the hem with a shell edging.

Made this entirely at KK Hospital for Women and Children while Rachel was there for a week to have a plexiform tumour removed from the lower right side of her face.

No. 33 - Yoda III

Yoda, my first crochet creation, went missing! So I made another one, Yoda III. 100% acrylic yarn, 3.25mm hook. Yoda the 2nd had gone to my brother.

Then Andrew found the first one behind a side table. Oh well. Here they both are, Yoda and Yoda III.

They're a clear instance of how yarn and hook make such a big difference to the final product. Using exactly the same pattern, a slightly thicker yarn but smaller hook (3.25 instead of 3.5), Yoda III still turned out a tad bigger.

No. 32 - Crochet Boba Fett

Made this tough guy for Sean for our 16th wedding anniversary. The colour changes in his helmet were interesting to work. I modified the pattern slightly, moving the elbows higher. I didn't bring brown yarn with me so the magazine belt was made afterwards as a detachable item instead of worked into the rounds of the body between the sage green.

He's shown here with Princess Leia.

No. 31 - Crochet Bow Hair Clips

100% acrylic dk yarn, 2.75 mm hook.

These came about because of the bow tie for the Tsum Tsum Donald Duck. The first one came out too big, so I tied it onto one of the black hair clips I had bought the girls for school. That's the red one. Decided to make a few more in the colours they like.

They're simple tubes/cylinders made with a neat way to join each round (starting in the stitch after the slip stitch join) so that the top and bottom edge of the cylinder lie flat. Then wrap the yarn around the middle to give it the bow shape.

Behind The Scenes

The good photos are all taken by Sean, Nikon D750 body, usually Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8G lens.

The other photos are taken by my Samsung Galaxy Tab S (8.4 inches), which I use with a matching bluetooth keyboard to write my posts. The bronze finished keyboard is on the table in the picture above. I'm holding the tablet to take that picture of Sean taking pictures of my Donald Duck Tsum Tsum (which I still think is pretty freaky, the whole Tsum Tsum series).

No. 30 - Crochet Tsum Tsum Donald Duck

Another Tsum Tsum character, Donald Duck for Sophie. 100% acrylic dk yarn, 3.5 mm hook (I think). I keep forgetting the hook size by the time I post the finished thing up! Usually I'll be already onto another project.

All the shapes are easy. The body is just regular hemisphere - cylinder - sortofhemisphere, the bill is like the start of a tiny handphone case, the feet are hemispheres folded in half, the bow is a cylinder wound about its middle with yarn, the beret is a black cylinder joined to a hollow circle for the underside and a whole circle for the top, and the black ribbon is just four rows of single stitches, differing row heights. Tail and little hair tuft are just chains with various stitches worked backwards on them to get roughly the shape in my mind.

No. 29 - Crochet Sun Hat for Rachel

100% Acrylic Aran yarn, 5mm hook.

Worked entirely in the spiral.

Top: dc
Upper sides: dc in back loop only, to give the visible horizontal line of yarn for each row
Lower sides: dc separated by single chain, each dc worked in the single chain space of the previous round, to give the holey finish
Brim: First round dc in front loop only, remaining rounds tc.

For the brim, rounds start and end with increasing and decreasing stitch heights: sc, hdc, dc, tc .... tc, dc, hdc, sc. The start and end height changes overlap, giving a sloped joint, but this means that the round has an overall even width all around while being worked in the spiral.

Hmm, on closer inspection, I realise the sloped round ends should overlap more.

I quite like this way of joining rounds where colour changes are needed. For some reason I really dislike joining rounds and starting new rounds with chains, but colour changes between rounds are very visible when working purely in the spiral.

The flower was made following a rose pattern that I found online, using 100% acrylic DK yarn, 4mm hook.

Rachel has an usually large head circumference, so I'm glad I can make her a clearly little girl's hat that will fit. Normal kids' hats are way too small for her, even my own cap is too tight for her.

Most importantly, she likes it!

No. 28 - Crochet Market Tote for Ms Stefanie

Made this for Rachel's teacher who takes her home after school every day!

100% Acrylic Aran yarn, 5mm hook. Pattern from Daisy Cottage Designs.

No. 27 - Crochet Phone Cover for Sarah

100% Cotton 5-ply yarn (Red Heart Miami), 3.25 mm hook. I really like the way cotton yarn shows the stitches so cleanly, compared to acylic.

No. 26 - Crochet Baby Boat Shoes for Lucius

More baby shoes! Made these for colleague's son. 100% Acrylic yarn, Aran weight. 4mm hook.

I got these light blue/turquoise organza drawstring bags to give my crochet creations in, inspired by the way www.loveknitting.com packages their yarn in such bags when they're delivered.

No. 25 - Crochet Tsum Tsum Dumbo

Made this for Sophie's classmate Jiaxuan, 10th birthday. All 100% Acrylic DK yarn with 3.5 mm hook. Eyes are 9mm diameter safety eyes.

I referred to the following images to shape the various parts.

Trunk started with magic ring 6 single stitches for a few rounds, then started curving and expanding by estimation according to the online images. 

Body started with magic ring 10 single stitches, next round 20 sc, next round 30 sc, next round 40 sc, then repeat 40 sc for 8 rounds. 

Collar is 2 rounds of 40 sc in red, 1 round of 40 sc in yellow (working into back loop only of the 2nd red round), 1 round of 40 sc in red (back loop only). 

Then light blue again, 40 sc for 9 rounds, then 30sc, then 20 sc, then 10 sc, and finishing with 5 rounds. 

Tail is chain 6, sc second chain from hook backwards for 5 chains.

Feet started with magic ring 4 sc, next 2 rounds 8 sc, fold in half, attach to body.

Hat started with magic ring 4 sc, next 4 rounds 8 sc, next 2 rounds 12 sc, roll up the hem and sew fast.