Flowers and dinosaurs

Been a busy few weeks since my last post - but then life is busy with a baby! She's recently perfected sitting up on her own from lying down, and has grown the couple of inches she needed to be able to pull herself up on the coffee table and sofa... Keeps me busy watching her!

In terms of craft projects, it's been pretty productive. I've completed another of the Edwards menagerie range, Bruno the dinosaur and made some flowers with a free kit. Shane two of the three were started since my last post, otherwise I'd be making good progress on reducing the number of projects on the go!

Firstly Bruno the dinosaur.

Kind of cute! Fairly easy to knit, as with all toys the sewing up is what took the time. I have plansto make a pink version, once I make the other five in the collection (so probably around 2030!). The pattern is from Deramores, and I've used the recommended wool - Deramores studio DK. It was actually really nice to work with, and affordable too (always a bonus!).

Now meet Benedict the chimpanzee. He's the crochet animal I've made from Edwards menagerie this month. He's made in paton fab yarn, which is cheap and cheerful and ideal for a toy my baby daughter is going to chew, throw and generally try to destroy!

He was really quick to crochet, taking around four hours over the Easter Bank holiday weekend. Plus there's less sewing up with crochet toys! I only wish I'd stuffed him more - he's quite the skinny monkey.

Finally, today's project has been a flower broach from a kit on the latest issue of Simply Crochet. It only took about an hour and looks great - the kit flower is the one in the middle.

The two smaller flowers are my own design to use up the leftover yarn. I've included the pattern for the top one below:

Starting with yellow, chain 4 and slip stitch into the first chain to make a ring.
Round 1 - chain 3, then work 11 treble crochet into the ring, then slip stitch to the top of the first chain. You should now have 12 stitches. Change to red.
Round 2 - * chain 3, skip one treble stitch and slip stitch into the next stitch. Repeat from * five times more.
Round 3 - into each chain work a double crochet, half treble, double crochet. Change to mid pink.
Round 4 - chain 4, then work a double crochet into the back of the slip stitch on the previous round. Repeat this five times more, so there will be six outer petals.
Round 5 - * working into each stitch, work a double crochet, then two double crochet into the back loop only, a double crochet and a slip stitch into the double crochet from the previous round. Repeat from * five more times. Change to light pink.
Round 6 - * work a double crochet into the next stitch, then a half treble and then a treble into the next stitch, a treble then a half treble into the next stitch, and a double crochet into the next stitch, and a slip stitch into the final stitch of the petal. Repeat from * five times more before fastening off.
To work the leaf join green to the middle back of one of the petals. Chain 4 and slip stitch into the back of the next petal. Into this chain loop work a double crochet, half treble, treble, chain 3 then slip stitch into the first chain, treble, half treble then a final double crochet. Fasten off and sew in the ends.

I think that's the first ever crochet item I've designed! And all because I had some yarn left and my daughter was still napping. If you give it a go and something isn't clear do let me know - worth noting the terms used are UK crochet terms.

I hope you enjoyed the pattern, and I hope to be back in a couple of weeks with more exciting projects completed - I only have a buttonhole to do on the skirt and then it's finished...