My ongoing love affair with Washi tape is still in the throes of early passion. Now I’ve noticed the presence of this amazingly versatile sticky stuff I keep on seeing it everywhere. Stationers and department stores, homeware and craft shops alike. And of course there are miles of it for sale on the internet. At around a pound a roll it’s very tempting to get one in every colour and every pattern I come across… In fact that’s pretty much what I’ve been doing!
There’s no point having rolls of gorgeous tape just sitting in the drawer though, so I began to put it to good use anywhere and everywhere I could think of. I started with a set of craft shop cardboard letters that hubby had bought me a while back.
I had entertained the thought of decoupaging them with some fancy craft papers, but the thought of a gallon of PVA glue being splashed around with sticky paint brushes, the cutting and snipping of papers to the right size and all that drying time was putting me off. As a result of my aversion to the possibility of ending up in a big mess, the project had been on hold for way too long. After all, the last thing you want is a cat permanently glued to your desk or a mat of moggie hairs embedded in your finished pieces.
Using paper tape was ridiculously easy, quick and pain free, despite the predictable feline interventions.
After cleaning up my dusty top shelf a while ago, and taking down the miscellany of mismatched jars and plastic tubs full of odds and ends of craft materials my Moji Moji letters have been transformed from this…
…to this. The shelf is no longer a junked up area for forgotten things but a rather fancy focal point.
One useful tip – I found it was necessary to use a good solid masking tape to go over all the edges at the back. The type you find in DIY stores. I’ve relied on the light tack adhesive qualities of my Washi to bond to the cardboard on the face and sides but the small overlaps at the back kept lifting up.
Problem sorted. Those overlaps are staying stuck now. Sorry letters, I feel like I’ve shown the world your underwear! Here’s a picture of their more glamorous side again to make up for that minor indiscretion.
I think that’s definitely cheered up my wonderwall of wool, especially with the addition of my new sheep friend. I’m a little on the short side so using that shelf for storage has never been the most convenient thing. Since all my jars and pots of beads, buttons and general gewgaws have been hidden away neatly in my chest of drawers there’s no need to keep climbing on the desk to reach anything. This shelf is now purely decorative and, for once, dust free. I do feel much better not being crowded in by the jumble of a million knick knacks.On a recent trip to town I found skinny tape…
..and Easter tape.
Little frog was very pleased with my shopping and we soon cooked up an idea for how to use them.
As it so happened I’d just finished up two pots of Day and Night cream and had peeled off the original labels, ready for a bit of re-purposing. The Easter theme paper tapes were going to be perfect for a seasonal revamp.
And with the very minimum amount of time and effort they were soon transformed.
Now I have two little gift tubs to fill with a few trinkets or sweets.
They’re the perfect size for one of my Ten Minute Chicks and a couple of mini chocolate eggs – in fact they’re the perfect size for anything that fits in them 🙂
Time for an Easter gathering with duck and rabbit from my Minimals collection.
That’s my mini Easter gift ideas sorted out then, just need to use up a few more jars of face cream, I’ll have to see what’s lurking in the back of the bathroom cupboards. They need a jolly good clear out anyway.
After that I turned my attention to some plain old wooden clothes pegs and got busy decorating them with a selection of rainbow colours. Just stick on the tape and trim with a craft knife. It couldn’t be easier.
These would be great as memo holders for the fridge if you stuck a magnet on the back. I’ll be using mine for holding monthly bunches of receipts together next time I get around to doing my accounts. They look pretty enough to have on display all the time so I’ve pegged them to my letter rack for now.
I can use the pegs to keep my pencils upright too, instead of them falling to the bottom.
I think you’ll agree these guys are far too good-looking to be hidden away in a pencil case.I love anything that’s really small so had some seriously itty bitty fun making teeny tiny bunting next.
And here’s how to do it. You’ll need a piece of thin string (I used crochet thread in a size 6), your chosen tapes, a pair of small pointed scissors, a sheet of white paper, a pen and a ruler. (I Washi taped my ruler too). 
Cut a strip of paper to the same width as your tape then cut that strip into squares.
Stick your tape to one of the sides of a paper square. Leave the same amount of tape unstuck and place the string over the tape where the top of the flag will be.
Fold the tape over the string and stick to the other side of the paper square.
Snip away the excess from the centre of the lower edge to the top of the flag.
You now have a string of baby bunting!
Just right for a tiny Easter party.
If you’re not planning a tiny Easter party this year, and let’s face it, not everybody will be, then you can also use your bunting for card making or scrapbooking. It would look great in a doll’s house too.Last but not least on my mission to Washi tape the world I gave my computer monitor a makeover. 
Isn’t that just so much fun?! It makes me smile every morning when I shuffle, bleary eyed, into the studio, cup of something hot and revivifying in hand, ready to check emails and orders. A pretty little kick start to another day filled with crochet, crafts and exactly this sort of silly nonsense that puts an extra twist of lemon-zingy happiness into the teacup of my life!
Of course a quick room makeover is never just that and an awful lot of the week went by before it was finished. We did take Wednesday off for a quick trip to Cardiff to pay a visit to my oldest son who’s at Uni there – studying computer animation and motion graphics (or something along those lines, I always forget the exact course title!).
A boiled egg breakfast gave me all the energy I needed to keep my hook hooking nineteen to the dozen.
That’s Diggory above, and below you’ll find the beginnings of Dave…
The glove compartment is so handy for keeping all my crochet essentials and the odd project or two in. My strange hubby seems to think that it’s meant for the log book, sat nav and tool kit, so I do have to keep turfing out all those annoying ‘man things’ that just get in the way. Surely crochet is far more useful if we break down. At least I’ll be happily occupied however long it takes the mechanic to find us!
I’ve managed to squeeze in two sets of double pointed sock/glove knitting pins, a cable needle, crochet hooks, stitch markers, a pin cushion and a pair of scissors. The important stuff literally all rolled into one. That’s pretty much everything I need so I won’t get caught short without recourse to a satisfying project or two as long as I have this with me. Just add yarn!
After stashing a couple away in my roll up case, some of the others have gone to live with the magical mushroom pincushion that grows out of the top of my lug-around super sized project basket.
I mainly use this basket for carrying things up and down to the end of the garden when it’s sunny and I want to work outdoors as it has space for everything I could need including a flask of tea and a packet of custard creams or a bottle of prosecco and a jar of olives, depending on the time of day. Here’s a snap taken last summer of my carry-all basket to remind us all of more clement times to come.
You see there’s even room to take along the odd cat too.
Anyway, I digress from tales of Half Term week… We arrived in Cardiff with Dave the dog nearly ready to sew together. A few hours were whiled away hanging around the city centre – mainly perusing the local Tiger store where I bought a bit more storage and stationery for my ongoing studio revamp. I particularly liked their wire shower baskets and treated myself to three of them. They now have pride of place hanging under the window next to my chair and are proving useful for storing all sorts of bits and pieces in, including a whole load of polyester toy stuffing. Now I have my own cloud in a basket, though Mojo prefers to look out of the window at the real thing.
They’re also good for storing cat’s tails in. I love how the alpaca and the chihuahua seem to be in agreement to look the other way and pretend it’s not there. It appears that the sun may actually be shining out of Tigger’s behind but these two are far too polite to look!
And here’s a glimpse of what was under the window before my shopping spree. How sweet that the cats form an orderly queue for the sunny window spot! I may often lack human company working from home all on my own but I’m never lonely. It’s often difficult to twitch an elbow when I’m at my desk for fear of jabbing a cat!
After our trip to Tiger we stopped for some light refreshment at 
If you do find yourself paying a visit be sure to check out my son’s artwork too, he has a part time job there and, among other duties, gets to draw on the chalk boards in the upstairs bar area. Here’s his latest masterpiece…
Eventually it was time to say goodbye to my lovely boy and get back in the car for the trip home to Worcester. Of course that means a little more time for getting creative and so I started my very first pair ever of crocheted mitts.
I’m really comfortable with the whole amigurumi thing by now but this is taking crochet to a whole new level for me. So far, so good as I’m still working the cuff but I’ll let you know how I get on when things get a little more complicated. It will be interesting to see whether I end up with a pair of mitts to be proud of or a misshapen rag of a washcloth made from expensive bamboo yarn. I have to say that looking at the chart for the shell pattern has given me palpitations. I guess I’m just not a charty type of person. All those symbols are prone to swim about before my eyes in a highly nonsensical manner. There is a written version of the shell pattern though so I’ll be sticking to that and hoping that if I just tackle the mitts round by round something as beautiful as the photo in the book will result. If not I’ll be reverting to knitting something similar. I’ve certainly had plenty of practice at that in recent months.
I’ve been practicing my cabling to spice things up a bit.
My latest pair of knitted mitts turned out gorgeous. I used some pretty variegated yarn and embellished the top rib with a simple crocheted flower.
I made a handful of these easy flowers with the yarn that was leftover after the mittens were finished. I loved how they kept turning out differently depending on where in the yarn dye repeat each one began. They were the perfect portable and pocket sized project for all the micro journeys I was making over to mum and dad’s to finish off my dad’s fancy new study, both before and after our Cardiff trip.
That’s what I call co-ordinated heaven!
I’ve got a few mitten gifts in mind that I need to make over the next week. It’s going to be a bit of a rush but at least I won’t be wasting any time searching for the necessary equipment!
My pot is full of daffodils, my windowsill is full of cats and my head is full of exciting new designs. Half term is pretty darn good but I’m always more than happy to get back to work in earnest!
With just a few days to go I’m sure that those of you who like to celebrate the day of love and cherishing will be totally organised by now. Champagne and chocolates stashed in the fridge, red and pink cards bought, inscribed and sealed with a kiss. But if you’re more like me and too busy crocheting, knitting, and generally crafting to even know what day it is sometimes, then it may have caught you unawares! Never fear, you can always craft yourself out of such a scrape!
What’s more romantic than that? OK, no need to give me a list, but, this makes a sweet gesture to give as a bouquet, or just as a pretty focal point for a kitchen dresser or a bedside table.
In the end the colour scheme was influenced solely by the jug. Keeping a simple theme of red and green met with approval from Mojo, so we were good to go.
He definitely likes the red one!
As it is, one of these little hearts only takes around ten minutes from start to finish, so it seemed worth the extra effort to get my colours just perfect. I do love a quick make! If you do too you can download my free Hearts and Bees pattern 
In just a smidgen over an hour and a quarter I had made as many as I 
Sticking on the washi tape was such an easy way to add some colour, and a bit of pattern too. Much nicer than all the messy paint I’ve been used to using instead.
Winding the tape at a very long angle makes for the most economical use of the precious washi. 
The finished hearts look even sweeter with the addition of a few wooden ladybirds.
Then there was just enough time left to make up a matching place mat out of some leftover clarn from another project. 
If you’re not familiar with this fabulous upcycled cloth yarn and want to give it a try, instructions and tips on making clarn out of old sheets or other fabric scraps can be found 
Now it was just a case of arranging them neatly. The polka dot bow around the neck of the jug and a few more wooden ladybirds really pulled the look together.
I just hope he doesn’t read my blog in the meantime or the fact he’s not getting a gut busting greasy fry up won’t be much of a surprise!
They’ve travelled over to Worcester with first class plane tickets from their respective countries of origin and are here on a cultural exchange trip. What an epic journey they’ve had from all the far reaches of the world! First stop was…. well, let me show you their flight paths, that will be much easier.
As bashful as they are, staying in the basket forever wasn’t really an option, so with a bit of coaxing and lot of promising of favorite treats – bamboo, eucalyptus and, well it’s a bit yucky really, but a good dollop of seal blubber – and they decided to brave the camera and let me show them off to you in all their tubby tummied, pompom eared, scarf toting glory.
Once they were out of the basket they didn’t feel quite so shy anymore. Sometimes that first step is the hardest, don’t you agree?
Ning Ning comes from Shaanxi province and is very proud of his country’s long history. He can trace his family tree back thousands of years and boasts one of the oldest names in China, said to have originated in the Zhou Dynasty.
Ning means ‘peaceful, tranquil, calm’ in Chinese. His favorite food is bamboo and his favorite colours are red and yellow. He likes to fly kites in his spare time, especially if they’re dragon shaped.
This is Norris. He’s a tough little fella when he needs to be but inside he’s as soft as butter left out on an Australian veranda in 110 degrees. He’s got a lot of love to give – just don’t call him a bear unless you want to make him grumpy, he’s fiercely proud of his marsupial status and holds his wombat cousins very close to his heart.
The epic plane journey from Australia was very easy for Norris as his normal routine is to sleep 20 hours a day. Because of his napping habits he never goes anywhere without his comfort blanket and a book of bedtime stories and so managed to doze through most of the flight. He can only remember boarding the plane at Brisbane, saying hello to Ning Ning when they stopped at Chengdu Airport and then finally arriving at Heathrow. That’s the way to do long haul!
Last, but not least, is Nook the Polar bear, shortened from his Inuit name of Nanook. He has travelled from the Far North and the arctic tundras he loves so much. Nook thinks the bleak mid-winter is the best season of them all and his favorite food is whale bone soup. 
As a special treat he likes bag of Fox’s Glacier Mints but his teeth are the key to his survival in the wild so he knows he shouldn’t eat too many. Dentists are hard to come by in the frozen wastes, let alone one who’s brave enough to put his hand inside a polar bear’s tooth-achey mouth.
They’ll be getting together every now and again at World Summit meetings to raise their respective flags in the name of peace and international friendship. What a wonderful example to set.
I had great fun being involved in Zoomigurumi 5. My fluffy alpaca, also known as Alicia, has gone off to Belgium to join her fellow bookmates. If you feel inspired to have a go at any, or all, of these crocheted characters you can get hold of a copy of the book 
He was a pleasure to make, of course, and now I have another character to keep me company at my desk.
He soon became best friends with Alicia’s grey fleeced cousin, Althea, and they’re now inseparable. They were both very good at helping me spot any last minute tweaks to the patterns and text. Alicia has been blessed with patience and is very calm and focused while Kaan’s beady eyes never miss a thing. A dream team!
Though I’ve never heard of a crocodile and an alpaca hitting it off before, there’s always a first time…
He is a fine looking fellow, I’m sure everyone would want to be best buddies with him if they met him!
And in case Alicia should get jealous here’s a little triptych of her own, taken by Joost De Wolf, the book’s official photographer.
I hope that’s whet your whistle and got you all excited about the brand new characters! Alicia has had a couple of new reincarnations already, again, from the pattern testing phase. There’s this chubby, cuddly looking fella made by Bregje Zeijen.
And this cute pink version made by Natalie Van Dalen. I love how Natalie changed the look with furry eyelash yarn. She’s like a big ball of gorgeous candy floss!
One of the things I love about amigurumi patterns is that it’s so easy to put your own spin on things by changing a colour, or a yarn type. You can upsize or downsize by experimenting with different hook sizes and yarn weights. It’s always exciting to see other peoples interpretations. Thanks to all who send me photos or post them on my 
I can’t wait to find out what you’ll be making once you get your copy. Do tell, I’m all ears!
New Washi tape arrived last week to swell the collection. I now have all these!
Craft hoarder that I am, I do actually use some of my stuff some of the time. This week I put some of the Washis to good use sprucing up a set of folders that had been used by my middle son for storing his A-level coursework in. These folders weren’t the prettiest of things with their big black and white branded labels on the spines, but because I actually went with him to choose them a couple of years ago, they are a rather pleasing collection of rainbow colours (he was overruled on the ‘let’s just go for black ones, it’s easier’ line of thought) so there was definitely some salvage potential there.
Co-ordinated heaven!
Makeover complete and here they all are, harmoniously nestled into their new home.
Now if I’m going to be really fussy here, and I am pretty fussy generally, I’d probably say that the pink Washi tape isn’t really a close enough match. Oh well, it’ll do for now. In the meantime, deep pink Washi tape goes onto the shopping list.
My recent mass yarn sort out has been useful for reminding me of all those glorious oddments and single balls of variegated yarns. They were mostly found buried in the bottom of boxes under mounds of all the solid colours that tend to get much more regular use in my normal line of work, but now they have a box all to themselves.
With an urge to put some of this rediscovered kaleidoscopic yarn to good use I focused my attention on making a few pairs of fingerless mitts. I have to say that working crochet in the round with just a single hook is a doddle by comparison, but I do love the look of knitted gloves and socks so much better than crocheted ones and the four needle juggling act is becoming much less clumsy the more I practice.
Multicoloured yarn is my new favorite thing. All the pleasure of pretty patterning without the pain of constantly swapping out balls of wool. I even managed to create two pairs of mitts containing every colour of the rainbow with just two balls of yarn.
I do enjoy working up these little projects – I can get a single mitt made in the course of an evening – the almost instant gratification is, well… gratifying! I always find myself fascinated by how each yarn orders itself. Some yarn stripes its way along in more or less single rows as with the first pair I made in this lovely mix of blues.
The second pair of the week were a little more random in their patterning. Love these tutti frutti colours. A wearable tonic for the dullest of wet winter days. I made these a few rounds shorter to mix things up a bit.
I also finished off a dark blue pair of mitts which had been languishing since last spring, thereby removing another project from the work-in-progress pile. Yippee!
The patterning on this one reminds me of ripples on the sea.
Or even the canal. No wild and untamed sea around here but plenty of gently choppy canals.
After two and a bit pairs of plain stocking stitch mitts my brain started craving something a bit more challenging so the final finished pair of the week has a chunky cable detail.
They were going to have a pompom flourish but my youngest son has decided he’d really like to be their owner and has vetoed the pompom idea as silly, so I’ll save that for the next pair I make for myself. I’m not at all afraid of a bit of silly!
I’ve certainly got enough pompoms going spare at the moment.
If Minnie ever lets me near them!