Customer Reviews.

There is nothing more pleasurable than receiving positive feedback on an item you have made. Everything I make is made with love. I know it's a cliche but a little part of myself goes into everything that I make and knowing that someone else has that item in their home is a lovely feeling.

On that note I'd like to direct you to Mum First, Doctor Second a blog by Lucinda. She recently purchased one of my bears and you can read her review here.

Not only that she shares some of her other recent purchases from Etsy and why shopping on Etsy is a pleasurable experience. Something I wholeheartedly agree with.

If you are interested in owning your own bear you can find them in my Etsy shop, Merry Peridot .

Drawstring Crochet Bag

This is a quick project I hooked up yesterday. Poppy needed a bag for her football kit so I had a quick search and came across this free pattern from Lion Brand.

The pattern uses chunky wool. I didn't have any to hand in a suitable colour or quantity so I used three strands of DK. I used two in Stylecraft Special DK shade Grape and  one of Stylecraft Merry Go Round. I used my 10mm hook. I would say that because I deviated from the pattern by bag was not quite as big as the one pictured in the pattern but it is the perfect size for a football kit including training shoes. I also made the straps slightly shorter because it is for use b a six year old.

Here is the finished bag:

And this is a better picture of it in daylight and worn by it's owner who is very pleased with it and she received several compliments from her school friends.

I would say that overall this bag took me about four hours to complete. So a quick and easy project with a great result!

Christmas & Unicorns

Any mother of a small girl has to deal with the incessant unicorn love right? Well, I do! Poppy is six and the love for unicorns is very strong in this household. I recently had to break it to her that unicorns aren't REAL! She was a *bit* upset to say the least!

That is why I have started to make one of her Christmas presents already. A unicorn blanket! It is huge already and I'm not even half way finished! I wanted to start it early in case I get distracted by other projects (I have quite a few pieces that are in the middle of being worked on!)

It's not subtle is it?

I've been wanting to do a crochet blanket using a graph for ages and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

I found the graph here (bless you Pinterest and Ravelry). I'll post another picture when it is completed.

Birthday Celebrations!

Happy birthday me! Today I am "dirty thirty" as my family say. I prefer "flirty thirty" but whatever!! 

I have had some lovely presents so far including a Pandora bracelet that I've had my eye on for ages and some lovely flowers from Poppy.

To celebrate further and let you join in the celebrations there is 30% off everything in  my Etsy shop this weekend. 30% - that's a massive discount. Lots of blankets, bears and bunting as well as other gorgeous items available!

Here's the link you need:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/MerryPeridot

The code you need to apply at the check out is MERYL30TH. 

Grab yourself a bargain! 

Star Blanket - Autumn is Coming!

Hello! Long time no blog. I really suck at keeping up with this blogging business. 

I can tell that my thoughts are turning to autumn/winter because all the plans in my head for new makes involve blankets. Until you've made your own blanket you don't realise the joy of sitting underneath it whilst you are still working on it! 

My latest blanket is a little bit different. What I mean is that usually colour is my friend. The brighter the better. This time however I decided to go for more neutral colours. Using Stylecraft DK in mocha, camel, lemon and graphite I created this beautiful star blanket. 

When I first started it I wasn't sure about the colours and then the bigger it grew the more I fell in love with it! I never realised that using more neutral colours would create such an eye catching blanket. I think the grey used to seperate the bigger blocks of colour is what makes it. 

What else can I say? It's already on my bed and now the evenings have started to feel a little autumnal I know it won't be long before this gets some proper use. I've already started one for Poppy (pink of course!) 

The pattern I used is a free download from Ravelry. 

 http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/rainbow-ripple-baby-blanket

Updating an old classic

Now my sofa is very comfortable. Beyond comfortable. Once you sit down you don't really want to get up again (and that's not just me being lazy!) and the matching armchair is the same. The only thing is that they are cream leather. I got them second hand about four and a half years ago from my brother's very generous parents in law. As I said they are very comfy and a classic style. Only cream leather does not go so well with either small children or people who like wearing black jeans! The last six months I've noticed they are looking a bit worn and no amount of cleaning seems to make a difference. Now, I'm not in the position to replace them and as I said there is nothing really wrong with them. A few months ago I crocheted a shawl to go on the back of the sofa and that made a slight difference 

But I was still a bit fed up with how they looked. 

Anyway, on what was a totally separate tangent I started to crochet a blanket using Lily Sugar n cream cotton yarn. It was to be a hexagon rainbow blanket 

Halfway through making it I put two and two together and decided to make it into a long narrow throw to go on the seats of my sofa. This meant a lot of hexagons and when I was about three quarters of the way through I really started to hate this project. Haha! The joining was doing my head in and not having made a hexagon blanket before the amount of ends that I knew I'd have to sew in at the end did not fill me with joy! 

I persevered however and finally got it to the length I needed. 

As soon as I placed it on my sofa I totally fell in love with it! I decided that it had been well worth the effort. I can't get over what a HUGE difference it made to my sofa. It looks so bright and cheerful. It's exactly how I imagined it. Not only that - I feel like I have a new sofa whilst still keeping my same old, lovely comfy one. 

Now just to decide what to do to the armchair! 

Oops!

Naughty me! I have rather neglected my blog for the last month. There are a couple of reasons for that but whilst I'm having a quiet day I am hopefully going to schedule a few posts to show you what I have been up to crochet wise.

First up, an update of my mood blanket. I can't believe how big it is getting. I love adding each square on and now it is large enough to see the effect of my random moods I am loving the patchwork effect it has!

Here are the squares I've added over the weekend -

Friday 25th April - grey: tired, feeling a bit meh
Saturday 26th April - green: quiet day
Sunday 27th April - pink: family, content

 And here it is in all it's glory! It's very difficult to get a picture of all it now. I think next time I will spread it over my bed. I guess that way I'll also be able to see how much it is growing each time. I'm so pleased with it.

 

You'll notice on the 6th row, near the middle there are a lot of dark colours (navy, grey and fawn) this is because I have injured my ankle (torn the ligament) and these darker colours represent the first few days afterwards.Unfortunately two weeks later I am still in quite a bit of pain and have to see a physio but I am coping better with the discomfort and boredom now so I can go back to more varied colours.