Melanie Toye's Hobbies

  Hi, I’m Mel and I’m addicted to crocheting. Are you addicted?  This is how I found out I am addicted to crocheting. I can look around my living room and I have a huge tub of yarn. I also have a huge shelf filled with six levels of yarn. I still need to buy more colours. I still feel like I don’t have enough yarn. But it’s taking me a while to use the yarn I have. The first tub of yarn I bought it for different projects but have moved on, so I don’t have a real plan of what to use this yarn for. The shelf of six layers of yarn is for actual projects I’m working on. Now let’s talk projects, I just would like to say firstly, that I do finish crocheting projects. I have another tub filled with plushies and arigumani I have made. But again, what do I do with them now I have made them? I have also made multiple adult sized blankets and adult scarves.  So back to projects in progress: 2x blankets. I was working on one for myself a pretty pink white yarn. And then my sister ask...

I’m excited to let you know that my new crocheting eBook, “The journey of crocheting for beginners” is now available online. I will submit the links below of where you can purchase it from. Honestly, it’s a pretty cool eBook and it made me realise how much I have learned from crocheting and now I am into the world of crocheting, I thought I would share my advice and tips for those new to crocheting to bring something new to the hobbies / crocheting world. Please note this eBook doesn’t contain patterns but may be in the future I may share my own crochet patterns.  If you love crocheting, please buy this eBook and please tell others about it and share the links of where to buy. I would appreciate it greatly!  Ok without further wait, please see the links to my latest eBook:  Smashwords -  https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1808619 Apple -  https://books.apple.com/us/book/x/id6748660794 Barnes and Noble -  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/2940167800311 Eve...

So I have seen the velvet yarn and normally I use acrylic yarn, not just sometimes but all the time for crocheting. So velvet yarn looks pretty and it feels soft so I thought crocheting with a velvet yarn might be a good idea. Also my Nan when I was younger kitted me a royal blue thick scarf and I feel she used velvet yarn, simply by the texture.  So what’s the difference between velvet yarn and acrylic yarn?  Well, the reason I have put off crocheting with velvet yarn is it is thicker so it feels like it would be more difficult to use. And it sort of is and what I mean by that is it can be harder to see the stitches. So I have to concentrate harder when crocheting a single crochet stitch on the scarf.  Also, it appears to break a bit more. I had it in my bag to crochet while travelling and two times, I have had to wait till I got home to cut off broken bits. And what I mean by that is, the velvet comes off in a row. Not after I have crocheted but before I have. So I coul...

Image by Julius H. from Pixabay I had spent years and years building and creating miniature houses. I used to display each of them in my craft room but not many people saw them because they wouldn’t go past the lounge room. And then I mixed things up and moved them to the lounge room and I realised nobody really looked at the them there either. I had hidden them for years in a cupboard before placing them in my craft room. Just to make room for the built ones. It requires large space to make miniatures and I would have a dedicated table for building and drying my miniatures in progress.  But there came a point where I started to notice the newer projects had a lot less in them because instead of trying and trying and trying to glue the pieces together, if it didn’t work after three or less goes I didn’t include it in the final piece and it turns out there was quite a lot I missed. I wanted to finish the project but once I did I realised I didn’t include much in it. It didn’t look ...