Melanie Toye's Hobbies

Image by Willi Heidelbach from Pixabay ^Please note, I use affiliate links in this blog post. This means I receive a percentage of the sale from the seller. So... I don't know about you ... but I have something to confess?  I have so many work in progress crocheting projects, I don't know where to put them all.  It sounds weird ... why not just complete one project at a time?  Different crochet projects  Oh, that sounds easy. But the thing is... I also have projects for different types of travel. Like, I have a yarn in my bag because when I am on the train for an hour, I am crocheting a beanie. A small enough project that I can do on the train (and I still drop the yarn sometimes on the ground). I have two blankets in progress and that's because when I was a quarter of the way through one, my sister mentioned she would love a blanket. So I stopped crocheting my blanket and now crocheting her a blanket and will restart my crochet blanket once I finish my sister's. Bu...

So, you are beginner in crocheting? I was a beginner a few years ago and decided to create a book for those just starting out. This book is filled with advice and tips for beginners. I am happy to share a sample of my crocheting for beginners book below: Welcome Welcome to your new crocheting journey. Crocheting is beautiful and can be a relaxing and feel-good experience / hobby. Crocheting lets you use your hands to create and inspire. You will learn that you can crochet anywhere at anytime. Just make sure you have a crochet hook and your favourite yarn with you. I started this journey and found it very difficult to even learn how to do a basic chain stitch but I assure you, the more you practice and just practice, the more your hands will learn the ins and outs and it just becomes easy. It’s not about how fast your journey is, it is all about you starting and continuing. Crocheting can be very healing if you allow it into your life. It can also be very rewarding as you create new...

Image by Julius H. from Pixabay  I am an intermediate level crocheter. I avoid learning new stitches because I don't want to forget the stitches I know. So I avoid a lot of projects that I don't know the stitches for. But I do know a decent amount of stitches...let's see, chain, single crochet, increase, decrease and I can crochet a lot of projects using these four stitches.  Last year I posted my crochet fails , because I wanted you to see that even as experienced as I am, I still make mistakes ... mostly though I blame it on the pattern. Ha ha! I recently bought a rhino pattern off Etsy and I stuffed it up a few times but I kept going. So normally a pattern shows all the different parts of the body and I normally just choose which bit I am going to focus on and not in any order. So I started to create the body of this Rhino ... I skipped the beginning where you create the legs and arms first. Because I like to do arms and legs last, because it normally requires a few goe...

Image by Uwe Walker from Pixabay Personally, I love crocheting and I have given away a lot of my crocheting from amigurumi to blankets and scarves. But this year, what if I don't just focus on gifts but also crocheting for my home. So I decided to share my home crocheting projects with you, so you too can decorate your home with cool crocheting decorations. Although it is summer in Australia at the moment. I am in the middle of crocheting two blankets . One for my sister (been over a year in waiting) - a white one and one for me a multi-coloured pink yarn colour. Although, I don't want to stop there. This is how I envision my adult blankets. At least have two different coloured blankets for my lounge. Why two? So when I am cleaning one I have another blanket I can use in the interim.  Also, these adult blankets are perfect for winter because the Acrylic yarn 3ply that I use, is incredibly warm. Unsure, where to find an adult blanket pattern. Check out one of my earlier blog po...

Image by carla Bron from Pixabay So... When I started crocheting amigurumi I crocheted faces ... as a beginner. Which is great!  No one should fear crocheting faces ...  Although, as time and experience continued to grow, I started to drop the faces. I felt that some of the crochet creations were ruined by the crocheted face. Then of course, I crocheted heaps of amigurumi in the year and you wouldn't believe it, non-crocheters would say, "Hey, a face would have been great to have been added."  I was shocked... what do non-crocheters even know about the face? But deep down it was because, I just lost confidence with faces.  And fair enough, to me, it could ruin a perfectly good amigurumi that I spent a few hours to a few days crocheting.  I would love to hear your thoughts on the faces issue... do you crochet faces? How long have you been crocheting faces? Is the face always the same, or do you change it up with the eyes, nose and smile? Do you even use differen...

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay I don’t know about you but I love gift making and as the New Year has begun, I am also already behind. Hah. What do I mean by that? I crocheted a year of gifts and gave them away at Christmas but now I have friends and family experiencing life events and I want to give them a gift from my heart. Through crocheting, I am gifting a piece of happiness from my heart to theirs. And this is why even in today’s age, where you can even buy crochet gifts online or at the markets, it feels so much more when you make it and then gift it. This is why gift giving, and any type of home made gift is just priceless. See when we make something for someone who we think might like and appreciate it, we think about them throughout the whole project. For example, first you think … I should make them a gift. And then you think what would they like? And then as you choose what to make … you think as you crochet the gift, they are going to love this. And you think about ...

Image by Vicki Becker from Pixabay Left over yarn, can be very annoying. Ha! Because, you want to use it all but you also don't want to run out. So we play this balancing game, buy more than we need and then wonder what to do with the left overs. Here are 5 ideas of what to do with your left over yarn: 1. Chuck your left-over yarn Let's be real, if you are crocheting amigurumi. If you are like me, I end up with little bits of all different colours that have been cut off throughout crocheting amigurumi.  I have tried to place the left over yarn, inside the amigurumi as stuffing. The problem here is, if your outer yarn is a light colour, like white and you are stuffing with bright colours, like green and hot pink... you can actually see the yarn that's been stuffed on the inside.  Also, it is annoying to stuff. For example, I use pillow stuffing (it is cheaper than cushion stuffing) and it just sits how you want it to sit inside the amigurumi shape. I guess that's what I...

Image by Hans from Pixabay For an intermediate crocheter, how much can you get done in 30 minutes of crocheting? Well, I am an intermediate crocheter and it takes me all the same speed to create anything, so let's look into what I can do and you can do, in 30 minutes. For an adult sized blanket, doing one stitch. Check out my two stitches adult blanket pattern here.  I can do one complete row, doing one stitch, in 30 minutes. An adult sized blanket, is fun and also if you don't count stitches like me, it's actually relaxing. Plus, if you gift them, people love them and want more. So it's a great project to have on the side, when you relax at night and watch TV you can also be crocheting your blanket. It can take me months to complete a crochet blanket.   For an adult scarf , I can complete two rows, using two stitches in 30 minutes. It's a similar pattern to the blanket, here is a blog post on how to make a scarf, with a video. Scarves just don't seem as fun f...

Image by Daria Głodowska from Pixabay  Crocheting can be hard, long and tedious but also incredibly rewarding once you complete a project, especially for the first time. Better yet, when you make two and they look the same! Today, we are going to look at 3 easy bookmark projects to make for book lovers. 1. Crochet a bookmark for a gift I am a reader, but I do this thing, where I read part of a book, then I open a completely different book and read part of it and then I keep reading more books. It's not because I am bored of the book or topic, it is just I am digesting what it saying for that theme. I mainly read non-fiction books, because I am always wanting to grow.  So crocheting several book marks can really be ideal for the book lover. You can use different colours. So here is my crocheting pattern you can have to create your book reader friends a book mark, or several book marks! It is very easy to make and as said above, you can make them using different colours! They d...