January 2024

Hi there! Welcome to my blog

I’m Hayley and I like to make cool warm things!

I make crochet blanket patterns on hookedwithhayley.com, have a crochet course and sell blankets locally. I’m a mum of 5 (4 boys and 1 girl) and have been crocheting and knitting for years.

I’m going to break my blog up into 3 sections; Works in Progress (WIPs), Finished Items and New Things.

WIPs

I’m currently working on finishing the squares for my mailing list subscribers and Facebook Group. Just in case you haven’t seen it yet, I’m sharing a whole blankets worth of squares. I’m on to the last one so will hopefully get that finished this week so I can get to work on the next set of free patterns

Here’s some of the squares I’ve shared already

I’m trying this new thing of ‘work on one project at a time’ and hoping that it’ll force me to finish what I’m working on before starting something new, but I do suffer from shiny object syndrome so it’s taking me all my self control not to start the next project (which as usual I’m super excited for)

If you want to subscribe to my mailing list to get free patterns every week, click here to join.

 Finished Items

I couldn’t share the projects I was working on last month until after Christmas, so I’m really excited to be able to share them with you now!

I always make as much as I can for the kids for Christmas (and they’re always sure to have a nice big list ready for me)

Mimi recently got her bedroom painted so wanted a lamb “to match her new bedroom”, I decided that since I made Alfie 2 lambs last year I should make Mimi 2 this year so here they are. The colours don’t completely match up with her bedroom but she loves them all the same

I linked the pattern for the lambs in a previous blog post (I think it was Jan 2023) so check that out if you want to make one

Speaking of Alfie, he’d seen Mallo Cop in a book, I think it was a Dog Man book and he’d commented on how cool it was, so I decided he needed one. No pattern for this one I just free-handed it

And finally Solomon asked for a Krusty Krab from Spongebob. The only thing I could find was a lego set on Amazon, which was about £500! So out with the hook and get to work!

Its not the Krusty Krab he asked for but he can now happily pretend that Spongebob is making Krabby Patties whilst Plankton is trying to steal the secret formula! (can you tell I’ve watched too much Spongebob?)

I got the patterns from this wonderful designer, her patterns are really easy to follow. I free-handed all the details because I personally don’t like to use felt pieces (I’d rather use yarn where I can because I already have loads of that)

The last Christmas projects I made were pants bags. I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned these before (or at least one of them) I have 5 kids, they do not like being organised and can never find anything. Typical kids right?

A couple of years ago I made them all a bag, each one with their favourite thing on it and in their favourite colour. The point was so that they could put their school clothes in the bags and easily find who’s was who’s. I’ve got 3 kids at the same school and 2 at another, so 5 school poloshirts, 5 school jumpers, you get the idea. It’s a nightmare trying to leave out their clothes for them because they all look the same and are just slightly smaller than the last, so I made them bags

I also made the sock monster (in a previous blog post) for them to put their dirty socks in so they’re easy to wash all at once

I decided that this worked so well, I’d make the 3 little kids a bag for their clean pants. Ok, so part of me thought it would be funny to have an animal shaped bag wearing pants, but I hoped that it would organise them a little bit

Anyhoo, I made Mimi a unicorn, Alfie a Mr Potato and Solomon the giraffe

What do you think? Would you make one?

I’m pretty pleased with how they turned out. They’re just the right amount of goofy looking.

Spoiler Alert - the kids do not use these for pants, they run around with them filled with toys. never mind though at least they’re getting used

The last thing that I’ve made recently was my journal cover. My quarter came to an end at the end of December so I wanted to make a new journal cover. This is my chance to experiment with new ideas, stitches and try to improve each time from the last cover

It also helps me tell my journals apart. I reviewed my entire year at the end of December, so looked through all my old journals. It was super easy to organise my journals to see which one I should start with just by looking at the different journal covers. I’d definitely recommend making covers for books for this very reason. I guess it’s kind of like when we used left over wrapping paper and wallpaper to cover our books at school. Or am I the only one that did that??

So, trying something new this time I thought I’d make a flower granny square for the centre.

I mean, it’s not perfect and a little wonky, but it works and I got to use the yarn I bought way back when I went to South Shields so I’m pleased I got to use it for something I’ll be using every day for the next 3 months

Right, well, that’s all the finished items I’ve got. On to the New things…

New Things

I’m still on a self imposed yarn buying ban. Although if I’m being completely honest - it’s not going well.

The free squares has been amazing for using up little bits of left over yarn, but I have had to go buy more to make some of them.

I’ve also been working on a side project (which has turned into more of a ‘taking over my life’ project)

I’ll warn you now, it’s not crochet related

I don’t know what your town is like, but ours has been slowly declining for the last few years. I love the town where I live so I’ve made it my mission to help the local businesses and our community.

I’ve been working on a website to list all of the local shops and businesses so people can easily find what they’re looking for locally without having to go online. I’ve seen loads of posts on Facebook recently - does anyone know a joiner? etc etc, so I think this could really help.

I’ll share my page in the Local Finder so you can see what I’m talking about, check it out and tell me what you think

www.mypeterhead.co.uk/hookedwithhayley

I’m also working on creating events that will get more people in to the town centre and into the shops (there’s a crochet related project connected to that but I’m waiting not very patiently until I get the last Harry Potter square done before I get to work on it)

All of that is to say I’ve not had much time to work on crochet projects, but I’m still making progress

Coming Soon

I thought I’d add an extra bit this month to let you know what plans I have for new patterns coming soon

The subscriber Harry Potter squares are almost finished and most are already scheduled to go out. I want to continue sharing enough patterns for you to make an entire blanket, so the next one will be Princesses. The first of those should be coming out at the end of March/ beginning of April so stay tuned for that

I’m also looking at releasing the Harry Potter squares as a CAL for anyone that missed them, but not sure when that will be coming out, so keep an eye out on my Facebook or Instagram

Well, that’s it for this months blog

See you on the next one and until then Happy Hooking

Hayley