July 2023

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

So…. I had a crazy idea. (Which if you know me, won’t come as much of a surprise)

I have 5 kids. They are messy. I don’t like tidying and cleaning. So I’m all about trying to find and make things that will make our lives easier (and less messy)

My youngest 3 have decided that their new favourite game is throwing their (clean) pants all over the bedroom floor. So, I figured they should each have a bag, that’s a little more exciting, for them to put their pants in (and hopefully stop throwing them everywhere)

Let me introduce you to WIP Number 1…. Drum Roll please….

The pants giraffe!

I haven’t had a tonne of time to work on him yet, but I’m really pleased with how he’s going so far. And rest assured I am writing the pattern down as I’m making him, so if you need or want a Pants Giraffe for your house, I’ve got you covered!

He needs some spots (or is it squares?) and an actual body, arms, legs – all of that jazz, but so far so good. Sneaky little tip here: I made sure to made his eyes, ears, nose and horns and get the sewn on before I sewed up his mouth so I didn’t have to worry about sewing loads of ends in!

Remember to keep an eye on my Facebook and Instagram for updates as I get working on him!

My second WIP is something that I actually made a long time ago and even wrote the pattern for, but have always been too scared to share. Silly isn’t it?

I was convinced that it would be too hard to explain how to make all the pieces in a written pattern and didn’t have the confidence for a video pattern.

One video crochet course later (and in the interest of being totally honest here, months of recording video check ins for the Facebook group my husband created) I’m finally ready to give it a bash!

I’ve prepped as many of the pieces as I can to make recording the tutorials easier (and faster) and so far I have 3 legs, one ear and half a tail! I’m so unbelievably excited to finally be doing this and can’t wait to share it with you.

Side note: I’m also hoping to make a YouTube video recorded of it so watch out for that too.

My final WIP (if it even really counts) is a second cushion I’ve decided to make last minute. Whilst working on one of my finished items I decided I should make a second cushion (and make it a free pattern for you guys) So I have half of the actual cushion part made. This will be another YouTube video, but with school holidays, 5 kids and all the other day to day stuff I’ve got going on, I’m not sure when I’ll get round to recording this. But I promise to keep you all updated

Finished Items

OK so my first finished item is the Oh Poop Rug. I mean, what can I say? It’s funny, a little bit ridiculous and well, I think it’s cool. I’ve still to edit the pattern a little before I can release it for testers, but that will be coming soon too.

The rug came out a little more square than I’d hoped but it would be easily make more rectangular by adding some rows on at the start and end.

My second finished item is my Bear Hugs Keepsakes that I made for my friend’s nursery. I absolutely love how they turned out and my friend was delighted too. I’m thinking about making a heap of them for our Primary School P7 classes next year so they have a little keepsake for their Primary School. All I’d have to do is use the school colours and change the poem a little. I’ll have to speak to the school about my idea first though.

My last and latest finished item is my Unicorn Cushion. I’ve made this for my daughters bedroom and wanted to share the pattern with you, so you could make one too. I just picked her favourite 3 colours and used that for the roses and unicorn curls. I’m still typing up the pattern for this one, so will be keeping you updated on my progress with that too. It’s actually on my to do list for today!

New Things

Ok, so I’ve spoken about YouTube quite a lot this blog post, so I guess I’d better tell you my secret. I’ve created a YouTube channel and have been working on videos for it for the last few weeks. I’m not quite ready to share it yet, I still have lots of work to do on it first, but it’s my only ‘new thing’ this month, so it’s only right I share it with you. Don’t panic though, I’ll let you know as soon as I’m ready to go public with it!

Anyhoo, that’s it for this month. Lots of new exciting things happening and lots of this to update you on next time. Until then, Happy Hooking!