Winter crafting

There's a chill in the crisp morning air, the nights are drawing in, yes, it's most definitely Autumn! (Or have we skipped straight to Winter?) 

Joshua has now started 'proper' nursery so that involves a short walk 3 mornings a week to get there, we crunch and kick the leaves by the roadside and play chase and hide and seek around the trees we have to walk through.  It's barely a 5 minute walk but it's such fun.  The morning sun and clear blue skies have certainly put us in great moods for the day ahead and the short burst of crisp cool air has made us feel a little more awake. 

The cosy jumpers have been dug out (and, ahem, bought a few more!) New boots have been sought, for me and Joshua, and plans have been made for making new winter hats, scarves and socks.  Yes, with the onset of Winter comes the Winter crafting! 

Cosy new jumper!

For me, I tend to think of crochet as a Winter hobby, a craft for the darker evenings, keeping warm under my handmade quilt making cosy accessories with gorgeously snuggly wool!  I taught myself to crochet in the Spring (blogged here), quickly made myself a cowl, and then forgot about crochet to move back to sewing and cross stitch.  Since I realised the mornings were suddenly so cold lately, I decided I *needed* some wrist warmers, what better than to make my own?

I found a pattern online, which it turns out, I haven't followed as it was written by an English person who lives in England...but was written in US crochet terms!? Not quite sure why anyone would do this, but I only noticed after I'd finished that I'd used the wrong stitch!  Anyway, I think they turned out pretty great....Here was their first outing this morning, complete with my cowl and my new boots!

This is the wool I used (on the left) - Chunky Special by Stylecraft.  It's gorgeously soft and warm.  I'm really pleased with how they turned out, and I'm already pinning away loads of inspiration on my Crochet board on Pinterest.  I'm thinking cosy leg warmers, socks, scarves etc! (The cream wool on the left is going to be made into a hat for Joshua.)

 So as the nights get darker, colder and wetter, I'll be keeping cosy with a little of this...

Practising some of this...

Making a few of these...

And keeping everything tidy with these...