Little Boxes of Challenges

I mentioned last month that I've signed up for a Little Box of Crochet each month but I seem to have forgotten to post the results.

The first month saw the challenge of tapestry crochet - a bit like cross stitch but with crochet stitches and from my vast experience with cross stitch, it's much more difficult with crochet stitches.

The first piece was a small tag, just to get the hang of it.   My first mistake was not reading the instructions!   This resulted in me working back to front which brought challenges when reading the chart but I persevered and was pleased with the end result although it's not perfect.

The second piece was larger and had more colours so with this I cut smaller lengths of some colours as I felt this would help untangling the yarns which I found became very twisted in the first piece. This certainly helped.  I also read the pattern and instructions through first and this definitely helped!
The end result was certainly better that the first one but still not perfect.

They were both worked in cotton and this is the first time I have used it.  I did find it quite hard at times as there was not much give in it and I do tend to crochet a bit on the tight side.  I'm glad that I was challenged to do something new and probably not something I would have chosen to do.  However, I don't think I will be rushing to do anymore!

This month's box was again a new challenge for me - amigurami.   That's stuffed animals to any non-crocheters out there!   I've never been drawn to them so once again it meant I was challenged to do something that I wouldn't have chosen myself.

It was once again crocheted in cotton yarn which I found even more difficult when you got to the smaller bits.   It also included using magic rings which after watching a YouTube video several times I think I've now mastered.

You can't really see from the look on my grandson's face, but it was love at first sight!  As there is only one (and there will not be another one!) the duck is going to live at the caravan where it can be loved by all the grandchildren when they visit.