A Hooked Recipe

Morning (she says with a yawn) everyone, my lovely husband woke me up at 5.30am to ask if I knew where his wallet and keys were! Not only do I have 108 arms and 29 eyes but I also have a woman's intuition and hence they were found within 2 minutes of me sleep walking through the dining room. How would they cope without us?!? Hence, this early bird post, 'cause what's a girl to do in the quiet of the house with not an iota of disturbance or demanding around ;0)

We've had a busy, happy weekend and I do feel well and truly rested despite going to Brighton for the night on Friday and spending a lovely day pootling around the lanes and having tea and cake... it's a hard life. My mother-in-law and I walked up to her local car boot sale early on Saturday morning and I found a few treasures and serious bargains leaving some change from a fiver in my pocket. Wooohooo who doesn't like a bargain or two. I collect interesting old bottles and was pleased to find a lovely brown one with cafe vierge imprinted on it and a beautiful Midwinter jug. Both for he princely sum of 50p. 

Not to everyone's taste I know, but Andy and I love to collect mid-century furniture and household goods and these colours are some of our favourites. {the 1970's is Andy's favourite decade, hence the orange and brown, I tend to go for brighter colours}

Not only did I come away with a great tin which I have since discovered is c1910 and worth about £20 {I paid £1.00 for it}, but it has a South African twist to it which is more significant than any money to me. I am planning to attach wings to this tin and send it to my beautiful friend Bronwen in South Africa whom I know will also appreciate it's beauty and historical significance.{I've not photographed it as I don't want to spoil the surprise}  

Now, the moral of this car boot story is that I picked up 2 grossly covered old wooden hangers for 25p and my Mother-in-law was horrified, which made me smile even more. Little could she see what lay beneath. I had a little vision of beauty in mind, a vision of the hooky kind. 

Recipe:

• Take two old wooden hangers, strip them of any old velvet covers in this case, sand down a little if necessary till smooth
• Admire the wire hooks and wonder whose wardrobes these hangers have been in in the past
• Choose some yarn, in this case I chose a tweedy green and brown as I wanted these to look like branches for a keen English country cottage rose garden friend of mine
• Chain 10 stitches + 2 for first htr and crochet away up and down till you've reached your desired hanger length.
• Pop the wire hook through mid length and sew up the crocheted cover till nice and snug around the hanger.
• Knit some pretty coloured roses {cast on 20-40 stitches depending on how big you want your rose to be) Garter stitch a few rows. Snip yarn and pull through all stitches with a crochet hook. As you pull the yarn through the rose will curl. Stitch it into place.If you would like a much better explanation of this process, check out the lovely Alice's blog link here for a fabulous tutorial {she is much more clever than me at explaining 'how to' in her tutorials}

• Crochet as many leaves as you like. I just did mine freestyle but there are hundreds of leaf patterns out there {check out Sara's blog Tangled happy if you haven't already for great crochet pattern links or of course there is Ravelry for a free pattern or two}

• Decorate as you please as you sew them onto your hanger cover and Voila, a rose garden for your wardrobe.

• When/If you reach "crocheter's or is that hooker's block", stop have a cup of tea and page through a pretty book. In this case it was one Andy bought for me last week from a gallery he visited in his lunch hour in Chichester.

• If you have enough energy, continue to finish your 2nd/3rd/4th etc coat hanger recipe. If not, leave for another day or the hour before you go to her surprise birthday party!

ps. Whilst in the process of admiring the first completed hanger might as well use it to model what you might wear ;0)

Oops, got to go, time for work xox 

ps. Thanks so much for all your gorgeous comments about my knitted cardigan, you are all ever so lovely x