'Cute and Easy' Daisy pin cushion

Hello Today I thought I tell you about a little make I've been crocheting over the last few of days.  I'm still in full on relapse mode and have also managed to pick a nasty bug too, which I've been struggling with for the last ten days, it never rains but it pours. I'm getting a bit fed up with it all really but hey ho that's life with a chronic illness, I just have to try and stay positive and know that things will pick back up again at some point. 

 So I've been mostly stuck in bed for about  a month now, resting, doing little of bits of crafting, listening to music (a life send)  reading when I feel up to it and spending some time escaping to blogland, exploring so many wonderful crafty blogs.

I've also indulged in a bit of online retail therapy with some lovely new yarn and other crafting bits and bobs (more on that another day) and a couple of new crafty books, one on embroidery and the other on crochet.

So today I thought I share with you a little make from the above book.  'Cute and Easy Crocheted Flowers' by Nicki Trench.  There are some lovely makes in this book, the 'Floral Bag' on page 104 is simply divine, but a bit too ambitious for me with my current energy levels.  So instead I opted to make the super cute 'Flower pin cushion'.

I decided that I wanted to make the flower on the top of my pin cushion look like a daisy, so I used Stylcraft Special DK in Saffron for the centre of my flower and then the petals out of cream. 

 The petals are made using a Popcorn stitch, which is a stitch I've not done before, although I soon got the hang of it with the clear instruction in the book.  In fact I've quite fallen in love with the Popcorn stitch and I think I'm going to incorporate it into some of the flowers for my Winter Time wreath.

I then decided on Clematis and Cloud Blue for the body of my pin cushion all from my stash of Stylecraft Special DK.

Crocheting the back and front as per the easy to follow instructions.

Then it was time to crochet the two together.

I decided to stuff my pin cushion with two layers of wading with some toy stuffing sandwiched between the two, as I didn't want to used a fabric that would show through the pastel shades of my pin cushion.

With a bit of concentration, ( my poor brain fogged brain) I managed to follow the instruction for edging my pin cushion

and Ta-Dah my 'Cute and Easy' daisy pin cushion was complete.

All I needed to do was add some pins.

Now, what to make next from this lovely little book?

So that's yarn and books coveres as for music today I hit shuffle on the ipod and it picked 'The Wailin' Jennys,' 40 Days

I love switching off shuffle and playing a entire Album one day a week. This is quite a old Album but one of my favourites, some great hamonies

Linking up with Christina'sMade by hand link up

                 Nicole's KCCO  and Gilly's Yarn Along so why not pop over and see what everyones up to.

Happy Crafting 

 Clare xx