wordpressblog – Vickys Handcrafted Designs

Recently I made the decision to stop taking custom orders and business to business orders and turn my crochet business back to what it originally was, a fun hobby. Since I have done that I have been able to finish old projects and work on some new ones.

I am onto block 5 of the Tunisian crochet blanket I am making. There are 16 blocks in total so I will be working on this for a while. The pattern is from the book Tunisian Crochet from absolute beginners to advanced written by Dijana Warrender. The book is available on Amazon. Its a wonderful book which takes you through all the main stitches used in Tunisian Crochet as well as fun projects to make and also, a sample blanket to brush up on your skills. I have yet to attempt any of the projects in the book apart from the blanket, but my plan is to be able to make each one.

Above is block 5. It is a mixture of Tunisian Purl stitch and Tunisian Knit stitch. with the purl stitch you bring the yarn in front of the project and the knit stitch you insert the hook in the space between the stitches. This gives the project a beautiful textured affect.

The second project I am working on is a simple granny square blanket using yarn I have in my yarn stash. It’s a bit more colourful than my usual choices of yarn but I am loving how the colours work together and they definitely brighten up the room. The yarn is an 8ply acrylic and I am using a 4.5mm crochet hook and making mini granny squares and joining them together in a formation of 4 x 4 squares to make a larger square. This is a great project if you have bits of yarn you want to use up or just want to crochet without having to think to much about the stitches. Its simply a series of treble crochet stitches (UK terms). I love how versatile granny squares can be and the colour combinations are endless.

I am slowly getting through these projects. There are many more for me to finish but I will leave them for another time. Thank you as always for reading my posts and happy crocheting to you all.

Vicky

Every Tuesday I like to provide my readers updates of the latest technology or apps I use to help me in my personal and business life.

One obvious one is the one I use to write my posts, WordPress! I was introduced to WordPress by a friend and absolutely loved it from the beginning. I started with the free version and as my blog gained traction I upgraded to the paid version and haven’t looked back!

I have tried a few different platforms over the years and website builders, but I keep coming back to Worpress.

I love WordPress for its simplicity and flexibility. The dashboard page is conveniently set out in a menu format so you can easily access the part of WordPress you would like. You can add commerce sites, blogs, advertising, format mailing lists and have your followers subscribe to your blog so they don’t miss out on updates. Photographs and videos are easily uploaded and you can add hashtags and captions to help your content be found on the internet.

Some of the add on and plugs in available are :

Canva – for all your graphic design needs.

Social media connection to all your social media sites

SMS marketing campaigns

Bookkeeping programs such as Quickbooks

CRM and sales tracking programs

E-commerce websites to sell your physical products

Advertising and marketing tools

You can also import content from other sites such as Blogger, Wix and Squarespace. The list and variety available through WordPress is amazing and impressive. You can customise your site using premade templates or start from scratch to add your personal touch. You can add projects to keep track of what you are working on and update your subscribers on your progress.

Overall WordPress is great for the beginner to the experienced blogger. You can also connect with other bloggers through the Reader section and comment on their blogs. Readers can like and comment on your content too. WordPress has a really good statistics sections which keeps track of who visits your site, from where and when. Its a great tool for formulating marketing content.

I definitely will be keeping with WordPress for a long time to come and I still have many features to explore.

What are your favourite blogging sites. Let me know below.

Thank you as always for reading my blog posts.

Vicky