Our friends at The Knitter and Simply Knitting magazines are celebrating their 50th and 100th issues, and they're throwing a special online party to celebrate!

Visit their websites this weekend for free patterns, special offers and more - it's a knitter's dream come true! Find out more on The Knitter website now.

After our reminder this week, we've started seeing some lovely crochet treats cropping up from around the craftiverse as part of our Crochet-Along. We're getting together with crocheters all around the world to crochet flowers & beads. You can win prizes too - or join in the big crochet flower swap. If you haven't joined in the fun yet, it's not too late - find out where to get the free crochet patterns here, reach for your hooks & get started! In the mean time, here are a few of our recent crochet-alongers...

I'm not sure about you, but I personally am a huge fan of the humble jammy dodger (it's one of my favourite nostalgic biscuits as it reminds me of my mum's biscuit tin when I was growing up). Here on The Making Spot we're often found nibbling on them as an energy boost to fuel our latest craft projects. Now you can cook up a batch of your own that are entirely calorie free with this free crochet pattern for DIY jammy dodgers from blogger According to Matt. Crumbs! What a nifty idea... 

We'll be celebrating Father's Day on 17th June! We've rounded up some of our favourite men's gift ideas, including some great freebies, so you can make something special for your dad this weekend...

Calling all cross stitchers! We've got some great party projects for you - free as part of our Jubilee Street Party! Our fab friends over at Cross Stitcher magazine are offering a selection of 5 free cross stitch patterns for you to download, plus some great ideas for how to turn them into this street party set! And if that's not enough, read more to find out how to download a ROYAL CROWN free cross stitch chart to complete your stitchy celebrations...

Here's a little Friday freebie for you! As part of our embroidery month celebrations, Carina from happy-making embroidery website Polka & Bloom is offering a free pattern to three lucky followers of The Making Spot! 3 lucky winners will get their pattern of choice aboslutely free! Read on to find out how to enter...

Ooooh... fancy a friday freebie? Simply Knitting just tipped us off about this online collection of free knitting patterns. The patterns feature 10 designs from their Kid Classic archive - by Kim Hargreaves, Erika Knight, Leah Sutton and Sarah Hatton. Read more to click on over to Rowan's site and get knitting.

I have to confess, when it comes to crochet skills, of the two of us it’s Lyndsey who has the yarn magic when it comes to team TMS. However I enjoy oggling beautiful crochet projects online. Just found stylish Danish blog Lutter Idyll – it’s full of free crochet patterns. 

Copenhagen-based blogger Jeanette – aka Lutter Idyll – fills her blog with all sorts of wonderful yarn magic. As well as showing off her latest crochet creations, she also collates links to stylish free crochet projects on the wider web – making her own versions and then posting up a link to where you can find the free pattern. 

I'm not usually a big fan of pink projects - but really like the scrubbed shade of yarn used in this crochet hanging basket. It combines luscious yarn with a great idea for storage solutions at home.  Here's a couple of our other favourites...

Bunnies! chicks! Spring blooms! Eggs! Oh yes, one of my favourite events in the crafter's calendar, is here. And to celebrate, here's a round-up of my five favourite Easter makes.