The Blanket (at long last)

Isn’t this just so beautiful?!

I don’t normally swim, but this beautifully clear water just looks so inviting and perfectly wonderful! So why am I randomly wittering on about a beautifully clear river when I should be showing you the blanket you’ve waited so long to see?

Well, I wanted you to have this image of different shades of blue interspersed with ripples of light. That’s what I think of when I see this blanket, and have christened it the Riverbed Blanket.

Can you see what I mean? (Or is it just me being a little OTT?!)

Whether you can see what I mean or not, I really like how this blanket turned out. It’s not huge (probably about 100 x 120cm, but as I forgot to measure it I don’t know for sure) but it’s just the right size for snuggling under on the sofa.

I made (what felt like) thousands of blue circles in five different shades, and grouped them in threes. I joined as I went along, and turned the circles into hexagons – it kind of felt like a magic trick! I toyed with the idea of a random ‘pattern’ but found it far too stressful – I like order and predictability. But as the hexagons don’t line up exactly (as squares would) the pattern sort of slants to one side. I actually rather liked this aspect of it and added to the riverish feeling of the blanket, kind of like all the water is flowing towards the bottom corner.

It almost feels like my feel will get wet at any moment!

Anyway, moving on from my slightly strange and fanciful ideas…

The only part I wasn’t entirely happy with was the border. I did a round of trebles in cream, then two round of half trebles in two different blues. I tried several different things, but whatever I tried the border always ended up a little bit wavy. I guess that’s appropriate for a watery, rivery blanket, but a little frustrating nonetheless.

Of course, when the blanket is in use the waviness of the border really is not an issue, so perhaps I just need to stop being picky. But if anyone has any advice on how to make a non-wavy border I’d be most grateful!

Before giving the blanket I added a care label…

…and wrapped it in plain brown paper tied up with yarn. Again, perhaps a slightly odd idea, but the friend I gave it to also loves to crochet, so I thought she could re-use the yarn to make flowers!

So, that’s the blanket! What did you think of it? Was it worth the agonising wait?! And now that it’s done, what big project should I get started on next?

Baby boy blanket

Hello, how are you all? I can’t believe it’s been two weeks since my last post! It was my half term holiday two weeks ago, and I made the decision to just enjoy making things for a week without blogging about them. I fully intended to blog about them this week though, but life has a habbit of getting in the way. Do you find that too?

Anyway, I wanted to tell you about one of the things I did during my week off. A friend of mine had a baby that week. I was expecting a text to come through some point that week as the due date had already come and gone! I wanted to make something for the new baby, but didn’t know if it was going to be a pink baby or a blue baby. In my mind I had a couple of options to go with, but didn’t make the final decision until I had a message at 9.44 pm on the Tuesday evening to say that a healthy little boy had been born.

By 9.45 pm I’d decided what to make and started making it! I already had a stack of blue circles made (these are for another project – I’ll tell you about it some other time) and decided to make some of them into a blanket. But I wanted to break up the blues and have a bit more variety, so started making up some circles in the lovely multicoloured yarn I bought a few weeks ago. I loved how these turned out – some were solid colours, but others had two or three colours worked into them. And I loved how they looked with the blues too. Some parts of the multicoloured yarn are exactly the same shades as the pale blues, so I felt they tied the colours together nicely.

After making up 80 circles (40 in 5 shades of blue and 40 in the multicoloured yarn) I edged each in cream and made them square. I joined them as I went along using Lucy’s method here.

When they were all joined I made a simple granny border (I used Jacqui’s pattern for the first round) from three of the blues, then finished it off with a row of doubles (US singles) in the multicoloured yarn. I finished it at 11.15pm on the Thursday evening – it only took 2 days, 1 hour and 30 mins to finish – hurrah!

I stretched it out on the floor for a day. Even though it’s acrylic yarn and doesn’t block in the same way that cotton or wool do I think it helped to shape the blanket and just generally improved it a bit – although I’m not really sure if I can describe how!

And this is how it looked when it was all unpinned…

All that was left to do was add a label with care instructions and wrap it up ready for delivery.

I was really pleased with how it turned out (even though it was a little wibbly wobbly around the edges!), and I hope it will get a lot of use over the next few weeks and months!

Flowery phone case

Last week my friend got a fancy new phone. It’s a touchscreen and she was worried about keeping it scratch-free in her handbag. She has four children and therefore carries about a million things in her bag! So I decided to make her a little case to keep it safe.

The photos aren’t great quality. I only finished it last night, and my friend was with me so I gave it to her straight away – no chance to wait for good natural light! But this is what it looks like…

I had to guess at the size. It turns out that it’s a little bigger than the phone, but not bad for a guess! I started with a chain of 15, then worked in rounds of half trebles until it got to what I thought would be the right length. I then attached the pink and worked a row of trebles to make the strap, before edging around the top and strap in doubles. I added the flower (pattern from Attic 24) and then all it needed was a few buttons and it was finished!

I used Stylecraft DK for the whole lot. The main colour is Sherbert, the strap is Fondant and it’s edged in Pomegranate. The flower is (from the inside out) Candyfloss, Fondant, Pomegranate, Lipstick. I was really pleased with how it turned out – although you can’t tell the full effect from the pictures, the colours work really well together.

The best part was that I was working on the case as my friend came to visit. She commented on how much she liked it, and the look on her face when I said it was for her was just brilliant! I love surprising people

Starting again

I was merrily hooking away at my blanket. I was pleased that the squares were joining together quite quickly. And I loved how it looked when it was spread out across the floor.

The problem came when I properly looked at it when it wasn’t stretched out. The squares looked bumpy and misshapen and just not right.

I’m not entirely sure why either. They looked fine when I practised on a few squares. The problem may have been that I changed hooks. The one I started with (a boring grey looking 4mm one) disappeared, so I picked up my shiny pink 4mm hook instead. But the pink hook isn’t quite as rounded on the end, so I had to hold it slightly differently to get it smoothly through my loops. I’m wondering if this made me change the tension in some way?

Anyway, I decided to have a proper look for the boring grey hook. I’d had a bit of a rummage around in my bag without finding it, so this time I just tipped out the whole lot on the floor. As I was sorting through, checking each ball of yarn (I often tuck my hook inside a ball so it doesn’t get lost!) I found another colour I wanted to include in my blanket, a warm yellow called Saffron. Eventually, in the last ball I checked, I found my grey hook – hurrah!

But what to do now? Should I pick up where I left off? Or start again?

I decided to start again. I pulled apart all the squares I’d joined (but kept the white wool already attached to each one).

I also whipped up 8 Saffron yellow squares and worked them into my pattern (with one or two other slight changes).

 

I’ve now got the first row joined. I’ve done it differently and it’s working much better. Hurrah!

Let’s hope I don’t spot any more problems…

Blanket progress

With the arrival of my new yarn I was able to make up my last 4 (for now) squares. Look at all the lovely colours together!

Then came the fun part – working out how to put them together. I tried a few different combinations. This…

and this…

…until finally I settled on this.

I had half thought of this kind of arrangement anyway, but wanted to try out a couple of alternatives just to make sure.

After I’d decided on the order I put them all back on my stitch holders in the right order. (The post it notes are to indicate the ends of the lines so I don’t forget!)

I spent some time joining the first few together last night, whilst playing a great game of Articulate (made all the better becuase I won twice!) I don’t have photos yet, but will hopefully post some tomorrow when I’ve made a little more progress.

In the meantime, have a lovely day!

New yarn

I spent a lot of time hiding from the rain yesterday and working on my Top Secret Project. It’s coming along nicely now – in fact, I think the bad weather even helps, as there is no temptation to be outside doing other things!

Halfway through the afternoon, just as the rain was at it’s heaviest, there was a ring at the doorbell. On the doorstep I found a very wet postman holding a very drippy parcel. It was my new yarn arriving!

I did feel sorry for the poor postman, but was very excited to recieve some lovely new yarn. This means that I can get on with my blanket again. I’d completely run out of the Aspen (on the right) and still have 4 more squares to make with this.

I think I’ll edge each square with white, then see how big it is. I’ll probably end up making more squares, but I want to get started on joining them together now!

On another note – ONLY 1 DAY OF SCHOOL LEFT!! How exciting – I’ll soon be able to sit and make things all day long! I probably won’t, but it’s nice to have the option.

Comparing squares

I spent some time with Granny this afternoon, which was lovely. I took over my crochet bag and worked as we chatted. We spent quite some time comparing crochet techniques. She has been making 3 round granny squares too, but hers are a lot bigger than mine. (Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me, so can’t show you the difference.) But I’m really pleased with how mine are looking, over the last 48 hours I’ve managed to make 64 lovely granny squares!

Originally I planned to make 4 of each colour and use most colours in my stash. But looking at the photos I took yesterday I decided that less colours would be better – but that meant making more of each colour.

 

I had also planned to include these green squares…

…and although I love the colour, I decided it just didn’t work with the others, so have taken it out.

I’ve only got to make 8 more now though – 4 of the Fondant pink and 4 of the Aspen(the aqua kind of colour).

Then work will come to a halt while I wait for my new supplies to arrive. I only hope that I don’t lose focus in that very short space of time and start something else new (although I wouldn’t be at all surprised).

Crochet chain

I have to say, I’m loving these crochet chains!

These ones are skinny (half the width of the first ones I made) and are therefore even quicker to make

I still need to finish the end ones (sew in the ends and add a button) but I’m really pleased with how it’s turned out so far.

And now I’m off to spend the afternoon with a lovely Little Girl and her Big Brothers – I love days like this!

 

A splash of colour

Good evening all! How are you? I’ve had a great day – we had sports day at school and all the kids were great. Even better, my team won! I can’t really take any credit for that, but I did feel really proud of the kids in my group who tried so hard in their races and were brilliant at cheering their team members on.

Anyway, I’ve had a few free minutes to make more chains.

Don’t they look lovely and colourful?

I think I’ll make just a couple more before linking them all together. And I had a great suggestion from Mo (aka TwinkleToes) – they’d be great Christmas decorations in festive colours! I’d better get started now before I lose interest

Buttons and a book

After a full on day of planning it was nice to have a bit more of a chilled out day yesterday. I went net curtain shopping with Mum (fun times!) then we headed to Monk’s Yard for coffee and lemon drizzle cake – yum! I then spent the afternoon working on my button order whilst catching up with The Big Bang Theory. I needed to push the backs of some of the buttons on more firmly, so spent a while doing that, until my hands got too sore! The teeny tiny buttons may look cute, but they sure dig in when you press on them!

 

But I now have 47 fully finished buttons, plus 12 more waiting to have the backs pushed on (I’ll wait a couple of days before I try this again!)

 

I also have a nice little pile of 12 circles with buttons sewn on ready to be made up.

As well as buttons I’ve started another crochet project. I can’t show you yet what it is, as it’s a present for a friend, but here’s a little peek at the crochet goodness…

And finally, do you remember that I entered a couple of giveaways on Thursday? (It was something to do in between planning lessons!) Well, I actually won one! I’ve never won a giveaway before and I’m super excited :) The lovely Hannah over at not your average crochet is sending me this book.

I’ve not heard of this author before, so I have no idea what these books are about, but Hannah loves them and thinks they closely rival Harry Potter – so they must be good! I’ll let you know what I think wen I’ve started reading.

Enjoy your weekend everyone