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!

In July I…

…made a display board…

…and some buttony goodies…

…and teeny tiny bunting…

…and lavender bags for a sale that didn’t happen.

I finally finished a cable knit cushion cover.

I made a wedding banner.

I started another baby blanket…

…and a granny square blanket.

I did a whole lot of baking in quite a short space of time.

And I enjoyed a wonderful afternoon at the beach with some lovely friends.

How was your month?

 

On holiday

Right now I’m preparing to go away. I’m surrounded by clothes, books and 101 other things that I want to take. I’m trying my best to pack light, but it’s really not working!

However, by the time you’re reading this I will be camping in the middle of a field with some great friends, and hopefully not too much mud! I won’t be anywhere near a computer (which I’m really looking forward to) but thought I’d try doing a timed post. This may or may not work!

Anyway, here’s a little of what I’ll be doing while I’m away.

This is how far I’d got with my blanket before I left, and I’m hoping to get all my current squares added to the blanket whilst chatting with friends (unless I have too many kids surrounding me, in which case I’m guessing I won’t get much of anything done!)

I also have this baby blanket to finish.

It just needs another few rounds and the oh so boring sewing in of the ends. It may get finished this week, or it may just come home in exactly the same state!

I’m also planning on doing a lot of reading (my kindle is loaded up with a lot of books) and just generally relaxing and having fun with my friends. I’ll let you know all about it when I get back.

Have a lovely week!

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…

A sunny Sunday afternoon

The weather this afternoon is just right for spending in the garden. I’m not normally all that eager to dash out at the first sight of sun (I burn really easily and my eyes water if I’m facing the sun) but it’s been so wet and cold here that I’m determined to make the most of the sun while it’s here!

I was happily reading and hooking when I noticed a snail not far from my feet – ew! It got worse though, as soon the snail was crawling up the leg of the bench. It was at that point that I decided I’d had enough of being outside (for a while at least) so I got packed up and have carried on with my hooking inside.

Anyway, this is how the blanket’s looking so far:

More scarf like than blanket like (apart from the funny little block of squares on the end!) and I’ve already realised it’ll be far too small, so I’m thinking of different ways to make it bigger. I’ll let you know what I come up with!

Also, I’ve found a new home for my teeny tiny bunting:

It seemed a shame for it to just be used on the top of my display boards (especially as I won’t be using them any time soon) so thought that in the meantime they can join my ever growing bunting collection on my bookshelves. It’s on the shelf right next to my teeny tiny crochet bunting.

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).

Sunshine on a rainy day

Yet another ‘summer’ day filled with gloom. It’s not been too rainy today, but it’s been a very grey day. Can you see the little river running down the garden path? It had only been raining for 5 minutes at this point!

Having an unexpectedly free day was lovely. Originally I was going to be running a stall at a charity event (which was cancelled due to bad weather) so hadn’t made any other plans for the day. I half thought about going shopping, but decided that it was more of a stay at home day instead. So Dad and I have been catching up on all the things that have been recorded this week (mostly Dr. Who) and I’ve had a great time crocheting away.

Now, have I told you that I’m working on (another) blanket? I don’t think I have. I started it with plans to sell it today. Obviously that hasn’t worked out, and a good thing too as it’s not finished yet! I’ve worked on it a fair bit this week (mostly whilst watching films with friends) but have run out of cream wool. Don’t you just hate when that happens?!

I almost didn’t do a repeating pattern in case I ran out of anything, but foolishly decided to do it anyway. So far I’ve already run out of the pale pink, and now the cream has come to an end too – and the turquoise is running pretty low. So I’ve had to put in an order for more (what a shame!) which will arrive next week.

And what to work on in the meantime? How about getting on with one of the other blankets in progress?

Nope, I’ve started a new one instead!

In my defence, I was at my friend’s house when I ran out of the cream wool, and didn’t have any other projects with me. So it was a matter of starting a new project or not crocheting at all – and clearly the second choice just wasn’t an option!

I decided to make a patchwork squares blanket, but with bigger squares than the one I made before.  So each square is made with 3 rounds, and each will be edged in white.

I’ve also (finally) added my lavender bags to Coriandr. This was more complicated than it should have been, as the photos were too big to load! So I took photos on a lower quality setting – and they’re still too big! I’m going to leave it for today and have a go on an even lower setting tomorrow. In the meantime, you can see the listing here (this is just for the 3 inch sachets – the bigger ones) and you can see pictures of them here, here and here.

That seems like more than enough information for one day, so I’m going to get back to my squares. Enjoy your day 🙂