crochet circles Archives - Zeens and Roger

A New Crochet Blanket. Circles in Squares.

May 24, 2016May 24, 2016blanket, crochet17 Comments

I finished this little crochet blanket about a month ago. It now belongs to a baby. It is not my baby but a new cousin for my boys. I’m pleased that she has already had snuggles in her lovely new blanket.

A Circles in Squares blanket!

I chose to make the blanket with Scheepjes. I really wanted to get my mitts on this brand. A couple of months ago it seemed like loads of people were using it and I wanted to join the fun. I liked all the colours and I wanted something super soft so I went with the merino (which also has microfibre in it). It is the softest, squishiest yarn. It is also quite splitty, which surprised me. I find that once I get into a crochet rhythm I can avoid most of the splittiness, whichever kind of yarn it is. However, it’s still disappointing when it happens.

When I heard that there was to be a new human on the horizon, I asked my sister-in-law what sort of thing she fancied. I knew I wanted to make a blanket but I didn’t want to make one that wouldn’t fit in with her tastes. All that effort and they don’t like it? No thanks. She gave me a photo of a cushion that fitted with the nursery colour scheme. The cushion had a bunch of bright circles on it . That was enough inspiration for me; off I went.

I blocked it (badly). It didn’t work. They all pinged back after 5 minutes. I thought they’d be good because of the merino but I’m guessing microfibre does funny things.

These squares were about as flat as they got and they quickly started to curl at the edges again. Oh well.

Each time I make a blanket I have great fun laying them all out. Once I have more than a few squares I do it over and over, each time adding a handful more of newly stitched squares. I think I had another row to go at this point but couldn’t wait to see what was going on.

I had to be boring with the construction. I had next to no grey wool left. I sewed the squares together with a whip stitch as I reckoned this wouldn’t use as much of the remaining yarn. I also stuck to a very plain border. I jumped online to try and order another ball or two but I couldn’t find it anywhere. Sold out! So the border had to remain plain. In an attempt to add some interest a couple of rows were back loop only. Thinking about it now, I could’ve done some FP and BP stitches or something. Not that that would have been much better. I wanted to have a proper, fancypants border. 🙁

I got one ball of each colour for the circles and thought six would be enough for the main colour. Eight balls. Eight balls next time.

I’m finding it increasingly difficult to take new and interesting pictures of blankets. They all end up draped on the same two chairs in the same locations!

I can tell you that I never spot wires, plug sockets and other such things in Pinterest pictures. They jump out a mile in all my photo’s no matter how hard I try to avoid them. Photoshop! We used to have a very early version of photoshop (not that I knew how to use it) on the old mac but the mac choked to death on carpet fluff. Be mindful of computers when getting new carpet!

I made up the pattern although I know many similar ones exist. I’m afraid to say I have not written it down yet. I took photographs of all the making stages but I actually don’t like them! I can do better. Sooo at some point in the near future, I will come back with a post about how I made the squares. I did some experimenting with starting the rows as I wasn’t happy with a messy 3 chain start. I think it’d be interesting to do some comparisons etc but it’ll have to wait until another day.

Anyway, I must go and wake up the little one, he fell asleep in the car on the way home from food shopping. He didn’t even wake up when I moved him to the sofa. Silly boy has been up since 5.40am.

I’ve linked up with Crafting is my Therapy. A place for sharing crafting blog posts!

Crochet Circles in a Square Blanket.

February 5, 2016September 12, 2017blanket, crochet, free pattern25 Comments

A few days ago I had a nice comment about one of my blankets that I’d used as a backdrop for another project. Every once in a while the blanket just happens to appear here on the blog somewhere, usually in the background of a random photo.

[Check out my more colourful version Here]

It was lovely to hear from the person behind 365 days handmade (I see lots of crochet goes on there!). She had noticed the blanket and it got me thinking. I decided that I should write a post about it. I don’t have much I want to share this week so it’s an ideal opportunity to talk about an old thing.

I’ve taken lots of pictures of the blanket and I will just bung them up as I blather on about how I made it.

I remember the picture that made me want to make it. I haven’t seen the picture for a couple of years and now that I see it again… well, it’s miles better than mine…poo. The person who made it has a (now defunct) blog called Crochet with Raymond. It’s still up and has lots of beautiful woolly things.

I was making it three years ago, I was pregnant with my youngest boy and I really wanted it to be finished by the time he arrived. I remember staring at it whilst I was in labour, feeling annoyed that the border still had two rows to go.

I chose colours similar to the original, I used Stylecraft Special DK because that is what they sell at the shop down the road. I use Stylecraft for the majority of my projects but I want to try something new – any suggestions?

There are ten colours: Lipstick, Fondant, Pomegranate, Cloud, Sherbet, Aster, Meadow, Clematis, Wisteria and Cream. Lots of balls of cream were used, maybe 8 or 9 and then I think it was just one of each of the others but I really don’t remember.

I didn’t use an existing pattern, I made it up. It was easy enough to do but I reckon it’s probably the same as other patterns out there. I’ll quickly write down what I think I did (using UK terms):

With a 4mm hook ch4 and join with a slip stitch.

Round 1: Ch4 (counts as 1trb and 1ch), *1trb into the ring and ch1* repeat around from*. [12 stitches]. Join with a slip stitch to the 3rd ch. Fasten off (I think fastening off and then joining the new colour with a slip stitch looks much better than other ways of colour changing- didn’t do that here though).

Round 2: Join new colour. Ch2, 1htrb, ch1. *2trbtogether in each chain space, ch1. Repeat around from*. [12 trbtogether]. Join with a slip stitch to the top of the first 2ch. Fasten off.

Round 3: Join new colour. Ch3 (counts as first stitch). 2trb into chain space. ch1. *3trb into next chain space, ch1. Repeat around from.* Join with a slip stitch to the top of the first 3ch. [12 clusters].

Once I had lots of circles I crocheted them all together using Attic 24’s method of joining as you go. I think it’s this that creates the decorative pattern in the corners, which is one of my favourite things about this blanket. Using this method still means lots of ends to sew in, I’ve since sacrificed pretty corners in favour of the continuous join method, it stops all the dreaded ends. Looking at the picture above, I see that the stitches in the corners of each square have triple trebles rather than trebles.

Anyway, I think that’s it. The border is just going round and round with clusters and the final round is a variation of the bobble edge from Attic 24 (thanks again!) but with slip stitches between them. There are either 2 or 3 slip stitches between each bobble.

Mostly it’s screwed up on the sofa and the children wrap themselves in it whilst they watch the telly after school!

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A little bit of crochet in the garden and yet more plants.

June 20, 2015crochet, flowers, garden, veg patch4 Comments

I’ve spent two days enjoying a proper sunny day in the garden! Although I’m prone to burning, the sun heals my rubbish skin so I jumped outside to try and get mending. One of the things I like about crochet is that you can do it any where, so I took it outside with me.

It felt mightily hot ( compared to what I’m used to), but it was lovely. I’m nearly finished with this blanket now. These photos were taken on Thursday and I was stitching together the last row of circles. I’m now on the border.

Will I finish it this weekend? I dunno. It’s been a stop/starty project that has been interrupted by many other projects, photos of which, I will probably post next week.

I discovered that I had company whilst I was sat on the bench. Poor Emmet. He’s obviously been playing in the sand pit because he’s covered in the stuff.

The courgette plants seem to have doubled in size in the last few days. Looking forward to eating those. I also got around to putting out the lettuce too, which the pigeons seem to be enjoying. There are a few of us that think about pigeon pie sometimes.

This is a nice looking corner of the garden, hidden in there somewhere are some cute little geraniums. The peach rose was in a pot sat in the dark behind a crumbling old shed when we moved in to our house. When we sorted out the garden the following spring, I chucked it in the ground and it is doing very well.

These little geraniums are very cute but I’m not sure I’ve put them in the right place. They were too far back and getting swamped, so I dug them up and moved them forward. I’m still not sure they’re in the right place and the trauma of moving them might have disrupted their growth. I need to think more about where to place things.

These rozanne geraniums are crazy and have had no worries at all. This is their third year and I should probably split this plant. I think I’m supposed to do that in the spring. Anyway, I should probably go and help a two year old make a father’s day card. We’ve been painting this morning and it’s only 7.40am. He thinks mornings are great.

crafting projects await.

June 4, 2015June 24, 2015blanket, crochet, sewing5 Comments

These are things that I am supposed to be working on but really, they’re just sitting on the shelf waiting. I will finish them soon. Other things I’m more interested in have taken over.

I’ve completed the worst bit of the latest blanket; sewing in the ends. I am useless at crocheting over them as I go and sometimes you can see them in the finished product anyway.

It’s enormously satisfying to see them in a nice pile once the nasty bit is over.

I laid out the circles in an order that would do (there’s no point in overly fussing about this) and got started. I use the photo to make sure I keep on track. I also have a stack of each row high up on a book shelf, out of reach of the kids.

I’ve only used this technique once before. Crocheting in a continuous join. I found a great tutorial at babylovebrand.net via Pinterest. I couldn’t work it out on my own. I gave a half hearted attempt to design a method myself but meh, it was too much hard work. It’s fabulous that people share this kind of thing. It’s been a huge help.

I got about two rows in when I realised my mistake. I had made what I thought was all of the centre circles when I decided I wanted some green too. So, I quickly worked up about 10 green centres and went on my merry way with the rest of the rounds. When I came across the first of the green centred circles I thought it was one off, but no. It turns out, all the green centred circles have only 15 spoke thingies, not 16. Bum. I’m going to have to make them again. Don’t want to.

This is a sewing project I have waiting. It’s all cut out but I haven’t started it yet because I want to put a magnetic clasp doodah on it and I never have before. New things wait until I find the patience to give them my full attention. I know that it’ll be wonky. I know. I’m a slapdash sewer. Anyway, it looks like a lovely project and it’s another Pinterest find from thinkliz.com. I’m making the big version.

This is a project that has been waiting a long time. I bought the pattern about two years ago. Last month I found some fabric and finally cut out the pattern pieces. Once again, It’s waiting, sitting on the shelf waiting to be made because I should probably try to adjust the pieces so it’ll fit me. I love sewing but I don’t remember the last time I made an actual dress. It was probably when I was a teenager. The fabric is from Fabricland, I bought it when I went to Southampton.

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