crochet Archives - Page 24 of 25

A Crafty Trip Down Memory Lane.

August 1, 2016May 12, 2017crafty, vintage22 Comments

The first week of the summer holidays was a trip to Southampton. In between the obligatory trips to Toys R Us and Ikea there are the visits to family. I always go and see Nanna and Grandad. They both turned 90 in January and are still surprisingly independent (to be honest, I’m always expecting them to pop their clogs). On this visit we went through some of Nanna’s crafty gubbins and it triggered a nostalgic twinge.

Look at this! She embroidered this table cloth in 1945 and she said that she’d like to pass it on to me. I’m quite chuffed about that. It’s really very pretty. It needs a bit of cleaning (anyone got any advice on how I do that?). She stitched it whilst her brother-in-law was in hospital (he’d had his face torn apart by shrapnel).

Who doesn’t love a bit of vintage embroidery?!

Now that it’s the holidays I won’t have much time but I would love to try something like this. I do tinker with embroidery but don’t do masses of it. It’s another thing to add to the list.

She also decided she didn’t want her spare knitting needles anymore. This is daft because I’m sure she’ll want some of them back. Also, I am terrible at knitting.

She hasn’t given me the ones she regularly uses. I think these are all surplus. In amongst them is a tunisian crochet hook. I got quite excited about this as it coincides with the growing fancy that I want to learn a bit of that.

Then there’s this awesome bag. It needs repairing but I think it’s pretty cool. I think she said a friend gave it to her, I’m not sure. My guess is 1970’s.

I’ve got no clue how to fix the broken bits. To be honest I haven’t checked out how broken it really is. I can just see that the fabric is coming away from the baskety bit.

Upon returning home to Devon I went and rummaged in my own cupboards and dug out a few things.

Nanna made this patchwork blanket for my 18th. For a good couple of years leading up to that birthday I’d see hexagons here and there and ask what they were for. She was always evasive and I wouldn’t get a straight answer, hah! I have to be careful with it, I think there might still be a pin lodged in the layers somewhere. I found about three when I got it and managed to get a couple out. I use it regardless, pins be damned. It is not quite twenty years of age.

Having made a patchwork bag using english paper piecing, I know how this sort of thing is a proper labour of love. And her hexies are smaller than mine!

This is the crochet blanket she made for my eldest boy just over seven years ago00000 when he was born. It’s a classic Granny and it is this blanket that made me go to my local wool shop and buy my first crochet hook!

Rewind to some point in the 1980’s… This tatty looking thing above is the first piece of crochet I ever attempted. I made this foundation chain and decided that crochet was rubbish. I don’t think it helped that I was told that I must hold the hook a certain way (me n Nanna don’t agree on hook hold). Knitting was easier; I could make squares and scarves and things. This crochet failure was tied to the middle of a Nanna made crochet blanket that I had as a little girl. (I threw it away last year. It was stinky and holey. The foundation chain is the only bit that remains).

She knitted this one, for Eldest boy also.

And as usual, the cat wanted in on it so she clambered on Nanna’s blankets and went to sleep.

I’m still feeling funny about old things (not Nanna and Grandad. The other stuff). I’ve been sorting through my old work from when I first started school. I blame going back to Southampton.

This was when I went to the Hall of Aviation in Southampton (now called Solent Sky). I took my boys last week. Still awesome.

I don’t know if I blame Southampton that much. It might also have been before that because I asked my sister to dig stuff out a few weeks ago. I was watching the Sewing Bee and had begun to wonder when I first started sewing.

I used to sit for hours, hand sewing outfits and accessories for my Sindy. After a while I graduated to the sewing machine. I was around ten when I made this wedding outfit from the leftovers of my other sister’s christening gown. My step mum helped me do this as I don’t think I could have managed those sleeves alone. I think I need to ask Sister to go back in the loft to see if she has the red cordoury dress I made her for Christmas when I was twelve… I was dead proud of myself!

What Sindy/Barbie wouldn’t want knitted clothes?! Some Nanna specials.

I particularly love this coat and I actually think my mum knitted this. It wasn’t passed on to my sisters, it was the only one I kept.

Speaking of my Mum. I’m fairly certain she made this one and the one below. One knitted, one crocheted. Both in the seventies, for my brother. I’m sure she’ll correct me if I’m wrong.

She said this one wasn’t suitable in the end. Too many holes for baby fingers.

Anyway, I’m gonna go. I didn’t realise there was so much from the past that still exists. What the blazes am I gonna do with it all?! Hope there’re no ghostly cooties clingling on to all the dust.

Block Colour Crochet Ripple blanket.

July 12, 2016July 12, 2016crafty, crochet, devon, felt19 Comments

Excuse me whilst I saturate one single blog post in several pictures of the same thing. I took many photographs and enjoyed doing so. I’m spreading my joy. There also might be a “reward” at the end, in the shape of different things.

This will be on Etsy by the end of the week (I tell myself), along with many others. I need to stop hoarding.

This was such a quick and easy blanket to make. It was one of those ones where you don’t have to think. Love those ones. The only fretful moment was when I ran half a row short of the shrimp. Luckily I had a small ball (less than a handful) left from previous adventures so I didn’t have to buy a new ball just for the sake of a few metres.

I’m now wondering what other colour combinations will work well. For many years I would make all sorts of blankets, in all sorts of colour combinations but I’ve recently begun to notice a pattern emerging. I think I might be developing some sort of crochet style. It might not be a good style but I suspect there’s one there nevertheless.

Taking repeated pictures of the same thing is confusing, I hope I’m not posting the same pictures twice.

This is still me using up the significant yarn stash I have. I’ve been really good recently, I don’t think I’ve bought any yarn since May. (I’m not including the stuff I bought at the Bovey Craft Festival. Special circumstances).

Here are the details: It’s Stylecraft Special dk in Denim, Shrimp, Navy, Mustard and Sage. I used Attic 24’s Neat Ripple and I think I chained 115 to begin, just right for a baby blanket. The border is Parchment and I used it to fill in the ripples and make a sort of picot edging.

These are some other blankets that I’m planning on Etsifying this week. I’ve bagged them up and weighed them. Looking at Royal Mail yesterday was exhausting. The pricing schemes are baffling. In the past I’ve made the mistake of not charging enough for p&p and I want to avoid doing that again. It’s blinkin expensive no matter which way you do it and I worry it’ll put people off. But! I shall stop looking for excuses and just give it a go.

And on a different note, I’ve put up a picture on my facebook page to show my summer fete stall. Feel free to go and have a look. It was a very hot and sunny day, which was great (I feared rain). I had no idea what to expect, hmm, it was OK. Having shared the fete blog post locally, I had a few visitors who came over especially to see me, which was lovely. But overall, I don’t think I had stuff that made people spontaneously decide to splurge. Eeh, I don’t know! It was a learning experience and I’ve even had interest off the back of it, so that’s good. Exposure innit!? I hadn’t considered that that could happen.

And in the interests of sharing all that I do (not just the stuff that makes me feel pleased with myself), here are some cheeky pixies!

Er, yep, I made those!

I have no idea what was going on in my brain. A bit cutesy aren’t they?! At least they make me laugh and that can only be a good thing! What you must do is go and look up Pixie Day in Ottery (try wikipedia too). It’s another tradition here, in town, alongside the more famous Tar Barrels. The local kids from scouts, guides, beavers etc run around the town dressed up as pixies for Midsummer. It’s a long story but a fun one.

Anyway, I’m off to do some stitching now. The sewing machine is calling to me this week. This morning I drove to Exmouth, to go a closing down sale at a fabric shop. I spent so long choosing that I didn’t have time to go to the other fabric shop (probably a good thing; I’ve spent all my pocket money).

I’ve linked up to…

Summer fete fun!

July 7, 2016crafty, crochet, crochet flower, felt22 Comments

For four weeks I’ve been making things. OK, I know I always make things but this time I’ve been making things with a specific purpose. A month ago I was asked if I fancied having a stall at the school’s summer fete. I thought “why not?” Hopefully I’ll get to sell a few things and help towards raising money for the school. Sounds alright. I enjoyed doing a similar thing last Christmas. That was my first time doing such a thing and I found out that I really enjoyed myself!

My main concern this time is that I have no idea about the kind of things people might like at this time of year. Christmas is easy as everyone is always up for buying a new decoration (or two) for the tree. Summer? Not got a clue. I might have misjudged this but I’ve gone for a little bit of everything. It’s a learning experience and I’ll find out a lot, I’m sure.

I’ve said previously that I don’t think this is the sort of event for selling baby blankets but I’m taking some anyway. You never know. By the way, these blankets have been made over a period of a few months not just churned out in the last four weeks!

There will be loads of felt designs. They’re all my own designs. I’ve got either brooches or keyrings. I think the owls are my favourite.. or the fish. And the cats! The cherries look fabulously kitsch! I think I love them all.

I’ve got some random makes too. Leftovers from playing/experimenting. I really like the rose brooches. They’re aran alpaca with wool felt leaves. The rose is Attic 24’s May Rose.

Speaking of Attic 24, these are the May roses used on a sweet crochet heart. Have a look here for the original inspiration.

Someone has already asked that I put one of these aside for them so I do hope that that’s a good omen for the rest of them.

It would appear that I’ve got a thing about these May roses, I’ve used them for hair slides too (not many though as I know that there is another stall that’ll be there, selling hairclips and I don’t want to tread on any toes ;p ). For the crochet bows I started with a pattern from Nicki Trench’s Geek Chic Crochet but it was too big and taking far too long to make a single bow. I cheated by using less stitches and using quicker stitches too. For some reason I find trebles much easier and less fiddly than half trebles. Most of these are made using scraps that were left over from blanket making. There’s a lot of merino stuff and the pastel coloured ones are a merino yarn mixed with cashmere. It’s lovely stuff to work with.

Puff hearts are from Planet June. Very cute.

There’s something about a pile of blankets that I love. It’s a good job too, I have a mountain of crochet blankets in my house. And that’s the ones that are here to stay. I’m not going to mention the ones I was supposed to put on Etsy six months ago.

This one will be finished by the weekend. Just in time. There are so many more things I wish I had time to make. It seems that I have just about run out of time. However, I would like to point out that this really isn’t everything that I’ve made over the last month. I might share some other things on Instagram too. There will be loads more…

You’ll just have to come and see me to find out what else there is. I might look like a misery guts but I’m honestly not (I do suffer from Bitchy Resting Face though), so if you’re at the school fete in Ottery st Mary this Saturday, come over and say hello! I think it’s 12-3pm. Thanks very much. X

How to Successfully Create a Blog Post Full of Random Things.

July 1, 2016April 17, 2018crafty9 Comments

The title is a lie. I have no idea. I’m just going to share photographs that have no business being in a blog post of their own.

I don’t know where I’d been but I arrived in the hallway a few days ago to find a load of plastic animals everywhere. They looked kind of good, so I took pictures.

I bought them from a charity shop last Saturday, all bundled up in a plastic bag . They were placed all the way to the top of the stairs.

Every now and then, one would clatter down to the bottom, having been batted about by a predatory feline.

In a break from making lots of small things for next weekend’s school summer fete, I’ve been making yet another crochet blanket. A crochet ripple blanket, to be precise. I wasn’t sure I was going to like it as I’ve not experimented with block colours before. I can’t remember why I chose the colours I did. I think it’s a mix of trying to be cheerfully bright and trying to use what stash is still hiding in the cupboard under the stairs.

Speaking of school fete stuff… I’ve been making butterflies. I’m not sure how these will turn out once they’ve been stitched together. I don’t think they’ll be terrible but again, I’m veering away from my comfort zone.

I got a positive response over on Instagram from one kitty I made, so I decided to make a few more.

I’ve had help too. He needs more training.

And I think I’ve mentioned a couple of times before about a “spider” who became trapped inside my little camera. This is the sort of thing that Husband seems to think is unacceptable. Whilst it was annoying that a smudgy, leggy looking blob kept interfering with my snap shots, I had sort of become accustomed to the idea of an eight legged friend living on the lens.

One YouTube video later and the screw drivers were out. I don’t think I know anyone else who would take the time to attempt such operations.

And yeah, it wasn’t a spider at all. I am gutted. A friend had even advised I name him. He became known as Roger. I shall mourn him. Roger the miniscule speck of dust. 🙁

A Quick Crochet Catch Up.

June 20, 2016May 11, 2024crafty, crochet25 Comments

I’ve been doing a load of crochet over the past couple of weeks. It’s time to put up a few pictures I reckon.

The latest blankets are a quick diamond blanket and an equally speedy crochet granny square. Both are baby sized. Both use stylecraft special dk. I like making baby blankets, they can be finished in a few days.

I have so many colour combinations and/or new stitches I want to try. The waiting would take forever if I were to make them all massive. These ones are a lovely size. My youngest boy still uses his. He can’t sleep without Blankey.

I’ve got quite a few stashed away now. I have to wait until next month before they go on Etsy though. I’m going to have a craft stall at the school summer fete. I feel that I ought to have some blankets there even though I don’t think they’ll sell. People like to buy small things for a couple of quid rather than bigger, pricier items.

If they don’t sell, I still have others that I really should get on Etsy now. I don’t know why I’m not doing it. Meh.

I’ve made these coaster type things using Rico Creative cotton in aran. I want to get some cotton dk next but I have to use up the existing stash first.

I only have scraps left, I don’t know if I’ll be able to make more than one of each colour.

These flowers are made using scraps of all different things. Some are merino, some have cashmere in them, others are less smart. Not sure what these will turn into yet. We shall see. The rose pattern is Attic 24’s May Rose and the other is by Crochet with Raymond. I really like seeing the 4ply ones next to the aran jobs. Same pattern, completely different effect.

I started making bows using a pattern from the book Geek Chic Crochet by Nicki Trench (about £3 in The Works). I soon got bored of those. They were taking too long so I started using fewer stitches to get them smaller and I used trebles so I didn’t need as many rows. I’m thinking brooches?

I made lots of hearts yesterday. The original pattern is found via Attic 24 and then her May rose is used too.

And that’s the sort of thing I’ve been up to. It’s not all my cup of tea but I hope it’ll appeal to others. What I’m really hankering after is a good shawl. And some embroidery. And I wouldn’t mind a snooze. :p

I’ve linked up here…

And then May was over…

June 1, 2016June 2, 2016cooking, crafty, crochet12 Comments

May has been a month of birthdays and flowers. It begins with one (mine!) and ends with one and there are some in the middle. I’ve made a lot of cake. Yesterday I made a flippin’ gorgeous cake for Grandma (my mother-in-law!).

I don’t often wander outside of my cakey bakey comfort zone. I stick to what I know because I will at least get something that works. However, I went rogue and found a new one on a blog!! Sometimes I get lost in all the recipes but I was very firm and decisive. I chose this moist and fluffy Vanilla cake.

I chose a stunner. Honestly, it was really good. I’m so glad I went with it because, well, I almost didn’t. I got all my ingredients ready (nothing daft, just ordinary cake ingredients) but hadn’t actually read the recipe properly. When everything was out and I was about to begin, I got all confused. This recipe is just egg whites, no yolk. Wha? Never seen that before. Thought it was just gonna be an ordinary sponge. Anyway, I went with it and out came a goodun.

I can’t leave anything alone though. I am not a strict follower of recipes. I grated in the zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange. I also only needed two cakes not three so did a bit of maths to sort that too. My insides were 300ml of double cream, a couple of spoons of icing sugar sieved in, and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Whipped together and splodged inside, it made a very summery and delicious sponge cake. And I chopped strawberries and left them for a couple of hours in a weeny bit of sugar before spooning those on top of the cream. If you want a birthday cake for the summer, this is it. I ate it for my breakfast this morning too. Still yummy.

Anyway, moving on from talking about cake. I began this green crochet blanket a few weeks ago. It got sidelined by a couple of other wips but I got it out again yesterday and I’m enjoying it again. The pattern is easy to follow and I just know it’s going to look awesome. It’s called the Diamond Stitch baby blanket.

This was one of the things that distracted me. Just a granny square blanket. But I needed to see what the colours would look like when I put them all together. Needed to.

The weather was glorious at the weekend so everyone sat outside to enjoy it. I finished off the granny square (it was never meant to be a giant).

It was so lovely we decided to have a BBQ in the garden. Another Yum moment. Love a BBQ but often too lazy to bother…

It always takes a while to get going because I don’t use firelighters. Instead I cross my fingers that I’ll find enough twigs in the garden to start it off.

I’m still doing this. I started in the middle of March and haven’t got very far. It will look nothing like this once finished. I was just going to keep building up the layers to see what happened. I have a bouquet of wild spring flowers in mind. I was moving on from some mini spring flower applique/embroidery type thingies I made a a couple of months ago. A bigger project seems to have scuppered me somewhat.

And then there was the shawl I made. I really do love this, It’s a delight!

I love that edging. I have never been able to come up with something like that from my own brain (not yet anyway). I went and treated myself to Cherry Hearts’ Victoria shawl. I mentioned this a little bit on the last post but I just want to show some more pictures of it because I like it so much.

In real life my walls are a soft mossy green. Not the vommy putrescence they appear to be here.

Last shawl pic. Until I make another one that is.

And that’s it for now. Just felt like I needed a catch up. Oh! But whilst I’m here I’m going to say thank you to Hannah at a Box of Buttons for nominating me for a Liebster Award and Eleanor from Harebells Crochet for nominating me for The Creative Blogger Award. Dead chuffed to get these, thank you so much. I’m not going to have time to do it properly. Basically, the bloggers I would end up nominating are in my blog roll on the side bar, so go and check those out! In my usual half arsed way I will share 5 facts about myself (and only because I did a fact thing on Instagram a few weeks ago and I’m just going to copy those!).

1. I have a degree in Art History. I have forgotten most of what I learned.

2. The longest job I ever had was working at the Odeon in Exeter (a long time ago during uni and after, when I couldn’t get a “real” job). I still have dreams where I’m cleaning up popcorn.

3. I’m from Southampton but I’ve lived in Devon for about 16/17 years.

4. I love books, TV and movies. I used to do a lot of of watching/reading before children and crochet. Children get put to bed and crochet gets put aside for The Walking Dead and A Game of Thrones (no spoilers please, I can’t get season 6 of GoT yet!).

5. Actually these facts aren’t that interesting so I think I’ll stop. Ooh, number 5… I’m really boring!

A first attempt at Me Made May.

May 27, 2016crochet, sewing23 Comments

At the beginning of the month I made a last minute pledge to join in with Me Made May. I love the idea; encouraging sewers, knitters, crocheters to make or refashion clothes to wear during the month of May. My pledge was to bring out all the handmade items hidden in my wardrobe and wear them. I also pledged to make a dress. The only problem is that the weather has been a bit iffy and even on nice days none of my makes have been suitable.

All summery skirts, see? I wore the grey lycra maxi skirt but that was all. They’re all different: dirndle, wrap skirt, plain old elasticated waist jobs (with or without pockets!!). I guess I will wait until the sun really shines to prance about in them.

Talking of that maxi skirt, the hem really needs sorting out. I’m glad I’ve been taking part in this challenge because it has brought to my attention that the hem needs taking up an inch. It’s a bit close to the edge. I think wide hems look better. It’s a long enough skirt that I can adjust it too. I know this because I keep tripping up in it.

The other project that was brought to light was this pretty skirt. I remember getting ridculously frustrated with the machine tension. I didn’t know how to get it right. Then at the end of last summer, whilst “teaching” my friend how to sew, it twigged that I needed to adjust the bobbin tension under the plate. Honestly, I felt so dim-witted, I first started using this machine when I was 12 and I’m now in my thirties. The shame! Anyway, now that I know this, I want to unpick the skirt and sort out all the dodgy seams. This was supposed to have been done over the last few weeks… erm, maybe this weekend?!

This shawl, I am pleased with. I love it! I wore it to a wedding last weekend. I made it out of Drops Baby Merino. I think I’ll write about more about it next week. I took tonnes of pictures so I definitely have more to share. It’s a pattern by Cherry Heart called Victoria shawl.

And finally, this is the dress I made! I reckon the only reason I actually sat down and made it was because it was going to be my party frock for the wedding I went to. At the last minute I chickened out of wearing it, it didn’t feel smart enough. And it wasn’t warm enough! The pattern is from Simply Sewing magazine and it’s By Hand London‘s Charlie dress. I’m happy with how it turned out. I had to make adjustments for my weird body (I have a long body, with high waist and narrow back). I extended the bodice length and widened the front side panels to accommodate the gargantuan bosom. (Thank you to 7 year old for taking pictures of me. I felt a bit daft doing this, I have to say).

Right at the end I spotted that the bands on the bodice don’t meet. I’m putting that down to the inaccurate the extensions I made. I’m not going to complain about the zip, I’m satisfied with that although I’m sure it has issues. I’m keen to have another go with different fabric and maybe with a half circle skirt instead of the quarter one here. Stitchy stitch.

Right, that is my Me Made May experience. I can’t say that I’ve thrown myself into it with complete gusto but I did make a dress and that makes me feel alright!

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!

Another Granny Triangle Shawl!

May 13, 2016October 12, 2024crochet, free pattern15 Comments

A Granny Triangle Shawl

I’ve crocheted another Granny Triangle Shawl. I couldn’t help myself. When I saw Drops yarn on sale the weekend before last, I had to buy some. It was for research purposes; I wanted to try out my granny triangle shawl pattern again.

My original crochet pattern is woolly and wintery. This time, I wanted something with more of a drape. I chose Drops Baby Merino this time (it’s 4 ply) and added a chain between each cluster to create the looser fabric. I’d not used this yarn before and I’m already using it again (another shawl pattern)! I like it, it’s good.

I thought the colours in this granny triangle shawl were a bit more summery, and the drapey 4 ply would make it less stifling for the season. I’m really quite pleased. I used a 3.25mm hook with this weight of yarn.

Lazy Shawl Blocking

I was very well behaved because I actually managed to block my shawl. It’s a cheats method of blocking, but blocking nevertheless. I pinned it out directly on to the carpet (whilst I was watching the telly) and sprayed it with water. Just enough to lightly dampen it. I left it for a few hours to dry naturally. But to make sure it was dry, I also got the hair dryer on it.

I wouldn’t ever advocate this method because somewhere along the line I will no doubt, end up ruining one of my precious crochet makes. I can see myself ruining the carpet too. Yes, I know this is foolish.

I love the simple scallop edging for this triangle granny shawl. It’s not hard to do. I changed the colour sequence for this version of the shawl as I didn’t want to buy loads of different colours just to do a couple of rows of each. It still is essentially the same thing as the original. This time I used 4x 50 gram balls of green and one each of the other two shades.

Even though it was something I made up, I forgot how to do the edging so I dutifully followed my own crochet pattern. It worked too (but I shouldn’t let on that I was surprised, of course it worked!). I should confess that I did have to bodge the corner/point. By adding a chain between each granny stitch cluster (to get the nice drape I spoke of), it changed the stitch count from multiples of three to multiples of four.

Silly me! I had a skip a stitch here and there whilst making the scallops so that the middle cluster actually ended up in the middle. It’s not noticeable but something I should have planned for. At least crochet is very forgving when you fudge a few stitches!

The blocking definitely added to the drapey quality. It has also made the wool feel softer.

I took many many pictures, but sadly none of me wearing it this time. Shame. I got distracted by the cat. And then I started taking photos of other things around the room.

Plants aside, I’ve got some pictures of the cat…

Whenever something woolly comes out she decides it’s somewhere she wants to be. Good old Marceline (not that old, she’s only turning one sometime toward the end of the month).

Sleepy kitty.

Suspicious kitty.

Birthday

May 9, 2016crafty, crochet, drawing, fabric, sewing23 Comments

I’ve had a week filled with lovely birthday things. I’ve been out for dinner/lunch, twice, no! three times. I’ve had lots of awesome presents and there has been gorgeous weather. Smashin’.

I got my hair cut off too, so when I went out to dinner on Saturday night (The Five Bells in Clyst Hydon- very nice) I felt all new and swooshy. I didn’t feel so new and swooshy when we went out for lunch on Sunday (The Rock Inn on Dartmoor). A roast dinner sorted me out but, crikey, I felt rough yesterday. I took loads of pictures of Haytor whilst there, which I’ll post in a day or two.

I also finished a blanket, one that I’m really pleased with. I especially love the border, which is the same pattern I used for my granny shawl. It’s Stylecraft Special dk.

At some point this blanket will end up in my Etsy shop. I will sort out a link when I’ve got some blankets and other things in there.

Other things I managed to finish last week were two little bag/purse type things. One is for my unimpressive collection of barely used knitting needles and the other is for keeping small projects in so I can take it out and about. I used the fabric I bought in Totnes shops during the Easter hols. They both need pressing again because I made a very lacklustre job of it.

I had all my sewing laid out on the table. I’ve made a half hearted pledge to take part in Me Made May. Since last week, I’ve worn hand made things already and I made a dress! I’ll take pictures of the dress before the end of May, I’m sure.

Another work in progress is a new shawl. I’m doing a variation of my granny shawl just to play around. I’m using Drops Baby Merino. I went on a Drops spending frenzy last weekend. They had a sale at Woolwarehouse so I went a bit bonkers.

See! Drops. I have an idea.

More Drops. I cannot wait to start this, Cherry Heart’s Victoria shawl. Pattern bought and printed, ready to start any second.

Some lovely presents were received, I got a bunch of fat quarters from my mother-in-law. She went to a quilting shop in Bovey Tracey. I know about this shop but I’ve not been. It’s supposed to be good.

I got lots of fab books. Looking forward to getting stuck into those…

I got these bowls too. I got loads of stuff, I won’t show it all, but needless to say it’s all good gear. One of my favourites is the drawing from the photo at the top. It’s by my friend who is an artist and graphic designer. It’s a picture of me doing me crochet! I guess I should frame it, I think it’s beautiful but then so is the subject matter, obvs.

And then the week before last, I got this wonderful bundle of stuff from Samantha at createitsamantha.co.uk We took part in the #craftblogclub spring clean challenge on twitter. Essentially it was a craft stash swap. It was such a lovely surprise to open up the parcel and have lots of delightful things tumble out. The Power Ranger didn’t come with my new stuff; Three year old thought I should take a picture of it. I have some ideas of what I might do, I’m looking forward to playing around in the next week or two.

I love getting birthday flowers!

Anyway, I’m off. Got a house to tidy and a child to entertain. Can’t watch A Bug’s Life all day. Actually, we did sit down and watch the local secondary school do a live Q&A with Tim Peak on the International Space Station a couple of hours ago (via the internet). I thought it was interesting but Three year old only managed five minutes before going off to look at a Lego book.