Craft - trackwork

The athletics track is a new addition to my list of unusual locations for a spot of crochet. It was my (long overdue) turn to take my middle son and his friends to athletics on Tuesday, so I managed to pass a pleasant hour in the evening sun crocheting, drinking tea and chatting to another mum while lots of athletics action happened on the track (10 x 300m reps. apparently).

This picture shows the border just being finished - I think there were two and a half rounds to go at this stage.  The good news is that I finished the whole thing last night - ends and all - just in time to meet Deadline B (well, about 2 hours late, but the recipient didn't mind). I will do a proper post showing the whole blanket when I've manged to take pictures, but the weather today isn't lending itself to blanket photoshoots.  And now I just need to decide which craft project to start next ....

Craft - train crochet

A blurry snap of crochet in progress on the train - I've finally picked up the big blanket again.

I love travelling by train - I find a train journey so much more relaxing than a car journey - and a two hour train trip by myself feels like a proper treat. Two hours for crochet, reading, thinking, gazing at the rolling countryside.  If the destination is the seaside it's pretty much perfect.

A few things - I'm currently blogging on my phone which is a bit fiddly and it's hard to add links and stuff. I might put them in later. And I wrote this post yesterday but fell asleep before finishing it  (just in case I write again today and it doesn't make sense).

Craft - crafters' block (and a completed flower garland)

I love having a project on the go but sometimes (often? always?) I have the delusion that I'm much more capable of finishing things than I really am, and end up with numerous things on the go at once. Then I think - wouldn't it be nice to whip up a small hook roll or garland as a present for a dear friend.  Then I start to panic because there's a deadline, and the item inevitably doesn't get made on time, but I can't possibly get on with anything else because I have to concentrate on the present I'm making. Except I'm not actually making it.

This garland (and the hook roll I made a couple of weeks ago) were just this sort of project. I'd been putting off making them - and been busy with other non-crafting (or reading or cooking or running)  stuff - for so long that I'm sure I've been having dreams about them.  But once I knuckled down to making it,the hook roll got finished in one night. Then I made myself do a bit of the garland every evening this week.  And do you know what? It only took a few evenings.

The main problem was not quite knowing how I wanted it to be. First of all I made an enormous butterfly which was too big (and a bit scary) for the delicate garland I had envisaged.  So then I found a lovely small butterfly pattern, and tweaked this flower pattern to make some smaller flowers, and invented (=cobbled together) a new tiny flower pattern (I'm quite proud of that!) and they all seem to go together quite well.

The cotton is lovely - it's Cascade Ultra Pima Fine in Wood Violet, Pansy, Dark Sea Foam, Primrose and Spring Green from Wool Warehouse and was a delight to work with, soft and non-splitty with lovely muted colours with a slight sheen. I used a 3.5mm hook which seemed to be about right.

Craft - crochet in the sunshine

I think this is the first time I've crocheted outside this year.  There was just enough warmth to sit out for an hour or so.

Sadly this was the only crochet I've done for about a week - I'm making very slow progress on the Crochet Along at the moment.  I'm hoping I'll get my crafting mojo back shortly and catch up a bit!

Craft - string of hearts

I made a tiny little string of hearts last night for a birthday present - I like making little bits to give people (hopefully they like to receive them) and it's always satisfying to start and finish something in the same evening.

They're simple to make, but I think they're very sweet.

Details:

Pattern: Small hearts , a free pattern from the lovely PlanetJune website  

Yarn: Rico Creative Cotton in aran weight - it was all leftover scraps so I'm not sure of the exact shades, but three different pinky-red colours.

Hook: 4.5mm

Craft - completion! (circles in squares blanket)

I mentioned earlier that I was nearing the end of my 'travel' blanket - so-called because it was very portable.  My  family thought I was (possibly more than) slightly bonkers when, the night before we went on holiday last year, I was busy weighing out 10 gram balls of different coloured yarn , so I could crochet lots and lots of circles while we were away. But it worked - I made lots of these squares in Spain, some in Surrey, some on the tube in London - anytime I went on a journey I grabbed one of my bags of small yarn balls and made a few squares.  And gradually I ended up with 42 squares - 7 rows of 6 graduated colours, and now a finished blanket - hurrah!

Details:
Pattern: The graduated colour scheme was inspired by Bear's Rainbow Blanket on Purl Bee , and the square pattern was an interpretation of the Retro Circles Blanket on Three Beans in a Pod , but with an extra round in the circles and different 'squaring' stitches.The squares are crocheted together on the reverse through the outer loops.
Yarn: Stylecraft Special DK in the following colours:
Row 1 - Burgundy, Claret, Raspberry, Fondant, Candyfloss, Soft peach
Row 2 - Spice, Gold, Sunshine, Saffron, Citron, Lemon
Row 3 - Bottle, Teal, Khaki, Green, Meadow, Spring green
Row 4 - Midnight, Royal, Denim, Aster, Cloud blue, Sherbert
Row 5 - Emperor, Plum, Grape, Magenta, Wisteria, Clematis
Row 6 - Dark brown, Walnut, Copper, Mocha, Camel, Stone
Row 7 - Black , Graphite, Grey, Silver, Parchment, White
Border - 2 rows of trebles in Cream, then a row of half trebles in each of Camel, Grape and Meadow interspersed with a row of trebles in Cream, followed by a row of trebles and a row of half trebles in Denim.
Hook: 4mm

Phew - think that's it! I'm very pleased with my first finished blanket - there are a few things I would do differently (the corners especially are a bit wonky), and I may make another one with a grey background and fewer colours for the spots ... however, as I've just started on an exciting new crochet project today I think that will have to wait!

Craft - quilting at craft cub

Just got back from a fab evening at craft club - a mixture of quilting and crochet, with wine, cake and lovely friends. We're making progress on our  group club quilt (the colours aren't quite right in the picture - the sashing is a gorgeous vibrant pink) -

I am quite inspired to start my own quilt, but it feels like the sort of project I'd need to devote a few reasonably large chunks of time to, so I might stick with crochet for the time being (at least till the next couple of blankets are finished).

Craft - nearly a blanket

I am very excited as I have nearly finished my first blanket.  This is the second one I've started - the other is still very much a work in progress. But this - my 'travel' project which I started last year to give me something to do on holiday, is very very near completion.

Just a few more rows of the border, then a light steam, and it's done.  I will attempt to take some artfully styled photos once it's finished. And give full details of what I did (if I can remember).

Craft - a bit more blanket

An hour or so of gentle crochet feels like the ideal way to recover after a day of walking around London - the mega-stripy blanket is progressing, albeit slowly (this is the last stripe on the main section - hurrah!)

Craft - a blanket to-do list

It feels like the (somewhat far-off) end is in sight for the enormous stripey blanket.  I took some time yesterday to work out what's left to do - I think there's a bit too much to finish by deadline A (3 weeks away) but it might be feasible to have it done by deadline B (around the end of June).  If not, deadline C (September) should be no problem. Hopefully.

The photo shows everything done to date: 1 nearly-finished enormous stripey middle with a single border attached, approx 20 additional completed border squares, approx 22 border squares in various stages of progress. 

To do:

Crochet 3.5 granny-cluster rows of shrimp + 2 granny-cluster rows of meadow

Complete 22 daisy squares

Finish off ends of 32 daisy squares

Finish off stripey row ends of about half the blanket

Attach remainder of daisy border squares to main blanket

Decide on final border - number of rows, colours, stitches

Crochet border

Sounds straightforward, doesn't it?  

Craft - stone crochet

I went to a lovely Crafternoon for Comic Relief today - adults and children crafting (in some cases in the loosest sense, as it appeared to include Minecraft), playing and eating (LOTS of) cake . I took along one of my crochet blankets to work on, plus a bag full of other bits to make pom poms and some cotton thread for my friend who wanted to learn how to crochet, and more specifically, cover a stone.

She's never crocheted before so I did a prototype (which needs its ends sewing in - as can be seen above) and showed her step by step how to do it.  I used slightly too thick cotton with a too small hook for mine, and made the whole thing a bit too big,  - I think it would have worked a lot better with finer thread and a bigger hook to get the spacing right but it's getting there. I can see it being something I'll attempt again, and I just love the Purl Bee website generally - it's full of inspiring and extremely cool projects.

Craft - crochet stripes

Some progress on the mega-blanket today.  I'm going to pull the stops out to try and get it finished for my daughter's birthday in a month's time (with a secondary target of September if that doesn't quite work out).

Today I've managed to complete 4 rows, mainly at book club (where we were discussing We are all completely beside ourselves) - it was a bit odd indulging in a book/craft club mashup, but my fellow book clubbers were very tolerant of me.

I think there are 15 more rows to crochet.  Then comes the fun (= complicated) stage of working out how many more daisy squares are needed for the border and how exactly I'm going to attach them. And finally I'll crochet a couple of rows around the edge to finish off.   A month is feeling quite optimistic ...

Craft - ends

I've made all the squares for my spotty blanket so now have lots of ends to sew in: I think it's 217 if my mental maths is correct [edit: it's not - on recalculation, I think it's at least 266]. I've done about 35 so far.

I only managed to do that as I've spent a fair part of today static on the sofa (with a stiff calf) trying hard to distract myself from worrying about missed training ...

Craft - finished project #2

The front of this cushion cover was the very first thing I made after learning to crochet a year ago.  I felt too nervous to tackle a big project so I found a pattern on the internet, bought a few balls of wool from The Creative Sanctuary, where I learnt to crochet.  That turned out to be the straightforward bit - once finished it then took forever to find a suitable jumper for the backing panel and for me to finally get round to putting it all together.  I've finally finished it - turns out the front panel is actually quite wonky, I'm hoping that's a product of my novice crochet skills, and I've improved a bit over the past year. But I still love the colours and pattern, and it will sit proudly on my sofa.

Details:
Pattern: Wave pattern (from Lanas de Ana blog)
Cushion construction: Attic24
Yarn: Bergere de France Magic+ (this link goes to The Creative Sanctuary, but I don't think they stock the colours I used any more) in Criquet, Seneve and Estuaire  
Hook: 5mm 

Craft - nearly finished

I managed to work on my cushion cover today. The front was crocheted last spring, then it took ages to find a suitable jumper to back it, then it was getting close to Christmas so it got put into a bag (like lots of other works in progress) and forgotten about. Now my sewing machine is set up I have space for crafting, and today I had the time to get on with putting it all together, in between a mammoth food shop (the checkout operator asked if I was doing a monthly shop - no, just a week), general family stuff and running.

I've made good progress, all constructed and only 3 buttons left to sew on, but once again my bed calls so I'll finish it off another day. The end is definitely in sight though.

Craft - finished project #1

I've finished something! A garland for a friend's birthday.

Details:
Pattern: Maybelle Crochet Flower Free Pattern, then chained together with a foundation chain and a row of dc (both worked on the right side).
Yarn: Rico Creative Cotton in Aran (this link goes to Wool Warehouse, where I get most of my yarn from, but lots of suppliers sell it) -  flowers in red, cardinal, cherry, royal, pistachio, light pistachio, green, candy pink, orange, tangerine, sky blue, chained together with pistachio 
Hook: 4.5mm 

Craft - 9 down ...

.. 2 to go.  This is the stack of flowers I've made so far:

I managed to finish another 3 while watching the last episode of Broadchurch this evening (which I've really enjoyed - I know it's been different from the first series, but I still think it's been full of great drama).

I'm pleased with the colours of the flowers so far - bright and cheery, which is just what I'd hoped. There'll be 11 in total, and I'm going to join them to make a garland / bunting - I haven't yet decided how though.  The yarn is Rico Creative Cotton, using a 4.5mm hook and this lovely pattern - I'll list all the colours when it's finished. Fingers crossed that will be by the end of the week - it will be great to have completed a project!

Craft - a new project

I know, I know. I already have too many things in progress and planned - I really shouldn't be starting anything new.  But I want to make a present for a very good friend's birthday which is more imminent than I'd realised.

Luckily I have a decent amount of cotton stashed away, so I could make a start on these lovely flowers as soon as I found the pattern on the internet. I'm making them in aran cotton with a 4.5mm hook, so they're coming out bigger than the originals, but that works for what I have in mind.  Just need to make some more before I can proceed to the next stage - to be continued ...

Craft - simple squares

More progress on my circles blanket. There are now only 6 purplish squares to go, as I've made all 6 squares for the other six colours (blue, yellow, grey, green, red, brown) - there will be 42 in total. 

Next I need to think about joining and borders. I'm writing on my phone at the moment, so I will try to put more details of the pattern and inspiration when I'm near my pc as that seems to be easier. 

Craft - crochet on the sofa

One of my children was at home ill today - once he'd had a good sleep he was keen to sit on the sofa watching old films with me, so we snuggled up together and I made the most of the opportunity to work on my big blanket. I tried to get a picture of the whole thing but will need to be higher up to get it all in (and do it in daylight next time - the colours are quite off here) - this is about a third of it.

It's a granny stripe, with 4 rows to each stripe instead of the usual two, and will have a border of daisy squares.  I worked the stripes up from the bottom border (because I was making it up as I went along) but now it seems to have got wider, so I'm not sure how easy it will be to attach the other three sides ... I think there are 6 more stripes to do and then the main bit will be finished. I've made about 20 more daisy squares, but I will probably need double that, so it's some way off being finished.  The provisional deadline is April, so I need to get cracking!