Crochet Garland

After conquering the old Granny squares again, I decided to step up to the next challenge. Sometime last year I had a moment of craft serendipity, when I saw a crochet garland for sale in the gift shop of a Helsinki Art Gallery, and had that typical crafters response of "ooh I really like that, but I can make that for much less" (it is typical isn't it, or is it just me?) Certainly the garland was selling for around £20 for 15  flowers, which is expensive compared to the materials to make one, but cheap labour for all that hand crochet.

I think within the week we were back in the UK, and the new issue of Mollie Makes was in the Newsagent, with a crochet flower garland pattern in it. Perfect! At that point I just filed the thought away to try and remember when I was looking for a gift, or a new project.

A couple of trips later, and we had a string of flights and train trips to take, so I bought a few balls of mercerised cotton, and used the Mollie Makes gift crochet hook from an earlier edition and decided to give the flower patterns a whirl, as something I should be able to manage in the confines of planes, trains and trams. I copied out a few of the patterns into my notebook so I always had them, some yarn and the hook in my handbag, and by the end of the trip I had started to build a nice little stash of flowers and shapes.

I decided the first gift I would make from one would be to go in to the Baby Gift for a friend, and thought the silver, red and blue would be sweet as a decoration somewhere in a newborn baby boys room.

I'm really happy with it, and have enough yarn to make thousands more of the things! I'm going to try out a few more shapes and patterns from Ravelry and maybe make some for Christmas Gifts. Certainly seems like its a winner for a tiny WIP bag to always have in my handbag, car trip here, train ride there and I should have a few ready for Christmas easily.

Hottie Cover

A few months back while away on a trip, I ran out of knitting. I decided to call into a local yarn store and pick up a few balls of wool and a crochet hook and 'relearn' how to create granny squares. As with knitting, my Mum taught me to crochet when I was young, but I've never been terribly proficient in it. I've certainly never followed a pattern, other than one for a granny square. I learnt enough to be able to freestyle outfits for my barbies, and that was where crochet and I parted!

So after fiddling around for the week, most of it had come back to me, and I was left with a (small) pile of granny squares, which have sat in a bag ever since returning from that trip.

I had an outstanding promise of making a new cover for our  microwave heat bag, so as step one of cleaning up the outstanding projects, and starting on that stash, I grabbed out the granny squares, and figured they would work as the start of a cover.

I simply double crocheted the squares together, and did an extra row around the total. Then picked up the knitting needles and picked up a row of stitches from the dc along the bottom, and knitted up the back. Used dc again to attach the knitting to the crotchet front, along the sides, which was great as it was quicker than stitching and I'm sure will be stronger. At the top I only stitched in an inch at either side, then picked up stitches again from the crochet edge and knitted a rib neck opening.

By sheer dumb luck, the cover fits perfectly, seems very strong (it gets used multiple times daily, so the cover gets removed and replaced a lot for reheating), and exactly used up the three balls of inexpensive wool I bought to practise the crochet.

One WIP finished, and three balls busted from the stash - and a needed item made!

Now what can I finish or de-stash next....?

Works in progress

Time to take stock and make a plan

I've never been a great one for finishing everything I start. I'm thinking perhaps an occasional Work in Progress round up might start giving me more focus on getting things finished, just when I feel like project bags are breeding. Hopefully it might help make a proper dent in my stash!

So where to start, I have projects stashed all over the place!

1. crochet bits and bobs towards making crochet garlands

2. Microwave heat bag cover

3. Wisp scarf, this ones been on the needles for um over a year...

4. Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino Vest - this is for a two year old, the intended recipient just turned four! Luckily my friends keeps supplying new under two year old boys. One day it will be finished, I'm really not sure how it got left behind.

5. Ugh it's still there, most drama filled knit ever. A splintered cheap needle meant a change of needle brands half way through, and it dramatically changed the tension. I blogged about that frustration here. Frogged and started over, travelled all the way back to Aus with it, knitting with intentions of finishing while I was there - had too much fun, not finished....and I trod on a needle and broke it! After a blitz of Christmas knitting I found an old Carpel Tunnel problem returned and I couldn't complete even a row without a totally numb left hand. So the recipients grown another six months by now, and my interest in this is closer to revulsion now. Nothing for it but frog it I think, when I can bear to look at it again.

6. My first socks. I had grand plans last year of learning to knit socks and making a pair for everyone for Christmas. Big fail, I've only completed half of one sock! Am spurred on again though with my new book purchase, and determined to learn '2 at a time, toe up socks, using magic loop', and until last year that phrase meant absolutely nothing to me, so I'm going to count that as progress.


7. The tapestry that I laughingly thought I would finish in a year, four years ago. Haven't touched it for a while, the extended Winter we are having here instead of Spring is keeping me in knitting mode. If we ever get some warmer weather I'll be back to it.

8. The most shameful of all - most of this is still with me, this year really needs to be a year of destashing!

Of course that's just the textile 'to do' list, I'll have to do a painting round up soon - I fear that's a longer list of unfinished objects.

Craft and football, not usually seen together

As Aussies living in the UK, we jumped at the opportunity to attend the FA Cup when an English friend kindly extended an invite. It was made all the more exciting by the fact that we were attending with long committed Wigan fans, to see their 80 year old club at their first FA Cup Final, and then against the odds, they won. I can honestly say I have never seen such an enormous group of people so excited, and I've never received so many crushing bear hugs from strangers, giant strapping strangers with tears in their eyes even.

At the end of the game, as they assembled for the presentation on field, I was taking a few shots of the stands. Still pumping with blue and white, and absolutely devoid of every single Manchester city supporter, and then I spotted these ladies.

Crochet madness at it's best, don't you think? I'm honestly not sure if they are mad or extremely brave, I'm not sure I would have ridden the tube in that!

True devotion though, to both their craft and their team, kudos Ladies.

Catch up

Oh dear, bit of a slump on the regular posting there - I could reel off a list of excuses about a dying laptop, constantly changing travel plans blah blah blah, but lets face it these things are a constant and the very reason I set up the blog to keep my focus on the creative. Less TV more creativity!

So moving on. I'm not entirely sure about posting what I have been up to knitting wise, as it's all gifts and the receiver won't see them for a few weeks yet. Seems I need to either create a spoiler alert system or be creating enough non-gift things at any time to keep up blogging! On this occasion I'm going to go with a personally sent spoiler alert.

I finally pieced together the cotton bolero I blocked a few weeks back.

Pattern; Blossom by Rowan. Yarn; Rowan Fine milk cotton

 

I decided to crochet a picot edging around it, rather than follow the pattern which has a knitted decorative edging sewn on. The original pattern also has a large knitted flower on the clasp - far too easy for a grump toddler to constantly pull at, I went for a cute simple button and loop instead. Really happy with how it turned out. I'm also really happy to have nearly used all my stash of Rowan Fine Milk Cotton - it's quite unforgiving to knit with, showing every fault in tension as the yarn has no give (as with all cottons), and splits very easily. I also found I had to knit tightly on very small needles to achieve the pattern tension.

Last Christmas I made laundry tags for all my hand knitted gifts, so I've started to develop that idea a bit further. I'm thinking there's something good to be done with the tension squares, but haven't figured that out yet. I had made the little sample of the pink knitting just to test the picot edging, it was just dumb luck that it fitted so nicely on the swing tag.

 

 

Then whipped up a batch of boy accessories, I do love knitting baby booties and hats, so satisfying to knit something from start to finish in an evening!

Pattern; Hat -'Striped Hat' Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino book 2,

Mary Janes by Lucie Sinkler, Slip ons Caroline De Hugo.

Yarn; Patons Dreamtime Fairytale 4ply

 

I came unstuck though when trying to finish the one ball of blue wool I had with some stripey socks, the blue ran out at the heel of the second sock - rats. So pulled them both back, halved the blue and knitted them two at a time to ensure they matched (why didn't I think of this the first time?)

Pattern; Stripey Socks by Debbie Bliss - Baby Cashmerino 2

Cardigan - Sirdar Patons Dreamtime Fairytale 4ply

 

Ta da, just a few less stripes and we got there. This cardigan and socks are supposed to be for the same age group, the socks look way too big to me, maybe just because they're flat?

Altogether though I think they make a nice little gift pile;

 

 

 Not a lot of activity on the art front lately to report. I spent an afternoon in the Leeds art library reading up on the History of Dogs in Art, and studying the eyes of different mammals - these are my sketch notes from that afternoon;

 

 

and a few folks from the Tiled Hall cafe when I stopped in for a coffee - 1 minute sketches.

 

Remember - less TV more creativity!