FO - coloured crochet squares blanket

Here it is, my coloured crochet squares blanket:

It seems to have taken me forever to make this but in reality things just got in the way. Its probably taken no longer than any of the others, I've just had less time to do it. I still have plans in my head for several more blankets but as we seem to be having a little heatwave in Britain at the moment I'm not working too hard on them. Crocheting the bored of this blanket in high temperatures (for the UK) was not fun! I am however in a bit of a clothes mood at the moment so hopefully there will be another FO to post on here in a few days.

Some WIPs

Here's what I'm working on at the moment:

My 15 stitch blanket is on my current to finish list, now I've dithered enough over what yarn to use, bought more and then ended up using what I already had (as you do).

Another TVG (high speed knitting) like this one. This isn't really something I'm trying too hard to work on at the moment, its what I pull out if I want to concentrate on people talking etc and need a portable project.

My colourful crochet squares blanket - this is half finished but I've just had to buy some more yarn. I was enjoying making it and so I know when I got the new yarn I would dive straight into making it again and ignore the 15 stitch blanket, which was why I'm trying to be very good and not buy the yarn I need until I finished the purple blanket.I gave in in the end though. I don't have enough will power.

A Diva Tunic - I made two of these probably about four years ago. A blue one for me and a cerise pink one for my sister. My sister made the mistake of putting hers through the washing machine and felted it. As she felt suitably guilty I'm making her another one out of superwash this time!

Hmmm seeing as I started the year trying to finish one thing at a time I seem to be failing miserably here! Still once the 15 stitch blanket and the coloured crochet squares blanket are finished that will be two big projects out of the way and will give me a bit of time to finish up some of the smaller projects.

I have a secret ambition in my head to make 12 blankets this year. Whether that happens or whether I lose interest half way through I'll have to wait an see. I have plans for all 12 and I fully intend inflicting at least one on my sister, because lets face it who really needs twelve blankets!

FO - Monochrome squares blanket

I had a friend come over on Saturday and we sat and crocheted. Well she crocheted, I sewed in some of the millions of ends on my blanket. I got loads done, its amazing how much easier it is to do something like that when you have some company.

With a little encouragement I decided that the blanket was going to be finished this weekend. Once I'd finished the seaming and the sewing doing the actual border took no time at all. It all got finished yesterday in time for the Husbeast coming home from the allotment.

Here it is:

The cage in the corner of the photo is where Speedbump my grumpy tortoise lives, when she's not hiding under furniture in the living room or trying to singlehandedly eat my lawn.

I'm also half way through a coloured version of this blanket but I've run out of wool. I'm quite impressed with the Stylecraft Special DK, it cost about £30 to do a blanket and a half, so each blanket works out to about £20. Its soft, washable and easy to work with.Best of all, when I am using it in these quantities, its cheap!

I'm taking a break from these now and going back to my 15 stitch blanket. I had a bit of help over the weekend deciding which yarn to finish it off with and if I don't do it now I'm worried its going to languish in my WIP pile forever. I wonder if I can get three blankets finished this month.... (I doubt it but it'll be fun to try)

WIP - Crochet squares blanket

I'd only just finished my colourful stripy crochet blanket when I stared on my next one. There's nothing like finishing a project for making me feel motivated to start another. Unfortunately the motivations doesn't always last that long which is why I have so many half finished projects lying around. I am trying to be strict with myself at the moment and concentrate on finishing these big projects. I'm only diverting to a smaller project if there is a deadline like my sisters birthday, or I need something more portable.

I am finding this blanket a bit less fulfilling than the last one. I'm back to the greys again and although I love the finished projects in the grey colour scheme they aren't half as exciting to make as the colourful ones. However I need another blanket in the right colours for my living room because the Husbeast has claimed the stripy one as his and so I still haven't got my own!

This blanket is also made up of squares. I love the way they look, I hate the seaming up. I think the blanket will take 170 squares which means a minimum of 340 ends to sew in (not including the border) and 153 seams to sew up. Not my idea of fun, however the blanket is growing and it looks good so I am determined to persevere.

I am going along the blanket in rows however after I started the Husbeast pointed out I could have done it in columns and sewn up the long seams at the end. So yesterday when I was feeling a bit sorry for myself because my hip was hurting, I made a sneaky detour onto the coloured squares blanket which was going to be my next project.

I can't believe I managed to get a whole column done which means if you don't count the bored I am a tenth of the way through the blanket. Not bad for a days work. Normally I wouldn't have got this much done, but lots of sitting and lying around feeling sorry for myself meant extra time to crochet so it wasn't all bad.

The downside to this method is that there will be lots of seaming and sewing in ends at the end of the blanket which I will hate and probably curse myself for doing it this way. The upside is no seaming and sewing in as I go along which means it goes much quicker.

FO - Colourful stripy crochet blanket

I don't think I've even done a WIP post on this blanket, it just seems to have come together so quickly. Especially seeing as I took about five days off to do a couple of cowls and then went away at the weekend and did some knitting.

This blanket has taken me 25 days, three days quicker than the last one. Not bad considering I do actually have a job! I knit this whilst watching the remainder of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I've been reliving my youth. I started it whilst crocheting the grey blanket and finished it on the same day I finished this blanket.

I've now started watching Angel, which I never watched the first tome around, whilst working on a third crochet blanket. There are only five series of Angel, compared to seven series of Buffy, so I doubt I'll finish another two blankets whilst watching it. Not to mention the fact that the next blanket is slightly more complicated and time consuming. More about that another time though...

Here it is in all its glory, my colourful stripy blanket:

I did this in exactly the same way as the last blanket, although this was more fun to crochet. The colours each only repeated three times within the blanket so it was more exciting seeing which colour was coming next. Towards the end of the grey blanket I was very bored of the colours but this was much more fun.

I love the bit towards the end of the blanket where it's big enough to drape over yourself and use it to keep warm as you crochet. That's been very handy the last few days as the weather has been so cold.

This blanket is intended for my craft room, whenever that eventually gets sorted. For now though its just going to be in whatever room I'm siting in as the Husbeast has claimed the grey blanket as his. Its very flattering that he's so fond of something I've crocheted, but it does mean I'll have to make another one for me now. Still I planned on making two anyway, I just might not let him know that...

I also made a little penguin for a swap parcel:

 He's a cute little thing.

FO - Crochet Cowl

This week I made a couple of quick crochet cowls. One is for my sister for her birthday, the other is for me.

My sisters is in Posh Yarn Sylvia Aran which is a merino silk mix, in pinks and oranges and all sorts of lovely colours:

The one for me is in Posh Yarn Bonnie Aran, which is pure Blue Faced Leicester wool, in a wonderful deep red:

Its very simple just rows and rows of UK double crochet stitch. I made it it one long piece and joined the two ends together with some slip stitches.

Nothing fancy, but I've really enjoyed making them. They each took a couple of days to make and they were nice easy crochet, perfect for hooking whilst I watch TV etc.

The red one has ended up a couple of inches longer than the pink one and the difference between crocheting the cowls was surprising. The silk mix just flew through my fingers, where as the BFL felt slightly sticky and seemed to take more effort to crochet. Its probably worth it though as the finished product feels more durable and long lasting than the silk mix.

The red dye also came off on my hands. I do sometimes have dye come off on my hands but not usually this bad, it made the Husbeast laugh when he saw it. It gave the saying "caught red handed" a whole new meaning as there was no way I would have been able to pretend it'd been doing housework when I'd been crocheting! Not that I ever do that the Husbeast is far to well trained (bullied) to think I should do housework instead of craft!

FO - Stripy crochet blanket

I've been a bit quite this week, my ME/CFS has flared up a little and I just seem to have had one of those weeks.

On the plus side I've finished my stripy crochet blanket:

Taking photos of blankets is quite difficult but hopefully that will give you an idea.

It weighs 1.15kg, which is 3590.3 yards of yarn, and it took me a month altogether. I used the following Stylecraft Special DK colours:

1099 Grey x 4
1203 Silver x 4
1063 Graphite x 4
1001 White x 7
1002 Black x 4

The stripes are completely random, which actually bothered me as I was doing it. I tend to organise things and  doing something randomly like this was strange. But I'm glad I did and I liked the effect once it was finished.

I had bought 2kg of yarn to do this with which means I have some left over. I already have plans for that though...

The blanket is 185 stitches wide and the whole thing is double crochet stitch (UK terms) including the border. Its very simple but that was what I was going for. Nice mindless TV crocheting which I could do even when I was tired because I didn't have to think.

The yarn is surprisingly nice. Its quite soft, its warm and it was easy to work with. I have definitely found an acrylic I like. I wouldn't necessarily rush to make jumpers out of the stuff, but for a blanket I can sling in the washing machine every once in awhile its perfect.

Now I've started on blanket number two which is definitely more colourful than this one. There were times making this one where my brain  was convinced the whole world had gone grey scale. It might go with my living room but its a little on the boring side to work with.

WIP - Stripy crochet blanket

I thought it was about time I showed an update on the Stripy crochet blanket, it feels like I've been talking about it forever.

I actually checked though and I started it on the 25th of January, so its not being going on for as long as I thought.

I've worked out that I need to crochet 60 of the wide stripes before I put on a border. I'm working out the size off a grey throw that is in constant use in our living room and is a nice size.

Each wide stripe is 5 rows of crochet so that should work out at 300 actual crochet rows altogether, which doesn't really sound that much. I am on the 29th stripe (technically the 30th one I crocheted as I had to undo one, but I'm trying to forget that).

So I really am nearly half way through. Of course I have to do the border as well and I know that is going to take longer to do than a stripe or two but hopefully by that point the fact that I am so near the end will spur me on. This isn't necessarily always the case, I have had far too many projects lingering in my WIP basket waiting for a sleeve to be sewn up or some buttons sewn on. I always enjoy starting a project far more than finishing one off.

So here is is so far:

Not bad I think for 18 days work, it averages out at more than a stripe a day, and as some days I haven't actually picked it up I think actually I am closer to two stripes a day.

Although I do keep getting tempted to start one in my colourful Stylecraft special DK. I am trying to be good and only do one at once but I['m not sure how long my resolve will hold out for.

This year is definitely going to be the year of the blanket though if my current project plans are anything to go by.

WIP - Stripy Blanket

My shoulder is nearly better. We have friends coming round tonight and I intend on getting back to my shawlette that I started last weekend.

In the meantime I have been lucky enough to be able to crochet and so my stripy crochet blanket has been growing:

It’s growing surprisingly fast and I'm enjoying making it. It’s got awhile to go yet (probably several months) but it’s very easy to pick up and put down in-between other projects.

In the meantime I have some exciting house news. When we bought our first house my mother very kindly donated a lot of furniture to us, most of which was my Grandmother's.

Most of it was a little old fashioned, but it was free and so we were able to spend our money on fixing our house rather than buying furniture. It needed a lot of fixing.

I've made changed to various bits of furniture (painting etc) but the one bit I've never really liked is the sofa and chairs in the living room. I'm not much of a green person and these are very old fashioned:

Can you see my knitting tucked down in the corner there?

I'm not going for a matching suite this time. I want a sofa and then two separate arm chairs which match each other. Probably grey or black for the chairs, but I have other ideas for the sofa.

I finally managed to track down what I wanted and it turned up on Wednesday. So I spend part of Wednesday wrestling with furniture with my bad shoulder which was probably a bad idea.

In the next couple of days I'll put some photos up and you can see what I've chosen. I should say what we've chosen, but when decorating the house I tend to make a lot of the decisions although the Husbeast does get a say, especially in the colour scheme.

January round up

Its the last day of January, how did that happen so quickly? I've barely got used to it being 2013 and already we are one month into it.

So here is my round up for the month:

Recipes tried and blogged:

Home made deodorant - I have been using this consistently since I blogged. I sometimes have to apply twice a day if I'm having a more energetic day but it works well and doesn't stain my clothes or leave white marks like commercial deodorant. My underarms also feel silky soft which is a nice side effect.

Home made sugar free chocolate - these are beautiful, five to ten minutes to make and worth every second. Even my DH makes them. I've eaten hardly any proper chocolate since making these and they cure my cravings for sweet things.





Projects started:

15 stitch blanket 

Ombre Acrylic Blanket

Posh Purple Wristwarmers & Neckwarmer









Striped Crochet Blanket - a post to come on this soon

May rose wreath










High Speed Knitted Shawl - a post to come on this soon

Projects frogged/put into the WIP Pile:

15 stitch blanket

Ombre Acrylic Blanket

Projects finished:

Posh Purple Wristwarmers and neckwarmer

May rose wreath











Yarn in:

5950g ! I don't think I've ever bought that much in one go before! In fact that's probably as much as I'd bought ever before all in one go. Good job most of it was acrylic and therefore cheap, plus I don't think I'll be buying much yarn for a few months so this should keep me going for awhile.

This converts into 17,620 meters or 10.9 miles

Yarn kitted/crocheted:

692g

2484 meters or 1.5 miles




So I have quite a bit of catching up to do,maybe I should stop buying yarn...

I did also give away 200g of yarn, which was 2200 meters or 1.4 miles which does help a little bit as that is now out of my stash.

Books reviewed:

Week 1: Alice in Wonderland

Week 2: Alice through the looking glass

Week 3: A country housewife's book

Week 4: Sense and Sensibility

Week 5:Someone at a distance

Quite a busy month I think. I hope you've enjoyed reading about my activities and continue to read my posts. I think they will probably slow down a little in February but I still hope to post at least 3 - 4 times per week.

Interruption

Today's post was either going to be about how I love my new knitting needles, or hopefully some happy pictures of a finished object. I knit 70% of a shawlette over the weekend and hoped to have it finished by today but life got in the way.

I fell over on a patch of ice on my way to work on Monday and hurt my wrist and shoulder. My wrist is 90% better by now but I flared up an old injury on my shoulder and could barely move my arm yesterday.

I'm a little better today but I still can't knit. I can crochet so I have been working on my crochet blanket. No photos yet, I'm not up to hauling it around the house and holding the camera up.

I'm trying not to be frustrated because I am okay really, its only a little injury, I'll be better in a few days I have a lot to be thankful for. But I was so close to finishing my project...

Still hopefully this is just a small interruption and maybe by the end of the weekend I'll have it finished ready to show off.

FO - May Rose Wreath

On my inner front door I put a simple white hook, and I like to hang different wreaths on there depending on the time of the year. This month I haven't put anything up since the Christmas decorations came down and I decided it was time to do something about that.

 I used the May Roses Wreath tutorial from the Attic 24 blog as the basis my wreath. 

I wanted it to be quite simple, just a little something to brighten up my day when I come home. On the glass panels on the door is a pretty stained glass pattern with blue berries:

I wanted to pick up the blue of the berries with the wreath and this is what I came up with:

Not bad for my first attempt at crochet in a couple of years. It too me about six goes to get started but once I did it all came flooding back to me and this was a quick little project. It was all done with a 3.5mm crochet hook using a single strand of Stylecraft Special DK. The covering for the ring was rows of half treble (UK) crochet stitches. The pattern for the May Roses you can find here.

Its simple and pretty with clean lines, which is exactly the style I go for in my house. Plus its got one of the Husbeasts favourite colours in there, blue, so lets see if he notices it when he gets home from work.

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Frogging my ombre blanket

I think my Ombre Acrylic blanket is getting frogged. I'm about half way through the second section at the moment.

Unfortunately knitting it with 8mm needles is hurting my hands. When my thumbs started to go numb I decided it probably wasn't doing me any good. So I am frogging it and going back to my original idea of a crochet blanket with this yarn.

I still love the fabric this pattern makes, but I think if I try it again I'll make it out of 4 ply which will mean I can use a much smaller needle size, either 5 or 6mm. I've knit quite comfortably on 5mm before so I shouldn't have a problem with it (I hope).

I hate frogging, its so depressing, but I am being strict with myself because I know if I don't frog it then it will end up in the big WIP pile in the corner of the living room and I'll never doing anything with it again. It will make me feel guilty and I'd always feel like I couldn't use up the rest of the yarn because "one day I'll finish that blanket."

In the meantime whilst I came to this decision I've been practising my crochet skills on a mini project. Hopefully I may have that finished and ready to show you by tomorrow.

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New yarn - again....

Oh yes I have more new yarn. This is the second batch of the Stylecraft Special DK to go alongside the yarn I bought here, and this one came from Wool Warehouse. Their delivery was just as quick as Deramores, there was just a limit to how much yarn I could carry home from work in one day.

This is the yarn all together, giving the below combination of colours:

Ignore the weird blueish tinge to this I'm not sure quite what was going on with the camera at this point.

There are more balls of white than the greys and black because some of the white is to go with the colours to make a Pop blanket.

As for the greys etc I may have changed my mind about those. I was going to make a Granny stripe blanket, but then I realised this could be a great colour combination to make the Ombre alpaca blanket I've had my eye on for awhile (although obviously alpaca-less).

It's supposed to be knit on 8mm needles, which should theoretically make for a quick knit but in real life I find thicker needles more awkward to knit with, so I am a bit concerned it could end up being a slow and awkward knit especially as there are a lot of slipped stitches in it so I wouldn't settle into a rhythm like I have done with my 15 stitch blanket.

I may possibly at the end have enough yarn left for a Granny stripe cushion cover which would at least pacify my craving to do some crochet.

Which would you make? A crochet Granny stripe blanket, or a kitted Ombre blanket?

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