crochet · crochet blanket

Starstruck!

As you may have gathered by now, I am a huge fan of Lucy at Attic24.
Yesterday, I uploaded a pic of my current WIP blanket to Instagram.

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This is a combination of Lucy’s Sunny colours and Raindrops stitch which I have changed to treble crochet (UK terms) rather than half treble crochet.

OMG – Lucy commented!  Now you may think I am being daft but as an avid follower of Lucy’s blog I am over the moon she took the time to comment on my work.

I have not been successful putting colour combinations together myself, so I unashamedly admit all my blankets to date, apart from my african flower blanket, have been an Attic24 blanket.  I explained in a previous post what happened when I added extra colours to my Cottage Ripple blanket…..

Anyway, I have decided it’s time to be brave.  I want to put my own individuality into my work.  I promised a friend I will make her a blanket this year – her favourite colours are purple and lime green!

So, I took the plunge and have come up with the following colour combination which I have called ‘Passion Flower’ – what do you think ?

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I can’t take the credit for naming the colour combo though (one thing at a time!) I posted the colour combo to my Facebook page asking for name ideas. A friend suggested ‘Passion Flower’ and my Mum sent me the pic of a Passion Flower in her garden – job done!

Since my last post, I have finished my Sunny Log Cabin blanket.

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As ‘it’s the law’ on crochet blogs, here is the mandatory ‘pile of blankets’ photo…

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It took a few attempts to take the photo as Mr B wanted to get in on the action……

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Progress on my ‘Sunny Raindrops’ blanket is coming along nicely.

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Miss M gave me no choice really – it would be such a shame to disturb her…….

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Happy hooking !

 

 

crochet · crochet blanket

Commuter crochet…..

I love hooking blankets through the chilly months and sometimes find myself snoozing under a snuggly WIP 🙂  Mr B and Miss M also enjoy evaluating the coziness of my projects.

However Miss M does get a little impatient with my progress at times…..

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Having completed the Cottage Ripple blanket, the not so successful second ripple blanket and the gorgeous Cosy Stripe at the beginning of 2015, I started looking for ideas for my next blanket.

Requirements:
– a change from ripples and stripes
– random colours
– not granny squares
– a project I could take with me to work on during my daily commute on the train

Pinterest is a great resource for ideas and I came across the African Flower.  I also liked the idea of joining hexagons rather than squares.

There are lots of African Flower patterns out there on the internet but as I haven’t mastered the art of reading a crochet diagram, I needed a tutorial with easy to follow pictures and found Heidi Bears African Flower tutorial.

I played around with the number of rounds and how I would join them together.  I settled on a flower with one joining round.

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This project was perfect for my daily commute on the train.  Each morning small balls of yarn in various random colours were popped into a bag with my hook and scissors and I came home every evening with a handful of flowers.

The flowers were joined together in the evenings and at weekends using Heidi Bears join-as-you go method.  I modified this method by joining every stitch rather than joining after each set of three trebles.

Mr B oversaw a lot of the joining together…..

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Progress was very quick and it took less than a month to complete the blanket.  The colour combinations were completely random as this depended on the colours popped into my project bag each morning.  I sometimes had to close my eyes to pick the yarn balls to stop myself being drawn to the same colours which would have ruined the whole random colour scheme I wanted to achieve !

Here is the final result….

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A close up……

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I love how the random colours all came together.  The yarn is Stylecraft Special DK and I used Parchment to join the flowers.

BTW crocheting on the train is a great conversation starter but it usually begins with “What are you knitting………..” !

Happy hooking everyone !

 

 

 

 

crochet · new blog

Technically challenged…..

What a week!  I was experiencing some weird issues with my blog.  Long story short, I ended up with two versions of my blog on two separate servers. What. A. Nightmare.  It was all finally resolved today after hours of online chats with various support departments.  I had no idea what I was doing and everyone I ‘spoke’ to suggested I change various settings and I was going round and round in evermore dizzying circles.  With head in hands and on the brink of giving up, I had a lightbulb moment and worked out I had hosting I didn’t need.  I cancelled it and then the very helpful happiness engineers at WordPress Support sorted the last part of the process. I am so relieved!  Who knew it would be so complicated to share my crochet experiences, projects and adventures online. Perhaps I should have thought about sending a newsletter by snailmail instead 🙂

Anyway, fingers crossed all is now well and I can continue with my blogging quest.

I will leave you with a pic of my current Attic 24 Sunny Square WIP while I go for a long lie down in a dark room…………

Happy Valentines Day everyone.

crochet · crochet blanket

Blanket love…..

After being so happy with the success of my first ripple blanket, I was hooked (!) and couldn’t wait to get started on the next one…..

I made another Cottage Ripple blanket with some extra colours added as I wanted extra length so it would go across my bed.  Once finished, I didn’t like it! The colours didn’t ‘flow’ like the first one.  I was so disappointed 😦

Choosing colours which complement each other is not as easy as it looks………..

So, back to Attic 24 for inspiration.  I love bright colours so chose Lucy’s Cosy Stripe blanket as my next project.

Please excuse Mr B photobombing the WIP pic ! 

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Oh my, I LOVED this one and was very happy with the end result.

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My faith in hooky loveliness was restored.

This blanket is used a lot.

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Oh and a friend loved the blanket I didn’t like – she thought it was the perfect Christmas gift for her sister………

Every cloud !

 

 

crochet

Up and running

After having issues with my domain name, learning all about DNS settings, spending way too many hours tweaking the layout and playing with widgets I think I am at last happy with the overall look of my blog.  Please do let me know if you spot any errors or find anything which isn’t working as it should.  I appreciate there is not a huge amount of content as yet but I am looking forward to sharing my hooky adventures !

I have missed the calming nature of crochet this weekend.  My hooking has taken a back seat over the weekend whilst setting up my blog. The housework hasn’t faired much better but I have at least tidied, hoovered and put my Sunday roast in the oven.  As the fragrant smell of dinner starts wafting through the flat Mr B and Miss M have now woken from their slumber and are padding around, ever hopeful a small treat may appear in their bowls !

This blogging lark is nearly as addictive as hooking !  I best get a wiggle on or dinner will be ruined.  Take care everyone.

crochet

My first crochet blog!

So, I have decided to share my love of crochet with the world !

My late Granny Elsie taught me how to crochet when I was little and I took it up again in December 2014.

After making a small granny square blanket which was promptly acquisitioned by Mr B and Miss M I took to the internet to find an easy project to get my teeth into.  I came across Lucy at Attic 24 and was immediately inspired by Lucy’s creativity with colour, so promptly ordered the Cottage Ripple Blanket yarn pack from Wool Warehouse.

Tah dah! Here is my first blanket – I was so pleased with it and Mr Buttons certainly approved !

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