Done Ripplin'

Hello! It's been a bit quiet in my corner of blogland lately. I have been trying to do some of that home-work-life-crochet balance thing and get some of the things that desperately need doing around the house sorted. To be honest crochet has taken over much of my life (and spare bedroom) in the last couple of years and things are getting decidedly neglected around the house, the garden too. No pretty flowers planted this year, just weeds in the tubs and the grass is taking over. I seem to have been waging a one woman war on dandelions too... and losing

So I was consciously taking a break from crocheting, sitting on my hands rather than picking up new yarn and starting anything. Well nearly, I have got a new phone (yay) and it needed a quick case making so I knocked this up last week.

I used drops cotton merino, because it was easy to get to in the chaos that is my yarn stash and I still LOVE the colours
Apart from making that I have done very little hooky in an attempt to free up some time. Of course there are always the late evenings, before bedtime, settled in front of the TV, so out came my ripple blanket to finally get finished.

There were really not many rows left to do but they seemed to take forever. In a final push last night I got the last stitch done. There are still all the ends (so many ends) to sew in and I am as yet undecided on whether to do a border or not but I am done ripplin'!

 Hmm perhaps I should have been mowing the lawn and not finishing that, nah. I am so happy to have it done but I can't quite believe it. It seems to have been a permanent fixture beside me for so long now It will be strange not to be able to just pick it up for some mindless crochet. :)

XXX

Little squares cushion ta-dah!

Such fun to make these little squares, such a pain to sew up!

I knew it was going to be a bit of a long slog to get the ends on each square sewn in tidily and then sew them all together too. Which is one of the reasons that I opted for one big stripy square on the back.

I do so love these colours!

Actually it didn't take too long to tidy up the squares and I spent far too long happily arranging them and rearranging them into order.

My Sunday was then spent with the sewing. I decided to sew them through back loops only which worked out nicely.

I'm sure it took me much longer than necessary to assemble the squares (I can be the queen of procrastination sometimes!) but I got there in the end. It then didn't take long at all to attach the front of the cushion to the back with one neat row of DCs.

I left one side open and made 3 little loops of chains for button holes and picked out some colourful buttons.

It's not a very big cushion but I do like it VERY much!

Ta-Dah!

It didn't take up much yarn to make either so I have lots left to play with. I'm also not exactly sure where to put it, for now it can stay on my granny chair with some other cushions looking all pretty and cheerful. :)

XXX

little squares

The Drops cotton merino that I snagged at a bargain price a couple of weeks ago has been playing on my mind. I just love this yarn and have been desperately trying to think what to use it for before I got my hook into it.

These are the lovely colours that I got, yum! 

I couldn't resist any longer and started playing around with the yarn, just using little bits to try to decide what to make with it. For a crocheter, I don't make many granny squares, Granny stripes yes but I can't think of anything I have made that uses traditional squares. 

Hmm lots of colour changes = lots of sewing in, not something I want to have to do. So little ones in one colour maybe?

No, not really solid enough to get a nice effect, I mean it is a bit flimsy.

Solid squares then (I'm not sure what the official name for these is)

Oh yes, I do like making these! I have a bag full of this little 2 row squares in Stylecraft somewhere. Not really doing much to negate the amount of ends produced but putting them together like this...

... and I can see a picture in my mind of a very pretty thing indeed! I adore these colours and the softness of this yarn, so I don't want to make anything too fussy with it and these little squares will do very nicely. Now I just need to make LOTS more! :)

Happy Friday and have a great weekend xxx

Cluck cluck

I know I said that I definitely would NOT be starting anything new at all, until I had a few more bits and pieces finished and I meant it. Until I was having a mooch through my photos and found these...

 

.. oh I do love these chickens! Both were made as presents for brides whose hen party's I went to, made in good old faithful Rico creative cotton. I had just bought some more of this cotton and I couldn't help it, I started making one for myself.

I have been wanting to make myself one of these chickens for ages and well, they don't take too long and it is nice to make something frivolous now and then. As I don't have a vast amount of this yarn in any one colour my choices were quite limited so I picked this bright tangerine (bottom left) for the body of my chicken.

 

I should say that the pattern is adapted from an egg cosy pattern; I think the original pattern is made in 3 or 4 ply yarn and obviously not stuffed. Mine are made following exactly the same instructions only using a 4.5mm hook, aran weight yarn and by making a flat circle for the bottom so I can stuff it. The pattern can be found here.

Like most things, the bulk of the crocheting of this was quick and easy, it's all the little details and fiddly bits that are time consuming. I also had the bright idea of making my chicken have stripy legs in the colours I was using for the beak and the comb, a bit of added fiddly that was unnecessary but effective I think. 

So I had the body, comb, top and bottom beak pieces, legs and toes made and this morning I sat down with some trashy TV and plenty of coffee and began putting it all together.

Just a few finishing details, the safety eyes that I love to use and bring any stuffed toy immediately to life and a few little flowers embroidered (unevenly) around the bottom and Ta-Dah! All done :)

Now I just have to decide where she is going to live. Here?

Or maybe here?

Another thing I can tick off my list of want-to-makes.

XXX

A present to myself

I have been flitting about from one crochet project to another in the last couple of weeks, not really settling to anything much. It's having all these ongoing WIPs that is doing it, I am refusing to let myself start anything new until at least ONE of them is finished. 

A month or two back I ran out of 'Pale Rose' for my big ripple blanket, I ordered a new ball but it didn't arrive. I kept meaning to order another one and this week I finally got around to it. Oh, I need to spend £25 to get free delivery? Go on then...

Squeeee! new yarn!!! I just LOVE getting new yarn. As the Drops cotton merino that I am making my flower shawl in was hugely reduced I got a few balls of that and a few balls of my go-to mucking about yarn, Rico creative cotton too. 

The Rico will go in the bag with the rest of my left-overs for various creative bits and pieces but I have absolutely no plan whatsoever for the Drops. I will shortly have a scarf/shawl made from it so I don't really want to make another one and it seems a bit wasteful to use this lovely soft yarn for anything other than something to be worn. Hmm I will have to have a think about that one.

So I have finally been able to stop messing around, getting nothing much done, and have been sitting down to some wonderful ripply goodness. 

I am so close to getting this finished, just one or maybe two more colour repeats and I will have it long enough. Being quite tall I need it to be long enough so that I can tuck my feet in and have it all snuggly up around my neck, so about 78 inches should do it. It is currently 71 - so close!

XXX

Making a mess :)

I have the day off today and although there are a million and one things I should be doing I decided to take a day off to myself and just do as I pleased. So i took myself out to the shops this morning and popped into The Works for some cheapy cheap painting materials.

 The Works is a discount book/stationary/craft shop, full of tat mostly but ideal for what I needed. I was after some cheap water colour paints, a brush and maybe a couple of their bargain canvases. I got my last canvas from there, the one I got to stick some crocheted flowers on but having spilt coffee on it (more than once) I decided it needed painting first before I used it for anything.

The flowers that were intended for the canvas have been kicking around my dining room getting moved around, looking at me, waiting for me to do something with them. So that was my goal for today, get them out of the way, one way or the other (used or binned).

I am no painter, I haven't picked up a paint brush since I was at school, I dropped art as soon as it moved from messing around with colours, finger painting and such and we had to start painting things well. I just can't do it, I get frustrated that the pictures in my head aren't what appears on the page and give up. But as I had the day to myself I thought it might be quite fun to muck about with some paint, it's not like I am getting marked on it!

I tried to do sort of a washed out effect, not too bad, maybe a bit bright but actually, really good fun making a mess :)

So the flowers now have a back drop and I am really quite pleased with it. It's not perfect by any means and still needs some work but I think it looks quite good, yes happy with that.

Back to work tomorrow but before that I am going to do some sewing in an attempt to finish a couple of things and then I am going to start something totally new!  No idea what yet but I am aching for some solid crochet time. :)

XXX

More pottering

What a busy bank holiday I am having, well I say busy, I have spent the weekend pottering around the house as been confined to quarters due to the rain, great excuse to do not a lot! Today the sun has been shining though so I have been doing a much needed tidy up of the garden and generally enjoying being outside.

Corchet-wise I am really struggling at the moment. I don't want to start anything big and new until I have a few more of my WIPs finished but as they mainly entail sewing it is very slow progress. As I am trying to get some things finished I have dragged out my flower shawl and been busy making more flowers for that.

My main problem with this is that I'm not sure when to say it is finished. I orignally wanted to do a triangle type shape but I think it will be more usable if I make it more of an oblong. As this yarn was fairly pricey (for me) I can't afford to buy a whole new set to make it too much bigger but I have enough left to do a bit more. It is great fun making something so pretty, I think that could be why it is taking me so long to finish, I don't want it to end!

After finishing my doily bag I still have a fair bit of the DMC cotton that I used left over. I do love the colours but as it is cotton it has zero give and makes my hands hurt keeping the tension for too long, it is also annoyingly splitty. Before I packed it away for a while I knocked up a quick mandala for my mantle.

Now the garden is more presentable I might crack on with some decorating. I have the OK from Mr M to completly chintz-ify our bedroom! Oh yes, it is going to be pretty, flowery, wooly, bright and cheerful. I have been having a bit of an experiment with some shelf edging ideas, not quite right but a good start.

I do hope you are all having a happy start to May with lots of sunshine and long summery days ahead :)

XXX