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