Crochet Blanket project

Just  short post to celebrate the completion of a long project, to make a kingsize blanket for our bed. I started it back in April last year, from a pattern in the "Crochet in no time" book by Melody Griffiths. The book promised the project could be completed in a day, and honestly, if you did a small blanket of the proportions in the original pattern, it probably would only take a day!

The project is comprised of large "granny squares, with quite a simple pattern (easy to remember after doing so many) which incorporates a bobble type stitch, and which starts with a circle of treble stitches around a magic ring.

The squares are joined together with a zig-zag crochet pattern, but I have modified the pattern slightly for the corner areas between the squares, and I also added a wide border around the finished blanket, finished with a picot edging.

Now I just need to decide what to do with the left-over yarn!

Thanks for visiting, Susan x

Baby blanket and Elephant for Ellie

Hello again

I mentioned in my last post that I was busy crocheting a gift for my friend's newly adopted daughter, and having delivered it earlier in the month, here's a photo of the blanket that I made.

I used a free crochet pattern by Joanna McVey that I found on Pinterest which came from her blog http://southerndaisy.com/2013/10/02/chevron-baby-blanket-free-pattern, so thanks very much Joanna. The pattern was super-easy to follow and it grew quite quickly which was great to keep me motivated. My only concern was that the free pattern didn't tell you how much yarn you required, so I had to guess, and had a fair bit left over. I ended up using about 3x50g balls of pink, and 6x50g balls of both white and taupe, a size 5mm crochet hook, and used a washable double knitting yarn by Bergere de France, called Sonora, which was 50% cotton and 50% acrylic. The only other point to note is that the pattern uses US crochet terms, so don't forget that it you're going to make one yourself.

I saw a similar blanket for sale on Etsy, which had a little applique elephant and heart on it, so I made up a pattern myself (sorry I didn't make a note of how I did it!), as I thought it made the design a bit more child friendly. With some of the other leftover yarn, I also made a little elephant from the book Ed's Animals by Kerry Lord - this is the seventh animal I've made from this book, and I blogged about the first 4 some while ago here if you want to have a look http://creativecapricorns.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/my-crochet-zooedsanimals.html.  I warned you then that they were addictive!!!

Now I need to get back to the big blanket that I'm making for our own bedroom - don't think it will be finished by this winter but you never know! Watch this space, and I'll post a blog at some point when it's in pride of place and keeping us toasty warm!!!

Susan x

Crochet project - a simple tea cosy

Hi there

I thought I'd share this little tea cosy with you, as I was so pleased with how it turned out.

I found a free pattern for the stag's head on Pinterest, and thought it would be a really cute silhouette for a tea cosy. I had to modify the original pattern a bit to get the right size, then I made a double crochet close granny square in the contrast colour which was about an inch smaller than the tea pot I wanted to use the cover with, then I added a treble crochet border around the granny square so that I could thread through a tie, and crocheted together the edges, leaving holes at each edge for the teapot spout and handle.

I added about 3 rows of treble crochet v stitching to make a fancy top, made a cord from the two colours of yarn, with tassles at the end, then finally stitched on the little deer head as an embellishment. Very simple, but easy to do, and quite inexpensive as it used less than one ball of each yarn.

 Might try a few more with different colours - there's some Christmas presents sorted, and it's not even the end of September yet!!! Thanks for visiting, Susan x

My scrappy cushion

Hello there. Well it's June, but still chilly and windy and intermittently rainy up here in the Highlands, so no lovely warm evening walks for me today!!! Instead I thought I'd share a little project I did recently as part of my New Year's resolution for 2015 - Using Stuff Up.

My great niece will be 6 this year, and for her 1st or 2nd birthday I made her a lovely chevron crochet jacket, but there were lots of leftover bits of yarn. You will all understand, I'm a crafter, so I couldn't throw them away, so they were packed into boxes and put into storage for a while, then they moved with us 3 years ago from London to Inverness!!!

Then they sat in a cupboard for a year, then moved to a drawer in the chest in the hallway...then I saw a fabulous stripy crochet cushion cover design, and their time had come....

So now they grace the chair cushion in my hallway - OK, so the colours don't go so well with the floor tiles, but that's not really the point is it? I really love the effect of the random stripes, and so next time I have lots of scrap bits of yarn leftover from a project I know what I'll be doing with them - hopefully the scraps will be pale blue and terracotta and cream!

Thanks for stopping by, and let me know what you think of the scrappy cushion, Susan x

My crochet zoo....#edsanimals

Hello again and Happy Easter!

A few weeks ago my sister was visiting with her two boys Gerry and Charlie, and she'd asked me to crochet them some doggy jumpers. Anyway, having made up the patterns I just had to guess at how much yarn they would take, and ended up with LOTS left over...

As we're still in the year of using stuff up, I thought long and hard about what to do with tons of black and white washable yarn - then I remembered the book I had for Christmas, Edward's Menagerie by Kerry Lord. It's a fab book with really simple instructions, and the little animals that are produced are really, really cute and are designed and stuffed so that they can sit up on their own. Although intended for alpaca yarn, I used machine washable DK yarn so they could just be thrown in the washing machine with the rest of the dirty washing!

They might be a little late arriving (the zebra took a bit longer to finish), but I thought these would be a perfect easter gift for my great nieces and nephews rather than yet more chocolate eggs. So let me introduce you to Emma the Bunny, Mac the Monkey (made to the gorilla instructions with an added tail), Fiona the Panda, and Alice the Zebra!

I think this book should be sold with a warning though - they are seriously addictive, and I still have more leftover yarn!!! Watch this space.....

Susan x