Blue Flower Baby Blanket

Pattern: African Flower Hexagon by Lounette Fourie and Anita Rossouw.
Yarn: TFA Yellow Label DK Weight yarn, Signature Palette plus Natural.
Ravelry Project Page here.

This baby blanket project has been in the works for about a year. It started off as innocently as they all do. I just wanted to experiment with the African Flower pattern. It's such a pretty crochet motif and I couldn't resist. I made one, I made another, I made a few more, picked a palette, then I was committed. 

I went at it slowly and casually at first and then when it started looking like it had a chance of actually   becoming a baby blanket (which, coincidentally happened around the same time I found out I was expecting) I gave it my full attention and stuck with it until it was finished.  

I am thrilled with the results. It's a smallish sized blanket, perfect for in the stroller or car seat. I had plenty of yarn from 1 Palette, and used an additional skein and a half (maybe) of Natural. For the border I worked one round of single crochet in Lemongrass and then one round of double crochet in Seabreeze (I had extra of these, I don't think that I had enough of any colour left over from my Palette to do a proper border). I really love how those two colourways look together and think that they put the finishing touches on this bright blue blanket. They tie it all together and make it feel light and fresh. I'm already planning another baby knit using Seabreeze and Lemongrass together. 

Though I really do love my Signature Palette, I can't help but think how beautiful this blanket would be in just about any of the TFA Palettes. Sweet and soft in the Pastel Palette, bold and modern in the Rusty Palette with a grey edging... the possibilities are endless. Maybe when I recover from having woven in about 1000 ends I'll start another in an alternate colourway. 

And the good news is: Stella loves it! Hopefully her little brother or sister will too!

Beautiful. Classic. Granny Squares.

After completing my first big crochet project (the Flowers in the Snow afghan) I clearly had not gotten the urge to crochet out of my system. I put down the finished blanket and picked up a new colour to start another square. Years ago I spotted this version of the Babette blanket on Flickr, and the colour palette has been on my mind ever since. The warm reds, oranges and yellows are so bright, so fun and so 70's! Since I still had some more crochet juice in me, and no real plan for what I wanted to make, I just started making good ol' granny squares inspired by this fun 70's colour palette. Of course, I couldn't reign in my urge to make rainbows and ended up with some extra purples and dark grey-blues in the mix.

I'm thinking of keeping this project on the smaller side and making a baby blanket with these squares.  

*** Don't forget to check Monday's post and leave a comment (with your contact info!) to win one of two fabulous prizes if you haven't already!  

Flowers in the Snow Afghan

My first crochet project is officially finished and I am pleased as punch with the results. The Flowers in the Snow afghan is absolutely beautiful, clearly it doesn't take much to make me happy as a clam, but I'm just so mesmerized with how the multicoloured circles are wrapped in a perfect square. Simple, but so charming.

Flowers in the Snow pattern by Solveig Grimstad.
My Ravelry project page.

I used almost exclusively leftover bits of yarn for this project, which is extremely satisfying. It's all TFA Yellow Label DK Weight yarn and I used a 3mm hook. I had to pull out full skeins of natural for all the "snow" and the border used up a lot of yarn (between 1/3 and 1/2 skein of each of the colours) requiring me to break into Baby Shane Blanket kit stash. 

My finished afghan is 12 x 16 squares. I had no idea how big that was going to be, but as it turns out it's very big! The above photo shows the blanket on a double bed, it almost covers it entirely. It measures approx. 4.5' x 6'. Definitely large enough for Stella and I to snuggle under. 

I learnt a lot about crochet with this project. I'm still far from being an expert, but I'm much more comfortable with a hook than a I used to be. I did as the pattern suggested and attached the squares together as I was making them, which I think is a lot faster than sewing them together at the end, however since the squares are only attached at 12 key spots around the motif, it results in a very lacey blanket. I don't mind it since the motif is airy and light, but it's easy to get fingers and toes (and whippet noses) stuck in the large holes between the squares.

I originally set out to make the craziest colour combo's I could think of, and all together I think that this blanket is pretty wild! The white "snow" between the multicoloured flowers helps to ground the craziness of it all. I usually find that when you use this many colours together they have a way of blending and reading as random and pleasant as opposed to jarring and overwhelming. The colours all just fade into one giant scattering of multicoloured sprinkles. 

For the border I did what I think is just Granny stripes. I may have crocheted into too many spots along the edge because my border seems to be a bit bigger than the center panel, resulting in a slight ruffling of the edges. The scalloped edging is from the pot holder pattern I used last year when I was taking a break from this blanket and making quick and satisfying pot holders instead. 

Though the weather is warming up and it's not exactly wool blanket season anymore, I'm still able to thoroughly enjoy my work as this blanket now lives very comfortably on my blanket ladder along with my other hand made treasures. It makes me smile every time I look at it.

More blanket news

Seems like I spend every weekend working on a blanket and then blogging about a blanket these days... I think that's because I tend to spend the week working on more pressing projects, and then on the weekend I can sit, relax, and work on a never ending blanket project while I watch PBS. Last weekend was no exception, it was a blankety weekend. I started by washing and "Gleening" my mitered square afghan, and I am really excited about the results. 

This is the blanket after two years of heavy use, in desperate need of a hair cut:

And this is the same blanket after a trip through the gentle cycle of my washing machine and a good 20 minutes of what I lovingly refer to as "gleening".

It really is as good as new! I was amazed at the results. The blanket is knit in Elann peruvian highland wool, 100% non-superwash wool. The colours are beautiful, the price was right, but it was bound to pill. I was resigned to it, but I'll admit, the blanket was looking very tired. While making a delivery to a LYS a while ago, my mom and I picked up a Gleener, and I think it's changed my life. The results are perfect, the blanket has been given a second life! "Gleening" has officially become an accepted verb in my house, like "googling", and I now run around my house looking for new things to "gleen". 

And, since it is the weekend and I'm feeling very blankety, I plan on spending some time with my current blanket in progress, my Flowers in the Snow crocheted afghan. 

It is currently 12 x 13 squares! I'm very close to reaching my 12 x 16 square goal, then it'll be border time. 

Crochet progress

Last weekend was spent working on my Flower's in the Snow crocheted afghan. I began with lots of multicoloured circles, and a little 3 x 3 square that already had the white border crocheted on. By the end of the weekend I had successfully crocheted 94 more circles together. My blanket was 10 x 10 squares. 

I'm crocheting the blanket exactly as the pattern suggests. First by making tons of little circles, then by connecting them as I crochet the white border on, absolutely no sewing! I think that a lot of people are turned off of crochet because of all the ends that need to be woven in, and there are a lot! But I've found that once I get going and am in the zone, it's just part of the routine. I sew in the ends as I'm working, every time I cut a strand and start a new one I sew the end in, that way I'm not faced with hundreds of ends to sew in at the same time, and it seems to go very smoothly, it hasn't bothered me at all. 

Since I took these 10 x 10 photo's my blanket has grown, it's now 11 x 11. I'm aiming for a finished size of 12 x 16, plus a generous border. I've almost run out of the circle 'flower' portion and am now making more whenever the mood strikes me. I started crocheting circles on on May 3rd of last year, I might be able to finish it in exactly 1 year! If not, at least it's a fun goal to strive for.

A hot date with my crochet hook

This beautiful pile of multicoloured crocheted circles has been admired for long enough. It's time to turn this hot mess into a blanket once and for all. I'm planning on spending all of my free time this weekend curled up on the sofa with my crochet hook and this stack of circles. 

For more mouth watering circle happiness, see this blog post.

Happy Circles!

Ah, what a way to spend a couple hours on a Saturday morning! While doing my Fine Arts Degree I took 2 photography classes, I always liked the idea of photography, but the technical aspects and all that time in the dark room always left me cold. I just couldn't get into it, now I'm thinking I just wasn't working with the right subjects. Give me a whippet, or a stack of colourful crocheted circles and I'm happy for hours!

It took me a while to figure out what arrangement I liked best. First I started just stacking them. I liked it, and it was interesting because I divided them into colour groupings based exclusively on the outside colour, so even if the center of the circle was red and the second round was orange, if the outer colour was green, it went in the green pile. It was a new way of looking at these circles for me, and I think that it made me change my plans for the blanket that these circles will eventually become.

I tried a couple other ways of arranging the circles, in stripes, in a grid, neither way really worked for me in terms of a final photograph. Then I tried a flower. Pretty!

From there I made a bigger flower!

Then I decided to get random! After all, my original goal with the circles was to make a completely random, crazy, multicoloured blanket with them. I blogged a bit about it here. I let Chris pick out some weird colour combo's, I tried not to think about what I was doing and just go for it. I even started crocheting some of them together, just picking randomly out of the pile and working with whatever circle came up next. I liked this random approach, until...

I just couldn't help myself, no matter how random I try and be I am just too ruled by my colour wheel. I've proven it time and time again. I love the organized, gradual shifts in colour of a rainbow. I just can't fight the urge to put things in rainbow formation (even my sweaters in my closet are organized according to colour, and in rainbow formation naturally.)

This is when I think that I really hit my stride. I started getting all "photographer" on these circles, lying down to get the right angle, squatting in the closet to fit it all in the shot. It was so much fun!

I think I've officially changed my approach for my circles blanket, I'm going to have to do it in rainbow formation. Random colour chaos is great for some people, but I just can't do it.

I think that this is my favorite shot:

Ah... yup, just looking at these lovely rainbows of crocheted circles really makes me happy!

Have a great weekend!

All I have left to do is pack some clothes into my weekend bag and I'm officially all ready to go to the Frolic!

We've updated the website with new patterns, colours and yarns. We've spent weeks, maybe even months planning and dyeing and generally preparing for this weekend. We've got bags and bags (and bags!) of yarn to cram into the van we're picking up tonight. And now all we can do is cross our fingers and hope that all goes well and that we haven't forgotten anything!

I am very excited to see in person the new pullover design that Glenna has done for me. I've gotten to see snippets of it in photos as she was working on it and the Royale Pullover has looked awesome every step of the way. Now that it's ready for prime time I am beside myself excited about how awesome it looks! Modern, fitted, fashion forward, a real wearable and stylish piece of impressive knitting. Come by my booth and visit this stunning sweater (along with other awesome samples) on Saturday.

I'll be away from my computer all weekend, so there won't be any blog updates, but I'll be back early next week with a full recap of my Frolic experience!

And..... here is some crochet! I can't stop. I'm making a blanket. I plan on making about a hundred more of these little circles in squares..... wish me luck!

I'm hooked!

I've become obsessed. I have a very long list of things that I should be doing, but instead I'm crocheting. I think I've mastered the Granny square. Turns out that the reason I thought that I was doing it backwards and that my Granny squares looked funny is because I was doing them wrong! I sort of made up my own version of double crochet after not properly understanding the instructions I had read. Once I cleared that up, it was a piece of cake! Then, it was just to decide on what size hook I preferred, the square on the left is 4 rows on a 4mm hook, the one on the right (my preferred gauge) is 5 rows on a 3mm hook. Success! (I'm making these little practice squares using my Yellow Label DK weight yarn.)

Because I don't want to be a one trick pony I decided to try and crochet a circle. Following the instructions for the blanket I showed yesterday (found here) I made these little numbers.

I don't think I can stop. I have no immediate plans for these circles, but I know that I'll be making more tonight!

Learning to crochet

For a while now I've wanted to learn how to crochet. I think that I've mentioned it here before on the blog. When I've asked my mom to teach me she's always said to just pick up a book or go online and I'd figure it out myself quick enough. So... that's what I've decided to do. Here are some of the items that put me over the top and made me steal 5 crochet hooks from my mom yesterday.

I've seen a few granny square blankets that use white as the border colour and I really love the look. Here's a fave from Solveig (ravelry link):

And good ol' pot holders. There are tons of great examples of crocheted pot holders out there. I'm thinking that these would be a great way to learn, bright colours, small scale, perfect. I love these from through the loops (ravelry link).

The super popular ripple blanket. Another crochet project that has flooded the blogosphere lately, I particularly like the way that this one mixes up the width of the stripes, (ravelry link) plus, we all know I'm a sucker for colours lined up in rainbow order.

And lastly, I am in awe of this peice (ravelry link). This is definitely a project that I hope to tackle myself one of these days. I may take a bit of an easy way out and try and buy a bunch of vintage white doilies for my version, rather than crochet them all, but who knows, I may feel up to the challenge if I get the hang of crocheting. Isn't it awesome!?

I haven't quite mastered the fine art of crochet yet... but I have made two granny squares!

They are far from perfect, I'm having tension issues and I think that I may be doing it backwards... or at least what I was thinking of as the back seems to look much better than my front, so I may have a problem there. A few more trials and a many more errors and I'll be off to the races!

Auntie Beth's afghan

I learned to knit from my mother and she learnt to knit from her mother. My grandmother still knits more than anyone I know, she probably even knits more than I do. She knits mostly for her grandkids, her great-grandkids and her church. Knitting must have run in the family because her sister, my Great Auntie Beth, also spent all her free time knitting. She passed away years ago, and left behind quite a trunk load of yarn and projects, both finished and unfinished. One such project could be found in a box that contained well over a hundred granny squares (Auntie Beth crocheted as well). Some of the squares had even begun to be sewn together, but the project was never finished. Just recently, the big box fell into my mother's hands.

She sorted through all the squares and tried to organize them in a way that made sense. The fun thing about the way that my Grandmother and her sister knit and crochet was that they always used up all of their scraps. Some of the squares were a real mishmash of little leftovers, some had more purposefully chosen palettes, but they pretty much all contained yarns that had been previously used in another project.

After years of sitting untouched in my moms cousin's closet or basement somewhere, my mom was able to finally finish two blankets with all the squares that she had! She returned the finished blankets to her cousin today and I can't think of a more precious or meaningful gift. She knit them together as a favor to her cousin, but it's so much more than just a favor. It's a piece of Auntie Beth that you can touch and feel and know that she spent many a night working on all those squares, and even more nights working on all the baby sweaters, bonnets and booties that the yarns were originally bought for.

To me, these blankets represent one of the best things about the craft I love. There is the labour and love and the hands and heart of the knitter (or crocheter) in every single stitch.