My latest blanket

Now that we're half way through January, Christmas is rapidly becoming a memory, a nice one, but an increasingly distant one.  During this time I treated myself to a 2-week break from my party bags business.  As we often find, when you have a holiday, no matter how much needed it is, it can be quite difficult to get into the slower pace of life....but an ideal remedy for this is working on a new crochet project!

Having just finished my own floral vintage blanket, I turned my attention, and my leftover yarn, to a Christmas present for a friend.  A granny square blanket can be surprisingly quick to make - this one took me around 2 weeks, give or take a couple of days, so took me through the whole of the Christmas and New Year period...bearing in mind the other smalll matters pulling at me, namely Christmas itself and my 3 young boys, this is not a bad time at all.

This blanket is made up of 30 granny squares...........

Once joined, I added a small border.............





A very satisfactory end product, I think.   Time for something else now, I feel.  After two blanket projects I'm turning to my attention to smaller projects.  More on those to follow soon!

Christmas Eve Blanket

At last, my Christmas present to myself is finished. I really enjoyed making this vintage floral blanket - it also happens to be the thickest, warmest of my blankets so has kept me very warm this afternoon while I finished off the border with a glass of Baileys on ice to hand and ET on the tv.

Happy Christmas to everyone, and a very prosperous, successful 2012!

A Square Tower

When I'm crocheting, there's nothing more satisfying than an ever growing stack of granny squares.  For one thing you have instant gratification as each square is completed, and the higher the stack grows, the closer you are to finishing the project.

Judging by this tower, my new vintage floral blanket is coming on really well.

I love the way the black yarn really makes the flowers stand out.  The discs themselves are really colourful, but once the black border goes on, they become something else!



It's blanket time..!

It appears to be that time of year again, because I have been positively itching to make a new blanket.  I've had lots of fun making hats and scarves, but I really feel it's time to get my teeth into a bigger project.

This week, for one reason or another has been quite troublesome.  I've had a lot on my mind (the usual worries, nothing serious), which has resulted in lots of restless nights and a general feeling of malaise.  So what better therapy than a trip to my favourite wool shop, a brand new stash, and a Sunday afternoon making granny squares..? 

This will eventually become the most gorgeous vintage blanket, which I've been promising myself ever since I made the first one as a gift to my best friend.

I can envision the finished article already and can't wait to wrap myself (and maybe a child or 2) in it when the nights become really frosty!

More hats!

I seem to be unable to stop making hats at the moment.  From basic beanies to berets and slouchy hats.  My favourite one is this simple slouch hat, which I made quite small

I also had some chunky beige wool left over so whipped up a simple slouch hat in that too.



Both hats are made from the same free pattern, which I found on Ravelry  It's amazing the different results you get by changing yarn.

 

Sirdar Fizz Scarf

I've just finished this beautiful fluffy scarf, made with one strand of dk yarn and one strand of Sirdar Fizz.  It's so lovely and thick and soft.

Working with the Fizz yarn is a tad fiddly, but well worth it when you see the end result.

To make this scarf all I did was use one strand of DK yarn and one strand of Sirdar Fizz.  Make a chain to the required length of the scarf, then do rows of double crochet (UK treble crochet) until it was as thick as I wanted.

Recycling

I've just come across this brilliant blog - My Recycled Bags.com, which shows you how to take old materials such as tee shirts,sheets, cassette tape, plastic bags and turn them into useful crocheted items.

This tutorial on how to make T Shirt Yarn has inspired me to dig out my old clothes and have a go myself.