Yet another granny square blanket

I've just finished work on a special present - a very girly flower blanket.  Eighty squares of pink, red and lilac loveliness!  Here it is, in all its glory.

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!

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!

Stash Busting Baby Blanket

Well, I think it's fair to say that I've now reached the end of my seventeen balls.  The final project has been this stash busting baby blanket.  

Using a traditional granny square, I simply used it ball of wool until it ran out, then carried on with the next ball.  It resulted in quite a random pattern, and the colours are very eclectic, but at least its bright and colourful!

It measures 24" x 24" so would make a lovely pushchair, pram or car seat comforter.

Cushion Crazy!

Anybody who knows me and my crochet habits knows that I LOVE making granny squares.  I love how you can use different stitches to make them look like flowers, colourbursts, or traditional granny squares....and I love using different combinations of colours and seeing how they develop and fit together.

Until now, I've only used granny squares to make blankets, but I fancied a project that wouldn't take too long, so decided to try my hand at cushion covers.  I completed two different cushion covers in one weekend, which I think is pretty good going.

The basic method is to make 2 big granny squares - I had to make 18 rounds to fit this particular cushion - crochet them together, leaving an opening big enough to remove the cushion (for washing when your 6 year old spills juice all over it).  I was going to use buttons to close the opening, but seeing as I didn't have any, I simply wove some fancy thick yarn through the holes and fastened the ends - perfect.

Side one is a traditional granny square - with 2 rounds per colour

Side 2 is a traditional granny square using oddments of yarn, so instead

of a uniform pattern, the colours change randomly.

Side one is a traditional granny square in 2 colours

Side two is a never-ending granny square in 3 colours

This is my first attempt at a never-ending granny square, and once I had it started, it was really simple to do, and grows really fast!  If you want to try your hand, take a look at Mikeyssmail's video tutorial: 

Pastel Baby Blanket

I've nearly come to the end of my seventeen balls project.  My latest item is this pretty baby blanket.  The colours are mainly pastels and it would be a lovely comfort blanket for a Moses basket, pram, car seat etc.

Another granny square blanket finished!

Recently somebody got in touch with me through my Facebook page because she was looking for a traditional crochet blanket for her little boy.

As I  haven't made a blanket for a while, I decided to make her one, and as I have tons of yarn left still for Project: Seventeen Balls, I had plenty of lovely colours to choose from.  It's made up of 42 squares, the main colour of which is a lovely bright blue, and I confess I cheated and bought an extra ball of this colour...but I had to, in order to complete the blanket without compromising the design.  I think it looks lovely and it feels lovely too.

Back to square one...

...and two, three, four....

After the granny stripe marathon, I'm going back to my first love - granny squares!  These are going to be a lovely traditional blanket for a little boy, so I'm taking great care to mix up the colours from my seventeen balls.  Trying not to add too many pinks...!

Summer Bag

The first item completed on Project: Seventeen Balls is this gorgeous summer bag.  Made up of 16 solid granny squares in assorted colours, which are joined together to create a stunning pattern, I really love it.

It did take me quite a while because it meant following a written pattern (not my forte!), and with respect to the designer, there was a slight error in the English language version, but I got there in the end, and the result was well worth it.

If you fancy making your own, you can find the pattern here.

Make-it-up-as-you-go-along blanket

I've just come to the end of another project - which is a small blanket that I've made up as I went along.  I had a huge stash of wool and didn't really want another big afghan, and didn't have a clear idea of what I wanted to make, so decided to do some squares and see what I ended up with.

These are the initial squares...........................

Which I joined together into blocks of 4.........................

I ended up with four blocks of 4, which I joined together in pairs, and gave granny edges to.  Here's one of them.........................

Then I joined the sets of blocks up and gave the whole thing a quick edging, and voila - a nice, bright chunky square blanket.....

Here it is on my chair,and joining my little boy for a quick snuggle...............................

Happiness is....

....a fresh stack of granny squares!

Black floral granny square blanket

Today I started joining the black floral granny squares that will eventually be a house warming present for a close friend.  It will be gorgeous when it's finished (it will, believe me) but as the shop has ran out of black wool (how could they?!) and won't have more in  for at least another week, it will have to be put to one side for a while.

What, then, can I make in the meantime...hmmmm?

A few bits and bobs

The vintage floral afghan is coming along nicely...well, put it this way, the squares are beginning to stack up ready for joining.  I'm really enjoying working with lots of different colours, and think the squares look lovely when they're still "round" - they'd make lovely drinks coasters.

To give myself a little break from the square production line, I had a go at a new tutorial on a Catherine Wheel Square....not very successfully I'm afraid.  It's littered with errors, but looks very sweet, I think - would make a nice embellishment but don't think I have the patience to try a whole blanket full of them!

Black and Red Blanket

Finished at last!  The red and black gothic number I've made for my 11 year old son.  It was a real labour of love - quite hard going at times because of the black yarn and lack of natural light in our house, but it was well worth it in the end. It was made with acrylic chunky yarn and a size 5mm hook, and took 3 weeks from start to finish.

Black's Back!

Remember when I started making my son's gothic red and black blanket, and I vowed never to use black as a main colour ever, EVER again?  Well, my "friend", commissioned a new blanket from me, and was very  happy with the pink, blue and brown design I presented her with.  Happy that was, until she happened to see a picture of what I admit to be a very beautiful blanket, with a flower pattern, so begged me to do that one instead.  Which is fine, except the main colour is............yep........BLACK!!

Here's the first square - I admit it looks quite striking, so I'm sure it'll be worth it in the end.

Black and Red Blanket - 2 weeks in

The labour of love which is my son's black and red blanket is coming along nicely - I can almost see the end in sight!  It's been two weeks since I started this project so thought I'd post a quick update.

In the picture you can see the first 4 rows of the blanket made up, alongside 2 towers of granny squares (26 in total), and 9 more inners waiting to be made up.  I'm hoping to get it done by next weekend, so I can start my next project!

Work in progress - red on black

Here's a sneak preview of the blanket I'm making for my thrash-metal loving 11 year old son. I've done two rows of granny squares so far, and it's looking...in his words "awesome".

It's quite tricky working with such dark colours because there's not much natural light in our house, but it's coming together nicely - I can't wait to see the finished article!

Colour Burst Afghan - finished at last!

The colour burst afghan which I started AGES ago is finally finished!  I've been using it for weeks but the last row of granny squares weren't joined in properly because one of them was wrong, so it had a nice "frill", or row of flapping squares down one end, which was most distracting...

Anyway, I've finally managed to get rid of the flappy row, and finished it all off with a nice edging.  Perfect!  And so very, very warm!

Ripple Blanket attempt!

Having been commissioned by my eldest son (he's 11) to make him a red and black blanket for his very cold bedroom...I immediately thought of one of those wavy type patterned blankets - I imagined big wavy blocks of red and black, with a white edging.

After a little searching I found out the pattern I had in mind was a ripple blanket, and found a link to my favourite crochet lady, who has a very user friendly step-by-step tutorial here:  http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/neat-ripple-pattern.html

Well, I had a go, and maybe due to the fact  I was trying to watch Come Dine With Me and Coach Trip at the same time, I couldn't get it to "ripple" at the top...eventually I got it right...probably half way through the local evening news....here it is, looking a bit like Mario's moustache:

Although the effect looks great, I've decided that as it's very difficult to work with black yarn, because basically you can't see what you're doing, I'm going  with the usual granny square method.  Fortunately, my son has said that if squares are easier for me, then he's happy with that...how accommodating!

The ripple's not out though - I have in mind a small baby blanket with lots of lovely bright colours.