3 String blanket!

3 String blanket!

So I normally have at least a few projects on the go at any one time, which reflects my poor attention span really, but anyway, I found a local shop which was selling this gorgeous wool for £1 a ball and its made in Bradford, my home town so just seemed perfect.  And just had to get it and do this straight away.

Had the idea for this floating around in my head for a while to blend  3 threads together to create a fading colour effect, [ having taken inspiration from here] and thought it would give me a lovely snug thick blanket.   

The wool I used is ‘woolcraft, DK New Fashion’ and for a cheap yarn is very soft and was lovely to work with. The colours I used were red, blue, orange green and purple, although I am unsure of  shades ect, reason for picking these shade? Well they were what they had in the shop but they work very well together!. I used a size 12mm hook to work with. Started with 3 strands of the same colour, then on each round replaced one strand with the next colour, ie I  was working with 3 blue then 2 blue 1 green, then 1 blue 2 green then 3 green, ect, till I began to reach the end of balls and then I replaced with the next colour as one ran out and worked till I ran out of wool.  

In total the blanket just covers my double bed [uk sizing] and took 3 x 100g balls of each colour, so 15 balls in total, I had a little bit left where I was unable to complete a final row. And was a very quick project for me to do. Taking roughly 7 hours of continuous work [did it over around 3 days] however is hard going to work with so had to take several breaks! Completely loved the project though and the end result! Can wait till it goes a bit colder to try I out! 

Yarn bombing butterflies

Hello, so around 3 weeks ago I did my first ever yarn bomb! Yay, the original plan was to do it in a wood somewhere but I left these little butterflies behind, so the opportunity arose where I could do it with not to many people around and these are the end results!  

Really enjoyed doing this, but I wonder whether they are still there or if they have even been spotted and enjoyed by anyone!  Hopefully get some more done when I’m a bit ore out and about

Have you ever spotted any yarn bombing in you local area? What would you like to see bombed?

why dont you let me know over on my facebook page? and maybe even like it while your there!

Helen

Sizergh Woollen Woods

Sizergh Woollen woods

My parents live close to this national trust property so this week I finally got to visit the Woollen woods at Sizergh Castle.   

There was some absolute stunning items on display, my favourite of all was hidden away slightly, but hung from a branch was this absolute stunning flower.  Felt like it was made from natural cotton and just amazing! Would love to be able to do this myself!

I had originally read the criteria and throughout about entering my own few items, however  decided against it as the way I read the entry criteria it read as through only wool  material would be accepted with life sized and life like animals that would be found in  the woods.  Well things moved on and I then went on to forget about entering etc. Despite regularly crocheting a variety of items.   

However on wandering around the woods this wasn’t the case at all, lots of acrylic had been used and even one display using polystyrene balls and well… therefore just not what I was expecting. However there are some amazing bits there to be seen and well worth a visit……

…. Someone just needs to explain where the flamingo fits in….

Plan… yarn bomb my garden with crochet owls!! More pictures from this visit can be found over on the face book page! 

Hex Blanket

Before I disappeared I started a crochet along hex flower blanket, so thought I would update you guys.  

I’m still working on mine but got to the stitch together stage. Have frogged and re-frogged the item several times as I’m not happy with the combination of them together, but think I’m finally there.  

Just a bit more to do and I’ll have finished the basic shape. Still trying to decide what to do for the edging though now. as you can see i'm joining them together in groups and then granny squares in between, hoping it break up the mass of color a bit!

Thinking to double crochet around for 7 colours rows alternating with seven green rows, which will make it a more decent size.  Also thinking of backing it with some cotton to save having to  tie in all the ends, another thing to consider later in time.  Then I will just have to decide what to do with it, either going to be a blanket for the spare room,  ‘the craft room’

im sure when its eventually finished I will share with you guys.

i'm back

hello  guys, sorry I’ve been away for a while, a few things have happened which has kept me a bit quite but ive still be crafting on.

These days it has been mainly crochet, which is my current thing that I love doing, it all started with those owls that I was selling before Christmas [and still make and sell for the lovely chid flight] and most recently began making owl families, which look lovely together and owl nurses. Just to blend a bit of my profession in.

I have made lots of different crochet animals and this post is mainly going to photo bomb all these..

Really enjoyed the challenge in making all these and hopefully people will continue to ask me for them,  PayPal also recently doubled my earning when donated to the charity, so the money raised for Child flight from crochet items currently stands around £200, thank you to every one for the support.

Helen x

(P.S if you require anything crocheted let me know! :) )

Stitch along.

hello everyone, welcome to part 2 of the stitch along. 

 how did co lour picking go? i decided to go with 3 dark colours and 3 light ish colors for contrast. the ones i picked are

 once the colors are picked its time to plan out the blanket. as per the scribbled below.  ive used 4 ply wool and a size 4.5 hook, each flower included 1 x green border = 14 cm from tip to tip.  for the time being ive decided to make a small lap blanket, which is going to be 6 x 6 flowers and then will assess the size etc. also worked out are colour combinations..

then decide on the pattern, im doing an African flower crochet pattern which i adapted to make my own:-

African flower:-

Foundation chain: ch 6, sl st to make a round or use a magic ring.

Round 1: (colour 1) ch 3, 1 dc, ch 1, *2 dc, ch 1, * repeat until you have six spaces and six 2 dc. sl st into the 3rd chain of the beginning round. Fasten off.

Round 2:  (colour 2) start in a space. ch 3, 1 dc in same space, *ch 2, 2 dc, ch 1, 2 dc in next space - repeat * 5 times. sl st into the 3rd ch of the beginning round.

Round 3: sl st in the first 2 ch to reach the first 2 ch space of the previous round. ch 3, dc 7 in the 2 ch space, ch 1, * dc 8 in next 2 ch space, ch 1, repeat * 5 times. sl st into the 3rd ch of the beginning round. Fasten

Round 4: (colour 3) ch 1, sc around and make a long stitch down in round 2 between each flower petal. End with sl st. Fasten off.. 

and thats the basic pattern and hopefully you have a successful flower. the picture above are my first 3.  all you have to do now is make enough of them for the size of blanket you require! 36 in my case. 

happy crocheting! 

H

happy hookers

Hello everyone!

My work place has set up a happy hookers group! Yay. First meeting was this week, and everyone seemed to have a nice little chat and get together, and its always good when food and drink are involved.  During this meeting I decided to have a go at making a garden blanket… this is a crocheted African flower blanket based on a green back ground making it looks like a garden. So I thought I would have a little stitch along if anyone is interested.  

First things first is colour selection and planning, ive decided to use 6 colours of cheap ish wool, [non branded but from bm] as im just starting out and was using as a way to teach others. And do the flowers in sets of six, will post pictures as I go along but for starters go out and pick your wool and check back for the beginning of the stitch along. 

below is the picture from the pattern i'm going to be using for this project. 

amigurumi Animals

Hello everyone well Christmas is well and truly over and I apologies for not update this blog sooner but I’ve had  loads of stuff on work wise.  Hopefully when the course is over in may my spare time will be my own again!  

So before Christmas I promised that I would post the amigurumi brooches I made for a mate in work and here they are, two guinea-pigs and a rabbit and an Alsatian dog.  

Hopefully the people they were given to as Christmas present liked them [made for someone else who passed them on] them to other people in work as I haven’t had feed back from them,  however as I gave these out in the staff room I was asked what else I could do and answered any thing so I made various items on the run to Christmas which will be in the next blog post. 

crochet blanket

Here is a bit of crochet that I am currently doing, I was trying to do a ripple blanket however couldn't get the hang of it on a practice run on a quite night in work so began to make a circle blanket instead.  Started it a week before Christmas and didn't get very far so will have to be used for 2014 instead!  There’s a few mistakes in it but I think it just add to all the charm! Will post more as it comes further to completion. 

this is the beginning of the ripple

and then the circle blanket, been making the pattern up as i go along!

color change

current size, using up scraps of thread and should be about single bed size when finished. aiming for a Christmas theme blanket! currently acting as a good distraction from some university work i have to get done! 

hope you all had an amazing Christmas. 

Commisions

I recently had my first ever commission to make crochet items well, i was asked if i could make guinea-pigs somehow, to which i said i do crocheted guinea-pig brooches.  this is something i had always wanted to get around to doing for myself

as i have two guinea-pigs called fudge and biscuit!  pictures of this little project will be coming after Christmas as i know they were bought as Christmas presents. but in the mean time does anyone know of any crafts that i could do for the pigs, eg a pattern from a guinea-pig bed ect? 

snowman crochet

Christmas is coming and beginning on this theme as the majority of the post on the run up is going to be here is a little crochet snowman. one of my first attempts of a pattern. quite impressed with end results. 

body = 6sc into a magic circle and then increased by 6 on each row at even intervals,  when got to 30 stitches, sc around then decreased by 6 and sc around evenly till down to 6 stitches. stuffed it and added nose eyes ect.

hat = magic circle with 6sc and then dc x 2 in each sc to create 12 st then fastened off. 

scarf =  chain to 15, chain 1, turn, sc 15 fasten off and tie around snowman neck.   

add accessories to make it into a decoration, keying, brooch etc... end result about 7cm by 4cm at largest points. 

Crochet hearts

So a friend of mine asked if I could make crochet hearts as center pieces for a wedding and thought I would make a few up to test out the patterns, these were my first ever 3d crochet projects which explains why they are a little bit rough but I would say with more practice I would have got there!  They decided against it in the end so I won’t be getting that much needed practice. 

as you can proberly tell i think i confused crochet stitches half way though these projects. 

and i do admit myself that the professional ones look a lot better, but practice makes perfect as they say. 

1st attempt

Crochet,

I’m a bit of a begininger at crochet but thought I would begin to give it a go as  knitting was hurting my hands [having watched you tubes videos I was taught how to knit funny and this is properly why] anyway I began to google what I could make with the wool I had ling around the house and came across granny squares.  So first things first, I made a very small baby blanket.. however it has now been turned into a dolls blanket!  Nine squares sewn together with blanket stitch in bright colors. 

still wondering what to so with this one, possibly change it into a cushion cover or maybe do some more around the edge to make it a better size for a baby blanket.. would only cover a new born baby atm. 

any tips on sewing the squares together would be welcome, not sure i like the results of the mattress stitch method! 

happy crafting!