Sweet Myf

So in my last post, I showed you the lovely 'Sweet Dreams' blanket Myf and I worked on for our sweetshop friend.  I mentioned that Myf really wanted a little one too so I set her up with my camera and she took a load of photos of the squares she liked before I started putting them together.

She also sat for an hour making a long list of the squares on paper so that there was an extra record for me.  The top photo are the squares Myf wanted as the 'background' squares.

She spends half the holidays with her father-last week was half term and she was with me until the Wednesday afternoon.  I had a few of the squares done but none of the sweets but once Myf was away, I spent most of my time crazily crocheting-it was originally going to be a little lap blanket, 25 squares but we thought it would be nice to have it a bit bigger...

From Wednesday until she got back on Sunday, I worked like a demon!  I added about 38 squares (it's  a little shorter than I would use for an adult single blanket, 9 by 7) with a border.  Myf was due home at 4.15pm- I finished the border, wove in the loose ends, ran upstairs to put it on her bed, sat back down and she knocked on the door!  I have never crocheted so fast on the border-my hands were shaking so hard for about an hour afterwards.  I was praying to the Goddess over and over that I could finish it in time- talk about a close race!

There is a very special square in this blanket.  See if you can spot why!

Look closely at the orange round.  See how it's a little uneven?  This is Myf's FIRST try at double crochet-and her very first bit of a granny square!
Isn't it fab?!

I have a couple of other squares that I was really pleased with the results on-

The bottom one is a candy necklace-you can see the original one from the 'Sweet Dreams' blanket in the 6th photo down.  For Myf's I really tried to fill it with 'sweets' and I think it looks great, despite the THREE hours it took to make!


Myf's face when she saw it on her bed!  She ran downstairs with it, wrapped herself up in it and danced around the living room :-)
Finally got her to sit down so I could snap a photo-

She loves it!

Here it is on her bed where I imagine it'll stay for quite some time...

TA DA!!!! Sweet Dreams Blanket

It's finished!!

I'm so excited to take it to my friend in town today-I only started putting it together on Tuesday, laying all the squares out and shuffling them around, crocheting them together and seeing it unfold :-)

The top panel has 'SWEET' written across it in silver/grey chain stitch and the bottom of course says 'DREAMS'.

I pondered the border for ages.  I was originally planning to use a variegated yarn that came in free with another shade I wanted and has been hanging around waiting-it has hues of blues, purples and greens that I thought would work well with the pinks and greens on the outer edge of the blanket.  Myf wasn't too sure and once I had it laid out, I could see what she meant!  So I started with a very pale lilac and moved to a 'parma violet' shade and finished with a dark, almost plum, shade for the last round, putting 2dc, ch2, 2dc into each space and 2dc, ch2, 2dc, ch3, 2dc, ch2, 2dc into the corners and making a pretty zig-zag effect :-)  I still haven't found where that pattern comes from, I'm SURE it's from Attic24 somewhere but I can't find it!

Are you ready?  TA-DA!!!!

Isn't it gorgeous?  It's been the most creative fun to make :-)

I know I should wait and take better photos to do it justice but I really want to give it to her today (and if I don't today, the next chance will be Tuesday and that's too long ;-P)

What do you think of it?

So Very Excited!!!

The 'Sweet Dreams' Blanket is very nearly finished:  I'm putting the last round of the border on it now, it looks so beautiful and we may be able to actually give it to our friend tomorrow!
Myf has had so much fun suggesting sweetie ideas and as she wants a little lap blanket with this theme so I let her use the camera to pick out the sweet squares she wanted in hers.  She also spent time writing a list as well so very soon I can start making hers!

I can't wait to show you how gorgeous this blanket is-but for now, I'll share with you the other reason for my glee.  I caught sight of this in the shops at the beginning of January and even though it was very inexpensive (£15), we're on a really tight budget so I've been saving up to treat myself :-)

Isn't it wonderful?

It's meant for children's toys (and Myf would like one too of course!) but as soon as I saw it, I thought what a fabulous storage space it would make for all my yarn...
Well most of it anyway!  I prefer to work with balls of yarn so I still have a few bags with fresh skeins in that I need to spend time winding...

It's so nice to be able to tell at a glance what colours I have :-)  I've been moving some bits around and we had a viewing on the house today so I've been cleaning quite manically and now I have a beautiful living room with a crafty area that makes me smile :-D

I'll be back very soon with photos of the newest blanket!  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend :-)

Blessed Imbolc!

Today's been beautiful weather-clear skies with lots of sunshine!  Perfect Imbolc weather-the Earth is starting to wake up and Spring is so, so close :-)

I was playing with wire and managed to form a Brid's Cross:

I've only got a handful of squares left to make for the 'Sweet Dreams' blanket-I'm no good at putting them together as I go, I enjoy laying them out and changing the order around too much!
I wanted to showcase a couple of special squares here.  Myf has been collaborating with me on the sweetie squares and one of her suggestions was to make a 'gingerbread man' square.  I said I wasn't sure if I could crochet something like that-and she suggested making a ginger-coloured square and using white chain stitching to describe the gingerbread man!  Isn't that clever?  So I made it and it came out really well so I took it further and made a gingerbread house sqaure as well :-)  Here they are!

I currently have piles of squares on the TV table-I love looking at the colours-so much potential loveliness!  I can visual the general look I'm going for but how the colours go together and what it will really look like when it's completed is still a mystery.  I'm hoping to get the last few squares done this weekend and next week I'll be putting it together :-)