I've just finished two special little blankets for two special little girls.  My dear friend Jem has two gorgeous daughters who love their 'aunty Liz' and as the youngest has just moved into her very own bedroom and into her first proper bed (she's only just turned 2), I wanted to make her and her big sister something to snuggle in :-)

Sapphire's was the first one I finished-she's a gentle little soul so she has quite gentle shades in hers-

Isn't it sweet?
It's also the first blanket I've made without using the standard Granny Square :-)


Now Romanie is a very strong willed little girl who loves hot pink so I stuck mainly with contrasts for her blankets but I did learn how to make a heart square-very tricky as I had a lot of problems with the pattern and ended up having to figure it out as I went round...but they worked out nicely and hers is beautiful as well :-)

a little close up of one of the heart squares

Both the girls absolutely loved their little blankets and hopefully will snuggle up in them for many years to come.

I've been posting photos on my Facebook page of all the blankets I've made to see whether making blankets as a business venture would be viable and I've had a lot of positive feedback already :-)  I've just received a message from a friend who lost her mother early this year to cancer and she's asked me to make her a special one with her mum's name on it.  So that will be the next project!  Watch this space...

Rainbow Blanket and Blanket of Fours!

Ooh, the posting settings have changed a bit!  Well, it has been a little while since I posted......I've not been idle though craft-wise.  I've been working on two very special, top secret, projects for my beautiful sisters.

And surprise, surprise, I made them blankets!  Not very inventive I know but a great deal of thought went into their inception and creation and I'm thrilled with the results :-)

Thea's came first-simply because I already knew what I wanted to do for hers.  A blanket inspired by rainbows with a pink-and-white border.

Sadly, my pictures don't do the colours justice-they're very, very bright!  But my sister has two gorgeous little girls who I'm sure like their colours loud :-)

I like this slightly out-of-focus photo as the colours blend together.  I have very bad eyesight so when I looked at the blanket without my glasses on, it looked really beautiful.


Now, Jess's blanket took a lot more thinking!  I didn't have a concrete theme but I decided to go with her favourite colours (blue and purple) along with green as I'm not sure what her other half likes colour-wise.  These colours are the dominate ones, along with some contrasting/accentuating combinations.  For Jessica's blanket, I also wanted to expand my square knowledge and learnt how to make lots of different motifs!

I grouped the squares into fours, crocheted them together and bordered them in white, then crocheted them into fours and did another white border, then crocheted each strip together and put a massive border around it...

For the border (on both blankets), I struggled with the joins but then I came across this tutorial which explains how to use what she calls 'flat border cluster' in really easy to follows photos and directions, so simple, even I could do it!


I posted them both on the same day-and despite the fact they were going to opposite parts of England, they both arrived within a day of each other to the complete surprise of my gorgeous sisters who seem to really like them :-)
They're hopefully both big enough for each family to snuggle up in on cold days and it gives me a huge amount of delight to think of my loved ones cuddled up in my blankets XD






Many of the square motifs came from this web page and I barely scratched the surface :-)  I also used a couple of the free patterns that this lovely lady shares on her blog.


So that's it for these blankets!  They were a lot of fun to make and while I'm a bit sad to see them go, I'm so happy that they have families of their own :-)

SIBOL Squares!

There's a lovely lady called Sue who spends her spare time making beautiful blankets to donate to elderly care homes-people all over send her granny squares for these blankets or take part in her special 'Challenges'.  She's making a huge 'Olympic themed' blanket which will be auctioned to raise money for people suffering with Alzheimer's.  I've wanted for a while to send some squares and finally have some to offer!

I hope she likes them :-)

You should really have a lot at her blog: http://sunshineinternationalblanketsoflove.blogspot.co.uk/
and if you can crochet or knit, send her some squares!  Each one will be hugely appreciated and will go towards spreading some love where it is desperately needed.

My oh my, lots of photos!

Myf and I have been reading the 'Indian in the Cupboard' series by Lynne Reid Banks and her Tudor obsession has transmuted into a desire for all things Native American!  We have a book here that has loads of great projects and one of them is making a tipi-on the photos in the book, the finished tipi looks huge, enough room for two 8-10yr olds, but in reality, was disappointingly small.  We painted it with animal symbols-

Not bad huh?

So while it dried, I decided to try something else...I draped the bamboo stick frame with blankets (that look enough like hides) and Myf was delighted!

 Can you see Myf?

And of course, we had to dress up and this means feathers!  I looked online and couldn't find a crochet pattern-but decided that a basic leaf pattern with some fiddling might make a passable feather....

 What do you think?

So here's a couple of squaws in their new tipi

Even though it looks fab, we took some pictures with the painted piece-

She loves it so much, we've taken it down and set it up again in her bedroom with sleeping mats, duvets, etc, for her to sleep on-she wants to have a little campout bless her!  Hopefully it'll be ok tonight-fingers crossed she doesn't move around too much and knock it down...

I've felt so much like crap this week that I nearly forgot Mothers Day!   Thankfully remembered last night and decided to make my Mum a little crocheted flower bookmark.  The flower design is from the lovely 'Crochet Bouquet' book that's become a firm favourite with a little improvisation on the leaf :-)  Hope she likes it!

There's some kind of Science day going on at Myf's school today so she dressed up as a 'Mad Experimental Doctor' complete with blue stripes in her hair and a very convincing evil laugh........

Can you spot the potions she drew on the coat?

Quick Retraction.......

I keep forgetting!  The sisters gift exchange that I posted would be monthly isn't!  I think I'd go grey if I had to try and come up with new creative ideas every month!  It's meant to be every now and then, a few months between, that sort of time frame.  I just got confused.  It happens frequently.........

Shawls!

Myf had to dress up at school for St David's Day in a traditional Welsh costume-we have one but the shawl that came with it was lost ages ago!  It wasn't much of a shawl really, more a strip of cloth but as it was fairly cold and Myf's started off the year with a chest infection, I really needed to make sure she had as many layers as possible.  So I had a look at the 'Happy Hooker' book that my lovely biggest sister got me started on crochet with and decided to give the 'Sweet Pea' shawl a try.
I thought that halving the pattern would be wise as she didn't need a huge one and after spending two hours crocheting it wrong, I finally figured out where I was reading the pattern wrong and got it done!  Then Myf came home from school and I panicked it would be too small :-(  But it was perfect!  The shawl on a Welsh costume only just goes across the shoulders so it worked out well.  All this was the day before St David's Day so I also had to make two daffodils for her to wear and this is how cute she looked:

And from the back:

Myf was very pleased with her little shawl and immediately asked for a grownup size in her favourite shade of blue :-)

Once I can get hold of some nice snuggly non-acrylic wool, I plan to make a couple more for the Christmas gift box (and yes, I'm totally stealing a leaf out of my sisters book and trying to get lots of gift bits done before Christmas)

In other news I am suffering greatly with an impacted wisdom tooth that literally is making me cry so I turn to my beloved granny squares to calm and soothe me..........I've got a few projects on the go at the moment-hopefully I can share some pictures soon! :-)