'Neapolitan' Baby Blanket

My work situation over the past couple of months has been a bit of a nightmare as I've had less than 5 hours a week.  If I'm unable to find another job before next summer, I'm really worried as to how we're going to cope.  My plan is to make a decent stock of blankets for sale and either put them up on ebay or amazon or create a facebook page for them.  I have a lot of cool blanket ideas-I just need to balance making them with being able to sell for a mutually reasonable price.

So here is the first one to go into the stock cupboard-it would make a lovely gift for a new baby!

Having a Hoot

Hello everyone!  Sorry for the long absence-I've been back in London staying with my parents with Myf for a holiday but I've finally made it back home so it's time to catch up!
Remember the little giveaway last post?  Well, I decided to make these little owls from this post here.  Aren't they cute?  It's a lovely pattern but there were a couple of issues with it-she mentions a couple of times 'pulling on the yarn tail' to close the circle hole but the pattern starts off with a chain of 4 and I haven't been able to close the little hole you get that way so I think she means starting off with a magic circle.  Also, in the third round, she tells you to put 3dc into each space around when she actually means 3dc in space, skip the next space, continue around so that you have 14 groups of 3dc around.  Does that make sense?  Anyway, those are pretty minor problems with it and overall I really like the pattern so please do give it a try!

So the lucky ladies received a little owl each and have said they really like them :-)  My sisters were a little late on the comments for the giveaway but I made them one each anyway because I'm lovely :-D And of course I had to make one for me and a couple for my gorgeous Myf.  Only trouble was, their little ones got very excited over the owls and this caused a bit of a problem so naturally I offered to make a special one for each of my nieces and nephew!  One of the nicest days of my holiday was being able to meet up with my lovely sisters for a family picnic with our parents and our children!  I got to give them their little owls in person :-)  Wasn't able to take a photo of the owls as I had a little mishap with my camera...it's fine now but I dropped it into a pond!  Anyway, here are some photos, hope you like them!

Apparently, the collective name for Owls is a 'Parliament'.  Isn't that cool?

The little one in the photo above is one I made with crochet thread for use as a key ring for my spare key.  I'm planning some more as soon as I have some spare time!

10 followers!

I've just noticed that my little blog has just hit double digits in followers :-)  So to celebrate, I'd like to host my first giveaway!  The first THREE people to comment on this post will receive a little surprise in the post made by me-all I ask is that you put your email address in the comment so that I can email you for your address :-D  I've yet to decide what the surprise will be but hopefully you'll like it!

Now also seems like a good time to celebrate some of the blogs that I personally enjoy a great deal. When I started blogging here, I hadn't been crocheting very long.  I found it difficult to learn new techniques or to expand on my crochet skills.  These blogs have become my favourite places to find inspiration, to discover other crafting methods and to have a lovely peaceful few minutes sharing their crafty stories.  So go say hi and enjoy them with me!

Attic24 is FULL of colourful and amazing crochet projects.  Her blog is packed full of beautiful photos and clever ideas!  She has stacks of tutorials for all kinds of things-from making a granny square to borders to flowers and leaves and literally so many others!  Her tutorials are some of the easiest to follow that I've come across and she is so generous to share so many of her patterns :-)

Mummycat has a lovely blog where she crochets, sews, upcycles and creates the most wonderful items!  I'm very lucky because she is my biggest sister but, bias aside, her blog deserves a shout out because she shares so many great ideas for crafting around the home.  Just look!  When I finally started to crochet, it was because she had sent me hooks and a copy of 'The Happy Hooker' and here we are now!
So please, go say hello to her :-)

Gillian uses a lot of photos and colour in her posts-I really admire her ability to take such fresh, striking photographs.  She does a lot of home crafting-I particularly love how she gave some of her old plant pots a completely new lease of life in this post!

Debi Y is a fantastic blog to visit-she is an avid crocheter, makes lots of beautiful baby blankets, hats, cocoons and she donates items to her local hospital.  I love her blog for all the ideas she has as well as the fact that she shares LOADS of her granny square designs!  I mean it-when I was learning how to do different types of squares, hers was the place to go!  Still is in fact :-)  The ways she writes out the patterns are so easy to follow and I'm so grateful to her for sharing so many of her unique designs.

BunnyMummy is another blog that has gorgeous photos and bright splashes of colour :-)  I love reading her posts and she also has some fantastic photo tutorials that you should definitely check out!  Full of crafty goodness and stunning photos and a lovely place to relax and read :-)

SIBOL deserves a very special shout out-I've written about this blog before and this certainly won't be the last time as I think it's such a wonderful project.  Mrs Twins, the crocheting force behind SIBOL, takes in donations of squares from all over the world which she makes into beautiful lapghan blankets to donate to the Elderly in care homes across England.  She and her Ravellery group come up with many 'challenge' ideas for blankets which are a constant source of inspiration and have really encouraged me to think 'outside the box' when coming up with blanket ideas.  If, like me, you love to make squares and blankets but are running out of people to give them to, then this is DEFINITELY the place for you :-D

Last, but most certainly NOT least, comes another amazing blog.  Jess gets crafty is a fantastic place full of ideas and colour-she is the undisputed Queen of Amigurumi in my mind-her abilities with solid form shapes out of crochet are unparalleled!  Yes, she also has the honour of being my big sister but this isn't bias (again lol) as she is genuinely so talented.  For as long as I can remember, Jess was the one who could make anything out of anything.  It didn't matter if the instructions were incomprehensible as Jess could always figure them out.  She's been crocheting for decades and has so many  beautiful ideas on her blog it could make you weep.  I love her blog simply for all the inspiration and ideas-you should also check out her etsy shop where she sells gorgeous handmade baby booties and hair clips :-) So pop over and make her day!


Right then folks-don't forget to comment!  And I hope you like these blogs as much as I do :-D  Share the love!

Yarndale and Attic24!

A few weeks ago my beautiful biggest sister called me to tell me about Attic24 and her Yarndale project.  Fact is, I've been reading her blog for a while now-stumbled across it when learning about joining granny squares and it 's one of my favourite places to go for inspiration and  a colour boost.
I really wish Yarndale was closer because it sounds awesome-Attic24 has been asking crochet crafters to make granny triangles to use as bunting for the big day and in the years to come.  So I went and had a look-one of the things I love about this blog is that Lucy makes such beautiful, easy to follow, photo tutorials.  She's written up a gorgeous photo tutorial for these triangles and has said any yarn, any colours, just have fun!

I have quite a few bits of wool that I don't really use as I stick with acrylic yarns for blanket making so this was a great opportunity to use up some of those bits.  I've made nine triangles and last night I attempted to 'block' (for the first time!) with steam.  I think I need more blocking practise but aside from being a little curly at the edges, I think they've turned out well!

While being blocked...

Afterwards...

So I'll be bundling this up to send to her-anyone else want to join in?  She's extended the deadline until August so there's time!  And they're super easy to make :-)

In other news, I finally managed to post the two SIBOL blanket donations after I realised they were a little smaller than requested on her blog-they both only measured about 32" and they needed to be 36-37" so I needed to spend more time adding more to the border.

I managed to get them up to 35" before sending-Mrs Twins kindly emailed me yesterday morning to let me know they'd arrived safely with some lovely comments *blushes*  Cant' wait to see where they end up!

'Sweet Memories' Blanket

Finally!

I've been working on this for a few months now-with work and some of the other projects, this has been sitting on the back burner and it's so nice to have it done :-)

Remember the 'Sweet Dreams' blanket?  And the smaller version I made for Myf?  Well, I wanted to make another one for SIBOL to send along with the 'Autumn Glory' blanket.  One of the squares on the original Sweet Dreams blanket came out looking a bit like a wrapped sweet-the square design is based on the amazing Debi Y and can be found here.  By changing the colours frequently, it came out looking like a sweet and I thought it would look good to make a blanket with alternating 'wrapped sweets' and loose sweets.

The 'wrapped sweets' squares are a bit fiddly which is why it took so long to complete. I finished the squares up yesterday and laid them out and then discovered a slight problem....

See the second row?  The square in the centre?  That's 'supposed' to be seaside rock.  I swear, it wasn't until I had this laid out that I saw it looks more like something else...

As you can probably guess, I removed it from the layout and made another wrapped sweet square to replace it.  I crocheted it together yesterday and finished off the border today and I think it looks lovely!  No inappropriate motifs to be found anywhere...

From the top left hand corner, the loose sweets are as follows:
Gobstoppers, Peardrops, Strawberry Bootlace, Toffee Blocks (with hammer), Barley Sugar, Lollipops, Licorice Allsorts, Everton Mints, Peppermint Creams, Parma Violets, Gingerbread Man, Licorice Sticks.

What do you think?

'Happy Face' Blanket

Last year, I spent some time volunteering at 'toogoodtowaste' which is a local charity that does a lot to help the community by decreasing landfills, giving old furniture a chance at a new home as well as providing bedroom packs for those who have literally nothing.  It's also a place where people of all ages and abilities can volunteer.  There's a number of different departments-I volunteered on the Customer Service desk and was able to do a manual handling course and some more first aid training.

The Volunteer Coordinator is a wonderful lady called Jen and she called me a month or so ago about an Open Day they'll be holding on Wednesday 3rd July and she's asked me to go along to chat to people about volunteering.  She also had a special request for me-a dear friend of hers, who has battled cancer in the past,  has had to go into a wheelchair and as she is only in her sixties, she's been finding the transition very tough.  So Jen thought a bright, cheery lap blanket would help and she really wanted a big smiley face on the front.

With a lap blanket, I usually do 25 squares (approx 6 inches across) but here I thought smaller squares would work better.  I worked up a couple of sketches to give Jen a rough idea...

But I ended up going with a Rainbow theme-the squares didn't take long...

(Rascal is a complete nutcase with crochet!  He certainly makes it challenging...)

I played with the layout first-this was the original concept I had for the Rainbow layout-

But how dark was on the lower edge wasn't working for me so I switched it to this-

But I somehow managed to get the red and pink row mixed up so it came out like this-

Rascal isn't very good about not attacking crochet when it's spread out on the floor...

For the Smiley face, I used crochet to make a couple of circles in black, blue and white for the eyes which I stitched on to where the blanket will cover the knees (as requested) and I crocheted over the top for the mouth.  I had to hand stitch the eye lashes which I still think came out looking a bit strange and I added black eyebrows and a nose.  The top half looked a bit bare then so I added six simple flowers in very soft yarn and arranged them in a semi circle over the top.  Are they suggesting hair?  Maybe!  I think it looks better though :-)  I used some left over 'Cupcake' yarn which is super soft and fluffy for the border and made an extra blue flower for the care label.

Are you ready?

Here it is!

Catch up!

I've been getting behind on my updates!  I have been crocheting still but naturally with working, I've had a LOT less time.  That's changing though because where I work is in a college campus and my hours are getting cut way back for the summer...not good but hopefully we can manage.

A while back, Myf wanted me to make the cat a blanket for her own so we chose some 'Artemis colours' and I worked up a ripple blanket.  Of course, she hardly uses it!  But I like how it's turned out and I think the idea of cat/dog blankets is a good one to look into further.

We also 'accidentally' bought another kitten-we went into a pet shop just for a look to cheer ourselves up and we fell in love with this guy

I got him for Myf as an early 10th birthday present-we're both completely in love.  He's called 'Rascal' as he is one!  Very sweet natured though and a total darling.  So I may be making him his own special blanket soon...