Somewhere over the rainbow

I should have my Rosie Elmer blanket finished and ready to show you, but oh no!  No, almost as soon as I blogged about it I started 2 new projects haha!

A friend from my WI is having a baby in the next month and I'd been thinking about making her a blanket, although she's made a couple being a knitter, but I just couldn't let it go.  

I grabbed left overs from my Bright Stripes blanket with a few other colours to make a rainbow.  I love it!  

I think I made my foundation chain a little too long so I'm not sure now if my stripes will be horizontal or vertical, but we'll see how I get on; I've got about a week to finish.  Isn't it jolly!

I don't know if any bloggers in the UK saw the solar eclipse on Friday but here's my contribution ♥ Admittedly not the most amazing photo but it's a nice reminder of a (probably) once in a lifetime opportunity.  I was soooo excited, I have to admit I didn't actually do any work at work until around 10am...  It's just fantastic to see the universe at work, we know the Moon orbits our planet and we orbit the Sun (or we wouldn't have seasons!) but normally it happens so gradually we just take it for granted, but to actually see-the-moon-moving-in-front-of-the-sun was phenomenal!!

A little more down to earth, we did a bit of DIY for the cats last weekend.  There's no way for them to go out when they want and we think they may have had access to the outside in their previous home. Dizzy for one gets very restless and I think he needs to stretch his legs.  The only problem is we had no wall space leading to the outside, other than under the kitchen sink...

★ Build me cat door hoomans ★

I know this makes it look like I did all the work...  Good camera work J!

But actually my dad did 97% of it in his very pro looking railway jacket.  We really would be lost without him

★ Stoopid hoomans making holes in walls.  Feed me ★

So now they can come and go as they please, although Dizzy is stupid and insists on pushing the flap open with his paws, so his head doesn't get close enough to the microchip sensor to activate.  We've had to put it into training mode until he gets used to it, but he'd better figure it out of we've spent a lot of money on a normal cat flap!

He might be stupid (sometimes) but he is very photogenic! 

x x x x

Rosie Elmer Squares

Hellooooo, I've been feeling the urge to blog for ages because I have squares to show you but time seems to have just gone so quickly!  I am finally nearing the end of this thing, there is light at the end of the tunnel!  If I could finish next weekend I would be sooooo happy.

In May 2013 (yep, 2013...) I started a new blanket, which I nick named my Rosie Elmer.  The name came from a lovely patchwork blanket made by Lucy, which was inspired by Elmer the Elephant.  I wanted a blanket in shades of pink so that's why mine's a little different ♥

(I blogged about it here, here, here, here and  here but then I got side tracked (read; bored) and went onto other things.  My biggest problem was finding a colour combination I liked, and did I go through a few...

Nope.  Too pale, just didn't like.

Pomegranate just isn't helping.

Yuck.  Those dark purple squares pop out too much.

Hmmm better.  This one had merit, but it felt more like a baby blanket to me, which may come to fruition in the future

Getting there, definitely! Unfortunately I ran out of some of the purple (which I bought in Italy as far as I can remember).  I think I might have actually lost the rest of it because I'm sure I've hardly used it. 

I've made loads of Wisteria, Meadow, Lavender and Clematis squares that I no longer plan on using but I may put into a baby blanket instead.

I'm now using Purple from the Womens Institute range in Hobby Craft, and in Stylecraft Special DK; Pomegranate, Plum, Pale Rose, Camel, Magenta, Pomegranate, Violet and Grape

*** WI purple

*** Raspberry

*** Plum

*** Pale Rose

*** Camel

*** Magenta
*** Pomegranate
*** Violet
*** Grape

I'm really happy with these and I think they look a bit like shades of a sunset, don't you?

I've mocked up in Photoshop what I want the blanket to look like and it's looking pretty awesome!  I can't wait to get sewing all these squares together and finally be finished.  Even J said it looked like Elmer when I laid them out, amazing!

Moggy tried to help but she gave up and fell asleep ♥

x x x x

Finished Bright Stripes Blanket. Ta dah!

I just love being able to say that...  I should be preparing for something I have to do tomorrow, but blogging is much more fun, and I want to share my finished Bright Stripes blanket with you!  I took some photographs over the weekend but between boring round-to-it jobs I didn't get a chance to post anything.

(Those jobs were taking up voile curtains & attaching the ends of our curtain tracks to the wall; boring but necessary and now done)

I finished this in under a month and I'm so happy with how this has turned out, I hope our friends are too ♥

I didn't set out to use such blue tones but it just fell into being that way.  I had what I thought was a nice red but it was too dark.  I also used some pink but there wasn't any left to ball up and snap!

I've pretty much explained everything in my first (and only other) post about this blanket HERE

so you can read about the yarn I've used & where I got my inspiration from.

Hopefully you can see the differences in these two photos and why I chose not to turn the blanket after each row.  The front is much tighter looking than the back see?

But the problem with not turning is this!  See, try as I might the edge just went crazy!!  I don't think I did any favours but trying to increase at one end and decrease at the other....

But that's nothing a bit of stubborn blocking can't solve!  I pinned out the blanket onto my foam matts, drenched the bejesus out of it with a water sprayer, and then left a damp towel on top to dry. The result was more impressive than I could have imagined.  I've always used a steam iron method but have found what I'm blocking sometimes creeps back to it's old wonky ways.  I took this while still pinned admittedly, but it stayed straight afterwards

I just love the brightness, I really hope it's loved as much as I love it.  Shouldn't be so puffed up but I am.

Photographing this was really fun...



Moggy enjoyed it too!  They had a thing for sitting on it while it was all neatly laid out.

Of course we have the coined 'sausage roll' shots which are my favourites!  After all there's really only so many photos you can take of it laid out.  We've got to be inventive haven't we?

The border wasn't anything like I imagined as it happens.  I had plans to do a great huge chunky border but when I showed my friend she said it worked well being simple because of the height of each stripe.  I'm inclined to agree with her!  I just did two rounds; the first was clusters of two trebles for the sides and single trebles for the top and bottom, and a second round of single trebles all the way round.

Maybe now I can start to look at finishing my Rosie Elmer Squares blanket?!

x x x x

Bright Stripes

I'm really excited about this new project.  Our friends are having a baby soon so I've started a new blanket.  I'd planned to start in January anyway but I hadn't realised they're due a little sooner than I thought!  I didn't really have a design in mind and wanted some inspiration so I looked through my favourite blogs and hit upon Heather's pram blanket for Tiny Tin Bird on her blog Little Tin Bird, it's just lovely!

I headed into the City to buy the same Debbie Bliss colours she used, because why reinvent the wheel when I loved everything about it, but alas Abakhans don't stock it!  I'm not sure why I thought they did.

I tried to remember what shade each colour was and tried to substitute with Sirdar Snuggly DK. They didn't have a yellow I wanted in that range so the one I bought it from their Country Style range instead.  As it happens Heathers yellow was much paler but I quite like the brightness of the one I bought.  There also wasn't a green that I liked, although I found some Merino later in the sale section ♥

When I got started I decided the darker red, which I'd intended as a sort of pink to off balance all the blue, didn't work and the dark blue was too dark.  I found a tiny amount of some pink Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino, which isn't going to go very far but it might just help.



I started by chaining 100 using a 3.5mm (E) hook on Saturday, following Heathers method of not turning the work because I also like the "front" of the stitches.  It really hasn't taken long at all to get this far at all.  I hope it looks fairly neutral, although there's a lot of blue in there I'm hoping it's not too blue.

Now lets talk about not turning.  I already know from making my Muriel blanket that if you don't turn your work everything ends up leaning to one side (the right if you crochet from right to left), and that's exactly what Heather says happened with hers, although you couldn't tell once she'd added a border.

I thought I'd try and be clever and every so many rows I'd join the next colour slightly to the left and then increase at the end of the row, but it hasn't really helped.  After trialing a border on the stitches I have I'm not too worried because it really didn't look as bad, but I had to rip the border back because I'm no where near ready for that.  At least I know what I plan to do!

Not even sure what shape this is trying to be, and urgh to all those ends to sew...

As usual I had some assistance...  They really love this piece of cardboard!  For some reason it was left by the previous owners of our house but it's really handy for taking photos, but here you can see the reality of my livingroom; handbags on the floor, instruction manuals waiting for a home...  Real life stuff ♥

Time for another cup of tea before getting on with more stripes.  Have you started any new projects this year?

x x x x

Finished retrobaby blanket

Diz and Mogs thank you for their warm welcome into blogland ♥ Admittedly not much crochet or knitting is planned by either of them, but regular attempts to thwart mine will no doubt continue...

I finally finished knitting nephew #3's baby blanket and I really want to make another for me but it would have to be bigger and this one took forever so it's probably not going to happen, oh well.  Want to see?

Ta dah!!!!

The pattern didn't call for a border but I wanted one because I don't think they look quite finished without, do you know what I mean?

I crocheted a cream border and used the pattern from Attic 24 for ripples, although it hindsight I wish I'd knitted the first and last rows in cream because the crochet ripples weren't the same,

There is something really lovely about knitting which you don't quite get from crochet, and you know I LOVE garter stitch!

The pattern is called Rocky which I bought from Ravelry.  It's only a couple of good English pounds and once I got the hang of the pattern it was very easy and very satisfying, apart from the time I tried to change colour mid-row and nearly ruined the whole thing but dropping stitches and confusing myself a lot.

As usual I've used Stylecraft special DK, apart from the blue and orange but I think Spice would work and there's probably as similar blue, maybe Cornflower.  The others were Plum, Lavender, 'Meadow' Cream and Camel.

Happy crafting!

x x x x

Finished #2; seaside baby blanket!

I am on fire people!  Well, I maybe just have certain due dates to meet, but this is my second baby blanket finished this month, woo!

I managed to get my edges straight in the end but I still need to figure out the best way to do it.  If I counted I'm sure I'd be fine but I think it was something like 120-140 stitches, ain't no body got the patience for that...  Plus I normally watching something while I crochet.

My camera hasn't picked up the orange very well, it seems to treat it like red but it's definitely orange!

I opted for quite a simple border because I think it will suit my friends taste more than something a bit fancier, but there will be more blankets to have fun with.  It's a round of double crochet (single if you're in the US) then another round of half trebles in the same colour (Stylecraft Special DK Cloud Blue) and finally another round of half trebles in Aster.  The corners are 2 chains, a bit like a granny square.

Obligatory swiss roll shot

What I liked about this blanket the most was how quick it was!  I've used half treble stitches as they're taller than doubles, so it takes less time, but less 'crochety' looking than trebles...  I've no idea if that makes sense, but in my head it does, I think it makes each stripe more solid?  I don't think my friends are particular into crochet'd things but I'm hoping that for a baby blanket it's ok!

I've been enjoying knitting so much that I forgot how lovely it is to crochet.  My Muriel blanket (well received by the way) took a lot longer because it was only double stitches.

I spent a lovely weekend in Wales with friends, we even went to the beach and a waterfall!  There's something you don't get where I live.  Absolutely perfect ♥

x x x x