Crocheted Bag Commission

My brother has asked me to crochet a bag for my sister-in-law's birthday! I'm really chuffed by the request. He wants it to be the same as my own crocheted bag but different colours.

The yarn has been purchased. The only brand that had all the colours I needed was Cascade; their Ultra Pima cotton. The yarn came in this bag. Seven skeins in all.

The colours show up better when the skeins are out of the bag. They have very sensibly named the colours! So, from left to right, we have Van Dyke Brown, Brick, Deep Coral, Butterscotch, Ginger, Blood Orange and Sepia.

I'm really looking forward to crocheting the bag. First I have to wind the skeins which, fortunately, is another job I love. I can wind the skeins myself without any sort of help or tools; a skill I learnt from my mother many years ago. Actually, today would have been her eighty eighth birthday. Unfortunately, due to illness, she didn't quite reach her sixty seventh birthday.

Would you like to see another little lap blanket that I finished recently? I'm sure you would!

This one has already gone to a resident in the local nursing home who will, I hope, get plenty of snuggling with it. It is amazingly warm I found while making it!

The hexagon pattern was taken from one of the recent Simply Crochet magazines. I joined the hexes as I went along and worked out my own pattern for the half hexagons. It was made using acrylic yarn from my stash and took exactly 300g. When I was making it, I didn't like the way the flower petals curled but once it was finished and the ends sewn in I really liked the way it looked.

Thanks for all your comments that you very kindly leave. I'm looking forward to reading what you think about the cotton for the new bag and the wee lap blanket.

Shall We Dance?

Let me just say, right away, that I can't dance. I'm totally useless. But this isn't really about dancing as you'll see when you read on.

All you knitters and crocheters will know that it's inevitable that, no matter how hard you try, you eventually amass a bit of a yarn stash. In an attempt to use up some of my stash I decided to crochet a blanket. This was also something that I wanted to be able to work on in the car (as a passenger!) even when the journey was done during the hours of darkness. 

It had to be something simple so I settled on doing a Granny stripe. Since I was just using up scraps of yarn, although for some of the colours I had almost a full 100g ball, I didn't make the stripes any particular number of rows. In fact, some of the rows have a colour change at some point along it.

The crocheting was therapeutic. Row after row of three treble groups. I always counted; one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three ... My mind wandered and I thought how the counting was like the timing for a waltz. Then it wandered further; to one of my favourite musicals; The King and I. It has to be the one with Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr, of course. Then I was singing to myself 'Shall we Dance?' and the blanket was henceforth known as the 'Shall we Dance?' blanket. When I started crocheting it, I had no intention of giving it a name!

Right, I'd better stop talking about it and let you see it. This is it spread over the mattress on a double bed. It gives you an idea of the size.

This is slightly better colour though not quite the full size.

The rest of the photos were taken outside to try and get the colours to show up well. First, draped over the sweet pea frame.

Now spread out a bit over the sweet pea frame. I'm sure by this stage the neighbours were  well and truly convinced of my insanity.

Here's a close up of the border.

Spread over the summer seat.

Same again but from a different angle. Well, you know what it's like! You just keep taking photos.

Folded and sitting on the summer seat.

Then flipped over to show the other colours.

For something that was done just to use up left over yarn, and done mostly in the dark, I think it has turned out very well. In fact, I'm delighted with it. Really, really love it. Every time I catch a glimpse of it, it makes me smile.

The facts:

The blanket weighs 1.45 kg. That means it took fourteen and a half 100g balls. I actually had to buy six of those in order to have enough.

The yarn is mainly Stylecraft Special DK with some Robin DK so it is entirely made from acrylic yarn.

And look! This is all I had left. 

Let me hasten to add that this is not all that is left in my stash. It's all that is left of the yarn that was suitable for this blanket.

The blanket will soon be going to my son. That is who I crocheted it for because he wants to make his house more homely. He doesn't know yet that he's getting it; it will be a surprise. I hope he'll be pleased with it. After all, there's nothing more homely than a Granny striped blanket, is there?

Thanks for all the lovely comments you leave. Please let me know what you think of the blanket. Bye for now.

Simply Crochet-ed Socks Giveaway

Hello again. How are you all keeping? I hope you are all well. Thank you for your great comments that I have really enjoyed reading. I'd also like to welcome a few more followers.

Remember I crocheted the socks from Simply Crochet issue 26? I loved making them and I have loved wearing them. I made a pair for my sister too but that still hadn't got the sock making bug out of my system. Who could I crochet socks for? Who else would want a pair? Ah! I could crochet some socks for a giveaway. And that is what I did. I had some yarn left over from my own socks but I needed more. Not a problem as I just needed to visit my lovely local yarn shop. The problem was resisting buying lots of other yarn too!

Anyway, I set to crocheting three pairs of socks, one in each of the sizes given in the pattern.They are all done using the same colours but in different combinations. I tried to work out a way of knowing the size by the colour of the heels and toes. This is what I came up with:

• Strawberry red - small
• Mid brown - medium
• Lime green - large

Do you see what I did? S for strawberry and S for small. M for mid and M for medium (I know - not great but couldn't think of anything else!). L for lime and L for large. The yarn is roughly 50% wool and 50% acrylic. Most of the colours are Jarol Heritage and the rest are Stylecarft Luxury.

Would you like to see all the socks? Well here you are.

Small

Medium

Large

And here they are all together. A triumvirate of Simply Crochet-ed pairs of socks.

Now I mentioned a giveaway, didn't I? If you would like to win a pair of the socks then please leave a comment stating the size you'd like to win. Make sure you also leave a way for me to contact you should you be a winner. The names will be put in a hat and a winner drawn. Actually there will be three hats; a small socks hat, a medium socks hat and a large socks hat. So that means there will be three winners.

Here they are again in all their colourfulness.

By the way, here are the approximate measurements in case you aren't sure what size you would need. This is the length of the foot from heel to toe though they are quite stretchy.

• Small              8.5" or 21cm
• Medium          9"    or 22.5cm
• Large             9.5" or 24cm

The draw will be on Saturday the 28th of February 2015 so get commenting.

Woven Rug

The disappointment of my woven scarf  hasn't put me off using my peg loom. This small rug was finished recently and I'm really pleased with it. You'll probably have noticed that some of my recent photos have a snowy background. That's because I took lots of photos when I got the chance and it was nice and bright. The snow has gone again and we're back to our usual grey skies and rain.

The rug is made using the entire width of the loom; three feet wide. The warp took a ball and a half of Wendy Thor super chunky (42.5% wool 7.5% alpaca 50% acrylic). I used shade Baltic - a lovely turquoise. For the weft I used another ball and a half of the Thor super chunky, the ball of Harrris tweed I bought on holiday (near the bottom of the post) and several balls of Rowan pure wool DK. I had to use six strands of the Rowan pure wool wound together to make it as thick as the Thor super chunky. 

I made the weft rows as close as I possibly could so the rug is firm and thick. Not good for a scarf but excellent for a small hearth rug. The weaving swallowed up vast quantities of yarn that wasn't at all cheap. In the end, I spent more than £40 on the materials! But I love it.

I'm now trying to think where else needs a rug!

Bye for now and thanks for all your comments. I look forward to seeing them.

Armchair Cushion

Remember the armchair throw? Judging by your lovely comments you all seemed to really like it. You also seemed to like the armchair too so I'll tell you the story!

First of all, have a look at the cushion I made to match the throw.

It's made using Granny squares in each of the colours used for the throw (Stylecraft Special DK in Claret, Burgundy, Petrol and Mocha). Back and front are the same. I made the cushion filler using an old t-shirt belonging to the husband. He never liked it nor wore it so now it has a new life!

Here are the throw and cushion together on the armchair.

Now the armchair story. We got this, another the same and a leather sofa from Next about this time last year. Our old leather suite had seen much better days and had to go. Actually, calling it a leather suite was a bit of a liberty. It was bonded leather. Something I didn't know anything about until our suite started to shed the very thin layer of leather it was covered in. It looked really awful. I covered it with a tartan quilt for a while but eventually we could bear it no longer.

Our son was living in a rented house in which the landlord had left a suite that was arguably worse than ours. So son contacted landlord and agreed that the leather suite could come to live in his rented house. We hitched up the trailer and delivered the leather suite, where it lived happily until the landlord happened to call one day a few months later. He thought it looked so bad that he got it removed and supplied another suite which, although it certainly isn't new, is a lot better than either of the other two suites!

Would you like to meet Priscilla? Priscilla is the beautiful pink rabbit I won in Suzy's giveaway. She arrived a few days ago with a card from Suzy and a little bag of tiny hearts.

Thank you so much Suzy; I don't know how you could bring yourself to part with this gorgeous bunny!

Isn't she just the cutest rabbit you've ever seen?

Welcome to my new followers and thanks for all the comments you leave. All the best for now.

Snowy Days

Welcome back; it's lovely to have you visiting again. When I tried to do this post a few days ago, I couldn't load my photos because of a server error. I've no idea what caused it or how to fix it. Thankfully I have a new iMac, just set up today, and I'm able to load my photos without any problem.

On Friday last the husband was off for the day; I'm always off on Fridays. We were going to take the trailer and get loaded up with wood blocks but we woke to a white world. We decided that discretion was the better part of valour and didn't try taking the car out with the trailer attached.

We leave plenty of food for the wild birds and they really needed it. The feeders are next to our beehives.

 I couldn't resist taking some photos as it looked really lovely.

 All of a sudden the snow started falling again. It was beautiful to watch though it made everything look like the world was in black and white instead of colour.

The poor wee birds. They still had to come looking for food even though it was snowing.

These two daffodils are the only two in the garden that are blooming!

Now it just so happens that on Thursday last week (the day before it snowed), I saw a pattern for crocheted socks in the Simply Crochet magazine. And, I saw where Daisy had actually crocheted said socks. In fact, she has since crocheted another pair for her mother. Well, when I saw the snow I knew what I simply had to do; crochet a pair of cosy socks for myself. I couldn't start right away as we braved the elements and went out for coffee. It was actually Friday evening before I could finally get out some yarn, my hooks and the pattern and get started. I thought it would be a good idea to work the two socks together. So make the toe for the first sock, make the toe for the second sock, work the first stripe of the first sock, work the first stripe of the second sock and so on. Things went really well until I had done the number of rows stated in the pattern before I was supposed to turn the heel. I have long, narrow feet which necessitated me having to work an extra five rows before the foot section was long enough! That held me back!! I crocheted like someone possessed as I really wanted to get them finished before going to bed. Anyway, I turned the heel on both socks and crocheted the number of rows that were supposed to be completed before the rib top. Again this was too short for me and I needed an extra three rows. Too late though for Friday night and I had to leave them to finish on Saturday.

The snow was still about on Saturday as there were some more snow showers overnight. It was a beautiful day so, after being out in the morning, I spent the afternoon in the kitchen. I made more blackcurrant cordial and a batch of cranberry sauce. We had some with Sunday lunch and it was delicious.

Then I also baked apple and blackberry tart using fruit from our garden. This is the first tart ...

... and this is the second.

Side by side!

These were also delicious even though I say so myself!

What about my socks? I got them finished on Saturday evening and took some photos on Sunday morning.

The socks are very cosy and I just love looking at them. They make me laugh every time I see them. I'm hoping you'll let me know what you think of them.

I'm just so excited to be able to get back to my blogging with this new iMac. It's taking a bit of getting used to but I'm picking it up pretty quickly.

Something else exciting happened. I won a giveaway! And my prize arrived today. It is a beautiful pink rabbit that Suzy very kindly sent me. You can see the rabbit here but I will also be taking photos of it and letting you see how lovely it is.

That's all for now. Thank you for all your comments and a welcome to new followers. I hope you are managing to keep warm wherever you are and hopefully not too warm.