Things I learned over a few years crocheting

A few years ago I finally worked out how to crochet. These granny stripe blankets were all the rage at the time. Me bring me I jumped right in and decided to use up my odds and ends I had and do a single bed size blanket. Did I manage it? Nope! But I did learn so much as I went along. 

1. Not all yarn weights are the same over different brands or even colours 
2. Starting smaller wouldn’t of had me looking guiltily at this project every time I saw it
3. That pretty yarn with the sparkly lurex thread is a pain to rip out and gets caught up and breaks if I’m not fully paying attention
4. My ability to count to 3 is not as good as I thought it was. I have a few 2’s and 4’s in groups instead of a group if 3 here and there
5. The randomness of the colours look a lot better than I thought they would 
6. My granddaughter seems to think every time she sees me working on something that it’s for her :-)
7. Working on a project this big sucks big chunks of time. When I craft I tend to watch a series or listen to audiobooks. I’ve watched and listened to a lot while working on this 
8. Keep a looser tension when doing the foundation chain or it will curve and not be as long as you need it to be
9. Weave your ends in as you go. The pile below is what I weaved in today

                

10. I’ve loved every minute 

I may add a border later to even put my wonky edges. This blanket is a perfect size for snuggling up on the sofa with. I’m so glad a persevered and kept going. Even though I’ve improved my crochet and am more advanced I wanted to finish this and display it proudly on the back of a sofa ready for the cold evenings to snuggle under. 

What have you learned lately. 

Crocheting in the new year

Last night was a quiet one for me. Just me the tv and an idea for crochet. Earwarmers for the granddaughters with the yarn leftover from one of their hugs I made them. Such a simple rectangle sewn up to create the twist at the top. 

I think from their faces and his long they wore them indoors they adored them  

Keeping up with my bad photos reputation here’s the first one I made and laid flat.

New year's resolutions are not being made this year. Apart from putting less pressure on myself and try to live a simpler life. Let's see how far this works for.

Crochet hair scrunchy

I sneezed and my world went out, ok maybe just my back did. With not being able to move much and being under the influence of painkillers I only took on a small project today. 

Crochet hair scrunchy. 

The pale silver gray wool certainly brings out my silver highlights doesn’t it *coughs* 

I have a few balls of this gray sparkly yarn and didn’t know what to do with it as it feels scratchy against the skin and I didn’t want to make anything that would have anyone scratching a lot when they used it. 

It’s big and bulky so I grabbed a 6 mm crochet hook and a hair elastic and did 2 rounds. 

Round 1, create a slip knot then single crochet around the hair elastic until it’s fully encased and full enough that the elastic doesn’t show through to much when you stretch it. Slip stitch into first stitch. 

Round 2, chain 3 and put 2 double crochets in first stitch then 3 double crochet in rest of stitches. Slip stitch into top of chain 3 and sew in ends

And tada 

You could probably use any yarn for this adjusting the hook size to suit the yarn of course. In a thinner yarn maybe do another round or two. 

It may not be much but I did at least achieve this today.

Music on t-shirt and crochet

My youngest is obsessed with music.  Like most teens, a lot of music resonates with him. He also uses it as an escape when the world around him becomes too much and he needs to control the noise around him.  Often in stressful situations, his headphones will appear and he will use his music to relax and cope with the situation. 

So when I saw this design on Designbundles.com by Caty Catherine I had to make it up for my 16-year-old on a t-shirt for him. He loves it and said it was perfect for him. Hopefully, this will get a lot of wear out of it.

The red vinyl is a true red and not orange like the picture shows, it seems that despite having the darkest and coldest few days the sun decided it had to come and appear in this picture skewing up my colours. Such as life, was good to see some sunshine through the clouds at least

Keeping up with the using what I have on hand to craft with I came across a few hair elastics and decided to crochet around it with a small amount of cotton yarn. It's simply made with closely double crocheting all around the elastic. I have an urge to get hold of some velvety soft yarn now to do this in.  For the amount I need it's not worth buying a ball for it though. 

Wearing this one today and so far it's holding my air better than the elastic alone would and isn't pulling on my hair so I'm happy with it and may make a few more.  Having very thick and full hair it can take quite a bit to find something to hold it back or up and out the way. 

Having not been feeling to brilliant the past couple of days I've spent a little time doing a little crafting and resting.  Seems to be working, I've enjoyed the downtime but think I am ready to rejoin the land of the living and venture outside tomorrow. Meanwhile, I have to decide if unicorns or a flamingo is to keep me busy tonight!

Crochet and cricut

 Well two shower puff thingys made. I swear I have more of this cotton yarn somewhere in a blue colour, and black, but no idea where it’s been safely stashed. When I find it though I think wash cloths or some more of these will be made up. I’ve made a grand total of 3 of these altogether having made the first one a while ago. It’s a very easy addictive make. Very forgivable to if you lose count now and then.  

One was made on a 4 Mm hook and the other on a 5.5mm hook. Obviously the 4 Mm one is more condensed but until they’ve been used I’m not sure which one I will prefer. 

T-shirt wise I pressed the htv onto a black shirt for kiddo today. Am still chuckling over it. After knocking up my own Mercury symbol a lovely person let me know there are periodic symbols within Cricut Design Space! Could of grabbed one free as I’m on a months free access to there at the moment. Lesson learned though. Check the resources to hand to make life a little easier maybe. 

Kiddo is happy with this and I’m pretty sure he will be wearing this tomorrow for me to get a better picture in the daytime and on. 

Lovely daytime spent with my granddaughters today. They are off on holiday next week so this is the last day I get to spend in person with them for a bit. We ended up gluing sparkles, drawing and painting things today. A truly crafty day was had by all. 

Half term has flown by so fast, not sure how it’s got to Friday already but there you go. Relaxing weekend needed before Monday rolls around I think. 

Bubbles, yarn and vinyl

The plan of working from my list of eight things is falling by the wayside a little. However, I am still using what I have and am being productive. 

Last night I started watching things on Netflix and decided to look through my yarn as fancied crocheting something. Came across this lovely dark pink cotton. Yet again another one of my shower poufs/loofah/scrubby things has fallen to bits leaving me with a long length of net so I decided to crochet up a cotton one that won’t unravel and won’t end up clogging up a landfill or being harmful to wildlife 

It’s coming along well. I’m a slow crocheter so I will carry on and finish this one tonight hopefully and if there’s enough yarn I will make another one up for someone else maybe. 

My younger son has a few jokey periodic table t shirts. So when I saw something similar to this on a mug I decided a shirt must be made and he was up for it. So this evening I designed this in Cricut design space and cut out the HTV vinyl, with my Cricut, ready to press onto the shirt tomorrow. I hope Freddie Mercury would approve ;-) 

Spent some time in the garden with kids and bubbles earlier on. Loving the colours in the garden and the enthusiasm everyone has for bubbles whatever age they are. 

Really has been a fairly busy fun day. Looking forward to seeing what fun tomorrow holds being the half term but might need a rest on Saturday. 

Netflix and crochet

For years I have tried to get a grip on crochet.  I can do stitches no problem, then when it comes to putting them together in some fashion it just makes no sense to me. While we were in Great Yarmouth we found Woolcraft cakes in a craft shop, 200g of aran weight yarn. Decided to buy 2 and try again.  already had a crochet hook in my project bag I have for my knitting etc.

I have had this idea I wanted to do a corner to corner blanket/throw for the sofa. Someone suggested looking up Bella Coco on YouTube and it all made sense for once, I have watched this before though, so I spent a few hours getting this far while watching Netflix.

And it kept going pretty well.  This colour scheme isn't my usual kind of taste but the colours made me think of summer holidays so went with it.

After I got home I realised that the 2 balls alone were not going to make this big enough so ordered another 2 balls. Where I am now is one more row short of starting to decrease so halfway. 

I laid my work down to take a photo so of course I caught a cats attention.  I wonder if Bobbie thinks this is for her?

I tried to move her but i just got meowed at. So here you have a 14 month old kitty for size reference. It's not perfect by any means but I am loving the process and how it looks.

For now I will keep at this while I watch Netflix and will share again when I am finished.

Take care

Jules