Category Archives: Crochet

Sweet pea blanket finished!

Finally!  I have finished my sweat pea blanket and I did try to finish it in time to enter into my local flower show craft section, but, I am afraid my fingers were just too sore to keep the tension in the yarn so my border went a bit wavy.  Although this one was not good enough to enter, I entered my Cosy autumn coloured stripe blanket instead.  Woo-hoo, it got first place in the crochet and knitted section.  So that, along with my paintings and a photograph of snails on a wall, got me the Handicraft trophy.  I won’t be attempting any more large blankets but I may do some smaller Granny blankets instead as they are a bit easier and won’t take quite so long to accomplish.  I will now be getting my paints out again – maybe I will just play about with art journalling to get me in that mindset and playing with pens and paints before they all dry up.

crochet sweet pea blanket

Sweetpea blanket in progress.

Sweetpea CAL blanket posy version.

I was so looking forward to crocheting this gorgeous blanket but I’m afraid it is going to take me a long time. My arthritic hands are so sore that I can only crochet in small doses. I will keep going but it may take me months rather than weeks. It is the crochet along with Attic24’s posy version that I a doing. My painting hasn’t exactly been happening either as I keep having other things to do and my craft room isn’t particularly warm. I just need a few more degrees to comfortable without having to use my heaters. I just can’t do anything when my hands are cold. Enough moaning…off to make some soup.

Lapghan and Moorland blanket.

I have been trying to use up some of my old stash of yarn from previous blankets, and wanted a small blanket for my lap to use on chilly days while I am in  my craft room, so here is my lapghan.  I have used some of my stash from my Cosy stripe blanket and followed Sarah-Jayne’s video on how to crochet a rectangle.  Then I just used tr clusters for the rest of the lapghan and added a small border.

The Moorland blanket (neat wave) is from Lucy’s crochet-a-long (CAL) tutorial last year but I forgot to take pictures and add it to my blog so here it is.  Now hubby can have the Moorland blanket, and I can have my Cosy stripe blanket while watching TV, and I have my lapghan for my craft room.  I have a small Granny blanket upstairs and my auntie’s old lap blanket for the car.

I do have another crochet project that I want to crack on with, in front of the fire, once the weather gets chillier.

Crochet bower birds

bowerBirds

Here are a few of my little Bower birds stuffed with lavender.  You can find the tutorial at Attic24 where Lucy also makes the bower for her birds to sit on.  A couple of these have flown to new homes already so I might make a few more.

Cosy crochet stripe blanket

cosyBlanket

I just love the muted bright colours in this blanket.  I can’t tell you how many times I ripped it back when I found I had made mistakes but I finally got there in the end and just before we had that nasty cold weather.  Lucy over at Attic24 has a fab tutorial on how to make this lovely blanket with lots of pictures.  I think I have now got the crochet bug so I will do small projects often to make sure I don’t forget what I have learned.

Granny blanket

GrannySquares

1stGrannyBlanket

 

My first attempt at a Granny blanket.  Many years ago my auntie Lena gave me a small Granny blanket which had become so well used that it was rather tatty and full of hole so I thought at first I could maybe mend it but it a lot of the threads were almost bare so I sought out a pattern that looked fairly easy and gave it a go.   I actually started it a few years ago but gave up because crocheting hurt my shoulder and I just couldn’t get to grips with it at all.  But I still had all the wool just lying in a bag so I gave it another go and this time I cracked it.  I made the squares using the tutorial on lovely Lucy’s blog over at Attic24 then added a wide border. The problem with leaving a project for a couple of years is that when you run out of your favourite shade of wool you find that the makers have either discontinued that colour or you get a different dye lot and the shades don’t quite match-up.  I also found that if I kept my right elbow touching the top of my wheelchair tyre then I am less prone to lifting my shoulder up therefore I got less pain.  I liked it so much that I went on to make a bigger cosy blanket again using one of Lucy’s tutorials.