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.
Category Archives: Crochet
Sweetpea blanket in progress.
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.
Remembrance Sunday
Crochet bower birds
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
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
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.