WIP Weds: Lord Of The Rings

I have been pondering making a Lord Of The Rings themed 'something' for a while now. Initially I was planning on a crocheted Gandalf but then I learned about foundation piecing at the quilting class I go to. It was then that I stumbled on these patterns at Fandom In Stitches. Now I'm not sure I have the patience to make an entire quilt and I wouldn't really know how I could display it if I ever finished it so I decided to make something smaller; a wall hanging. This also allowed me to choose the blocks I wanted.

At the moment the plan is to make "The Precious", "Gandalf", "Helm's Deep" and "Smaug". I did count up the pieces in Smaug and there's 94 so I may change my mind!

When I printed them out they came out at 6 1/2 inches finished rather than the 7" but as size doesn't really matter where wall hangings are concerned I decided to make them that size.

Here's the first one which I managed to make while sorting today's roast dinner!

"The Precious"

WIP Weds: Wreaths & Other Xmas Decorations

It's definitely feeling a lot closer to Christmas now. We have family visiting for the next 3 weekends. I'm making a start on more Christmas decorations but, as ever, my head is full of things I want to make that I just don't have time to do! I'm trying to be realistic with the time I have.

So, first up I whizzed this jar cozy up yesterday afternoon. I'm planning on adding some extra detail to it, perhaps a little wreath. I was going to do a wreath by crocheting around a circular curtain ring but I can't find where I've put them so may have to come up with an alternative idea.

I also grabbed a bunch of scraps and made up an Attic24 Bauble Decoration. Mine are a little different because I didn't have any beads with a big enough hole and I decided not to add the buttons as I wasn't adding the beads.

I made a second one later that evening while Alan put the kids to bed. It really is a quick make and a good way to use up scraps.

I'm not sure why but this year I have a bit of a thing for wreaths. We don't really have a very good door for wreath hanging so I'm going for indoor wreaths! These little squares are going to be used to make the gorgeous Ragtime Christmas Wreath on the (fantastic!) RosMadeMe blog.

I have a fair bit more cutting out to do and I can't put it together yet as the shop I was going to get the polystyrene ring from was out of stock until later this week. Fingers crossed they'll have some on Thursday.

In the meantime I started a crocheted wreath. This is done over a 17cm full polystyrene ring using the method Lucy described here in her May Rose Wreath Ta-dah! I haven't decided yet what I'm going to decorate it with. I'm currently thinking a few flowers grouped together on the edge and a bird hanging inside. I do have memories of sewing a hanging bird decoration last year and it was incredibly fiddly, so I may change my mind!

This is done in Stylecraft Special DK in the following colours:
Aspen
Clematis
Spring Green
Sherbert
Aster
Wisteria


Joining in with Tami's Amis. Check out lots more WIP posts!

WIP Weds: Yarn FAIL

When I first started making granny squares with my leftover Stylecraft Special I hadn't quite decided what I was going to do with them. Then I decided I'd edge them all with white and join them. The original plan was to make two blankets from the leftovers so I only bought one ball of white to see how it looked. Anyway, I changed my mind about doing two blankets from them as I found I didn't have enough bright, colourful leftovers to give a reasonable balance in both blankets. I decided on a granny stripe for the other as my Aunty's Xmas present had worked up pretty quickly and thought that by alternating every colour with white it would tie in a bit with the granny square blanket (the kids share a room). This meant I used up the white much quicker than expected, so I picked up another ball on Saturday. Well, I did in fact use that one up by Sunday evening. So I picked up another ball while at sewing class on Monday evening thinking it would be enough to finish the granny square blanket and then I could do a batch order for the granny stripe as I'm going to need some of the other colours too.

It wasn't enough. I've run out on the final horizontal join and still have the vertical joins to do. So here it is after I ran out a little after midnight - I was trying to get the squares joined so that I didn't end up joining them in the wrong place!

I might head over to Knit & Natter on Friday and pick up another ball of white while I'm there, though I should be revising really.

Until then I shall have to get on with sewing instead. I have plenty of sewing projects on the go and first up is a Halloween project I started last year. Not a lot left to do on it but it's the fiddly bits that are left.

I've gone round most of the edges and mainly have the features to add (eyes & hair). Hopefully I'll have it finished before this Halloween!!!

More WIP post at Tami's blog and at Frontier Dreams.

WIP Weds: Blankets...yes, more blankets!

On Monday I managed to finish the Mario coaster, so I'll show you all that on Friday.

The two blankets for the kids have gone on hold for a short while as I received my generously donated yarn on Friday (well, it went to the sorting office and I collected it on Friday in the rain!). I crochet for the MNWoollyHugs project and recently offered to crochet for their Little Hugs project, which is basically little blankets that get sent to a hospital for seriously ill children to use.

So here are two WIP blankets for them

In the background is a large granny square blanket. I turned the work after each round to avoid getting a wonky centre. It's pretty much finished - just those pesky ends to sew in. The second is just a basic blanket using US dc. I didn't really count the starting chain but I think there's just under 80 stitches. I'm just hoping I don't run out of yarn on this one. The good thing with this blanket though is that I can cover my ends as I go!

For more WIP posts check out Tami's blog.

WIP Weds: More Granny Squares and More Mario

This might be the post that proves I'm mad! Having just finished making 252 granny squares for the mario blanket, I've started more granny squares for another blanket. Luckily I only need 84 this time and I've done the main section of them all (4 rounds in one colour). I'm planning to add a final round of white to each one and then join them using single crochet. It's been a bit of a stash-busting project, using up lots of leftovers and basically tidying up my yarn stash.

What's that on top of those granny squares? Well that's a granny stripe blanket in progress! The plan for these two blankets is that there will be one for each of the kids for Christmas.

On top of those two blankets I'm waiting on some yarn and fabric for some charity blankets I've offered to make. They'll be fairly quick I hope because they don't need to be very big. More on that next week perhaps.

Onto the next Christmas present...

My husband really liked the mario blanket and mentioned he'd quite like a Mario coaster for work. So I used the pattern to do a cross-stitch mario (basically I did a block of 4 stitches for each 'granny square' on the pattern). It's still in progress because I had no flesh colour thread so will be buying some tomorrow to finish it off and then needs to turn it into a coaster but here it is so far:

For more WIP projects check out Tami's blog

WIP Weds: Mario continues....

I'd love to say I am now relaxing because I finished all 252 granny squares needed for the mario blanket yesterday morning but unfortunatley there were lots of ends to sew in. OTOH I took a load of the squares to sewing group on Monday evening and worked on them there, which gave me the kick start I needed. I managed to get all the ends sewn in yesterday before having to pick Erin up from school.

The kids then sat and watched a film as we were having tea late (friend was visiting) so I started putting the squares together.

There are so many ways of joining granny squares but the one I use most often is to hold the squares right sides together and then slip stitch in the closest and furthest loops (i.e. the back loops only). I like this one as I can do it with my hook and it gives a neat finish to the front.

I considered the join as you go method but decided it wouldn't look quite right for a pixelated picture. I tend to stick to using join as you go for joining squares that have the same colour for the outer round as then the 'join' isn't very noticable.

I tend not to sew together at all. I find this a little strange because I sew & quilt as well as crochet. I think it's perhaps because it is so different to sewing fabric.

Anyway, the first 4 rows are done (that's 56 squares joined)

Please excuse the mess!

There's another 14 rows to go, then I need to go down all the vertical lines so still quite a lot of work. I'm then going to put a couple of rounds of black as a border.

For more WIP Weds posts check out:
Tami's Amis
Ambassador Crochet

WIP Weds: Yes, it's another blanket!

Hello, my name is Hazel and I'm a blanket-holic. I feel like I'm making loads of blankets and quilts. This one is a little bit of a love/hate project. It's incredibly dull making so many granny squares (252) in so few colours (5 colours in total and the yellow is only used for two squares!). I started it just over 8 days ago and I'm up to 130 squares. Pretty impressive for me, especially as I had an assignment due today!

130 granny squares

I have to admit I'm not loving crocheting the brown. I thoguht I would get very bored with the blue but I actually didn't. There seemed to be a 'milestone' to aim for and everytime I hit one, another wasn't far away so it was easy to keep going. The brown though is another story, so I might break it up and do a bunch of reds after I finish my current ball.

Wondering what it is? Well, it's going to be this Mario Blanket by RussMcAllister.

And I couldn't finish this post without mentioning that Orla had a settling in session at nursery today for 1 hour. She insisted on wearing her uniform, which is a little long on her!

For more WIP Weds news see Tami's Amis.