Crocheted cosiness

I am not able to churn projects at the pace I am posting them, but  I have some backlog from the last year. This week I have actually finished two commissions, which I will show you later. I have been hopping out of my bed and skipping to my workroom as soon as my housework has been done.

Here is a project I finished a long time ago, but forgot to show you. I got into crocheting by reading the fantastically colourful blog attic24. Lucy is a real gem; very creative and generous. Her blog has a sidebar full of crochet tutorials, many of them really beginner friendly in that she photographs the different stages of making and points out where to put your hook etc.

This is the granny stripe blanket from her sidebar. I did the edging from my own head, as I had gained some unwarranted self-belief in my crocheting skills. It is essentially just triple stitches, just like the blanket. The only adjustment was that on the long side I only used two of them in each space between the clusters. I had to unravel it a few times to get it right. Looking at the pictures you see that the edge is wavy because it still has too many stitches. I should have thrown in few places with only one stitch.

I like the white framing it brings lightness to the blanket. I was not too sure about my skills and whether I could actually take this project to its end, so chose reasonably priced (read not 100% wool) yarn. Lucy had mentioned the Stylecraft yarn on her blog and I decided to try it. It is nice enough, not as sumptuous as a full merino wool yarn, but hey, certainly nice and snugly. (And the price is not quite as painful).

It took me four months to make it. Mostly sitting and "watching" telly or at the swimming pool when Elf son was still having lessons. But it was addicting pastime too. Just this one row...you know. I loved the ease of making it; there is no sewing it together afterwards, all the ends were tidied as I went along and it was very easy to crochet.

I finished off the blanket with small pompoms. Now if you have children around a word of warning; they absolutely love the blankets and will put their fingers through it. There is no harm in that. But the pompoms, the pompoms. Dear me, it is very difficult not to pull and tuck in them. They were made with the clover pompom maker and secured very well onto the blanket in my mind. Nevertheless, I have done some maintenance today in this part of the blanket replacing many pompoms. Now that the blanket is not a new one, we have actually not had these incidents of pompom murders for a good while.

The blanket resides on our bed, the quilt is one of the things I still have to show to you.

Here are the stats to help you if you should wish to make one too:

166cm X 136cm
Weighs 1277gr
441 stitches on the foundation chain.

Stylecraft Life Dk yarn in seven colours: White, Zing, Clover, Cardinal, Fern, Fuchsia and Cobalt.
4 months in making at a leisurely pace
Great to snuggle under!

A Bag and a Loose End

   Have a Happy New Year, Dear Readers! 

 Wishing You a Creative 2011 with my last post for 2010

Love from Mama Elf

After the Christmas there was delicious time to use to sew. The countless projects in my mind were all put in an imaginary pot and one was drawn from there as a winner. Make a bag for myself! I had planned this since August, when I visited Marimekko factory outlet during their big summer sales and acquired some materials. I wanted to replace my old Marimekko shoulder bag by something more colourful. As I wanted the bag be rather sturdy, I chose to buy canvas from IKEA for the lining. First I could not get the lining and then the publishing date of Lisa Lam's book "Bag Making Bible" was delayed. I did not plan with the book from the beginning, but saw some pre-reviews and thought that it would be stupid not to wait. And then came Christmas.

I was debating with myself whether to adjust the pattern slightly, make it just a smidgen smaller..but then I thought: for once woman, just do as it says in the book. Follow the instructions and learn. So that is what I did, largely...
I did go with the instructions and I have chosen a white lining, as I am tired of losing things in dark bags. Whether it will look awfully grubby in no time is another question. This is how the bag looks inside. I took the picture during the construction to give you a better idea:

I added the little pocket above the pencil pocket. The owl fabric has been in my draw for a while and I had used some of the fat quarter, so the remains were used very carefully. The pattern included the pocket with zip, but letting the lining encircle the zip was my own idea. I thought it looked really cute and I also added that pull with an owl for the zip.

The other side was meant to have a laptop harness, but I seldom lug my laptop around, so I did not bother. I made a big pocket/divider there instead.

This is my first homemade bag ever to have this much metal hardware on it, adjustable strap and square d- rings for the strap

the twist turn locks on the flap

I am proud of my top stitching here. It was made with special top stitch thread and needle. You probably have known about this for yonks, but I have first recently found out about the possibility to buy this product to re-produce something akin jeans top stitching. I was kicking myself that I did not notice to lengthen the stitch when top stitching the shoulder strap. As you might know I love my sewing machine and one of its lovely features is that it can make up to 6mm long stitches.

In the end I was well pleased with another NEAT product from the hodge-podge seamstress.

The loose end I had was that I showed in last January the beginnings of a crotchet bag. It was finished and this is how it looks:

It's mostly used to house my yarns, but gets an outing once in a while in the summer.

Crochet Madness

I purchased a couple of crochet hooks and am now officially hooked. I blame Lucy from Attic24. I just had to try after seeing all her lovely crochet. I learnt to crochet as a child, but cannot remember doing it since age 10. So...we were in for long shots here. I could miraculously dig up chaining and single stitches from my muscle memory. They sort of flowed automatically, if you know what I mean. Beyond that, thank heavens for utube. It didn't take long to get the movements back and now I am thoroughly enjoying it.
To start with I just did some boring samples on stitches. Then I tried "granny squares" just to see if I could actually produce something. This is when the above pictured flower also was made. It was easy with Lucy's really clear instructions. (If you want to try, go onto her blog and all the patterns are in the sidebar, brilliant). I made the flower to a pin and put in on the lapel of my wintercoat.  I still hadn't quite made up my mind what to do as my first "big" project, so I decided to try the crocheted birds. And this bird was made

I have two of them as unfinished projects lying in my yarn basket. They will be completed, but just now time and efforts, besides having the horrible cold, are used for this one

This is going to be my summer bag. I am so proud of noticing that I had made the bottom far too big and had the guts actually go back and unravel it to a more appropriate size. I unravelled more than a skein of cotton, so there was quite a lot of work going down the drain...
I am using Lucy's pattern, but have modified it, so if you make it from her pattern, it won't look like mine, not exactly. I think that my bag is going to look quite different on the whole, so watch this space.

I hope you have avoided the seasonal sniffles...See you soon!