For Wills and Kate

In my head I am a republican but in my heart I am a monarchist.  :-)  Especially when there is a royal wedding on the way.  I am a sucker for all things grand and royal, especially when they involve handsome princes and beautiful soon-to-be princesses.

I remember when Prince William was born - I was about 8 years old at the time - and there was (almost) as much fuss and excitement here in Oz as there was in the UK.  I remember thinking that I might be a little bit old for him, but, still, I could marry him one day.  It was possible.  :-)

Well, now, 29 years on, it turns out that it was not to be for me and Will.  But he did, indeed, choose a "common" girl*, and a lovely one at that.  And another Catherine, to boot!  (See, it really could have been me!)  I thoroughly approve, Will.  (I'm sure he's pleased to know that.)

And the fact that Kate is an ordinary girl, that it could have been you or me, makes the royal wedding seem all the more exciting to me.  A little bit of fairytale fantasy still (oddly!) exists in this very practical, modern world.

So my romantic, monarchist leanings got the better or me and I was even taken over by some granny goodness (Michelle must be having an influence on me!) and I have started creating this cushion cover.  The pattern was cleverly created by Michelle over at the Royal Sisters and can be purchased at her shop.  I actually won my copy of the pattern in one of Michelle's wonderful give-aways and now is the perfect time to pull it out and give it a go.

The pattern is created using tapestry crochet, where you work with multiple colours at once, crocheting over the colours you don't need (so they are hidden behind the work) and then changing over to the next colour that you want as you go.  This means there are very few ends to weave in, but the balls of wool can get a little twisted as you go along!

It is a great pattern and Michelle has explained everything clearly and in meticulous detail, so it is not at all difficult to follow.

I plan to finish my cushion cover while watching the live coverage of the wedding on Friday night (my local time).  I will be camped out in front of the telly with crochet, wine, and nibbles, and will be soaking up every grand, historic moment while hooking away.

So, do you think my finished cushion will look good on Wills and Kate's sofa?  Anyone know exactly what address I should send it to?  I want to make sure they get it.  I'm sure they would love it and I must be the only person who has thought to send them such a thing.  ;-)

Happy Royal Wedding, everyone!
Caz :)

*common girl - being a girl whose family could afford to send her to posh schools and universities.  But common, all the same.  :-)

Cushion Confusion

I know, no-one should be confused by a cushion, should they?

I thought it would all be rather simple.

But I'm having a devil-of-a-time trying to sew up this thing! Well, not sew it up, per se, but:
a) work out how big to make it! You want it to be firm and snug - not floppy and ripply - but it also has to actually fit over the insert
and
b) get both sides the same size!

Problem "b" is proving quite difficult because the front and the back are quite different. The front is made up of granny squares... here it is... I mentioned it in another post, here.


And the back is (mostly) a solid granny... it's the one that I made from the Charity Daisy that I wrote about here.


I know I should have blocked them. It would have made everything clearer. But I thought - since it would all be stretching over a pillow eventually, anyway - that I could get away without doing it.

So I just tugged and pulled at them a bit, lay them flat on top of each other... thought to myself: yeah, that looks about right...

And then I started sewing them up... and this happened:


Whoops.

Hmmm.... so... back to enlarging the daisy side.

And then we can try again.

I'll let you know how I get on.

Caz :)

P.S. I still don't know how to solve problem "a". I'm just hoping it will somehow magically be the perfect fit?

P.P.S. Can any more experienced, wiser crochet-ers help me out with any of this?? Would love to hear from you if you have any advice (or even if you don't - comments are always welcome :-) !).

Cushion Creation

Thanks to everyone who responded to my last post about my Christmas bunting. I'm so pleased that you all like it, and it is clear from the comments I received that there are people out there who would, indeed, like me to write up the pattern I kind-of invented.

Well, I said if you wanted me to do it, that I would. So I will. (Did that make sense?) :-)

I am happy (but a little surprised) that I have made something that others are so interested in that they might want to try it for themselves. That's really cool, actually, now that I think about it. Awesome! I'm very happy to share, so I will.

I just have to get around to typing it up. That pesky Paid Work is getting in the way of Life again, but I will have a go at the pattern this weekend. I've never written down a pattern before - I'm sure I can manage it - but I suspect it will take a bit of time.

So, bear with me, if you can?

In the meantime, I have another project I'd like to share with you, if you'd like to see?

Some time ago (before I went on my bunting frenzy!) I wrote about a Charity Daisy pattern that I was using for a cushion cover.

Well, here it is again:


And, while on holidays, I also made the other side for this cushion:

Pretty, hey?

This side is made using a groovy flower pattern from the talented Elizabeth Cat.

The pattern is not on her blog (but please check out her blog anyway - it's very beautiful and interesting!). The pattern is instead written in the comments under a picture on Flickr.

This picture, actually. Click here to go to the pic and read the pattern.

My Andy Warhol Cushion, originally uploaded by Elizabeth Cat.

Now the pattern is a little confusing - at least for a beginner like me. I also found it quite fiddly and it took me a few goes to work it out. I think I've got it right, now, but I'm still not entirely sure!

This is what my version looks like:

After the flower is made, a granny square is wrapped around it. Now, some of you may know that I've not always been a fan of the granny square (as I wrote about here), but I must say they are growing on me, especially ones that are a little bit different and interesting - like this one.

I looked at a lot of different ways to join squares before deciding on trying a join called Flat Braid Joining. I found out about it at Marie Anne's blog, Every Day Crochet - you can read about it in this post, here.

Marie Anne really loves this join and uses it all the time. Her blog gave some links to video tutorials and these explained it really well. It looks tricky, but it's actually not too hard after a few goes. I really like the lacy-braided look it gives and thought that went well with the granny squares. (Well, I thought it made them look less like granny squares, actually, and more like an all-in-one, interesting, lacy creation.)

So, thank you, Marie Anne, for those great links and all the info on the join. I am very happy with the result.

I then added a few rounds of double crochet (UK trebles) in the "solid" granny style around the whole thing because I thought that would match the back nicely.

I only hope that the tension is all okay and that when it is a finished cushion it isn't too ripply. I guess I should probably block it but I never seem to get around to blocking - it all seems like too much of a hassle to me!

I think (I think) it is going to fit a 36x36 cm cushion insert and I have now bought one. I was thinking about buying a blue pillow because that would look better (I don't like the white insert peeking through the holes of the grannies) but I couldn't find one small enough. So at the moment, it's just the white insert that I'm using. Whether or not I fix that later might depend on how "over" the project I am by then! :-P

So now I'm ready to attempt to sew the two sides together! By wonderful, happy co-incidence, Jacquie over at Bunny Mummy recently posted some info on sewing cushion sides together - showing how she adds buttons down one side. I am so thrilled because it's all perfect timing for me and her method looks really easy!

I'll let you know how I go.

And, no, I won't forget about the bunting pattern. :-)

Till next time,
Have a happy, hooky day,
Caz :)