More crochet gifts...

Following on from my last post, here are some more gifts I gave at the end of last year.

My daughter's teacher was about to go on leave and was heading for the UK and Europe as soon as school ended... hoping for a white Christmas and I'm pretty sure she would have had one. So with her bottle of wine she got a scarf, and a block of Toblerone. (Just 'cause she likes them. :-) )

The scarf is lovely and soft, but there are a few things about it that I wasn't happy with.

For starters, it took more wool than I expected; that's why it has black rows either side of the purple. (I had more black than purple. I used purple as this particular purple is this teacher's favourite colour and she wears this colour somewhere on her person almost every day. But I thought the black would work okay with it.)

Also it's a bit too short; I was worrying about the amount of yarn I had. It's the sort of length that will work tucked into the front of a coat, but it's not the sort of length for multiple-wraps-around-your-neck or tossing-over-your-shoulder stuff.

I'm 99% sure that I used this pattern. (It was a few months ago and I was pretty busy - I didn't note down anywhere what I was using!) The pattern is simple, but a little bit different: all you do is US dc, US sc, all the way along. Then, on the next row, do a dc in every sc from the row before, and in every dc from the last row, do a sc. Make sense? The pattern explains it better than me. :-) It produces a nice bumpy texture and helps the yarn to drape softly. I liked it and will probably use it again, next time trying a more chunky yarn like the pattern suggests.

I'm not even sure of the hook size any more, but I think it was a 5 or 6mm (bigger than recommended for the yarn to help the scarf to drape). The yarn I do remember, it is Moda Vera Cupcake. A nylon/acrylic blend, it is sooooo soft. Lovely to touch and work with.


And here is one more thing I made last year. I found this great pattern over at Tangled Happy. Tangled Happy is a great new blog absolutely choc-full of crochet ideas. I absolutely LOVE it! If you haven't visited it, please do - it is such a beautiful place to browse and get ideas.

Anyway, this "ear-warmer" pattern - I thought - was also a great headband pattern. I made these for two sisters, aged 2 and 5. The red one is for the little girl, so it is a bit smaller and one row thinner. The pattern is dead simple and sooooo quick! I used 8ply cotton/acrylic yarn and a 4mm hook. Such a quick, easy gift.

To attach the flowers, I used an idea from Little Birdie Secrets - I sewed a button on to each headband, and the flowers are attached to the hat using the button and the centre-loop of the flower. This means the flowers can be swapped over if the girls want to, or they can be left off the headband altogether for a simpler look. I really liked doing the flowers this way and think I will use this method a lot in future, as my own little girl often changes her mind about what she likes!

As for the flower patterns... I'm pretty sure the first flower I did (the red one) was from a link provided by Tangle Happy (pattern can be found here). But I found this pattern to be a little to open/loopy, so I got some ideas from patterns here and here, and modified my second flower a bit so that the petals sat a little closer to each other and to the button. I wish I'd taken more note of what I did, because now these have been gifted, I can't look back at them at all. Sorry! But if you try those links, you'll get some great ideas for layered flowers.


Well, that's all I have for my "show and tell" today! :-) But more to come soon as I had a very productive Christmas holiday.

Have a happy, hooky day,
Caz :)

Cushion Success!

Well, it all worked out in the end - better than I expected!

I added a couple of extra rounds to the back (daisy) side, and then I blocked both cushions.


So now I'm a blocking convert - it makes such a difference!


I also did this amazing concept called... wait for it... counting stitches. I know! Crazy, huh?, but it just might work!

It turned out that my squares were now almost identical in stitches - one side was about 4 stitches smaller than the other.


So, taking the advice from some of my lovely comments, I just made sure that as I went along, I did a stitch that sort of squished two crochet stitches from one side into one stitch from the other side. It looked like it was going to be noticeable, but just two little stitches stitched into one didn't show up in the end. I made sure that it was done about 4 times for each side, and that I kept these spaced apart, fairly evenly, across the side.

I hope this is what Jacquie from Bunny Mummy meant by:
"join the two halves by putting them right sides together and over sewing in outer loops only"!?

Then when I reached the end of the side, the stitches lined up and I could sew to the corner with ease. Whoo Hoo!

Something else wonderful happened through all this blocking and extra-round-ing - the cover got bigger! So much bigger, in fact, that I thought it might, just might, make it around this cushion that came with a blue cover.

A little hard to judge at this stage!

This cushion (cover + insert) was $7 at Big W. And a white insert, same size? $5. Silly, hey?

(Also silly - who's making crochet cushion covers when she could just buy a perfectly fine cushion and cover for $7?? ;-) Hmmm.....)

This cushion is 40cm x 40cm - a standard size that I thought I wouldn't be able to cover... before blocking and adding those extra rounds. But now... it was going to be snug but it just might work! And with the blue cover - much nicer than a white filling thing.

(I know I could always sew my own covers, to any size I liked, but I really, REALLY dislike sewing. I have a sewing machine, up in the cupboard, I know how to sew, but I will avoid it whenever possible - including with this cushion!)

ANYWAY... I sewed it up... I used Bunny Mummy's button closure method... I didn't have enough buttons so my opening is pretty small... and I had a moment of panic because I thought NO WAY is that cushion going to fit through that opening!

Then I decided I would MAKE IT FIT! So I squished and pushed and squashed and punched and shoved... and ...

I got it in! Sewed on the buttons (yes, I only did that at this moment!), and ...


It was done!

YAY!



Voila! I think we can call this: Cushion Success!

That said, I doubt I will be doing another cushion any time soon! It all took a lot longer than I thought, a lot more yarn than I thought, and a lot of fiddly-sewing drama which is SOOOO not to my liking!

Back to blankets, methinks!

And a few other projects I've been dabbling with...

Will share it all as soon as I can.

By the way, I haven't forgotten about that bunting pattern. It's going well, I've been taking photos and all... just haven't gotten it all finalised yet. That pesky Paid Work is getting in the way big time at the moment - this is one of the busiest times of the year for me. :-(

And when that's all out of the way, I will be able to blog a lot more. Looking forward to that. :-)

See you all soon, I hope,
Caz :)

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 :)

Pretty as a Daisy

I've got something I'd really like to show you. Feels like I'm a school-girl again and it's my turn for show-and-tell and I'm feeling really excited about it. Crochet does that to me. :-)

It's this lovely, tricky (well, tricky for me!), very grooooovy daisy square!

(this one was not made by me - details below the photo)

made by "meowy takes photos"
http://www.flickr.com/photos/waffles2005/4874098122/

Let me tell you about this funky, free pattern and the great project going on behind it.

The pattern is available from Krochet Krystal. Krystal has a really cool idea. She will share the pattern with you for FREE! (You just need to register with her and then she'll send all the info to you).

There's just one, simple condition: you need to make her a square, using her pattern, and then send that square back to her.

And what does she do with all these daisies, being sent to her in exchange for her pattern, from people all over the world?

She makes them into blankets and donates them to worthy charities.

Like this one:

Blanket number five at Krochet Krystal

It's an honesty system, basically. In a world-gone-mad, full of accountabitily and lawsuits, there is someone out there still working on the idea of goodwill.

Makes me feel good inside, knowing that. And, as I am an honest person (really!), I fully intend to complete my end of the bargain.

Only problem: I didn't know until I got the pattern that she wants you to use worsted weight yarn. And I have so little of that kind of yarn! It's hard to find in Oz. But it gives me a great excuse to go yarn shopping, doesn't it? ;-)

In the meantime, I made this one with some of my left-over Patons Smoothie yarn, the yarn I used in the Event Plaid blanket. Pretty, isn't it?

I found the pattern quite tricky at times, but I think I've got it right. Good practice for the one that I'll send her.

This is going to become part of a new project. A small-ish, spur-of-the-moment project. These don't often happen to me - I'm normally planning and budgeting carefully for some time, thinking about the costs and amount of yarn, etc, etc. But because this is now officially stash yarn, I can go with the flow a bit more. It's nice. I'm liking it. :-)

So, if you are interested in the pattern, or are interested in Krystal's charity work, head on over to Krystal's blog. By making her a square, you get the pattern, and you get to help a good cause at the same time.

Of course you can do more than one square, if you like. But one square is all that Krysal asks for. That's it. Then the pattern is yours to use and enjoy forever.

Let me know if any of you give it a go. I'd love to see your daisies and hear what you think about the pattern.

Til next time,
Happy hooking,
Caz :)

P.S. Just wanted to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone that commented on my Event Plaid blanket. I'm so pleased with the finished result and it's great to read that you guys like it, too. I love reading your comments; they really make my day. :)

New Projects!

I seem to enjoy starting projects more than finishing them. I'm also easily distracted and it's even easier when there's wonderful inspiration out there on Flickr and in Blogland.

Am I unique in this way? It's not really very efficient, is it? :-) And it's certainly not economical. Unless you're using up left-over "stash" (which, for this project, I am, except for that one ball I've used up half-way through, so I'll have to replace that, but otherwise it was all in the house already...).

Anyway, this weekend just gone I decided to take a quick break from some of my bigger projects and amuse myself with something smaller:

I wanted to try all-white African flowers:
I was thinking of doing a 7-flower cushion. A couple of weeks ago I found a second-hand jumper that I could use for the backing.

I wanted the colours to be simple, but bold. And... Ta-DAH!

all joined up on Sunday night! From start to (sort of) finished in one weekend! I am getting faster at crochet! Yay! Hooray for me. :-)

So, now to finish the edging and make that cushion...

Except...

Now I'm getting side-tracked again...

I have another idea...

I love, love, love this bag. It's on the African Flowers pool on Flickr:

Bag, originally uploaded by Frualbertssons.

It's creator said she invented the pattern herself. Last night I stared and stared and stared at this picture. The longer I looked at it the more I understood how it all came together. I started to figure it out.

But could I really replicate this design? Would I dare to try?

The cushion idea wasn't so interesting anymore. That jumper could sit in the cupboard, waiting for another time.

I really want to figure this out!

So, by my thinking, I'm going to need another 6 flowers...

Hmmmm...

Should I give it a go? What do you all think?

I think I'm going to. Give it a go, that is.

Stay tuned for updates. :-)


And in other news, another item distracted me this weekend:

I am so, so happy that I found these!

Footstools! Also known in Australia as Poufs! (Really!)

I have been admiring these ideas on Flicker. Aren't they great? What a great idea - to brighten up a dull old poof with some colourful crochet!

originally uploaded by zuglói lány.

Cat Sofa Ta-daa!, originally uploaded by Elizabeth Cat.

Hmmm... but I didn't have any dull old poufs to decorate.

That's why I was so happy to find these in Dollars and Cents (a discount warehouse/$2 shop) on the weekend. They were only $10 each. The lid comes off so they are also storage boxes, and they collapse so they can also be folded away if/when you don't need them. Cool, hey?

But, yes, rather cheap and ugly. At. The. Moment!

Can't wait to cover their lids! It's going to be fun! :-)

But for now, back to this bag idea... oh, yeah, and those blankets...

Til next time, have a bright and colourful day,
Caz :-)

All Joined Up!

TA-DAH! Check this out!

Look what I've done: I've managed to join up all my African flower-hexagons - using join-as-you-go! I'm very pleased about this as I'd never tried it before. It was quite fiddly, but I can see why it's such a great method as by the time all the white rounds are finished, the cushion is also all done, done, done!

I am quite amazed at myself about this: it is only the third crochet project that I have ever actually completed (I still haven't found a chance to blog about the other two yet!); and I have managed to go from start to almost-finished in less than two weeks! For me, that's amazingly quick!

I kept going back to Flickr looking for guidance from others and Elizabeth Cat in particular was a GREAT help to me (thanks so much, Elizabeth!). The pattern and join-as-you-go advice are all there on the Crocheting Afrcian Flowers Pool (scroll down on the pool's home-page).

But I misunderstood the directions on how to do the final round of white and I left out an all-important chain stitch along each side. (You can read my confused ramblings here!) By the time I realised my error I was more than half-way through, and decided to carry on regardless. This extra stitch would have helped my work to lay flat, and without it, the edges of each hexagon are buckling up a little bit. I am hoping that blocking will help reduce this - I'll just have to wait and see.

Once they were all joined I added a final round of double-crochet (that's treble crochet in the UK - I prefer the US terminology) all the way around the whole thing. I think it looks "finished" now:


Now to the challenge of turning this into a pillow! And a HUGE pillow it will be - I don't know what other African Flower-lovers are using, but with my cheap acylic yarn and 4mm hook, this arrangement has ended up HUMONGOUS! I was thinking it might be better as a very small rug, or maybe a cushion for the floor as it really is so BIG! I am going to attempt to make a cover using an old jumper following Lucy's wonderful cushion-cover tutorial over at Attic24 (a most wonderful and inspiring blog - if you haven't visited her, please do!, I'm sure you'll love it).

This really has been a great learning experience for me in so many ways: colour arrangement and placement (I get a bit OCD about this and need to learn to let it be a bit more random - i.e. there is no "right" or "perfect" colour arrangement!); using join-as-you-go; finding out that sometimes things you make just end up HUGE; and making the hexagons themselves - all firsts for me. And it's been great. :-)

Anyway, this is meant to be a blog about patterns I've tried, yarns I've used, and how it all turned out, in the hope of advising anyone else contemplating the same projects. So here are the details for you all:

Pattern: African Flower Pattern
Pattern source: Crocheting African Flowers Pool on Flickr (just scroll down the the bottom of the screen to find it), also on Ravelry as "African Flower Hexagon"
Yarn: Panda Magnum 8ply - this is 100% acrylic and I think 8ply is about equivalent to DK weight?
Hook: 4mm
Dimensions: 53.5cm across (!)
Date commenced: 30 March, 2010
Date completed: 10 April, 2010
My reflection: A great pattern and the info and support on Flickr are fantastic. No idea why it ended up so huge! And now I also know why so many crochet-lovers complain about weaving in ends. Overall, I'm very happy with it and with myself. :-)

I was originally going to give this to a good friend of mine, for her beautiful 5-year-old daughter. I was thinking about my friend when I started this and all the way along as I worked on it - but I'm not sure crochet is her thing? I'm hesitant to offer it as I hate to think of her graciously accepting something that she doesn't actually like! My own daughter loves it, though, so she will be most happy to have it on her bed (or bedroom floor!) instead. :-) She's also 5 and is a very girly-girl and so loves this very flowery design!

If you have ANY questions at all about this - please feel free to ask/comment below. I would love to hear from you, and I'm more than happy to help. :-)

Til next time,

Caz :-)

My African Flowers now have borders!

African Flowers now with borders, ready to make into a cushion, originally uploaded by Never Knew.
I find arranging these so difficult - making sure the colours are balanced and well-mixed. Even now I can see one spot that I'd like to change. It will be interesting to see how they look once surrounded and joined in white.

I am going to try and make this arrangement into a round cushion, using Elizabeth Cat's "fan" pattern to fill in the gaps around the edge of the circle. I wanted to try making a smaller cushion, using only 14 flowers (as above).

Elizabeth always uses 19 flowers (like this one) and I've just realised why: because this creates a regular shape, with the same number of flowers on each side. My arrangement does not. :-(

Therefore I can't make my smaller version. I could make a small cushion using 7 flowers; it would look a bit like this:
and, as I have 14 already, I could, of course, make 2 of these!

But if I make just another 5 I can create a big one like Elizabeth's - and with my yarn it looks like it could end up really quite big, almost like a floor cushion.

I'm leaning towards the latter option. :-) So I'm off to work on those other 5 now. Then, finally, I can start joining them together.

Caz :-)

Crochet African Flowers

I found these flowers - and the free pattern - on Flickr when I was browsing recently.

The pattern was provided by "Elizabeth Cat". The pattern can be found amongst the comments under this flickr photo.

I think the original idea was, when done in purples, these flowers look a lot like African Violets, but when done in any colour, they just look like pretty, pretty flowers.

Well, since trying out the pattern I have discovered how very fun and very easy it is! And in a short amount of time I have made over a dozen of these lovely flowers - enough to make a smallish, round cushion! I am very excited as it will be the first crochet cushion I have ever made, and one of the first crochet projects that I will have ever actually completed. :-)

Anyway, here are a few photos of my flowers. I really love how colourful they are. I love arranging them in a rainbow-like spectrum; just looking at them cheers me. :-)




More photos can be found on my new Flickr photo-stream. Yes, I was so excited by these that I finally made a flickr account and added these to the Crocheting African Flowers group! My name on Flickr is, of course, Never Knew, and I will be adding links on there to this blog.

Hope you like my flowers and I hope you have a wonderful, colourful day.
Caz :-)