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Sunshine Flower Blanket – edging

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This weekend I tackled the final stage of the design of my Sunshine Flower Blanket, the edging or border.   I wanted to use all three of the flower colours in the edging to bring the blanket together.   I also wanted to end with the red colour as that gives a strong border.   At first I was planning a repeat of the band using the three colours in increasing widths.    However, I didn’t feel that that would give  enough of a statement edge and also would have needed to be blocked in order to make it lie flat.

I couldn’t find a pattern that fitted with the rest of the blanket design in the way I wanted.   Finally, I decided to design my own edging after checking out a lot of different designs on Pinterest and in my various stitch bibles.

I came up with the design you can see in the picture below.   The first round is a simple band of Citrus then I worked a round of petals in Honeysuckle to echo the flower design and behind those, larger petals in red.    It took a few attempts to get the right degree of fullness in the petals whilst ensuring the edge would lie flat.  I am very pleased with the end result.    I would be happy to share the pattern for the edging if anyone is interested – please let me know by sending a comment 🙂

I have now finished the blanket.   I hope you like it.  It has been around six months since I started the project but I have worked on other items in that time.   I will be listing the blanket on Etsy or I might try Amazon Handmade but I will be very sorry to see it go!  I also plan to make two matching pillows as I have a couple of the flower squares left over and I think I have enough yarn too.   I will list the pillows on Etsy but might keep one to remind me of this lovely project 🙂

I have already started planning my next blanket project and will share as soon as I have fixed on a design.   I am also working up sample blocks from each colour in a range of cotton yarn that I was given at Christmas.   I think those sample blocks will end up in a sample colour blanket.   As ever I have far more project ideas than I have time.   A problem we all have I expect….

Bye for now, happy crocheting!!

Annie 🙂

 

Sunshine Flower Blanket – update!

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Hello – so excited to report the progress on my Sunshine Flower Blanket.

As you can see I now have all the large flowers added and I am working the final vanilla band before adding the edging.    I am going to edge it with the three colours I used for the flowers but I have a few more rows of Vanilla to work before then.

The blanket is getting quite big now – I think it will be around 1.5 meters square when I finish it.   My earlier posts on this project give you the source for the pattern for the large flowers (A Square A Day by Tracey Lord) and the colours I am using.   I will happily make the pattern available for the smaller flowers and the overall design if anyone would like to see it.   Please just leave me a comment (there is a link above and below this post).

I have already started on my next project so focusing on getting this one finished has been a bit of a struggle!  The rounds get so long towards the end so it feels like you are not making progress and the ends take a long time to weave in.   I am so pleased that I wound most of them in as I was working the squares.   I worked a lot of the squares on my daily commute so always made sure I had a needle with me to finish off the ends as I went.   I certainly wouldn’t like to start on all the ends from scratch when I had finished the blanket!

That is all from me for now – the next time I post on this project will be to show you the finished work which I will probably list on Etsy as a one off.  🙂

happy crocheting!

Annie 🙂

Granny Square blankets

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A short post to share a couple of my projects from last year.

When I first started crocheting as a little girl I used to make granny square blankets with all my scrap yarn.    I used to knit a lot so I had quite a bit of scrap yarn left over!   I loved making the blankets and quickly progressed to buying odd balls of remnant yarn from our local wool shop with my pocket money!

I came back to crochet last year and again started with granny square blankets.    I made a huge blanket for our living room first.    My children had just had their rooms decorated and both asked for a blanket for their beds.    You can see the results below.    These blankets are very basic in terms of the stitches used.    They grow really really quickly and you can work them in front of the TV once you get into the rhythm!

This is the blanket my son wanted….

The blankets are very warm.   I think the ‘holes’ actually help the blankets hold the warmth – if that makes any sense.   They do munch an awful lot of yarn so really are excellent for using up scraps but if you are buying yarn to make them you should beware of the overall cost and choose a yarn to suit your budget!   As a guide these blankets are made out of Aran weight yarn and each weighs 2.7kg which would mean around 54 x 50g balls.   However, the blankets I made here are enormous, 2.5 metres square 🙂

This is my daughter’s blanket….

When I finally managed to convince them that the blankets were big enough I had to put an edge on them.    My son didn’t want anything ‘too fancy’ so his was just a couple of coloured bands.  My daughter went for a small scalloped edge.   The edge on my daughters took some time to do but again I think that was because of the sheer size!!

That’s all for now.   Only to let you know that I plan to make some smaller versions of these to sell in my Etsy shop as they make lovely cot blankets and I find them very relaxing to make.

Happy crocheting!

Annie 🙂

 

 

Flower Hats

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These Flower Hats started out as a stash buster project.    I was looking through my stash and found I had a number of balls of lovely soft yarn.  The yarn is a mix of merino wool and cashmere in various colours.   However, there was not enough to make a blanket.  I had no more than two or three balls of any one colour.

I needed a project that would make the most of this beautiful yarn so I decided to have a go at making a hat.   They were very quick to make and are a lovely snug fit.   The hats looked a little plain so I added flowers to the headband.    The flowers were great to make my commute – I made strings of them without finishing off the ends.   Later I used the ends to attach them to the hats.

Flower Hats

These little hats have been very easy to work on the train.    They only need one ball of yarn and they are nice and compact even when finished!    I will share the pattern I created if anyone is interested.

Over the next couple of weeks, I am planning to complete a few more of these hats.   I will also make a scarf to match but there will only be enough yarn for one scarf so that will be a bit special.   Getting creative on my commute turns an hour of ‘dead’ time into an hour of special time.

I listen to audiobooks on Audible whist crocheting away and the journey whizzes by.    Sometimes when I am working over the weekend at home on my projects I listen to Audible because the books from my commute have become hard to ‘put down’!   Audible normally offer a free trial – you can download one book for free without commitment to see whether you like it or not.    I need to tell you that I am a member of the Amazon Affiliate programe.   This means that if you click on this link below or any other link in my blog I might receive a small income at no additional cost to you.

When I am finished I will list the Flower Hats and the scarf on my Etsy store.    I haven’t actually set up my Etsy store yet as each time I try I seem to be missing a bit of information or a photo.   In fact, I will put out a blog post on preparing to set up an Etsy store!    UPDATE – my Etsy store is now up and running but I am still waiting for my first sale!!  You can visit me here – Stickytapeandstring – Etsy shop.  I also plan to check out Amazon Handmade – has anyone used that yet?   Let me know how it goes 🙂

Happy Crocheting,

Annie 🙂

Sunshine Flower Blanket – adding the big flowers

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This has been an lovely weekend for me with my Sunshine Flower Blanket adding the big flowers to the work.    I started making these months ago and have been working on them on the train to work every morning.   There are six squares on each side of the blanket, 36 in total.  You can read my previous posts on this blanket here Sunshine Flower Blanket, and here Sunshine Flower Blanket – Progress.

First step has been to block each of the squares.  This makes them all beautifully flat and regular – much easier to work with.  I joined six of the squares into a strip using a method that I will share in a separate post.    I found that leaving the ends between the squares unfinished worked well because that gave me more yarn to work with when joining the strip of squares to the main blanket.

Sunshine flower blanket - tiger lily square by Tracey Lord

So far I have only added flower squares to two sides of the blanket.     I have finished all the flower squares I need to complete the blanket but the flower squares for the remaining two sides are still being blocked.  The picture below shows a corner of the blanket with the two sides completed.

Sunshine flower blanket - adding the big flowers

Next weekend I will complete the round of flower squares and then add more Vanilla rounds before putting in another band of colour.   I haven’t found the perfect edging yet but I plan to use all three of the darker colours around the edge.   The finished blanket is going to be around 5 or 6 foot square so the outer rounds will take some time to complete!

There will be some flower squares left over so I have been designing a cushion to match the blanket.    I will make both the blanket and cushion patterns available if there is any interest.   The pattern for the main square came from the book in the link below – ‘A Square a Day’ by Tracey Lord.

I have run out of work to do on this blanket on my commute.  The main blanket is far to big to travel with as a project so  I have started some new work.   I will miss these lovely cheerful colours though they have brightened my journey through the dark winter months 🙂    The final blanket will brighten any room!   I am really looking forward to seeing it finished!     Let me know what you think by leaving me a comment.

Happy crocheting,

Annie 🙂

Commuter crochet

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Commuter crochet – I thought I would start to share some of the methods I have of making my commute more enjoyable and productive.   After recently moving jobs I now have a daily train journey of more than an hour each way.    This means that over the course of a year I will be spending the equivalent of about 61 working days sitting on a train!

I don’t know about you, but I cannot afford to lose that kind of time.   I certainly don’t want to accept that that time is lost or will always be a miserable time of the day.

All my life I have loved crafts so it makes sense to me to use the time to craft and create.  However, I am constrained in terms of the amount of kit I can carry.   I also don’t get a lot of space on the train.   Whatever I do needs to be small, easy to work and carry.  Finally, the trains I am on are reasonably stable but not smooth enough to allow fine work that needs a steady hand.

Knitting was my first go-to but my knitting style is a bit anti-social in that I tend to swing the needles out to the sides.  This doesn’t go down well with my fellow passengers!   Crochet however is perfect!!   I have been crocheting flowers to use in my Sunshine Flower blanket and am almost complete on those now.   They have been ideal for the commute as you can build them up in layers.  This means you can work several at once using only one ball of yarn.  Much better than having to carry four different colours every day.    I also weave in ends on the commute – not my favourite job but it has to be done.

Commuter crochet - blocks made during the commute

Use Pinterest boards to collect ideas!

Pinterest is great as a complete distraction from the journey.   I have a board where I keep all the ideas I find for small projects that would work on the train.   You can see my Pinterest board here.   I will work my way through these ideas and show the results here on my blog.

These ideas for small projects are not restricted to being used on a commute.   It could be that you have time on your hands in other circumstances.  I have been known to whip out the crochet whilst waiting for a film or concert to start.  Sitting in the car waiting to collect my children – out comes the small crochet!

The other thing that makes my commute more enjoyable is listening to music or the radio.   Recently I have been listening to audio books and they really help pass the time.   The books can be expensive but signing up to Audible which charges a monthly fee, gives you one credit a month which means one free book a month and there are regular offers to allow you to get books more cheaply.   There is all sorts of inspirational stuff to listen to 🙂  There is a link below in case you would like to try Audible.  I need to tell you that I am a member of the Amazon Affiliate programme and if you click on this link below or any other links in my blog I might receive a small income at no additional cost to you.

When I have more tips for a happy commute I will post them up here so check back in soon.    I would also love to hear any tips you have to share, just leave me a comment above.

Happy commuting 🙂

Annie.