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Crochet blog – update#4

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Hello 🙂

Welcome to my fourth weekly update.   This update is slightly different as I have decided to split out the crochet content from the blog progress updates.   If you are interested in the blog progress then you can read about them here.

Soooo – crochet!!   This week I have been working on my Shades of the Rainbow blanket – do you like that name?   I am not sure yet.   I might call it Shades of the Heart because I have worked up my heart pattern into a square for inclusion in this blanket.   Here are a few of them laid out.   I have about five more sets of three colours to complete and about four more where I have completed the crochet but have to tie in all the ends yet *sigh*.   Here is a picture of some of the finished squares.

I put up a blog post giving the free pattern for the Heart Square – just follow the link if you would like to give it a go.


I am working on another type of square to include in the blanket – a spot.   I wanted to include more solid squares as I am worried that the heart squares might not be very stable given how much space there is around the heart.   Here are a few of the ‘spot squares’.   I worked these up from my sample square pattern but changed the colour of the yarn for the first round and last round.

These squares have all been brilliant to work on my commute – I only need to take a couple of small balls of yarn and my hook.   The yarn is Drops Paris which is incredibly good value at c £1 per ball for pure cotton.   The yarn splits a little so needs care to work with but it has been very good quality for the price with very few of the hated knots and breaks!

The other project I have worked on at home this week is my Spring Flowers Blanket.  I started this in Spring, hence the name but I don’t think I will be finishing it until next Spring at this rate of progress.   The problem I have with it is that I am working across the full width of a blanket so I cannot really take it out of the house as it is already getting a bit big to carry around!

This is the latest progress with the flowers joined to the body of the work and the next section started.    I will work up another row of flowers on my commute when I have completed all these hearts and spot blocks (see above!).

That is all from me for this week… happy crocheting!

Annie 🙂

27 May 2018

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Hello 🙂

Welcome to my second update.   I hope you have had a happy, productive week?   I have been busy finishing the little bags I started last week but Sunday did not start well.    I left my crochet in a bag in our living room over night, and this is what I found the following morning….

and this is the likely culprit!    We have three dogs, a mum and two pups.   The pups are just over a year old and still love to chew things!   The puppy in this pic is called Poppy and she is the worst for chewing things.   So far she has demolished various bags and shoes, including some expensive boots and the only pair of pricey sunglasses I have ever bought!    Our fault for leaving things in her reach I suppose.

Luckily for me my Mum loves to untangle yarn so I gave the tangled mess to her and now have a nice tidy ball again.     I finished the bags and basic bag pattern and put a blog post out about that.   bag pattern post.

I also made a few discs and hearts in the process – the discs were the bottom of the bags but I like the look of them on their own.   I might work them into a project of some kind but haven’t quite figured out what yet.    The hearts started out as motifs for the bags, from a basic pattern I found online.  I wasn’t very happy with the pattern so I adapted that to make a few medium and larger ones.  The larger ones are a bit more stable, I am very pleased with the pattern I created.

I am going to experiment with a heavier weight of yarn next.    I think these would make lovely table decorations for a wedding, baby shower or birthday.   I will write up the heart pattern so I can share it with you in a future post.

I made some in brighter colours too in Drops Paris yarn that I am worked sample squares in for a blanket.    I might try to work these hearts into the blanket design!

The other project I have been working on since I spoke to you last, is some bunting for a family birthday.    I put up a separate post on this as I managed to complete the work.   The bunting looks lovely and will be able to be reused unlike the tacky plastic stuff I normally buy.    I have been considering a design for crochet balloons but I am not sure I have that sorted yet 🙂   My post on the bunting includes the basic flag pattern and explains how I joined them into a garland.    You can read that post here  Bunting Pattern post

Last week I promised an update on my blog goals.    I put quite a bit of thought into this but I haven’t managed to create the bullet journal pages yet.  I am trying to keep it simple as I do find that keeping a bullet journal takes a lot of time.    The time I spend is lovely relaxing mindful time but I am not sure I have enough time available to devote so much of it to keeping a track of progress.   I will try to get these trackers done for next week’s update.   I do worry that I would make more progress if I didn’t spend so long tracking it 🙂

Status today – I have 544 Pinterest followers so I put on 22 this week.   Nothing exciting has happened with AdSense so I am still on 16p 🙂   I am getting a few page views, around 80 per week on average but no clicks.     I need to do some research on how to improve that if I want to achieve my goal of being able to spend more time on my crafting and blogging.   Maybe the adverts are not relevant enough.

I haven’t read up on mailing lists yet but mean to do that this weekend so watch this space on that one.   I haven’t listed anything new on Etsy either – I plan to write up the more complicated bag instructions along with some edged bunting and options for decoration then I will list both patterns.    I could list the bunting for sale but I want to use it at home – I will have to make some more!!

Finally, I was soooo thrilled to get a response to my first weekly update so this week I am planning to do a bit more research on my fellow crochet bloggers and leave a few comments on their posts, to see if I can make new connections and support people who are working on similar projects.   That’s all for now – more next week!

Happy crocheting!

Annie 🙂

 

20 May 2018

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Hello 🙂

I have decided to keep a log of my progress as I build my blog and Esty shop.  I will  share my experience here, in case anything I learn can help anyone else. This is my first weekly update post.   I might need to split the content between the nuts and bolts of blogging and the crochet/knitting design work as I am not sure anyone would want to read all of it!   I am not sure anyone will want to read any of it if I am honest but I am putting it out there in hope 🙂

So far I have only written a post when I had a project ready to share.  That makes weekly posts tricky as there are some weeks when I do not feel I have anything at the right stage.   You will see from these updates that I have a bit of a problem with focus 🙂 I tend to work on several projects at once and I am not much of a completer finisher.    Does anyone else have a problem with that?

I work full time and jam my crafting into the corners and spare moments of my life. I generally get a good amount of time to spend on my crafting and blogging at the weekend.  During the week I spend two hours a day on the train travelling to work.   I am normally surrounded by sleeping commuters!  I took the decision when I first started in this job, that I would not waste those two hours a day.

One of my tasks each weekend is to get myself set up with projects for the train.   I need the projects to be small and easy to carry.    I generally get a seat on the train but I don’t get much elbow room so the work needs to be compact and not need laying out.   This week I have been working on little crochet bags.    I started with a basic pattern which I will share in a separate post.    I worked up a number of variations.    I thought that these could be used for wedding favours.   We just had a bit of royal wedding fever here in the UK so that was what set me off!

I am still working on designs for my sample squares blanket.   I haven’t managed to get to a design I really love yet so I put the project on hold.    I started with the layout below then edged a number of squares in black and wasn’t sure I liked that look.

I think I am going to ditch the black edges and join with white instead.   Maybe it is because we are coming into summer and the black just looks too heavy.

I am progressing my Spring Flowers Blanket I completed all the flowers for one row last week.    I have joined them now and I am working on the next part of the design.   These colours really make me happy.    I was going to pick up a row of chain after the flowers but I think it will be neater if I start in the other direction and mirror the panel I just made.    My project for the train this week will be another set of flowers to make a new row across the work.    I am going to put in some zig zag rows this weekend.   It has to be a weekend job as the work is too big now to take on the train!

Every week I like to do a bit of research on blog or Etsy tips.  I read an article this week on Etsy success which said that you need c200 items listed to start to get a higher chance of sales.    I was shocked.   That is a huge number of listings.   I am currently at 10!   I think it will take about two years of work to get me to the 200 listings point

I do have a lot of patterns in draft that I plan to list and a number of those could be projects that people could give as Christmas presents.   It sounds dreadful to be thinking of Christmas in May but given the time it takes to produce items I think it is a good time to be planning and starting to make gifts.    This is a link to my shop in case you want a look.   Stickytapeandstring

One of the problems I used to have with my blog and Pinterest posts is with photography.    I have now invested in a light system and have a small ‘studio’ set up in a corner of my bedroom that allows me to take great photos of small and medium sized work.   I bought the kit on Amazon – it was a lot cheaper than I expected.   Problem solved!!

I have included an affiliate link here to the type of kit I bought, which if you find the link helpful, allows me to get a bit of income whilst not costing you a penny more than you would pay anyway.

The problem I haven’t been able to crack so far is how to photograph really  big items.   My sunshine flower blanket looks lovely in real life but I cannot get a decent picture of it to list on Etsy.   I might take it into the garden on a sunny day and see whether sunlight does the trick!

When I am travelling to work I listen to audio books.   After a phase of murder mystery type books I have moved on to self improvement.   Everything I have read/heard tells me that I have more chance of success if I write my goals down so I am working on a bullet journal page to do just that.     I will post an update on this next week.   I love my bullet journal and have a board on Pinterest to keep all the inspiring ideas that I see.   Many of them seem to need more artistic ability than I possess but a lot of the pages can be copied.   Working on the bullet journal is an exercise in mindfulness all on its own and I find it very relaxing but it is a bit of a drain on time if I allow it to be!  Pinterest board link here – Bullet Journal.

I will share my progress against my goals each week once I have set those goals.   For now I can give a status report.    I have 522 Pinterest followers and 10 Esty listings with no sales.    I do not have any blog subscribers yet but plan to start a mailing list next week.   I rarely get comments on my blog and haven’t really looked into how to improve that yet.    I signed up with AdSense a couple of months ago and so far my cumulative earnings are 16p 🙂   The only way is up!!

I think I had better stop writing now and go and make something.

More next week,

Annie 🙂

 

Spring blanket

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The sun has come out in the UK.  It is April and we have had a lovely few days of really warm weather.  I have been working on a blanket in spring colours and was looking for opportunities to work on this on my commute so I have incorporated some pretty flowers and blocks into the design that can be worked up separately and added to the larger work at home 🙂

Here are the colours I am using and you can see I have made a start with the first few rows in basic stitches.   I am trying Stylecraft DK for the first time as I have seen so many crochet bloggers recommending it.   It is certainly good value and has been very nice to work with so far.   There is a fantastic range of colours to inspire and I am already thinking about the next project and the next…. although that does not help me reduce my yarn stash!! (shhhh!!).

The flowers in the picture below will form a row across the blanket and I plan rows of pale pink and white to follow.   These flowers are perfect for working on my commute!!   I have been working up the centres one day and then adding petals the next so that I only ever have to carry one ball of yarn.

The main blanket is already quite large as I am aiming at double bed size.   It can only really be worked on at home now but it is growing quickly.  I love these colours they are making me really happy as I work 🙂

I am documenting the pattern as I go as I plan to list the blanket and pattern in my Etsy shop.  I will post an update when I get to the next stage and I am working up blocks on the commute.   One day I will get organised and issue these patterns as a CAL but I think I need a few more blog readers before I try that.   I wish I could spend more time on my crafting and blogging but I don’t suppose I am alone in that.  Too many ideas and too little time.   Ah well….

Happy crocheting!

Annie 🙂

 

Knitted Blanket

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Now for a knitting project 🙂   I have been doing a lot of crochet lately and I miss having two needles on the go.    I grew up doing a lot of knitting and only recently started my crochet journey.    I bought this lovely super chunky yarn at a recent craft show.    This is 100% merino wool and beautifully soft.     I have three packs of 10 x 50g hanks which all need to be hand wound before I can start.    Time to enlist some help from the family!

I have decided to knit a blanket with this lovely yarn.   It needs to retain the softness of the yarn so the stitches must not be too tight.   The back needs to look respectable so that limits my options a bit.   Another challenge I have is that I have no idea how far the yarn will go.    I found a helpful calculator on Pinterest which I have put on my ‘Design’ board and based on that knitted up a square that I thought would use one ball.

For the blanket I decided to use circular needles and knit it in one go rather than have several squares to join.   The back of the blanket will be smoother and look better without joins.   To keep the stitch loose I decided to go up one size from the recommended needle size.   This puts me on massive 10mm needles 🙂

I picked the blue for the edges to frame the work with a darker edge.    I have estimated the use of the colours to try to use up all the yarn.   I can get hold of more of this but it comes in 10 hank packages which would make it quite expensive if I only need a little more!

The stitches I picked for the squares were ones that had a reverse side that looked good.   The only squares that don’t look as good on the reverse are the cable squares and I love cables sooooo much that I had to include some anyway 🙂

Here is how the project looks at the moment.    I will post again when I have finished and I will be writing up the pattern so I can list both the pattern and the blanket on my Etsy store.

I am not the fastest knitter by a long way but this knits up so quickly.     That is the beauty of knitting in a heavy gauge yarn!

That’s all for now.   I am going to review my stash to find inspiration for my next project 🙂

Happy Knitting!

Annie 🙂

 

Sample Squares

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Last Christmas I asked my husband for what he thought was a very strange present.  I asked him to get me one ball of each colour of a certain type of yarn.     I wanted to be able to play with the colours and to put together a blanket design based on all the colours available.    The yarn I had picked was Drops Paris.   I chose this because I wanted to work in heavy cotton and this yarn is so inexpensive it made the project affordable.     Apparently ordering the yarn one ball at a time was quite a lengthy process so my husband called the online retailer and some very helpful people processed his order by phone!

I designed a pattern for a small square and produced one of every colour except black.    I decided to use black to edge all the squares so didn’t want a black square.   Here is a picture of my finished set of one of every colour sample squares 🙂

I designed the blanket by laying these all out on the kitchen table and moving them around until I saw the design I wanted.   I then worked out how many more squares of each colour I needed and calculated my yarn requirement based on that.   I have placed a yarn order and I am now waiting for delivery.    Whilst waiting for the yarn to arrive, I used the single ball of black yarn that I did have to edge a few of the squares.   I am never sure whether I want to edge in black or white but I do think black is more practical.

When the yarn arrives I will be able to make up the rest of the blanket and will be sharing photos here.   I will put the pattern and the finished product up on my Etsy shop.   I have found this method of designing very quick and easy once I had made all the small squares.   It did take quite a long time to make up the sample squares though and I have ended up with a few that I will not be using.   I wouldn’t want to do this with a more expensive yarn.

This is the final theme for my project.   I have arranged the squares in a rainbow with a pastel, muted and bright row of each colour.   This is only possible because of the large range of colours in this particular yarn.   I hope you like the idea 🙂

If anyone would like the pattern for the coloured square it is available in the patterns section of my blog.     The blanket would be  a great stash busting project if you have a lot of oddments of yarn of similar weight.    I would recommend  using one colour for the edging of each square to pull the blanket into one design.

That’s all from me for now.  On to the next design…..

Happy crocheting!

Annie 🙂