Nearly there, but here comes the hard bit!

Hmmm 432 square and round 3 complete!!! Wizzed through round 3! All my little squares look so cute all staked up in groups! Now comes the hard bit. I've got to start making it up, which I've only ever done using a needle. This pattern calls for it to be made up using a Double crochet to join the squares.....uncharted territory for me. I'm a bit nervous to say the least.....

400 Progress Report

It's going well, well I think it's going OK. I take my crochet bag with me to work or if I have to pick up the girls anywhere, cram in a quick bit of hooking here or there. It's a nice easy project. I started by doing one stack of colours at a time. But have done realised they it probably easier to do them in stages. Yesterday I did loads of the centre colour. When the bowl is full I'll add the second round in cream.

Think I need a bigger bowl. 2 more colours to add yet.

Well since I took this photo which was before I went on holiday there has been some significant progress with the 400. I added another two colours to the centre, a nice mellow yellow and a kind of purple grape colour. The bowl was piled high and looked fab and I forgot to take a photo, do'h. so Iv'e now started on round 2, which is putting the second colour on the centres to make them square. This is quite quick and  I'm probably about 2/3rds of the way through doing that now. My 2nd bowl is already full to overflowing so i'm definatley going to have to rethink my filing system shortly. Tx

OOOOO so pretty!

Back in March for Mothers Day my daughters went of to Wells to do some stealthy Mothers Day shopping. We don't go to Wells very often, why I have no idea as its a very nice quaint place, with a cobbled market square and individual shops, not so many chains. My elder daughter surprised me with a little button box from a shop there called Sew Vintage. Both my girls kept gushing on about how cute it was and that there were bowls and bowls of buttons everywhere. so one day about a fortnight ago I made the effort and drove the whole long 9 miles to Wells. (that was a little bit of sarcasm, in case you missed it).

It is a gorgeous shop and the lady there was lovely
 and very graciously let me take some photos to put on the blog. its a mixture of haberdashery, quilters paradise, some very nice rowan wools and buttons, buttons buttons galore!! I think my favourite thing though was the way they have lots and lots of old singer manual sewing machines everywhere. My Mam had one when we were little and she taught me to sew on it.





Post holiday blues

I've been on holiday recently, been to catch some sun and warmth in better climes than the UK. It's been so cold here for so long now, it's nearly a year since we had that minor heat wave. So my better half and I jetted of for some much needed vitmain D! and to recharge our batteries. It was our wedding anniversary while we were away as well and because of that we decided it would be our first holiday with out the girls, who were left in the capable hand of Nanna!

Nanna got a bit bored whilst she was 'babysitting' so she helped herself (with my blessing) to my 'lets get crafty magazine and wool pack that had come through the post. My Mam is a pretty handy crafty lady mind you, she's quite the seamstress having worked in various factories over the years, including a shoe factory when she was a teenager lol, and she passed that on to me as I'm pretty whizzy with a sewing machine. she's also always knitted and crochet and tried to teach me to knit when I was young with very limited success.  I have always been handy with needle and thread and have done loads of embroidery and cross stitch over the years which no one else in the family has tried. Mam is really chuffed that Pip and I are crocheting now though and she likes seeing what we're working on. Anyhow Nanna was looking after my girls whilst I was away and was armed with a pattern and wool and freebie bamboo needles and got clicking away....

How cool is that! Thank you Nanna xx

The thing with going on holiday though is that I didn't take my crochet with me, a complete break was needed as I tend to let things become an obsession and then that will be all I do...literally. It was a silly thing I know as my sister was surprised, but I think my husband had visions of me crocheting by the pool and was a bit embarrassed by it (and to be fair I did ban him from taking his blackberry!). I did look into whether  if I could get a crochet hook on a plane, apparently you can as long as it is a wooden one. Well now I'm back and can get stuck back in to my 400 blanket again, woohoo...Tx

Mini granny square purse

After the success of my granny square sunnies case I made yesterday (my friend wants me to make her one too), today I decided to use up some more of my stash of mini squares.
I just so happened to have a purse clasp lying around, I think it was a freebie from a magazine awhile ago, so set about making a purse from 8 mini granny squares.

I stitched four of them together using double crochet and then treble crocheted around all four of them to make it slightly larger to fit the purse frame better.

I did this twice then slip stiched the two sides together. I lined them with some pink felt by just placing the folded over felt with stitched up sides into the two granny square sides.

Next this was a tricky job I stiched the felt and crochet sides into the frame, this is tricky as you have to push the both fabrics into the gap in the frame and get the needle at the right angle to pass through the hole in the frame and go through the two layers of material at the same time. It took me a while to do this and I pricked my fingers a few times (didn't bleed to much over the project thankfully) but it is now finished and looks fantastic! I'm really pleased, what do you think? Pipx

Granny square glasses case.

My new crochet magazine landed today!   Both my children were out enjoying the sunshine, the housework was already done, well downstairs anyway, where it matters lol! (done by my early rising husband <3), so I decided it was a crochet day! lucky me :)

I read an article about using granny squares for smaller projects other than blankets, and had a think to myself about the basket full of granny squares that I have crammed in one of my ever expanding crafty cwtches! Would I ever realistically make a blanket with those squares? The answer was a big fat NO, I really do not like large projects I love to finish something within a day or two or even less, a few hours even better! I love the satisfaction of seeing something finished and although I know I would absolutely love to be able to finish a large project like a granny square blanket, I just know I would get bored and never finish, this being the reason I have a basket full of granny squares!


So today I was inspired to make a sunglasses case out of 4 pretty little squares I had. It was quite simple, quick and very satisfying.

I simply joined 2 squares together twice, using any stitch you enjoy will do, I used double.

Then I simply layed them on top of each other and treble crocheted all around making sure I left one of the narrow sides open for the top.

Once I had done this I treble crocheted around the top to give it a better finish, them sewed on a button crocheted a small chain making sure it was long enough to go go around the button and ta dah! It was done!

Ta Dah!

So if you have any granny squares hanging around you just know are not going to be used as intended this is as good a use as any and an ideal quick gift for someone. Post any photos of your granny square uses for me to see I would love some more ideas! P.x

Thumb Twiddling is boring!

With two big projects on the go I try and cram in as much hooking as I can. I even take it to work with me..... Usually. I find myself at loose end this morning as I left the house in a rush, knowing I didn't have any gaps in my Clinic (I'm an Allied Health Professional) so I left my hook and bag at home. My first client didn't turn up so I find myself twiddling my thumbs for half an hour....grrrr so frustrating. I'm going on holiday next week too so I need to cram in as much as I can to stay on schedule with the square count. Obsessed much????

Magazine Day woohoo!

My new copy of Simply Crochet landed this morning. So nice to come home and see it waiting there in its little plasticc wrapper, calling out for an accompanying cuppa and a biscuit (or three). Lovely mmmm. I just know though that my last 2 project have come from this and there's bound to be something tempting in this one too. I'm thinking of saving it until I go on holiday next week so I will have something to read on the flight ( yes I'm of to sunnier climates for a fortnight) but another part of me thinks 'ooo10 hour flight, lots of hooky time and no interruptions'. Question: can you take a crochet hook on an airplane? Hmmm, best google that sometime this week....Tx

Yeah, I couldn't wait a whole week to open it!

Doubly foolish!!

I've been crocheting since August 2012, I'm entirely self taught via the Internet and magazines, so when I make a mistake it's frustrating as I have no one to ask. I can ask Pip if she's here with me or I'm over at hers, but that's never been the case so far. So here's what's happened....

I was happily working away on my 400 squares( I'd managed 6 by this time) I was glancing through simply crochet magazine to see if there was a better or neater way of fastening of, when I started to look at the teaching guides at the back, you know the 'how to crochet' with pictures. Like being smacked in the face with a wet fish I realised for the past few months I'd been double crocheting all wrong!!! Completely wrong. I'd been adding an extra 'yarn over hook' on the middle. Bizarre my sister called it!

I've had to redo the outside edge for all of my new squares for the 400, but most importantly I've unravelled the squares from the 56 and started to redo them and it appears that my dodgy doubles were the fault!!

I think the thing I'm trying to get across today is no matter how long you've been doing something it doesn't hurt to check your doing the basics right every now and again. Yeah that's not very eloquently put is it?

Katies Cardi

A little while ago, my nearly 15 year old teacup sized Yorkie had a haircut at the groomers. The weathers been really cold in the UK this winter and the poor little thing was shivering like crazy. So one Saturday morning I took action and in two hours had made her a little doggy cardi. I can't remember the pattern as I just made it up as I was going along and was measuring it up against her as I went. I remember a starting chain of 25 and just decreased and increased as I went along. But it's a nice little coat for her and she has worn it practically non stop since I made it.

Tx