Saturday 23 August 2014

Patchwork Additions


This week it really hit me that something about my patchwork really didn't look right, and I realised I no longer liked the bobble yarn patch (post here) and I wanted to replace it. To get some inspiration, I went to the library I took out a book with crochet afghan patterns and found a pretty flower blanket:



There were two types of flowers, and I preferred the rose style flower. I chose my colours and made a square from the pattern, then I added some triple crochet to two of the edges to make it a more rectangular shape. Then I continued going around the edge with triple crochet until the piece was the size I needed for the blanket.



Once I had replaced my centre square, I only needed one more to finish the entire centre section of the blanket. I wanted to add in some more purple, but wanted to keep it simple. I used 4.25mm needles, cast on 31 stitches, then alternated 5 knit and 5 purl, then each line I moved the knits and purls over one stitch to create a diagonal stripe effect:



I am really pleased with how both squares turned out; I was particularly proud of making my first crochet piece from written instructions alone (no video tutorials) and I used the speed knitting technique to make my knitted patch.

Now have 15 squares making up the centre of my blanket, the next thing I want to do is make a border to go around these squares to straighten the whole thing up and stop the edges curling over etc.

It's about the right size for a baby blanket, but I want an adult size blanket, so once the border's done I will start adding more squares. around the outside.


Wednesday 20 August 2014

Learning to Speed Knit

I decided as I had finally taken the time to learn how to crochet, I would finally take the time to learn continental knitting, or speed knitting. I then stumbled across this great tutorial on Twitter, which I really recommend for anyone wanting to learn: How to Speed Knit and Speed Purl.

I started off really awful, then just awful, now after a bit of practice I'm 'not bad'.... so I'm slowly getting there, and resisting all urges to go back to my old method of knitting!

Monday 18 August 2014

Rectangle Granny Patchwork

Granny Rectangle

I decided it was time to add some crochet to my patchwork blanket. I searched for a very straight forward design and found this pattern: Rectangle Granny; to start with I found the pattern very easy to follow, but then I got a little lost as I am still not well practiced in reading crochet patterns. So I searched YouTube for a video tutorial, and found this: Rectangle Granny Method 1 which seemed to use the very same pattern.

yarn and hookOnce I got the hang of the method this was really easy to do without following the pattern, and you can actually just keep going to make the piece as big or as small as you like. I did four rounds.

I decided I wanted to incorporate some blue into the patch, so chose dark blue, light blue and cream coloured yarn, and used a 4.5mm hook.

I am going to add this square into the top corner of my blanket.


If you want to see the patterns for my other patches, please click here.



Saturday 16 August 2014

Crochet Phone Case

Phone Case

Still wanting to practice my crochet skills I found this easy Crochet Phone Case tutorial. I used my new size 4.5mm hook and had 21 stitches in each round to fit my iPhone 4.

Stitch MarkersMy first attempt came out in a triangular shape, and I realised I was somehow increasing a stitch in each round. The video suggests counting stitches each time to make sure you don't go wrong, and as I am still learning this definitely helped me to get it right.

The case fits great and I am really pleased with the finished piece.
Case Colours Phone Case

Flower on case
I also made another crochet flower which I intended to put on the front of the phone case, but once I had made it, I didn't think it looked very good, so I decided to leave it off.

I used my new 3.5mm hook and some thinner yarn I had in my stash to make the flower, and I was a lot happier with how this one came out.

Flower

Thursday 14 August 2014

Crochet Baby Turtle


So, like with knitting, I find crochet very addictive! I found another Happy Berry tutorial to try; Baby Turtle.

Again I only have my 5.5mm hook, so this came out a little larger than the tutorial, but was quite a straight forward project to practice with. I had to watch the magic circle tutorial (linked in the YouTube description) a few times, but once I got it, it was really easy.

Wednesday 13 August 2014

A Little Crochet?


I had some crochet tuition from my friend last week to find out where I was commonly going wrong on my crochet attempts and practice some basic stitches. So today I searched for 'beginner crochet tutorials' on YouTube and discovered Happy Berry Crochet, my new favourite crochet site! There are plenty of patterns on there and video tutorials, which I love when I'm learning.

I currently own just one hook, which is 5.5mm, so a little larger than I would have liked, but fine for practice.

The pattern I chose was A Simple Flower; the video was very easy to follow and I was pleased with how the flower turned out. It's a very basic pattern, and only took about 10 minutes to make. It's definitely not perfect, but it is my first crochet project and I am excited to try something else!


Monday 11 August 2014

Teapot Square for Patchwork


I haven't added anything to my patchwork for a while because I had a large project (my poncho), then a had a few gifts to knit and then I spent some time working on this blog... So with nothing on my needles I decide it was time to add a square!

I did my usual Pintrest search and found this pattern.

The pattern says it's a 12" square, which is too big for my patchwork, so I tried doing a few rows on 3.5mm needles, but the pattern was still too big so I tried again but left out the moss stitch border and reduced one purl stitch from either side if the cable. After a few rows I measured and it neatly measured 15cm/6" wide. Perfect. 

Wednesday 6 August 2014

My Knitting Stash

Knit Stash

So here is my knitting stash! I got these bags from Spotlight and they can just about hold all my yarn and accessories.



Most of my needles and accessories I bought new, but some came with a knitting magazine I bought and some come from Op Shops



Needles
 Sew Needles

Stitch Holders
 Buttons

I have a range of needle sizes, DPNS and circular needles, but only one crochet hook as I have not yet mastered crochet.

Finally, here is my yarn collection, when taking these photos, I realised how much pink yarn I have...

Yarn Stash

YarnYarn