A little bit dotty

So I am now a Great Aunt. My niece had her first baby, a girl, this morning. A lovely healthy tall baby with the chubbiest cheeks ever. There’s nothing like being a Great Aunt to make you feel old! Lucky I have my own baby to remind me I’m not that old. Yet. Heh heh.

She didn’t find out the sex of the baby beforehand, which makes the pre-birth crafting slightly more challenging. I had decided on making her a small blanket, crochet for quickness and cotton for ease of use and because it will be a summer baby. But what colours? I pondered this for a while, and then an invitation for her baby shower arrived, using soft grey, yellow and white. Ta dah! Perfect. And even better, I had those colours in stash! So this is what I came up with:

Details:
Pattern: Dotty Dots afghan by Teresa Chorzepa, from Lion Brand – a nice easy freebie, which lends itself to lots of variety just by changing the colours and/or size (as I did).
Yarn: Bendigo Woollen Mills 8ply/DK cotton, in glacier (grey), daffodil (yelllow) and parchment (cream). I used just over 200g (one ball!) of the grey, and much less of the other two colours – I think about 65g of the yellow and maybe 5g of the cream. It blocked out beautifully. Very light and drapey.

Hook: 4mm KnitPro wooden hook.
Time: 16 August – 25 September 2014 – finished just in time to block it before the baby shower! A month and a bit – not bad for a small blanket! My crafting time is not what it used to be!

Modifications: I made my version 5×5 squares – mostly because that’s all I had time to do. I would have liked to add an extra row but time beat me. But it will still be a good size for use in the pram or bassinette, I hope – it ended up being 70cm x 65cm (which made me laugh, as it should be square, but anyway!). I also did the edging slightly differently – a round of treble and then a round of dc, all in grey.

Here it is with a stunt baby for scale!

Seeing stars

I had been waiting until I actually block this FO before posting about it, but as it’s been two months since I finished it, and I still haven’t blocked it, despite the unseasonably warm weather we’ve been having, I thought I might as well show it off. Especially since it was a long time coming, or at least, it seemed that way!

TA-Dah! It’s my Starburst Afghan! Or, should I say, it’s Harry’s Starburst Afghan!

(Connor just had to be in the shot too!). I took these photos at the start of this month – it’s amazing how much he’s grown since then, in such a (relatively) short period of time.

Details:
Pattern: Starburst Entrelac Afghan by Magan Granholm, from the book Unexpected Afghans by Robyn Chacula. A deceptively tricky looking pattern, it’s actually quite easy, although the joining instructions for some of the diamonds could perhaps be a little clearer. It is made in the round, one colour at a time, and each diamond builds on the previous. No need to cut the yarn until you finish the round.

Yarn: I was originally planning on doing it in the same colours as the original, which I really liked, using Wollmeise DK. Which I would have had to buy. So then I came to my senses and decided to use stash yarn, Bendigo Woollen Mills Cotton, instead. Much better idea! Yay me for stash busting, heh! So I used under 2 balls (they are big balls, 200g each!) of each colour, pomegranate, French navy, sky, glacier and parchment.

Hook: 5.5mm KnitPro interchangeable hook – these are regular crochet hooks with a screw on the end enabling a cable to be added for wide Tunisian projects – as the diamonds use a maximum of 12-13 stitches at any one time, a regular straight hook is enough. These are really nice hooks, very smooth and easy to use.
Time: 20 August 2013 – 1 April 2014. I had a bit of a break in the latter part of last year, but from late December I pretty much just worked on this project, in an attempt to finish it before Harry arrived. Which of course, didn’t happen! But it’s been too warm to need it anyway, and I finished it in plenty of time for the cooler weather. Whereupon we immediately had a late autumn record-breaking heat wave! As soon as I finished this, I went on a new project starting spree! More about those projects another time!

Modifications: I didn’t modify the pattern at all, but I did have a bit of a messy centre – I’m pretty sure it was not meant to have a huge hole in the centre, and my joining method at the end of this round was a bit messy, but once I got the hang f the pattern and the joins in particular, it was much neater! And that hole at the centre was easily fixed once the blanket was finished.

I have to admit that towards the end of this project I was a bit over it, it was taking forever. But I remember when I started it how much I loved it, and once it was done the love returned.

It is pretty nice, if I do say so myself!

Yes, yes, I did it!

Well, my friends, I am pleased to report I DID IT! With a day to spare (thank goodness it was a warm day to aid speedy drying of the last minute blocking). Phew!

I have to admit, I really did not enjoy the seaming aspect of this project, but I am very happy with the finished product. And I think the bride and groom (my nephew) also appreciated it.

Details
Pattern: Behrens Colourblock Afghan by Leigh Radford, from the fabulous book Unexpected Afghans. I knew, of course, before I started this project, that it involved a lot of seaming, but I somehow convinced myself that it wouldn’t be so bad. Funny how we conveniently ignore the finer details for a project we otherwise really want to make! I thought this would be a good design for the recipients, a bit of a modern twist on the traditional crochet blanket.

Yarn: I changed the colours from the original, and decided on Bendigo Woollen Mills Serenade, a very nice bamboo/wool blend in the perfect colours for the recipients – not bad that I could get all 6 desired colours from a limited edition yarn which only came in (from memory) 10-12 colours in total! I didn’t quite keep track of how much of each colour I used and I forgot to weigh the blanket once finished! Not much good, am I?! I do know I used less than I’d anticipated, so have lots of leftovers. Especially since the yarn comes in hefty 200g balls!
Hook: 4.5mm KnitPro hook with soft handle. Very nice hooks these, and extremely inexpensive. Shame they aren’t more widely available here.

Time: 5 May 2013 – 26 September 2013. I had 414 squares to make so set myself the target of around 100 each month, leaving myself a month to seam and finish. And it worked pretty much according to plan, thankfully. I am glad I didn’t leave it any longer to start, that’s for sure!

I also gave the Hexagons.Grey blanket to my brother to give to his daughter for her (very belated) wedding present – only about 3 years after the fact! (In my defence, it was a “surprise!” wedding). I hope she and her husband are happy with it.

I must be some sort of glutton for punishment when it comes to crochet blankets, because I have started another one…no seaming required on this one though!

It’s another deadline project (OF COURSE!) but for the best kind of recipient:

Yes, Connor is going to be a big brother! This little fellow is due to arrive mid February, and we couldn’t be happier.

Wish me luck

See this pile of 5cm x 5cm (2″ x 2″) squares?

There’s 414 of them (I hope! Actually, I think I somehow managed to make a few spares!).

I have a month to sew them all together and crochet around the edge, to make this blanket for my oldest nephew’s wedding present:

Wish me luck? I think I’m going to need it!