First attempt at basketweave!

After finishing up the baby bootees and hat, I wanted to make something that also utilised front and back post crochet stitches as I love the effect and the feel of the finished product. There's something very tactile about all those ribs, and they add a real depth to the work.

Anyway, I started up making a square of alternating front and back post stitches, then thought to myself that actually, I'd been eyeing up a friend's basketweave cushion for months now and hadn't had a go at it myself. So I did.

It's coming together quite quickly, which is good because I am terribly impatient. I think if I am going to make it a double bed sized blanket - which is the intention - I'm looking at thirty squares. If I can stop being quite so distracted of an evening, that shouldn't take too terribly long.

I love the cushion in the background. I think it's flour sacking with the letters being just strips of fabric. I bought it with my gift vouchers that I received for Christmas from my brother and his wife. Actually I reckon similar cushions would be really quick and easy to make - perhaps a future project? I don't really sew at present, I am rubbish with sewing machines, but I think perhaps my sister-in-law will be able to show me how to wind a bobbin and set up to start sewing (yes, that's what I have trouble with, always have done).

The yarn is sock wool, so the squares are going to need blocking. They're quite large and floppy which is good...I'm using a size H/5 mm hook whereas the yarn calls for a 2-3 size hook, so that's to be expected. I don't want it to be stiff as I am going to make them up into a blanket. I think the variegated yarn is gorgeous!

I may run into trouble, though, as I only have two balls of each colour, so I think there will have to be some more wool purchased. I can't get the same colours, unfortunately, as these are a couple of packs of sock wool purchased in Aldi a few months ago. I only bought the two packs, and I'm getting at the moment a whole square from each ball. I think I might just squeeze three squares out of two balls of yarn, but that will only give me twelve squares in total. I may have some suitable yarn to add in, from an earlier project, but it's all purple, very similar to the purple pictured. There's some aqua, yellow, pale green and white, but those colours don't fit with the rest of the yarn!

We'll see. There's nothing else in the stash of a similar weight or type of yarn, either, hence the need to shop. 

Latest project - more crocodile stitch baby bootees!

I'm thinking of making a baker boy cap to go with these, or alternatively a hat and nappy cover I saw in a book of baby crochet patterns I bought a while ago - if I can find the book in question. I think I know where it is, but I may be mistaken!

Anyway, I've had the yarn for ages and ages...I love sock yarn, in all its marvellous multi-coloured wonderfulness, and this is a particularly lovely mix of blues, whites, and browny-pinks. It's working up into a lovely tweedy effect. It's what's known as fingering weight in US parlance and needs a 3.25 mm or D size crochet hook, so it's really quite fine. I only actually have three balls of it, I think, but I do have plenty of matching weight yarn in pale blue and a slightly darker blue that I can use to augment it if need be.

 The first row of scales for the crocodile stitch area have been done and I am just starting on row two. The pattern is again, of course, from Bonita Patterns. It's exactly the same as the  pale green and yellow pair made for our granddaughter that I blogged about previously.

I really love this yarn! It's viscose, oddly enough, not a material I often work with but is lovely and silky to the touch while being hard-wearing. Just what you want for socks and baby bootees!

The soles are a simple single crochet, the foot part is a mix of front and back post half double crochets to produce that wonderful ribbed effect, and the ankle part is crocodile stitch. If you've never tried crocodile stitch before yourself, it's a combination of V stitches (half double crochet, chain one, half double crochet in the same stitch) and front post half double crochets worked around the sides of each V made, top to bottom on the right side and bottom to top on the left. It requires turning the work on its side to make the left side of each scale, which is one reason why I end up boggle eyed after working on it for any length of time!

Crocodile Rock!

I discovered crocodile stitch thanks to Mikey at The Crochet Crowd on Facebook, and some of my favourite patterns are from Bonita Patterns, designed by the lovely Lianka Azulay. You can find her site right here!

I absolutely had to have a go at this stitch as soon as I saw it - I love learning new techniques and this was a real eye-catcher. Speaking of eyes, I soon discovered that it leaves me totally boggle-eyed, as I have to really focus hard and close on the work as I make each stitch (it's a two-part process) - it makes reading the pattern off my computer screen fun, not to mention that I go immediately cross-eyed as soon as I try to watch television!

I made the bootees first:

These were made in sport weight yarn in a very pale lemon and spring green - I rather like them!

The buttons I bought ages ago and thought went perfectly with the bootees.

Of course, having made those, I had to make a matching hat....

I'm rather proud of both hat and bootees!

Kaelyn's blanket is finally finished!

Our most recent grandchild was born in December 2012; I've already made and posted off a hat and matching baby bootees in crocodile stitch (more on those in another post, I think), but the blanket has been a few months in the making. I keep getting distracted by other things, so it has been something of an effort of will to sit down and complete a project of this size. It isn't even that big, just twelve squares!

The pattern can be found at the Lion Brand site and is simply titled 'Baby Blocks Throw'. It works up really very quickly, though there is no guidance on sewing the squares together other than their placement and no border is suggested.

So, I added a simple US double/UK treble crochet border, just one row, in the palest pink of my four chosen colours. I think it works really well and ties all the colours together nicely.

As I say, really quick to work up and a really easy pattern!

See what I mean about the border just helping to tie all the colours together?

Right now the completed blanket is in the washing machine; that will soften the yarn up nicely. A quick tumble dry (I make sure all my baby projects can be washed and tumble dried, it just makes life so much easier!) and it will be ready for posting off to Rhode Island!

Obsessive-Compulsive Yarn-related tendencies

I think every crocheter or knitter has a case of the above. We each have our stash of yarn awaiting use, long lists of projects we'd love to get around to making or completing (oh, that WIP!), and yet we are still always on the look out for more yarn, new patterns and ideas. Not to mention hooks, hook holders, project bags, pattern books....

I first learned to crochet in the round while on a two-week holiday on the Isle of Lewis aged 12. It rained, a lot, so my friends' grandmother taught the three of us how to crochet. I'd never tried it before and at first assumed that, like knitting, I would be completely unable to get the hang of it. I was delighted to discover that it actually was really easy and a lot less complicated!

For some reason, though, it didn't stick with me and I never persevered with it. It wasn't until my sister-in-law fell pregnant with my lovely nephew that I finally picked up my hook once again and had another go at crochet.

Sadly, I don't think I have any photos of that very first baby blanket. It was probably big enough to cover a single bed, let alone a cot or Moses blanket! I don't know if it ever got used, or indeed has seen the light of day since I proudly presented it to my brother and his wife. It doesn't really matter; I got so much enjoyment out of making it, and there is love in every stitch. It was just a very simple Granny square blanket in lots of different colours: white; yellow; green; pale blue; multi-coloured pastel cotton variegated yarn. I loved making it.

Since then, I've completed four more baby blankets, one woolly and very snuggly sofa blanket for my husband, several hats, one pair of baby bootees and had a go at making a baby cardigan, which is still lurking in my basement. I'm not really that happy with it so it's never been the subject of photos.

Everything I make, I give away. Er, with the exception of that sofa blanket! I have a couple of big WIPs for myself, including a huge blanket made out of lots of tiny mandala Granny squares that I think is going to morph into a mix of small squares, medium and some big squares. I've seen various patterns here and there, so I shall keep an eye out.

I intend to post my completed projects along with photos of them as they went along - we'll see how that goes!