Baby Blanket Orange

This young lady is the latest recipient of one of my baby blankets. It’s the same pattern as Baby Blanket Blue, Baby Blanket Aqua and Baby Blanket Peachy. The pattern is free from Black Sheep Wools. The yarn is Schachenmayr Bravo Color, variegated orange mix, and Schachenmayr Original Color, orange. She is the granddaughter of some of our oldest friends, and so once more we can say we have known the baby’s daddy since he was a young lad himself. So far, all four blankets have gone to the offspring of parents we knew when they were children themselves.

 Here she is snuggling up to her proud grandpa.

Crafty Old Bag Number Two

I was in need of a very large tote bag for the hauling round the largish blanket I’m making. I had one but the blanket was outgrowing it and the yarns I was using were in a separate bag. Then I came upon this (new) hessian shopper, with four outside pockets, at a car boot sale. I handed over the princely sum of a euro, and it was mine.

Although it was a nice strong bag in its own right, it was a bit floppy and rather dull. I played around with it for a while and then I had a brainwave. I turned the whole thing inside out, which gave a me a much sturdier construction in a bucket shape with four inside pockets. This left me with an outside that actually looked like an inside and an even duller look to it.

Brainwave number two; cover it in a bright PVC fabric. For €1.50 I had enough to do the job. I wont pretend it was easy. Despite carefully measuring, I manged to get some of it wrong. It was very difficult to sew and a mistake meant lots of little pinpricks in the PVC fabric, which wouldn’t disappear.

I found some webbing I’d saved from something else to cover the ugly seam inside the bag, and prettied up the outside with some lace from my stash.

I’m not sure I’d do it again, but I am definitely pleased with the overall result. Three of the inside pockets store the  (nine) yarns in the correct sequence for the blanket, and the fourth holds the pattern and oddments of yarn too small for a complete row.

For €2.50 (and a few hours work) I call that a job well done.

Baby Blanket Peachy

This is baby blanket number three, using the same pattern as the previous two; Baby Blanket Blue, and Baby Blanket Aqua, but this time I made a different edging. We didn’t know whether it was a boy or a girl until he was born, so I played safe with a variegated yarn, in both pink and blue colours, with added hints of green, grey, peach and dusky rose. The joining and border crochet are in Schachenmayr Bravo DK 8346 and the squares are 02116. Once again,we have known his mummy since she was a toddler, way back in the early 1980s, and she was a playmate of my own two children.

It’s all too much. I need a nap!

A Heart of Gold

A Christmas decoration made for a friend. The cherub was already printed on the fabric in gold on a dark blue background. I embroidered the date and worked blanket stitch around the edge in gold metallic thread. Then I crocheted the edging through the blanket stitch spaces; single crochet followed by two rows of double crochet. It was hard work using such a stiff thread  but anything softer would mean that the edging would not have stood out and would have been limp. The final touch is a gold bow and loop for hanging.

A Round Robin and a Little Tree

New makes for Christmas 2016. Both free patterns from the very talented Amanda Berry of Fluff and Fuzz. Amanda suggests decorating the tree with buttons, bead or sequins. I found the latter hid my wobbly stitches best.

Baby Blanket Aqua

The second of my crocheted baby blankets has found a home with the latest arrival. Once again, we have known his mummy since she was a little girl of eleven, when we moved in next door to her family, and she became our daughter’s friend. We have kept in touch for all the years in-between, even though we are thousands of miles apart. Our daughter went over from Lanzarote to London a few weeks ago for the pre-baby tea-party and I was so pleased when the baby’s mum said she’s been so wanting a hand-made blanket. It makes it all worthwhile. The icing on the cake is this lovely picture of the very new baby sleeping soundly under the blanket.

For details of the pattern and yarns see my previous post Baby Blanket Blue. This time the yarn was Schachenmayr Bravo Color, a random dye, in colourway 2095, which looks a different colour when photographed in the bright Lanzarote sunshine.

Rhubarb the Puppy

I started to make this little puppy last Christmas but it took me longer than expected when other things got in the way, so I put him aside and finished him later in the New Year. The pattern is ‘Rhubarb’ by the talented Amanda Berry and it’s a free download from ‘Let’s Knit’.

I’ve actually bought a few of Amanda’s patterns as they are so easy to follow, with line by line instructions. This one is a little different, but I managed it in the end. The problem for me, as a still novice knitter, was the Intarsia  - again. I wasn’t completely happy with the finished result, so I Swiss Darned over the stitches and it looks much neater.

I used all the correct yarns, as listed in the pattern; I chose the Robin as suggested, although King Cole Dollymix is offered as an alternative. I’m pretty pleased with the result, especially his facial features, although I couldn’t get the centre front seam as neat and ‘closed’ as Amanda’s. Never mind, he will look great with the Christmas Teddies when they come out of their box (Let’s just get Hallowe’en out of the way please, before we think of that!).