Granny in the Garden

My New Year's resolution to make pretty things for me rather than to sell is going well.

I started making these crocheted Summer Garden Granny Squares over the festive break (see Lucy's lovely blog over at Attic24 for the pattern).

I used some acrylic yarn that I had in my stash - yarn that came with each issue of The Art of Crochet partwork that I collected last year. I never got past the first binder as I was quite disappointed in the number of designs for the price of each week's issue. Anyway, I had enough balls of yarn to make 49 squares (a nice size for a cosy lap cover). Nine colours were used, though I had more balls of certain colours (mainly the blues) so they tend to dominate.

I wanted to make each square different so I wrote out a little chart where I could check off colours against their row position in the square. This ensured that I had a pretty much equal amounts of squares with a white border, or a red border, or a lime green border, etc.

I had great fun trying out different combinations of squares - making sure that no centre colours or edge colours were next to each other; and then of course colours such as the white shone out so they had to be moved around until they were more evenly spaced. And then I joined the rows together in the wrong order so things were slightly more random than intended - but it looked ok and so I didn't bother pulling it out!

I didn't have enough of the yarn left for the border so I'm hunting now for some similar tones. I've found a green yarn in my stash and used that for the first row of the edging but I need a shopping trip to get a couple more to finish it off!

It's such an easy pattern but the overall effect is lovely. Hopefully I'll post a FINISHED! photo soon, and I'll try and take a decent picture in daylight as these photos don't show the lovely bright colours very well.

What have you been making this month?

Bright or Subtle? You decide!

Enough of this gardening and house moving lark… So what crafty things have I been up to lately?

Well, I finished the baby blanket that I was making for my good friend Emma. I really enjoyed making it as the little squares are quick to make and very portable, so I could pop my yarn and hook in my handbag and crochet away happily whenever I go the chance: at home in front of the TV... in the garden enjoying the birds' antics... sitting at my desk during my lunch hour when it was too cold/wet to wander out... sitting outside in my lunch hour whilst enjoying the occasional sunny spell... relaxing on holiday in Whitby... (yes, the crochet goes everywhere!) Even the making-up process wasn't too bad, and the stripy border just finishes it off perfectly, I think.

I was so pleased that the parents-to-be loved the finished article – and hopefully baby will too! I've spent a couple of lunch hours at work this week sitting outside and soaking up the sun whilst crocheting some more of these little squares. I'd like to make some baby blankets in different colourways – and hopefully sell them in my Folksy shop. Watch this space.

Other, smaller projects that I've been doing are these pretty floral corsages. I love the bright, sunny colours and the contrasting buttons, and the shaggy texture of the blooms. I'm going to do some more of these but I can't decide on colourways: I like bright, contrasting colours but hubby prefers the more subtle, complementary shades. Guess I'll have to do both! Do you have a preference?

These flower corsages are a bit of a change for me, but I think they turned out really well and I'd like to do some more of these too, in various colours. They consist of layers of felt, with free-style machine embroidery and sparkly bead embellishment. I've made a prototype purse using the same technique which turned out really well so that's something else to add to the 'more things to do' list.

And finally, I've tried my best to avoid the World Cup but failed miserably. So if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. We had a stall at the monthly Grainger Market Art & Craft Fair last Saturday and it was the perfect time to sell these England heart brooches, what with England playing their first game that night. They were very popular at the fair and I managed to sell a few, but I still have some left. Hopefully England will do well and I might sell a couple more in the next three weeks!

As ever, click on the highlighted links if you're interested in buying and want to know more...

Have a good weekend - hope the sun keeps on shining!