Sophies Garden

Wow, I just realised its been 5 months since my last post!
I've been busy crocheting and been quite productive.
I purchased some lovely Magic Light wool from
Ice yarns and decided to make a few
blankets using the Sophies Garden pattern.
I made 2 squares using the White/Grey/Blue/Purple
shade 33053 for premmie babies and I have 2 balls left,
it is such a soft acrylic yarn.
The first is a premmie blanket for  Little Wonder
at RPA hospital. I used only magic light, but when I
added a few extra rows of block stitch, to make it 55cm,
I used a matching purple yarn for the chain & sc rows.
For the 2nd square, I added several shades of purple
and a few extra rounds of trebles to make it 50cm.
This blanket will be for premmie babies at
Ronald McDonald house in Canberra.
I also made a larger blanket, this time using
Magic light in green pink blue purple yellow
shade 22034 (my favourite)
for the centre rounds up to round 22 and
created my own design for the extra rounds.

Blanket Design

I am so happy with the blanket I've just finished, it looks like it was planned from the start. 
I find that a lot of my blankets evolve & change so much during construction.
I thought I would show how this one started & the end result. It started when my mother 
casually asked if I had a finished blanket she could have. I rarely hold onto my finished
blankets, I don't always have someone in mind when i start, but I find often that as it draws
to completion, someone is either in need of a pick me up, birthday or I receive a request. 
The photo above is what I started with, 8 stained glass butterfly sqs, 2 Re-Joyce-ing sqs
which were leftover from older projects & also 2  3D flowers I've been playing with.

These 2 photos above show where I am deciding the development.

Do I go checkerboard? Do I add new patterns? You can see I'm looking at the placement 

of the red squares, in the photo on the right I'm contemplating making another 3 squares

using Debi's Wiggle squares and placing them in the empty spots.

 In these you can see that I'm contemplating the wiggle square in the centre and I'm
thinking about the 3D flower squares around it or 4 of the Re-Joyce-ing squares.

The photos above show that I've chosen to use 4 wiggle squares & I'm just looking at
the placement of the red squares. Taking photos is a great help in designing & especially
helpful if they get jumbled by the cat/dog or DH/DK's. I also remember someone once
saying they used a door peep to look at their work to get a different perspective.

Ta Da..... here is the final blanket completed with scalloped edging. 
I'm really happy with the finished result.
Like I said, it looks like it was planned that way.
Now I'm planning my "16 days of summer blanket"
ready for the Olympics just around the corner.
Does anyone else have plans for Olympic crafting?

Scrappy Steps Finished

I thought I'd show the finished
Scrappy steps, it has already been
gifted to the local Nursing Home.
I was curious how this pattern
would look with a border
and I  think I prefer it without one.
At the moment I am hoping to find
the motivation to make a flower
blanket. I have ideas mulling in
my head, but it's hard to get them
organised while I'm working.
I'm currently working on
baby beanies and baby chullos,
pictures to come.

Scrappy Steps

I'm having a bit of cabin fever, so today I
was glad to get out of the house, DH and
I went to Eastern Creek for the cycling.
We left at 5-30AM & it was a cold 5 deg C,
it felt a good 10 degrees colder there than at home.
I was glad I took a crochet project to keep
my fingers & knees warm. There are a few rows
that are wonky as I attempted to do a few rows
after my surgery and I didn't take too much notice.
I was thinking it was an easy project to just pick up
as I wouldn't need to concentrate too much and
I forgot that the stitches are done in the
top of the stitch and not in between.
This will be for the local nursing home and
I hope to have it finished before I return to work.
The pattern is called Scrappy Steps and the pattern is HERE 
 I got the inspiration from Dawns blog and yes there are
 a lot of ends to sew in. I don't like sewing in ends
( I have an allergy to cobalt & nickel) but i really wanted to
make the pattern. I didn't sew in the black threads though,
I just crocheted them in as I went. It's a great pattern for
showing off my variegated yarn that I LOVE!!
It's also good project for leftover scraps or "magic balls"
I hope you like the sneak peak photos,
I'll show you the end product before it is gifted. :-)

On my Mind

On my mind this week is Etiquette.
Monday I was watching The Circle and  an "Expert" spoke
about  when you have an invitation for lunch/dinner and you
are told not to bring anything. She said that it was rude to
take nothing and you should take either a bottle of wine
chocolates or flowers.
My daughter moved out recently & Wednesday night she
asked if we would like to come for tea for the first time
on Thursday and not to bring anything. So I thought oh dear
what will I do? Wine? no Chocolates? no  Flowers? no
Somehow I came up with the idea of making a little
soap sack that she can put in her drawer to make her clothes all nice and smelly.
Just think, every time she opens her drawers, she will think of me!
There was a swap table at the K4C confab and the only thing that appealed to me was a ball of
Linate super mazaik,  I've never seen this wool before, but it appealed to my love of variegated wool.
I made the pattern as I went and with 5.5mm needles it only took about an hour.
I took notes so if I make another it will be lots quicker, no measuring, undoing or pattern writing.
I think it's so cute, quite organic looking. She liked it, what do you think?

Visit Rhonda Jeans blog Down to Earth  to see what others have on their mind.

Variegated wool stash

Our bath doesn't get used very often.
It is quite large and takes quite an
amount of water (and time) to fill it.
I have had several people allude
to the size of my variegated wool
stash, so I thought the bath would
be a great place to record my stash.
Here it is in all its glory,
all 115 balls of it.
That doesn't mean 115 different
colours, I have multiple balls of the
same colour in there.
I must admit I was a bit shocked,
so much so that I counted it 3 times!
Now I will have to see how much
I have in my plain wool stash!
As I said last week I am currently at a K4C (knit 4 charity) weekend confab
in Woolgoolga (Northern NSW) and having a great time too! I will post more about it later.
PLEASE NOTE******Since writing this post I have actually bought several more balls.
HMMM maybe I need to seek help!! But I really needed them, truly I did.

The Show Blanket

Here are pics of the blanket I
entered at the show I spoke
about here. 
It is a variation of my charity
Stained Glass Butterfly Square

After I was made redundant last
November I travelled north to visit family. 5 hours by rail to my Mums,
then another 8 1/2 hour train trip
to Queensland to visit my Aunt
and sister. 
So I had a lot of spare time for my
crocheting. 
I was away for 4 weeks
and spent my time making this.
I took it with me when I visited
the lovely ladies at the Beenleigh
Knit N Natter meeting.
They were so welcoming and I
had never met any of them, 
I "knew" a few of them via emails
and the yahoo group K4C.
When they saw it, it was in pieces.

The blanket was made with 3
long continuous strips of
 "stained glass" then the
butterfly squares were sewn
into 2 strips then joined together. 
It certainly shows my love of 
variegated wool, I used 
31different colours.

Here it is on display at the show.
They have the craft items 
displayed behind chicken wire, probably to stop people touching.