Slow but steady progress

I am making a Fatty Lumpkin pony, one of Heidi Bears' delightful African flower animals. I finished all the motifs and I'm now busy joining them all together.

It's a slow process, but I'm getting there. Doing the join-as-you-go has involved quite a few mistakes and some muttered curses, but it does create a neat finish and it means that the joining is accomplished as you crochet the final round of the motifs. Ideally I would have liked to make a hippo first. Hippos are blobby in shape and they therefore look a bit easier than a Fatty Lumpkin, but due to starting a new part-time job I didn't have time to make the creatures for Christmas presents and the eldest grandchild (who is getting the pony) has her birthday first.

The only consolation is that the hippo should seem easy once I've mastered the pony!

So far I have put together Fatty's bottom and hind legs.

The crochet is resting on some books I've been using for work teaching a GCSE English re-sit class and a couple of modules on a foundation degree.

In which I finish a hat just as the weather turns warm

I have finished another project. This time it's a slouchy hat. To be honest, I would never have attempted the pattern based on the photos posted with it, but someone on Ravelry had done it in a chunky tweed effect and added a flower. As I had some blue Marble Chunky to use up, I decided to copy what she did.

I didn't do as many increases or as many rows as the pattern says because of using different yarn and hook size, but I'm very pleased with the results. It actually looks good on me! If I sound surprised, it's because it's not easy to find hats that suit me.

The pattern is available free here. The flower was from Crochetgeek, also on Ravelry and available here on the Crochet Geek blog.

I was planning on wearing the new hat for our visit to London later this week, but the weather (which has never dropped below freezing all winter) has just turned even warmer, so my poor hat may not get an outing until next winter. Though having said that, March can be very cold and windy, so we will see. :)

Giving cushions a makeover

Partly to brighten up our sitting room and partly to use up all the yarn I bought for projects that are not now going to happen, I've decided to revamp all the cushions. This is the first. I think it came out quite well, considering I just improvised the design.

I used the Redheart corner-to-corner pattern to make 2 squares which were sewn together round 3 sides and buttons added on the back of the cushion to close the top. The border is just a simple shell stitch, a simplified version of the border in the Redheart pattern. (I didn't like the picots, so left them out.) The yarn is James C. Brett Marble Chunky from my stash. Very simple and quick to do and it matches the snuggly corner-to-corner blanket I made for myself!

Front

Back

I plan to work my way around all the cushions now, trying out different designs. A cushion cover is an good size for experimenting with new stitches and there are only so many blankets a small house and two people can use! :)

How to decrease when crocheting the corner-to-corner stitch

Someone on the Creative Crochet Crew -- The Group Facebook group was getting in a muddle over where exactly to place the slip stitches for the decrease when making a corner-to-corner blanket. In order to try to help, I did some photos which I thought I'd also post here, so I have the tutorial handy in case anyone else has a problem.

1. Here is what the piece looks like as you finish the last of the increase rows. Until now, each row has been getting longer, but from now on, we're going to decrease to stop the piece growing and instead get it to narrow down to a point.

2. Turn the work and slip stitch into the trebles (US double crochet). I find that crocheting into just the two nearest the 3 chain loop works best.

3. Now slip stitch into the 3 chain loop which is on the same block.

4. Chain 3. You can see where the next block will fit. The decrease has started to make a straight edge and from now on, the project begins to decrease in width.

5. Here the decrease is complete and we're working the rest of the row.

At the end of this row, you can either carry on increasing, in which case you will end up with a long rectangular strip, for example for a scarf. Or, after you have reached the end of the row and made the turn, you can start to decrease at this side as well.

Lots of African Flowers

After 2013 being the Year of Blankets, I intend to stick to smaller items this year, namely items for me to wear, bags and toys. As soon as I saw the cute Happypotamus and Fatty Lumpkin Pony designed by Heidi Bears, I knew I had to buy the pattern and make them.

And then 2013 turned into the Year of the Blankets. :)

However, finally all those projects are completed and I have therefore spent the past few days making African Flower motifs whenever I got a spare moment. So far I have 10 hexagons. Still quite a few motifs to go and then the real fun begins when I try to put them all together, but Heidi Bears pattern is very clear with lots of photos, so it should be OK.

Here is a motif in progress. I'm using acrylic double knitting and a 3.50 mm hook. I tend to crochet rather tightly, so I'm hoping these will keep the stuffing in OK.

And here is a pile of colourful hexagons.

I'll post again when I have a finished pony.

My big snuggly blanket is finished!

Once the Christmas presents were all finished, the next big project to work on was my big snuggly corner-to-corner blanket made out of James C. Brett Marble Chunky. I still have a few final ends to weave in, but as I've already started using this blanket, I think I can count it as finished. It's the biggest thing I've ever crocheted!

I made this partly to use up all the marble chunky in my stash. I'd bought it with the intention of making scarves and cowls to sell, but then I got a teaching job and had much less free time, so I abandoned the idea of selling items. As well as using up my stash, I did also buy a couple of extra balls to make sure it would be really big and snuggly for wrapping myself in while I watch TV. As you can see, it is as big as our bed!

Photographing so I could blog about it wasn't easy. It was raining hard, so taking it outside for better light and more space wasn't an option. The only place large enough to spread it out was our bed.

So... I had to stand on a chair and hold the camera above my head at arms length. Even increasing the ISO led to lots of blurred shots and these are far from perfect, but I think they do show off the beautiful way the colours vary.

Not all crochet patterns work well with variegated yarn, but the corner-to-corner pattern comes out really well and now I have a big snuggly blanket to wrap myself in while watching TV in the evening. :)

Here's a close up of the pattern.

And here's the border. I felt that the blanket needed a simple border, but I didn't want to just do rounds of double crochet (UK) that I'd used on the c2c lap blanket for my dad. Instead I did a modified version of the border from the original Red Heart Pattern. I simplified it and didn't do the picots, so this is just shells of 5 UK trebles.

In which I start a snuggly blanket just for me

I have finished several blankets in recent weeks, all for other people. The weather so far has been stormy but mild, but as we head towards the coldest part of the winter, I thought it was time I made a blanket just for me.

I have several big fat balls of James C. Brett Marble Chunky. This is a yarn which comes in lovely variegated colours and works up into a nice soft fabric. I'm making another corner-to-corner using this pattern. I was really pleased with the one I made for my Dad and I've noticed from looking at blankets that other people have made that it shows off a variegated yarn really well.

This is the yarn that I'm using and though I only started today, I have already produced a satisfyingly large triangle. It's a really easy pattern and will be something soothing to work on over Christmas and won't take much concentration. Ideal for these dark days when I'm not at my best and sometimes feel that I'm functioning on only half a brain.