Sunday Sampler Catch Up and A Little late

I'm joining Maria of  Maria Divine with her 

                                                        I have done all her squares to date (some of them twice) and can't  wait to do this weeks! It's so pretty!

But I'm so enjoying whipping up these squares up that I've been scouring my crochet books for some more squares and even made some up myself! I am having lots of fun with it and can't wait to get started on making it up into a blanket. I will be making 2 blankets as some of them are done with a darker wool that's not really me so I'll be making it probably for mum :-)

These pictures are in groups according to size as I am going to make them into kind of a freeform blanket. so it doesn't matter that they are different sizes.

Small

Medium

Large

and here is a mosaic of them all so you can see them individually

I have also had a little bit of fun creating something my own...

I started with this pattern...

which made up looks like this...

But this is a bit smaller than I wanted and I thought I might be able to adapt the pattern to make it bigger

and I did! It looks like this...

and I love it! This picture doesn't do it justice!

I hope you have enjoyed seeing my work and will also pop over to Maria's Blog to see her squares and other lovelies she has there.

New Project

Sadly the baby I was making my second blanket for hasn't made it on it's journey to this world and my heartfelt prayers are with this family right now. So I have put the blanket on hold (hopefully to pick it up if my friend gets pregnant again) and needed another project for now.

My friend Maria has been doing a

feature on her blog. One lovely crochet square a week so I have decided to join her and make me some squares for maybe a throw for my new home :-)

So here are my first 2 squares from weeks 1 and 2 from Maria's feature (she is currently on 4 so I have a little catching up to do)

The Crocodile Square

The Granny Square

Now I have been crocheting since I was young but do you know I have never done a granny square before? So this was a first for me and I have to say I do love it so I might make a few more to keep my hands busy and out of the biscuit tin hehe

Now my Granny square was a little smaller than the Crocodile square I pinned them together overnight to stretch the granny square a little

 Front

back

Well I hope you like my squares and I hope you'll pop over to Maria's blog and see what hers look like :-)

Happy crafting!

Baby Blanket 1 Finished!

I'm thrilled to announce my first baby blanket is now finished! All sewn up and useable! I paid specific attention to the fact that with a ribbon woven through it every time it came out of the wash it would prob be necessary to straighten the ribbon out again! Just the kind of job a mum with a baby and 3 teenagers doesn't have time for! So I have sewn parts of the ribbon to the blanket to ensure that doesn't happen. It took a few tries to find the right spot to sew that doesn't affect the look of the blanket and am very pleased with the results and so here it is....

I hope you like this blanket as much as I do. Hurry up little baby so you can appreciate it's warmth :-) if you want to see the rest of the process in making this blanket check out my Product Diary.

New Phone, New Phone Case

Today I got a new phone! It's the poshest phone I've ever had! Touch screen and internet access (which I've yet to work out!) It's a Samsung Tocco Lite but being a 'girly' girl I had to go one better than just pink....

Can you see that?

Yup! It's a Hello Kitty phone!! I have had my eye on it for quite some time and I have saved up my catalogue commission and then got this phone in the sale so combining those factors this phone has cost me the grand total of .....£20 what a bargain!

After I had ordered it I decided I had to make a case to go with it. I had been told the phone would come tomorrow so I thought i had plenty of time to get it made. So I went hunting around the house for some (it had to be) pink wool and found this....

 This is a lovely mess of a ball of wool caused by our puppy dog Bess getting hold of a new ball and playing with it! I was in just the right frame of mood for untangling wool! Excited about my coming phone and the new case I would be making and my mind occupied by the television I quietly worked my way through it! It did take all evening but eventually I got to this...

One big ball, one smaller ball and 15 tiny ones! Now it is important to me that you know I did not cheat...that is I didn't use scissors once! The number of balls have been created by puppy dogs teeth! 

Sadly the next few days were not good ones and so it is with the arrival of my phone today that I have had to get on with making my new case and here it is...

and with the phone snuggly inside...

Do you like it? I do! I love my Phone case and especially my phone!!

So what do I like the most about my new phone after just a few hours play? I love the musical keypad for writing texts! it makes writing texts such fun!! I love the fact that I could receive a photo from my dear friend Maria (shhh! don't tell anyone she's been out buying wool again!) and I love the fact that when I'm listening to my music I can carry on doing all the other things I need to do on my phone like writing texts and exploring all the wonders that come from having a new phone! I am looking forward to finding out more about assigning MP3 music of my choice as a ring tone and as individual ring tone for my friends and I seem to see that I may be able to assign photo's to my contacts too! What fun! 

Well you might be enjoying this over excited missive from your fabulous IPhone and if so I will say I'm glad you have the best that mobile phones have to offer. I'm sure you're way too nice to say anything about how excited I'm getting over a phone way behind the amazing Apple technology but I am happy with my little phone and can aspire to get me an iphone in 4 or 5 years ;-) I'm used to being behind the times but still absolutely delighted with my beautiful phone!

Baby Blanket 2

You may remember I started a baby blanket in white and filet crochet with butterflies? It was very pretty and I started off really well but then I started making lots of mistakes so I started another simpler one. Well that one is almost finished (just got to secure the ribbon) so now it's time to get on with this one. I have undone it to start from scratch. I have also taken some advice from Maria to make the filet crochet squares instead of rectangles. Instead of doing 1 treble, 2 chain, miss 2 trebles, 1 treble. Maria found that 1 treble, 1 chain, miss 1 treble, 1 treble is much better and she was right! I have also been having a play at designing my own filet crochet designs!  These are the ones I did all the same size so I can do a patchwork style blanket (project for a later date) and here are the photo's of them...

I am very proud of the rabbit which is entirely my own design! I decided to make my life less complicated I needed to have a symetrical design so to keep it simple (in a good way) I picked 3. The heart, well just an outline, the bunny, couldn't leave him out and the butterfly in flight. And I have already completed the first set of motifs...

I'm loving it and the great news is that it is much easier to keep track of the pattern so I'm a calmer crocheter! Thank to Picasa for the collage photo's! it made it very easy to make them up and the blog doesn't take lots of scrolling down to see them all!

I hope you like what I've done and feel free to copy the patterns.

Finished Scarves and New Projects

Well I don't want to overload you with lots of posts on one day so this post has lots of things instead!

I have finished some my friend Karen's Scarf

I've finished Dad's too but don't seem to have a photo of it so I'll put it on my finished projects page when I can. That page needs updating too.

So what's next? Well my best friend Sam (who thankfully doesn't read my blog) is having a baby at the end of Feb and I'm really excited about it! So I am going to make a cot blanket for the little one. I haven't totally set on a pattern yet so here are pics of all the patterns that are influencing me. 

 

I'm leaning towards the butterflies but with hearts added alternate rows. I like the cushion but may do that for my friend Amy whose baby is due in June. and the bird curtains I think I will have to do for my bathroom! And so the list of projects grows to 3 from just looking for 1!

Merry Christmas!