Crochet Project Updates!

I do have the Pembrokeshire Coast Path flowers post ready to publish, but I also have exciting crochet news… I have been wondering which to go with, and the crochet won… I hope you don’t mind!

Please excuse all the random backgrounds etc on my photos too - I'm not in my own home so I can't create space by just moving everything out of the way, and I'm still trying to discover where in the house is best for photos!

First up, I entered the Deramores Blog Awards yesterday!! I'm feeling quite nervous about it, but am keeping fingers crossed...

http://www.deramores.com/blog-awards-entries/

I finished the first panel of my newest blanket project, my mum’s flower blanket. I love how it looks! I have measured it, and I think her blanket will need to be 4 x 5 of these panels, plus it may need a little extra on the length to make it the right size for a single bed, which is what she wants. I have a few ideas for how to achieve this, but I will see how it goes as it comes together.

The first panel complete! (It will need blocking I think...)

After completing this first panel, I decided to get back on with the Glastonbury Blanket. My aunt wants this to be a sofa blanket, so it doesn’t need to be a full bed-size blankie. At first I was planning to make it 9 x 9 squares, then I thought 8 x 8 would be more appropriate.

I have spent time in the evenings putting on the final turquoise round to all those finished circles. These are the ones I had completed before this morning:

Here they are again, with the rest of the finished circles. This stack is going down quickly as the turquoise goes on!

One of them just wasn’t working and I couldn’t figure out why. Then I saw my mistake wasn’t in the turquoise, but within the circle itself. Can you see it?

There it is – a single cluster of 2 trebles where there should be two clusters.

No way to go back and correct that, so I put it to use under this vase of tulips. You can barely see it under the vase, but I might come back to it later and give it a border of some sort to finish it off.

I had a play with the remaining squares, stacking them up and counting them out.

 

I stacked them into piles of 8 to see how near the end was. They still seemed so far away from the 64 squares needed!!

After popping out for the day, I got back to work putting on the turquoise borders and finished them all off this afternoon! Here they are on the sofa:

In real life these colours are not so red as they look in this photo.

I worked out how many more squares I needed, and suddenly realised that I couldn’t face making any more of these right now. Shameful I know, to get so far and then just give in. Especially when I have sooooooooo much purple and pink yarn left!!!!

Playing with my finished squares, I tried to persuade myself to make more circles, but I just couldn’t. I could put the project aside for a bit and come back to it with more enthusiasm later, but while I didn’t want to make the circles right now, I did still want to work on this blanket.

I arranged them in piles, and worked out that I currently have 6 rows of 8 squares (plus 4 left over). 

I decided to lay them all out and put them in order for the blanket. I played a bit, swapping them around to try and achieve a balanced look. This is what I came up with:

Then I decided to start crocheting them together! It feels so great after working for so long, to see it come together and start to turn into a blankety-looking thing! Wonderful!

I tied a scrap of wool to the bottom-left corner, so that if I put it down and come back to it I will always know which side to continue with – I didn’t spend time putting the squares in order, only to ruin it later!

And here it is with 3 rows crocheted together – I am using slip stitches to crochet together on the right side, using the front loops only. This gives a pleasing raised seam, but not so big as using single crochet.

Coming along a treat I think! Next up, pondering the border / edging design to use…