works in progress

At the moment I'm crocheting a little ripple baby blanket. I severely underestimated the amount of this chunky yarn I would need and have to get more before adding many more rows.

I'm also experimenting with bottle caps and embroidery floss. This will be a trivet soon.  I have about 20 more to cover before I have enough for the hexagon shape I'm aiming for.

what i've been working on lately

crochet capelet from this pattern

I feel kind of bad about my lack of blogging of substance lately, so I thought I'd do a bit of an update about what sort of crafty things I've been doing.  Most of it involves crochet.  I figured I'd be a little burnt out on it after making 365 granny squares.  Apparently not!

The capelet above looks so great in the pattern, but I have to wonder if I'll ever wear it.  The pattern calls for a J (6mm) hook, but my gauge swatch made it clear that I needed to scale it back to an H (5mm) hook.  Even then it is coming out a little bigger than I would like.  Someone commented to me that it looks super complex, but really it isn't at all.  If you can get past the yoke part that involves a billion single crochet stitches, it goes pretty quickly with some chain stitches and clusters.  I'm over halfway done after a couple of days of stitching, but I ran out of yarn.  I should be back in business by tomorrow. 

blocking lacy stuff is totally necessary

A work friend gave me a big bag of yarn that her aunt who knitted left behind.  Who doesn't love free yarn?  All of it is sport weight or thinner.  The first thing I thought to try to crochet with it were collars.  This green one is the first I made, and in my usual fashion, I decided to make up my own pattern.  Why do I do that?  It would be so much easier to follow some tried and true instructions, but since I couldn't find a pattern I liked, I did this instead.  Having said that, I really love the way it turned out.

collar with a vintage button

After that I did find a super cute pattern that I used to crochet the yellow collar in the picture below.  I'm thinking of making another with a button closure instead of the ties.  Buttons make everything better.  Check out the link to see an adorable version with a scalloped edge!

"georgette" collar from this pattern

I'm on the lookout for more things to make from all of this thin yarn!

why can't the ends sew themselves in?

I had been putting off sewing in the ends of several of my granny square afghans because when I finished putting them together, it was summer, and the last thing I wanted to do was to bury myself under hot blankets for hours.  Now that it is freezing outside and in, it is the only thing I want to do.  Oddly enough, I still don't really want to spend time sewing in a hundred million scraps of yarn.  Since no one wants an afghan that would fall apart in the wash, it is kind of necessary though.  The afghan above is about halfway done, and the one below (the super gigantic Square A Day In May blanket) is totally complete.  My mom has discovered my blog and has picked out an afghan that she really wants.  Because for some reason the words we use for colors just don't synch up, I'm not 100% sure if she means the one above or the one below.  All I know for sure is that I'm never parting with the huge one!  I hope she wants the first one!

at least I finished the giant afghan!

I made the top for this quilt way more than a year ago, so when someone gifted me a big roll of quilt batting, finishing this project was the first thing that came to mind.  I'm starting to think that this particular batting wasn't meant for machine quilting because my sewing machine hates it.  Either that or I'm just not a natural born quilter or maybe I'm just impatient and need more practice.  I decided to hand tie it instead (just like the last and only other quilt I have made).  I'm finishing it using a self-binding method that I've seen in a few places around the internet (Carina explains it wonderfully here).  I'm almost done, but leaning over it to sew the edges up was killing my back so I've put it on the back burner yet again.  For a little while this time.

finally finishing this quilt...maybe!

So that's what I've been doing for the past couple of weeks. What are you working on?

working on a new blanket

I'm still alive! I took a little blog vacation after posting my last granny-a-day square. I haven't stopped crocheting, but now I'm concentrating on crocheting this mountain of squares together. This particular project is a smallish baby blanket made up of striped and circles-in squares. I'm using an H hook and the method for joining squares of different sizes I showed you here. I hope to have it finished by next week!

granny square sampler baby blanket

I finally finished weaving in the ends for this cute blanket. I totally want to keep it for myself, but as soon as I make a label for it, I am giving it to a coworker for his new baby girl.

The granny squares used were all from my 365 project, and I joined them using this technique with my favorite size H hook. I kept my yarn colors limited to shades of blue, green, purple, yellow, and white, and I think it kept this sampler afghan from looking as wild as the first one did.

The border was adapted from the #9 pattern in Around the Corner Crochet Borders. I left out a round of cluster stitches because it was using a ton of yarn, and I didn't have very much left of any given color. The green round features crossed treble stitches, and the border is finished off with a round of picot stitches.

I really hope the recipients like this afghan! It is so hard to part with that cute little kitty square that looks like Jim!

252::365 5-petal pointy flower

Patterns: Adapted from "5-Petal Pointy Flower" by Linda Permann in Crochet Adorned & a basic granny square.

I love the flower patterns in Crochet Adorned! This square was made by simply sewing the flower onto the granny square. Easy!

I'm almost done with this blanket that I am making for a co-worker's baby. I joined the squares using my tutorial for joining squares of different sizes, and I'm finally using a border from a book I have had for a while, Around the Corner Crochet Borders. It should be finished by the end of the weekend.