Cathedral blanket

I had the day off work today and was able to spend it relaxing and starting my next crochet project. It's another blanket - after this I really must make something that is not a blanket! In my defence this blanket idea has been lurking in my head for nearly 2 years now, so I think its about time it had its day!

I'm calling it my cathedral blanket, but its really inspired by stained glass windows in general. Whenever S and I visit anywhere with a cathedral or church, we always take a look. I've seen some beautiful stained glass windows on these visits: these are from a small Chapel in the grounds of Edinburgh Castle, which we visited last summer:

My plan is to make granny squares and join them using black yarn to create a similar effect to a stained glass window. I've chosen lots of bright colours, as well as the left overs in my stash to create this, and already I have a small pile of granny squares! I'm making small squares to get the effect of little pieces of glass.

I think its going to be a lot of fun to make, and I look forward to sharing its progress with you!

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Something Pretty blanket

I've finished my Something Pretty blanket! I am snuggling under it even as I write these words, and I love it!

The blanket is only single bed size, but it does fit that size rather nicely as you can see in the picture. I made176 squares in total - 16 rows each 11 sqaures long.

I have crocheted the squares together using double crochet (that took ages and really made my hands hurt - I think I should have used a smaller hook size!

The inspiration to make this blanket came from a lovely version which I saw on Coco Rose Diaries, but the original pattern is from Millie Makes.

Although I loved the version I saw on Coco Rose Diaries, my colour choices tend to be richer and deeper colours - I guess I just have a different 'colour personality'! It always fascinates me how people's colour choices differ. I do love my pink and purple and you can see that here - 2 shades of purple and 2 shades of pink involved, then some green and blue to stop it from being too completely girly for my taste!

For those of you who are interested in specifics, I used the following yarn:

Rowan Pure Wool DK in shades

012 Snow

052 Orchid

006 Pier

026 Hyacinth

Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK in shades

017 Lilac

046 Airforce

Sublime Baby Cashmerino Silk DK in shades

346 Dusty Pink

002 Cuddle

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Spring flowers

It has felt like spring, really, for the first time this year over the weekend and today. The air is softer, the sun is shining and heavy winter coats have been left (probably temporarily, but never mind) at home.

We saw swans in Hyde Park on Saturday.

Also snowdrops (Tennyson called them the fair maid of February - or was it fair maid of spring?), and cherry blossom.

We also have some lovely flowers in the house at the moment:

And last but not least, I spotted some lovely daffodils in Russell Square on my lunch break today:

The day finished with a glorious pink and red sunset, which I could see from the train home and managed to take a quick snap of once I reached my stop:

I hope those of you in the Northern hemisphere all get the chance to enjoy the lovely spring weather soon too!

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Stripy Wave Cushion

I decided this week that I really needed to finish a crochet project. I had reached that point where, once again, I had waaaay too many things on the go, and it was starting to stress me out a little, and make me feel like I just wasn't achieveing anything!

At first I thought it would be the Something Pretty blanket that I would finish. So I spent all of Sunday hooking away on that. By Sunday night my hand was aching so much from crochet overload, that I had to stop and admit to myself that I still wasn't really that near the end of that project.

So, I turned to a little project which I started in January, the Stripy Wave Cushion from Nikki Trench's Cute & Easy crochet. I started this in January and it was almost complete when I put it down to do something else. It's now finished after one everning's gentle work!

I don't know if you will remember my post about this from last month - I made it using scraps of DK yarn in various pink and purple shades. I started with a slightly longer chain than specified in the pattern - a chain of 83. The cover is a little loose on the pad - I probably could have got away with a 73 chain base, but never mind.

I have to say, I am really pleased with this one, I love the finished result. I attempted this pattern not only to use up my scrap yarn, but also to get some practice in crochet edges, including straightening a ripple edge, which I'd never done before, and crocheting down the side edges of rows of treble stitches, something I have tried but with limited success.

I'm happy to say I found both tasks much easier than I expected, and now have my lovely snuggly, pretty cushion as a result!

Looking forward to some warmer more spring like weather here in England tomorrow - provided the weather forecast is correct!

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Watching the moon set

I can't believe it has been a week already since I was last here. I can't think quite what I have been doing with all my spare time this week! Too much day-dreaming probably.

Still, at least you can crochet and day-dream at the same time - in fact I find that one tends to naturally lead to the other. I'm still working hard on my Something Pretty blanket.

I am completely entranced by these little 3d flowers - they have such a girly vintage vibe to them. The only problem is that they do use up quite a lot of yarn!

I'm so glad to have figured this pattern out finally - I had a little trouble with making the petals at first - I was doing cluster stitch, which I knew wasn't right, as my petals weren't 3d. Finally after trying on and off to work the pattern out since Christmas I had an epiphany (whilst trying to get to sleep one night - I probably even dream about crochet - how sad!) a couple of weeks ago, and it all fell into place. It really is a lovely pattern, thankyou Millie Makes!

I've used 7 different colours to make the flowers for this blanket, and then white for the backgrounds. I don't anticipate that this will be a very large blanket - the cost would become ruinous for one blanket. I'll share more pictures when it's finished.

I am glad it is February. I've been sky watching a lot over the past week. Although its still so dark when I get up that I'm seeing the moon set rather than the sun rise, it has been rather lovely.

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