Pretty little crochet squares

Having completed my pretty rainbow blankets, I have now embarked on making a pretty little cushion to match my blanket (I might make matching ones for the girls' blankets, but not sure yet).

Once again, my inspiration comes from Lucy at Attic24. Her pretty little cushion is so cute and I wanted to use up the partially used balls of wool I have left over from our blankets.

Here is my WIP for you to see.

and here is the graph I made to follow.

Unlike Luce, I do not have the knack for getting random colours to work. I find it much easier to work from a diagram than having to think as I go, sort of like planning ahead. If I do the thinking first, the rest is a no-brainer and I can just hook to my heart's content.

If you want to have a look at Lucy's completed cushion, click HERE and it will take you to the post in her blog where it shows the work in progress and finished block of squares, ready to turn into a cushion cover, which you can see if you click HERE.

Thanks once again for the inspiration Luce :)

Take care and ciao for now,

No-Sew Granny Progress report

Good morning crafters!!

Just thought I would share with you the progress I am making on my blanket. I am really really enjoying this :)

When I started to make this, I was just picking colours at random, with an eye to keeping colours away from each other and mixed up. Once I got to 20 squares, I realised how darned hard this was going to be as it grew larger, so I decided to graph out the colours. I didn't want to do this originally, but found it was necessary and really quite enjoyable too.

Here is the graph I ended up with. The rainbow around the edge is the edge I am going to do after the 54 squares are all done. It will go all the way around the blanket, but my graph paper wasn't large enough to put it on. At least I have an idea of how its going to look.

Here is the colour planner (I tried hard to get coloured pencils that closely matched my yarn colours)

And this is the photocopy of my graph so I can mark off my progress as I go.

And, last but not least, here is my blanket with 25 squares

I don't mind the randomness of the colours, but I do prefer a more "rainbow" effect. My next blanket (after I have made Zac's, Mad's and Emily's) will be a chevron in rainbow hues. Looking forward to that one very much.

Thanks for stopping by :)

Take care and ciao for now,

No-Sew Granny Squares Blanket

This is my new love and joy!!

Thanks to Lucy at Attic24 blog I have renewed my love of the humble granny square. I just love the way you join them as you go- no more having to sew them all together at the end, a very daunting task.

I have also been inspired by the gorgeous colours that Lucy uses (also my favourites - I love brights). I went and bought a little bit a lot of yarn on Thursday and got hooking. I am loving the way my blanky is coming together so fast, and just love love love the colours.

Here it is, what do you think?Yes, they are my toes peeking in at the bottom there, all toasty and warm in my knitted socks.

I am really enjoying this.

I am using a 100% acrylic yarn that feels beautiful and soft. I can't use wool or wool blends, as they irritate my skin. However, this yarn is gorgeous and on sale at the moment for only $2 per ball, so I am going to go crazy and buy heaps, as I know my 2 girls are going to want their own snuggly blankets too. I am also going to buy lots of this yarn in blue and black to make a nice snuggly blanket for Zac in his fave colour (blue) with black. He feels the cold so much (like his mama) and I have only made him a scarf while, for the girls, I have knitted handbags, scarves and cardigans. Its Zac's turn to be on top of the list {wink}.

The only downside of this yarn is its tendency to split (aarrggh!!) but it is so easy to use, I can forgive that small annoyance. It also tends to have a few 'icky' bits here and there, where it hasn't spun properly, but I am forgiving those too, as they just add to the charm of the whole thing and aren't really that noticable.

Here is my bag of yummy coloured goodness. It makes me happy in my heart to look at these colours. I have 12 colours all together (notable missing colours are red, black and olive green, not my faves blech).

So, thats it for today. I will back back soon with some information about the knitted (or crocheted) charity squares.

Take care and ciao for now,