finished knit dress

It's long enough, after all! She should be able to wear it all winter :-) She looks a bit grumpy, but that's because I put the dress on her right after her nap, and took her soother away to get a picture! Bad mama... 

And I already started the next project, http://www.purlbee.com/crocheted-linen-grocery-tote/ a groceries bag. I'm doing it in ancora cotton, it's really thin, it's meant for lacey crochet projects, i think. I bought it in Portugal. I'm using a 2.5mm hook and am already changing the pattern a little, as I go on, so no idea how this will turn out! But the bag is meant to be very stretchy, so it shouldn't matter too much! 

vintage crochet baby dress

about 40 years ago, before she was married, and i think before she was even engaged, my mum crocheted a little red baby dress, and embroidered some flowers onto it. Years later she had a baby girl, and another, but somehow didn't get round to putting the dress on them, but she kept it through all these years! And presented it to my little daughter last week! the style and colour are very nearly back in fashion, and it's super cute over jeans!



...as you can see in the second photo emm has discovered her tongue and uses it a lot to make interesting sounds, mostly gerrell, brell, babblabblabb! she's having so much fun! the only downside is it's hard to take a picture that doesn't have a little pink tongue in it!!


i'm really touched to think she kept it all these years!

i did make something!

 

ha, i have something to show after all, i just forgot (i forget a lot these days...) over christmas my mum made the tiny mittens to match the hat that i made before she was even born, and then i used the rest of the wool to make the little scarf/neckwarmer. a bit of mother daughter cooperation!

right now she's finishing my stripy crochet blanket (i started it, not anticipating the 3rd trimester tiredness. mama continued it while she was staying here to help me with m., after that i managed all of 3 rows, so i brought it home with me for christmas...)it's made with organic cotton, the pattern is random stripes

Crochet Blankets

Doesn't it just make you think of elmar the patchwork elephant? These are some more holiday photos, for the craft appreciating blog readers out there.





These two blankets adorned the beds in our Sardinian 'agriturismo' accomodation.
The bluey-grey one is a designed pattern of baguette(?) surrounded granny squares, the giant colourful one is seemingly random, baguette squares with coloured centres. it makes me want to crochet again!

and this was the tablecloth, i think it might also be handmade...

string bag 1.1 photos

excuse the bad quality, i had trouble using the flash as it completely overexposed the images (see saturday's) . I must invest in a proper camera. but i think a real SLR is out of the question. Anybody got any experience with the 'nearly SLRs'?

string bag 1.1

progress!
i think i figured out how to make this, it doesn't really look anything like the bag i linked to, but then i'm not actually doing that exact stitch. I am now doing round after round of *yo, k2tog* and am getting a tidy looking result. i have 1 thread separating the 'holes', (like on that one row that was a mistake on the previous version, so i now know what i'd done wrong there, i'd missed one knit row). the previous pattern would make for a sturdier bag, but this one is much easier to keep track of, and to see if there have been any mistakes. i think i may have an uneven number of stitches, which means i have no visible line where i go to the next round, i am always yo and then ktog having the yo of the previous row on the left, and the stitch on the right.
I took some photos showing what the pattern looks like and how i knit it but i must have left my camera cable at work :-( hopefully i will find it there tomorrow morning and i can then upload them, in case anybody is interested!

string bag 1.0

i started on a string bag and just ripped it back to the crochet base! i'm using this method where on the first round you wrap one and knit two together, then a knit round, then one round of wrap one - k2tog again, but shifted by one stitch, then again a knit row. but somehow, maybe i because i want to knit in the round, it's not as straight forward as it sounds. after about ten rows i noticed i'd accidentally increased a few times, causing messy bits, and also i had half a round of a weird looking stitch, where i didn't have two twisted strands separating the 'holes' but only one! anyhow, i ripped back and now i'm going to try 'Turkish Stitch', like in this bag i think it'll also be more 'netty'! the stitch i was doing was a bit bulky.

rhubarb crumble

mmh... i just put the 1st rhubarb crumble of the year into the oven! we had to cut back our rhubarb plant allready, it started growing over the path (our garden is small so everything is small and narrow and close together). my mother in law's in longford has only just started sprouting, i didn't realise there was such a difference in climate! we're lucky though, our garden is south facing and quite sheltered.

we also did a little trip to woodies yesterday and bought a patio set: two chairs and a table. the table was put together quick enough despite the usual useless drawings and instructions, i mean, why do they have to label the pieces a1 and b2 and so on, why not just say outer left leg, inner right leg etc. it would save all the guessing and turning each piece every way to figure out whether it's a1 or b2! anyhow, for the 2 chairs we got 3 left arm rests and one right... so today i had to go back and swap one of them, it took the customer service girl, a boy, a manager and another boy, and some animated discussions amongst them, to get me the right piece, good job i brought the drawing with me, only after i showed that to one of them did they understand what i meant by 'i would like to exchange this left armrest for a right armrest'.


not many crafty news here, i have been extremely tired lately, i still haven't finished the cream wool clapotis scarf, or the mirasol sulka hat, but i've started a flannel blanket (just 2 pieces of flannel and a blanket stitch edging) and a granny square blanket, from a mixture of rialto, sublime cashmere merino and some other similar leftover yarn. i started 25 squares during our little easter getaway, i've used some pale grey and sage green so far, and a dark fuchsia. i will see how far i get. with what i have and then maybe buy some more in a matching colour to make borders for them all. i had initially thought i might make my usual 'giant granny square' but with every round in a different colour, but i thought if the different types of wool shrink differently in the wash it'll be nicer if each square has slight bumps than if the whole blanket's structure is uneven.



oh, and i cut up an unshapely cardigan in a lovely dusky pink soft loose knit, and made a thin scarf and a head band from the sleeves. i still have the body part, a strange round shape, to make something with! must take some pics. every time i dug this out of the wardrobe i though ' why am i not wearing this lovely soft cardi in that beautiful colour more often, only to realise after i've left the house in it, that it makes my arse look huge (it is quite big but not THAT BIG).


i would also like to make this blanket and this scarf, but with my current energy levels they will be projects for next winter.

the finished cropped cardi! - and some more photos

i even did the leaves. Bring on the summer and the strappy dresses!


and another wraparound apron for p's granny, she was wearing the other one i made every day, so now she can have one for weekdays and one for the weekend...

our nativity scene! these figurines were in my dad's house when my mum moved in, so they were probably bought by my grandmother. We only have the family and one angel, poor baby jesus' head broke off when i was a child, we liked to take him out of his manger to play... the two chocolate reindeer are standing in for the ox and donkey that there usually would be. i think i will keep a lookout on ebay to try and find more kind of matching figures over the years! they are made from some kind of plaster or bakelite. Joseph is about 17.5 cm, the angel, which i thought was bought later as it is a little different, is 11.5 cm. Mary's face reminds me of my granny, it's the cheeks i think, and the look in prayer, my granny was quite holy, too, and named Maria!


this is the baby blanket my mum made for me when i was little, it's crochet, and yes, i was born in the seventies... does anybody have an idea how it's made? my mum can't remember, except for: it's two rows of purple and one row of orange. the stitches are worked into the row beneath creating a quite dense fabric. it'd love to find out the name of the pattern, i can see this working with a plain dark wool for the purple and a variegated brighter one for the orange. the other crochet stitch i want to try is the catherine wheel, i think that's the pattern moonstitches' scarf is made from.

finally some photographs of projects

the superquick honeycoloured biggy print scarf, made from 3 balls of biggy print





the completed main part of the cropped leaf tie cardigan, i'm dreading all the seaming...


i also made a start on the leaf tie, i used 3.5mm for the leaf and 5.5 for the i cord.


here the extended ripple scarf, the seam isn't great but the way i wear it you don't see the seam at all, just a layer of pink peeping out underneath the gray.



and once more, a picture of the seat covers at the kitchen table! not entirely happy with them, they slip a bit. not sure yet how to fix that!

home again...

Back home, back commuting, back in work and mountains of laundry done!
I made the mistake of heaping all luggage, laundry for drying and shoes into the guest room, out of sight I thought!
Unfortunately I forgot about my friend from Switzerland being in the country, and that before the wedding I'd invited them to stay over when they'd be around. So yesterday I got the phone call to say they'd be here this evening and we quickly had to do lots of tidying up, move all that laundry to the study, set up the 2nd guest bed, hoover and hide lots of bric-a-brac under the beds... and generally give the house a dusting...
The garden will just look the way it looks, after 4 weeks of not mowing the lawn and rain every day it's quite wild, and it's still too wet to mow!
So much for impressing friends from college...

While in Portugal I noticed there are still many women doing crochet and embroidery of every day items, like tea towels, towels, tablecloths and napkins, the shops sell fine cotton thread that is used to make lacey edges around these towels, they used the tiniest crochet hooks. Of course i couldn't resist and bought a few balls in great colours and the teensy crochet hooks, unfortunately they didn't sell any patterns. One shop had a folder of photocopies of actual lace edges, but no diagrams or instructions, my phrase book Portuguese was just about enough to figure out that these photocopies are all the average Portuguese crocheter needs as a pattern...
I also saw some cute crochet flowers, so on one of the occasions when i was soaking up the evening sun (can't do it before 4pm, am to fair!) i decided to give it a go and came up with this little flower! I was extremely pleased with myself, no pattern, and it's the 1st flower I've made, ever!



We were in Coimbra and there was a Folklore Festival on, with craft on sale and (the most delicious!) sardines on the BBQ, rice pudding for desert, and elderly ladies dancing in the street in broad daylight, while waiting for the main event to start on stage. We just came across it in a Square and decided to linger!




And this little gem was bought there for me by my husband, it's a love poem (or so we've been told) in Portuguese and had a crochet edge. We're going to frame it! What background shoud i use?


When we got home I felt like doing something crafty in the evening, and so repaired my favourite PJs with this little hear patch, (I also had to a split seam in the hip area! what's that telling me!?) while watching 'the illusionist'.


And finally, 2 photographs from the Bucaco Forest

more gifts

i finally bought some bondaweb and tried the appliqué, with westfalen fabric, it's really much easier. i handstitched around the edges as i didn't fancy getting sewing machine oil on this one (like i did on the apple babygrow). the bondaweb makes the appliquéd fabric quite stiff but i hope it'll get softer when it's being washed repeatedly. in the background you see my 'grannysquare' i stuck to making just the one and it's nearly big enough to be a baby blanket, i have nearly 250 of 'supersoft baby aran' crocheted into the one square. it's very relaxing work!


here a close up, aren't those ducks cute? this one's for noah, a friend of ours' new baby,


and tonight i embroidered this one, the design is ogham writing, in irish (gaelic). this one's for my colleague, who announced her news today. this baby is also due in october, like my friend b.'s who i haven't made a present for yet... i'm finding it hard to keep up with presents for all these babies, there must be something in the water!


and finally, i got this set of i don't know what it is in the charity shop, the square ones seem to be hankies, but the rectangular ones, no idea! they are all hand embroidered with these cute stars (flowers?) does anybody know if there are rectangular hankies? or if there is a tradition of table linen made from thin hankie type cotton?

time for bed now...

ta-daa!

my ripple scarve is finished!

well... it's not blocked yet, and actually, it is a bit short and i am quite tempted to unravel and start again... but still, my first finished crochet project in the last 8 years or so! (the last one was a coin purse made from parcel string, lined with a scrap of checked cotton, i was a student on work experience in ireland at the time and had a sunday with no plans and a little bit of homesickness)

here a link to the the ripple along blog

i still have two balls of the cashmerinosilk and one merino, in a sage green, plus half a ball of the fuchsia merino. maybe i'll start another one and make it longer this time.? I only got 8 rows out of the grey at this length, so the next scarve would have to be narrower again... maybe somebody out there can tell me, the chain that you begin a crochet piece with, is there an equivalent (i.e. same width) for finishing? the two edges on the scarve aren't quite the same width because of the base chain.

and this is my first granny square (not counting the two that i unravelled)

i think i might keep going with this one for a little while longer, P's sister made a whole blanket out of one granny square! there are a few babies on the way amongst my friends and one might be a boy? maybe i should join the grannyalong?

apart from these, i made a veil, im not sure if i'll actually use it for my wedding but i needed to try it as the shops were charging at least 90€ for one! it was quite easy, i didnt finish the edge though, i don't know if i will and if i will i have no idea which type of edge will look best, i have to go home first (easter!) and see the dress again, cant wait!

i feel quite jetlagged, that one hour forward for daylight saving time threw me a little! my colleagues say their children are the same, i must be very immature for my 31 years! or maybe i just really dont like getting up early...

crochet scarve

v

my wavey crochet scarve is coming along nicely. it's nearly twice as wide now and i'm running out of grey, it's going to be a narrow scarve i think, so that the fuchsia edges come out nicely when it's worn. when it's finished i will have used a little under two 50g balls grey, plus the pink edges.

i haven't done much else craftwise, although i bought some cotton onesies, size newborn, and I am going to attempt to appliquee (or freezer paper stencil) on them, my friend B just announced she's going to have a baby in autumn! so i have a bit of time for experimenting.

ripples

i caught the ripple fever... looking at all those great ripple blankets out there made me really really want to try it myself!

i'm using this really lovely yarn called sublime, it has cashmere, merino and silk! i don't really do any knitting/crochet, but started to learn again, with cheap acrylics. ( I wanted to knit a small afghan for the sofa but got a wine stain on it halfway through and am stuck now wondering whether i should unravel back to the stain or not) Now the need to ripple has taken over but when i saw the sublime in the wool shop (where i was going to get a hook and some yarn to keep me occupied on a 3 hour train journey) i couldn't resist and thought quality before quantity, bought just two balls and i will make a scarve rather than a blanket! probably a better idea seeing as i am just starting. i can see now why people get hooked on knitting and crochet, it's such a pleasure working with 'good' materials!

i started with looking closely at yarnstorm and posie gets cosy ' blogs and started off with decreasing by skipping a stitch, very unsatisfactory results! then had a bit of a nightmare looking up the web tutorials for decreasing double crochet. mostly because there is a significant difference between british and american dc that i was unaware of! i found a tutorial, started all over doing the british thing (thinking i was wrong doing what i was doing) but noticed soon i wouldn't get anywhere fast because it was such a thick and tight stitch - then realising that i hadn't been wrong at all, just working american instead of UK, so i unravelled again and now i have about 1.5 row of dc, with the proper decreases and increases! i will add some photos to this later! i had some help from keri at http://knittygrittythoughts.typepad.com/ and now i'm pretty sure i'm doing it 'right'!

finished cushions

I took this cool photo the other morning when a flock of birds visited the neighbourhood


and here finally the finished cushions for the living room

and I got this lovely super soft blanket in just the right colour in TKMaxx... it had a horrible, uneven (hence the cheap price), yellow mashine stitched border, which i unravelled and replaced with this fire engine red crochet border, i think it's called dogtooth edge? I'm not sure... I wasn't even sure how to do it until i picked up the crochet hook and then it came back to me, from a long long time ago... I vaguely remember my granny or mum showing me how to do it when i was in school.

-PS it's not quite the right colour but i think it might be after a few more washes...