In This life.......

Stepping outside my comfort zone in the crochet world!

Hello, hope this finds you all well and having a happy day:0)

I'm pleased to say quite a number of things made me step outside my comfort zone on the weekend and try some new crocheting tutorials. For anyone wanting to try crocheting or coming back to it after many years like myself, the internet is a haven of ideas and inspiration and a place where some fantastic souls take the time to photograph and explain patterns in easy to understand terms - I for one am very grateful for this and am sure I am not alone!

Now while my blanket I showed you HERE is well on the road to being sewn together, aghhh what a job :0(, I wanted something else to go on with in the meantime, something that is transportable that i can take away to the caravan or to the river, or camping etc, cause lets face it, a heap of granny squares pinned onto an old chenile beadspread and rolled into a big sausage isn't the most favourable thing to be lugging around!!

I also wanted to use 8 ply cotton as it is starting to get hot up here and i didn't want to be mucking around with wool. I vaguely had a thought that i would try hexagons that were white on the outside with coloured centres and that I could join together as I go. (this join together as you go idea is very appealing to me at the moment!!;0). I also was very taken with these squares that I came across HERE 

So I toddled off to Cairns on Saturday, (childless, which is much easier as everyone has an opinion on what colours i should use which is fine but can result in confusion at times!) and I came home with some lovely Heirloom 8 ply cotton that I am very happy with.I probably did things a little bum about cause at this stage I really didn't have a definite plan nor did I know how much to get - big guess, but I wasn't coming home without it!!

 
 

So when I got home and was checking my emails, a new post from Alice at CROCHET WITH RAYMOND had these gorgeous African Flower Hexagons in it, and with all the links to the patterns!! (Definately a sign don't you think ;0)). So off I go to follow the links and after 2 unsuccesful tries I managed to pull it off on the 3rd one and was extremely chuffed with myself!! These are my attempts below.

 

and another one in my new cotton....

 
  

This wonderful lady from Heidi Bears Blog has put a tutorial on her blog with wonderful pictures and easy to understand instructions, you can check it out HERE.

Well I also like Lucy's hexagon pattern from attic24 you can check them out HERE again with a wonderful photo tutorial and instructions on how to crochet them together as you go.

 
 

So now my dilema, which ones to do - i like them both and I have done one of each and am thinking maybe I could do a mixture of both of them. They do measure the same and I think I can crochet them together as I go using Lucy's instructions. What do you think? There are no hard fast rules in crocheting are there?

 
 

Oh but then there is THIS WHICH I ABSOLUTELY ADORE, so now I am wondering whether I should mix up my colours.

Oh the indecision of it all is doing my head in!! I have spent the morning crocheting instead of folding the bloomin neverending supply of washing, LOL!!

I also have had in the back of my mind for quite some time that I want to do some squares for Sue over at the SIBOL blog. When opshopping the other day I came across a whole bag of acrylic wool that the lovely man gave me for $3.00 so I have decided that this is what I will use for my SIBOL squares and so I have made a start on those as well this weekend.

 

I have also seen where you can make the African Flowers into squares, so I thought I might try and do that with my samples and then I can also send them over to Sue at SIBOL (Sunshine International Blankets of Love).

So now I really must go and be domestic :0), thanks for stopping by and for the encouraging words from my last crochet update post with my blanket, they are very much appreciated.

bfn

Annette x

:0) 

Crochet update

Hello!! :0)

I cannot believe that almost 2 weeks have passed since coming back from the school holidays, the old feet haven't touched the ground!

Apart from a few seriously wet spells, (6 inches of rain one night) we had glorious weather at the beach. One of my favourite pics is on the last night when we were sitting on the beach for the traditional "cocktail hour" and we had this amazing sky to stare at.....

The sky was a mass of lines from the horizon up and as the sun disappeared the lines became more defined - it was just beautiful.

Well much to the amusement of my friends I managed to get LOTS of crocheting done, it was pure bliss......sitting up the end of the beach under the trees watching the kids play and hooking away ;0)

and I am very excited to say that after lots of ends to finish......

  

I got all of my squares done, complete and ready to sew together!!

Because of all the different sizes, 5cm, 10cm, 15cm, 20cm and 30cm squares it was a bit hard to sew or crochet together as I went. So last night I finally got around to lying it out on the bed and pinning to a sheet the way I want it to go together - a bigger task than i thought!!

 
So now I have it rolled up in the sheet and unravel and sew as I go. Being the virgin crocheter that I am, I couldn't think of any other way to do it?

I can't tell you how thrilled I am with the "out there" colour combinations, in fact i would do it again tomorrow with no problems at all!!

I am a little concerned about it going together "easily" as even though all the wool was the same brand and same ply (8) I found that some colours crocheted up a lot thicker or fatter, and coarser than other colours which I really found quite frustrating. Again, being a virgin crocheter i am not sure whether this is normal or not but I am sure it has made some of the squares slightly different in size than what they should be. I counted the rows of crocheting for each size square rather than measuring each one with a ruler.

I would have liked this to be quite a lot bigger and haven't decided yet to leave it this size or to add more, so I will make that decision after I have got this sewn together.
 

Last day of the week tomorrow, have a lovely weekend.

I am off now to sew while I wait for a chocolate mud cake to cook.

Thanks for stopping by.

Annette :0)