Firework Surprise Granny Square

Hello, Here is my first attempt at the Firework Surprise Granny Square by Amy Schwab on Ravelry. http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/fireworks-surprise

It takes a little patience and concentration but well worth the effort.

I'm always looking for and thinking up new takes on the granny square. At the moment I am working on a new lamp shade using the granny stripe technique. I will post about it tomorrow.

Sue

Granddad Stripe

Hello,

Thank you for stopping by and taking a peek into my hooky world.

I really love crochet, so much so that when I put my hook and yarn down at the end of the day to go to bed I miss it. I have often stayed up too late to get a  few extra minutes crochet time in and somehow the minutes turned to hours.
In order to stop drowning myself in lots of lovely hooky stuff I also crochet gifts for friends and family, as I am sure most of us do and just recently I have started crocheting stuff for charity. Simply Knitting have a campaign going at the moment for blankets & bears for babies & small children who end up needing the care of the Refuge charity. Here is the link if you would like to know more. They do accept crochet too.
http://simplyknitting.themakingspot.com/blog/welcome-to-the-refuge-bears-and-squares-charity-knitting-campaign

My father is 79 on the 18th of this month and he is also due to go into hospital at the end of the month so I thought I would crochet him a Granddad Stripe armchair blanket and here it is:

A close up image:

And the lovely Lily had to get in on the picture too:

I re-started this one  a few times as I could not make up my mind. It was going to be an Aran blanket, a Bavarian blanket and a granny square before I finally settled on a granny stripe. I had the yarn in my stash, an impulse buy when I was in Aldi one day. I loved the colours together and eventually thought a granny stripe was the best way to show them off. I used 3 x 400g of 100% acrylic aran (fisherman) yarn and a size 5mm (8) hook.

My father was very gifted with his hands as was his father and I like to think that's where I get it from as do both of my children.

Happy Birthday Dad. X

Wear those Granny Squares

The Costume

The Boots

The Ring

You can spend hours looking through these links, especially the middle one.

No need to say any more.

X

A Little Granny Goes A Long Way

Hello,

It's been a hectic couple of weeks but I find I have a new determination to set myself certain crafty-usually crochet- things to do and completing them come what may within a time-scale I set myself.

I attended the Olympia Stitch and Craft show last Friday with a friend. We had a lovely day and came away with a bagful of goodies each. One of mine was 2 yards (the stall hadn't gone metric yet) of purple cotton fabric covered with tea pots in a myriad of shapes and colours. I had in mind a new set of curtains for the kitchen as the blind that had resided there for over 10 years was looking tired and faded. Now normally I would have had the fabric lying around for weeks, possibly months before I got around to making the curtains but I had a word with myself and promised they would be done within 2 weeks.

So yesterday was kitchen curtain making day. I'm not very good with machines, in fact I think I have an aversion to them so I made them by hand. I even lined them using an old white cotton bed sheet as the sun comes full on the window in the afternoon. I used the original hanging tube from the old blind to save time and money and all in all I am very pleased with the way they have turned out.

My daughter Karen suggested I should crochet some tie backs for them. An excuse to get the crochet hook out, why didn't I think of that?

I chose a matching yellow and pink from my stash and crocheted one row of granny stripe for the tie backs and a granny square using the yellow and pink to decorate.

Here's a close up of the fabric.

Karen also loves the way they have turned out saying they reminded her of the Alice in Wonderland film that came out a couple of years ago. The rest of the kitchen is quite bland so the curtains really add a lovely splash of colour.

Here's a close-up of the window sill:

The lamp is a plain Ikea lamp that Karen decorated with glass paints a few years ago. The coloured glass bottles I purchased from Aldi for just £1.49 each. The fabric for the curtains cost just £10.00.

Back soon

Sue x

Tapestry Crochet

Hello,

This week my internet rummaging unearthed Tapestry Crochet. I had never heard of it and I understand it has been known as ''hard crochet'' and ''mosaic crochet.''

As you can see two or more colours are used in this technique, switching and carrying yarns back and forth to produce a patterned cloth.

The main stitch used is double crochet (USA read single crochet) and you can crochet into the front, back or both top loops, depending on the fabric you wish to produce.

Forms of tapestry crochet can be found all over the world making it difficult to track the history of this craft. In Guatemala men and women make tapestry crochet bags, hats and hacky sacks to sell to tourists.

Tapestry crocheted Kippahs are sometimes worn by Jewish men.

Men can often be seen wearing their tapestry crochet hats in Ghana

and tapestry crochet hats sold on the streets of Marrakesh.

Recycled synthetic sack fibres are often used to stiffen the hats, e.g. you would crochet over a strip of sacking as though you were crocheting in a length of yarn.

There doesn't seem to be much in the way of books that cover this technique but there is a youtube demonstration and some informative blogs. Carol Ventura seems to be The expert covering this technique, hers is the middle link and the youtube demo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fIJe5uQ6tg

http://www.tapestrycrochet.com/blog/

http://tapestrycrochet.blogspot.com/

The last link, shows lots of tapestry crochet from many cultures around the world.

Enjoy

Back soon x