Thursday 7 April 2011

Discovering Crochet

I love using my hands, the last big 'new' thing I did with fabric or yarn was the cushion I made for a friend.  I have also been busy making a scrapbook for my daughter who turned 10 years old a couple of weeks ago. I will get round to doing a blog on that I hope, I am very pleased with it. 

Knitting is something I have always had a project on the go with.  However after an unsuccessful attempt at making a cardigan I have got rather disgruntled with my knitting skills.  This has prompted me to again look at crochet - I have never been able to learn to crochet using books or written instructions.  This became very apparent after a thoughtless purchase some time ago when I decided I would learn no matter what I brought these:

Several attempts and a lot of frustration later it all went back in my knitting bag.  What I hadn't ever thought of was using new fangled technology that sits on my lap very regularly to find a video to teach me.  Good old Youtube - there are so many people who have kindly made films to show folks like me how to do stuff in nice easy visual ways.  I won't advertise any one particular person that I have used as there are so many that I have looked at and picked up tips from.  I think it is one of those things where you should look yourself and decide which voice/film does it for you :o).

The first thing I learnt to do was to make a crochet beret hats for me and my girls.  These were great fun and very quick to make.  I then had a go at making an object and decided on a cup cake as my youngest has a bit of a 'thing' for all things cupcakey.  That went well.  Then I decided it was time to tackle changing colours in a project and started on granny squares.  I am so pleased with the results, here is a picture of my youngest with her bunny 'Poppy' holding the cupcake and snuggled up in her blanket
I now have a long term project on the go - all the wool that I unravelled from the unsuccessful cardigan is now taking the shape of plain granny squares, which I will eventually use another colour to crochet them all together to make a blanket for the sofa downstairs, so that when I am a little chilly but it doesn't warrant any heating going on myself, my husband and kids can all snuggle down together.

I have also discovered that I can use a very small crochet needle and embroidery thread to make some really pretty card toppers, these are some of the most recent ones I have done
 

I haven't put the whole of the last photo on as I know the god-daughter for whom it is for looks at this blog and I do not want to totally ruin any surprise :o).

I am also now going to take a break from my plain squares to make a present for the same god-daughter, I can't believe she is going to be 8 soon!

Whenever I have a spare moment now I love looking through crochet images on google - it is tremendous what some people have thought to do, this is by far my favourite, I wonder if I will ever get round to having a go at something so vast

3 comments:

  1. Well done. You seem to have 'cracked it'
    Knitting is fraught with perils for the unwary. I once knitted a cardigan for my late husband. Luckily, he was not in dire need of it; it took two years!
    More power to you elbow.

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  2. Thank you Ray - I had been doing that cardigan for an awful long time - never mind, It kept my hands busy for a while. Did your late husband still fit into his when you finished it - I have done that with things for the children before now, forgetting how much they grow!

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  3. Jane Yes, amazingly it did and he wore it till it was beyond repair, after which one of the cats annexed it for a blanket.

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