Autumn Crochet Cushion #1 completed

Good morning everyone - and first of all a HUGE THANK YOU to all of you lovely bloggy friends who wished my wonderful son a Happy 21st Birthday.  He had a lovely day, at home with friends and family, enjoyed lots of presents (many of which were sporty-themed), had a barbeque (DH is the king of these, he makes such delicious things) and a yummy cake (made by DD and me). 

By the end of the day I was happy but very, very tired...and woke up the next day feeling a bit rough.  This then turned into laryngitis - and as a teacher having no voice is quite inconvenient!!  The students laughed a lot, but then were surprisingly sympathetic.  In the end a cover teacher had to be found as there is only so much that can be achieved by squeaking and sign language.  I have to say it has been a difficult week, as I felt pretty rotten, but kept going into work as we had a big exam board meeting this week (which thankfully went really well).

Yesterday the Moonstruckcreations crew insisted that I sit with my feet up, something which was hugely appreciated!  So I picked up my crochet and got on with my Autumn themed cushion, the second in a seasonal set I am planning. 

Here we have some work in progress...

And, here is the finished cushion...

Front:

Back:

It is just so soft and squishy, and sits perfectly on my favourite chair.  And I love the colours.  And the good news is I have enough yarn left to make another cushion.  I think that both front and back will have to be made from 2 giant granny squares as there wont be enough to make lots of smaller ones as of course this uses more yarn. 

You will probably guess that I have been totally bowled over by the autumn colours I have used, so I hope to make a couple more, including one with the most scrummy blobby orange, red and cream yarn I picked up on a little shopping trip to our local market recently.  I also bought some yarn in readiness for the winter cushion too.  DH is quite impressed with all this as some of our cushions are looking worse for wear - well they do get a lot of punishment in this house, what with kids and cats.  And he does love to lounge about on cushions whilst playing on the PS3 (yes, I am a Playstation widow...but its all good as while he is kept quiet with that I can get on with crafting!  Only thinking of him of course ha ha)  He is never quite so impressed though if I craft solely for decorative purposes.  You will have to excuse him, he is an engineer, and to him creativity = utility. 

And the cushions are coming in especially handy as now Darling Daughter has come down with the lurgy so she is curled up on the sofa with the cushions, cats, and a good book.  Ah, silly season of back to school illness!

Well, had better away and make an impression that I am getting back to normal - might hang out a bit of washing then slump back in the chair!!

Have a great Sunday.

Helenxx

Crochet therapy!

Hello again everyone, well the enforced resting is certainly working - not only is the painful toe condition improving steadily (yay!) I have had some serious, and much-needed crafting time (yay again!!)

So I had a little look through my yarn collection and found a bag of yarn that at some point had been a giveaway with a magazine.  The quality was quite reasonable (some of the magazine freebies can be quite dire) so I had a little browse through some patterns I had tucked away.  And, after all my previous comments on granny squares being boring, what did I do?  Yes, you guessed it, started making grannies!!!

However, in order to keep me from glazing over, the grannies varied quite a bit, both in design...

...and size

Here is the little collection I made

And here they are arranged in sequence - I'm making a cushion cover!

So far I have sewn all the squares together and added three rows of edging.  It needs another 4 rows of edging then the front will be complete.  I think I will just do one big granny square for the back in white as I don't have enough left of the coloured yarn.  OR, if gout allows, I might just pop to the shops and buy a cheap, plain coloured cushion and slip stitch the crochet front to it - that would certainly be the quickest fix...

Have a great Sunday!

Helenxx

Hooked on Zpagetti

Hi everyone

On Tuesday evening I gave myself a little treat - I took part in a craft workshop at our local craft shop - the workshop was entitled "Giant Crochet" and was an introduction to the new craze of Zpagetti.

The technique uses recycled fabric and a large hook

 

 

Its great fun to do

 



But a ball of yarn costs £10 so I have found an online tutorial to make my own from tshirts.  Much more in the spirit of thrifiness I think!

Here is a closeup of the swatch I made:

It is an ideal technique for bags, rugs, placemats, etc so Im looking forward to making some useful things soon!  The resulting crochet is really thick and strong, but soft at the same time if that makes sense. 

Although the evening was for learning this technique of crochet, I asked the tutor to show me how to knit using that fancy yarn that makes up into a scarf in no-time so I got good value for my tuition fee!  The workshop took place in the craft shop, and we were able to buy whatever we wanted needed at a 10% discount, so I snapped up some of this fancy yarn while the going was good!.  Will show you some results of my handiwork soon.

Hope you are all having a good week - soon be the weekend!!

Helenxx

My first ever giveaway win!!

Morning!

Recently I was lucky enough to win my first ever giveaway, organised by the the lovely KC's Court!  Oh boy, was I excited!  And the prize?  Well, take a look:

A Knit Your Own Royal Wedding book!  I was out of the county at the time of The Wedding so this is a lovely souveneir!

But, in true bloggy kindness-style, not only did I receive the book - included was some yummy yarn as well:

This yarn is so lovely and soft I just have to keep picking it up and handling it!

However, this is not the end of the tale....as my regular readers will know I have been under the weather this summer, so my bestest friend Sue got involved, and to cut a long story short, the parcel was sent to her as she knew I wasnt reading blogs at that time so would not have known that I had won! 

Thank you so much Julie for this lovely giveaway - and for taking the time to sort it out for me, and of course big thanks as well to Sue for sorting me out once again!

Just got to love blogging!

Helenxx

Crochet bracelet

Hello again!

I have been dabbling with crochet again, this time with much finer yarn than I am used to (I am quite impatient so love using chuncky yarn as it grows so quickly!) and made this little bracelet:

A close up of the flower, its a bit blurred but hopefully you can see enough detail:

Im sure it would look much nicer on a younger wrist!!

It was a real delight to make, so Im going to be making some more in different colourways.  I also have another bracelet pattern Im going to try this week, so will post some pics when they are done.

In the meantime, this one is for my dear friend Sue's daughter (who is a lovely friend of my daughter) as I think she will like it.

Helenxx