I made a purple pansy Flower Granny Stripe Scarf:
and a Strawberries 'n Cream Flower Granny Stripe Scarf:
and aqua & peach flower granny stripe scarves:
...... while trying NOT to fidget in front of the screen.
I fidget. I am a fidgeter! In fact my fidgeting is legendary (the reason my gran taught me to crochet in the first place)!
Before we settle down to watch movies or series I get a lecture from the rest of the family "have you made yourself a pot of tea? Do you have your box of tissues? (sad movies ALWAYS make me cry!), do you have everything else you are going to need right next to your lazy boy? Oh and PLEASE mom can you actually watch the movie this time!?"
Tricky! Tricky!
How on earth do you decide in ADVANCE what you are going to do for the next ninety minutes while sitting still on your butt and actually watching the movie.
I made a whole bag full of long granny strips over the past few weeks while WATCHING movies with the family.
I thought I might join them together to make a blanket - but they are a rather odd collection of colours and lengths.
I love adding flowers to just about everything - so I set about turning my granny strips into lovely flower scarves:
Pink and cerise - 14 rows of each colour. With a join as you go granny at each end.
For the side borders: a row of peach, two rows of cream, and then 1 row of hdc in pink and cerise. Finished off with some twisty tassles (with a hint of lime green thrown in for a bit of zing!!
Add a cream pansy, a cerise 6 petal flower and a peach 6 petal flower (my patterns), and some lime green leaves.
Happiness!!!
White granny strip. For the side borders crochet a row of granny clusters in each of aqua, turquoise, crocus (lilac). Added two join as you go grannies at each end - one in crocus and purple; one in aqua and turquoise.
To finish a row of shells on each side in Purple
a few flowers in turqoise and purple, and some lovely long floaty tassels in a mixture of all the colours!
Made the peach granny strip into a cowl (had to unpick a row and then join as you go to the other end). Edged with a simple picot shell in aqua. I made a flower brooch - so it can be worn with or without the flowers!
Love Love Love all those pretty colours:
To finish my VERY long (very boring post) some more flowery loveliness:
A mixed arrangement picked from my garden; some of my stunning geraniums; and a few late bloomers spotted in a remote corner of the garden (there are some pink ones too that have not opened yet!)
Wishing you all a wonderfully colourful day!!
I had been planning to make my niece a "groovyghan" for Christmas. Luckily I remembered that eleven year olds are VERY particular little people, and decided that I should rather discuss the project with her before plunging in.
A good thing too!
She wanted stripes - no blocks. Very particular stripes in fact - "they must not be fat, also not dizzy stripes" (thin stripes). No frills or flowers. I had also planned to make it for her bed - she wanted a square blanket to snuggle under while watching DVD's. Alrighty then! - as I said - good thing I asked!
We added a couple of colours to those I had already selected and I got started on the project HERE early in October.
I used the Diagonal Granny Stripe - a firm favourite of mine. You can find a how to in my Diagonal Granny Stripe Infinity Scarf post
This Diagonal Granny Stripe had to be square - this means to you keep on increasing on both sides until the outer edges of the triangle measure the length and width you wish your finished project to be. Then decrease on both sides until your last cluster.
I used candy pink, fuschia, peach, red, lemon, lime, mint, jade, aqua,
turquoise, blue, denim, lilac and purple for my colour stripes:
On the increase half I used white to separate the colour bands. A few rows before I started decreasing I introduced grey between the colour bands.
Once I started decreasing I began using grey as the separator colour and phased out the white over the first few rows.
For the border I did a double row of shells:
I crocheted a two tone border - white on the white diagonal (2 sides) and grey on the grey diagonal (2 sides):
We had fantastic weather on Friday. Hot as ...., but beautiful clear blue skies. Perfect weather for a bit of photo fun.
Bundled the blankie onto one of our shaded walkways:
Posed it on the stairs leading up to my rose garden:
Rolled up under the Lapa's thatch:
Hanging it from the beams:
Folding it in different ways:
Posing it here and there:
By then I was rather hot and bothered. Took a lovely swim and poured myself some homemade ginger beer with lots of ice and lemon slices. Sat myself down poolside to contemplate my Christmas List (one down - way to many to go!!)
Didn't get much done yesterday - "meltingly" hot again = hanging out with hubby and my youngest (who turned 21 recently!!!) - swimming, sipping iced tea and ginger beer, nibbling on finger food, and watching movies in the lovely cool family room (until four in the morning!). Such a relaxing, perfect day!
Going to make brunch in a few minutes and after that I suppose I should go back to contemplating that Christmas List!
I have been super busy the past few days - gardening, making baby blankets and crochet bags for my WIP's.
We have had so much rain - and there is nothing like rainwater to get everything growing at an amazing rate!
The growth along some of the pathways had to be trimmed. Jasmine and ivy had to be tamed. The lavender garden had also grown a bit wild and needed some serious tidying up. About half of the rose bushes got a light pruning after the first flush faded and there was plenty of deadheading to be done on the gerberas and different varieties of daisies.
My cycads are unbelievable! One of them has almost forty new leaves - WOW!
LOVE the rain!!
Was a bit stressed out this afternoon - it started to hail, a few fairly big hailstones - luckily a bit of a storm in a teacup and it passed over before it could do any damage.
I mentioned in my previous POST that I had made a stack of small granny squares. I made three baby blankets (more about this next time) and still had 14 squares to spare. I tried them this way and that but they just did not look like they wanted to be a baby blanket. I spotted a crochet bag made from granny squares on Pinterest (13 squares needed) - oh perfect! I just knew this was what they were meant to be:
The "funny bird" which I appliqued on is something I have been working on for my cards - but the bag was just begging for something fun:
The bag is perfect for toting a WIP around:
I love it to bits - definitely going to be making a few more of these!
Still had a bit of the knotted together scraps left, so I made another "floppy" bag:
The bottom is dark grey with a bit of teal, then white, turquoise, a teeny bit of dark purple, lilac and then white.
I made this one quite a bit smaller than the last two FLOPPY BAGS
Embellished it with the last of my scrappy flowers and leaves, once again using small buttons for the flower centres:
All four project bags are filled with my current WIP's - neat and tidy, and ready to go at a moment's notice!
Still awake at this late hour as I was catching up on Series (I like to save them until I have quite a few episodes and then watch them back to back - while blogging, crocheting and munching on crisps) - one of the advantages of having grown up children and no boss to report to in the morning!!
One final cuppa for Mr Owl and myself and we can call it a day!
Good night all!
I spent about an hour writing this post and then I just ran the backspace / delete key through it!
I don't think you want to be bored by an endless account of what I have been up to for the past two-ish weeks, instead I will just show you some of the things I have made!
The above cowl/ necklace is made up using a long string of "yarnberries" - you can find the pattern on this BLOG
I made up quite a few strings of "yarnberries" - this was the prototype for the assembly. Still needs a bit of work. Was thinking of using more, smaller flowers and perhaps felting them first. Also maybe adding a few pearls or beads here and there to the strands.
We experienced a few days of sweltering heat here in JHB, resulting in me having to put aside all my larger projects. I made up a stack of small squares which I am busy assembling into very colourful baby blankets (thankfully the past few days have been wonderfully rainy and cool!)
After a few days of epic square making I just could not face making another square (so much so that I could not even crochet up my scraps for the Yarn Indaba Yarn Bomb!). I knotted all the same-ish colour scraps together and set about crocheting myself some project bags:
I just kept joining each new colour with a double knot - which meant that I had only four ends to work in when I was done - two for the bag and two for the shell border! I wanted the bags to have a shabby look - love the "uneven" double crochet where the knots are. Added lots and lots of flowers and leaves I had been making up from small leftover bits of yarn, using small buttons for the flower centres.
Midnight has just passed (today has just become yesterday, and tomorrow is now today!!) - off to dreamland for me!!
The Circles in Squares and Daisy Granny Motif Crochet Cushions which I started ages ago are finally finished!!
Things have been pretty quiet around here - the young adults were away doing their own thing for a few days and Mr Owl and I were experiencing a bit of empty nest syndrome!
We went lunching and brunching and breakfasting. Wandered around the shops for a bit - treating ourselves to a bit of this and that. Bought some "holiday" clothes - happy bright colours in cool cottons (orange, lime, hot pink, turquoise). Found a lovely bag to match my turquoise sandals - quite chuffed about that - bought the sandals last season and have not been able to find a bag to match until now!
Did a spot of gardening - totally in love with my garden - it just amazes me how everything just explodes with colour during October - and the fragrance is just too wonderful to describe - jasmine, lavender, yesterday-today-and-tomorrow, and of course the Roses!! (We had a bit of rain yesterday - very welcome - but we could do with a few days of soaking showers).
Got my hair done and went for a pedi. Spent a good amount of time lazing about in the bookstore. And, of course......... started a few new projects
I used the same pastels / brights in both of these projects. I love the surprising effect - a single row of pastel / bright double crochet against the dark grey and black really makes the colour pop
The young people are all home again - so the house is once again full and lively!!! Really enjoying holding on to them for his last little stretch before they spread their wings and fly the nest.... (hopefully not too soon)!!
Off to make a last cuppa and then I am calling it a day!
Good night all!
I spotted a gorgeous granny square shawl on Pinterest - loved the colours she used - very eyecatching!
You may remember me telling you HERE about the acrylic/ wool blend yarn which I was dying to try out? -Elle Classic Wool Blend DK - thought the "Honey", "Salsa" and "Mineral" would make a pretty striking combo.
I had also seen a "grandala" granny square HERE which I was also dying to try out - perfect for this granny shawl.
Make 27 x 5 row granny squares. Assemble 3 rows by 9 squares, crochet a fringe around one of the long sides and the two short sides
And voila!! A warm, soft and snuggly shawl / wrap. Pinned with a big crochet flower.
The few days while recovering from that nasty spider bite were torture for me!!
I
had ordered some locally produced yarn to try out - an
Aran and an Acrylic / Wool blend - in a mish mash of colours. When
the order arrived my fingers were just itching to get crocheting - but instead I had to be content with paging through
magazines and clicking around the internet.
There are soooo many gorgeous granny square cowls, scarves and wraps etc on Pinterest - as soon as the bite started healing I set about crocheting like a crazy lady on a mission to save the world with granny squares!
Made this granny square cowl using Lollipop Vezuvo Aran (400g skeins) - in Violet, Light Grey and Jeans - the yarn is soft and has a very comforting feel to it - works up super fast too!
Almost makes me wish it was still winter here (no ..... not really!!!) - but one of these is going to be a must for my 2014 winter wardrobe!!
I made 10 x 5 row identical granny squares, using the join as you go method to connect each new block to the previous block on the last round. Connect the 10th block to the 9th block on the one end and to the 1st block on the opposite end. For the border I crocheted 3ch 2dc into any sp between clusters, then *ss into next sp, 3ch, 2dc* repeat up to and including last space, ss into 1st ch on starting shell.
The yarn holds form very nicely - and the finished product drapes very well,
I crocheted a triple layer flower brooch in a matching "jeansy" shade using an acrylic / wool blend. The brooch can be worn separately, pinned to the cowl as a decoration or to keep it in place if you wish to drape it over your shoulders.
Have made up a pattern for the brooch - just need to add the photos!!
