Zooty Owl Cushion CAL: October 2015

This CAL ended November 2015 - the pattern is available in my RAVELRY STORE

Thank you all for the wonderful response to the idea of hosting an OWL CUSHION CROCHET-A-LONG!

It gives me great pleasure to announce my 4th CAL (crochet-a-long):   
THE ZOOTY OWL CUSHION CAL!!!!!

The CAL will be held during the month of October 2015 and I will post a pattern and a photo tutorial every Friday - starting this Friday!


I added a bit of oomph to the Jumbo Owl Cushion to make it more fun to crochet and to make the cushion more durable.

My patterns are all written in US TERMS

The pattern is suitable for DK (8ply / light worsted) weight yarns and a 4.50mm hook OR Worsted Weight (10ply / Aran) and a 5.50mm hook.      

You can use an assortment of scraps to make your cushion, or choose a special colour palette, the choice is yours!

I have used a small amount of "Eyelash" or "Feather" yarn to add a bit of detail to the wings and owl belly - this is entirely optional, but it does give the body a bit of dimension.

For my "showcase" cushion I have used a selection of 100% Acrylic DK Elle Yarns (made by our South African Saprotex Mills) in six main colours: Apricot, Coral, Pink, Light Blue, Blue, Deep Red and Beige (with small amounts of white and navy for the eyes)

My colours were picked randomly for an "autumn feel" with a bit of pep (since this cushion is made from 100% Acrylic).    

If you would like to make a cushion to add some warmth to your autumn decor, you may want to select your colours from the Pantone Autumn Palette for 2015:

For those in the Southern Hemisphere a cool cotton cushion made with colours selected from the Pantone Spring Palette for 2015 may be more practical:

You could even be bold and mix the two palettes up a bit, depending on what you have in your stash!

You will need a minimum of three colours to make the design work (as well as small bits of contrasting colours for the owl's beak and feet, white and navy or black for the eyes).    There is no limit to the maximum amount of colours used - go wild!!

I am looking so forward to having you join me for this CAL on Friday!!!!!!!

Jumbo Owl Cushion

I have been finishing up the very last little bits of yarn from my mom's stash by making preemie blankets to donate.    

Having used up all the "nice" yarn, a heap of scrap yarn in a really yucky selection of colours was left over.     A good deal of this yarn is what was known waaaaaay back as "HUNKY" - a 24ply yarn!!   (In today's terms it is known as JUMBO yarn). 

I added extra strands to the thinner yarn to make everything 24ply.    My original idea was to make a blanket with a mix of stripes and squares - I thought I would work an owl square surrounded by a few granny squares, but it turned out HUGE!!

I had already worked a fair amount of the stripes and was not in the mood to frog them!    I was undecided whether to proceed with the blanket or to just make two owl cushions.    Most people liked the cushion idea.  

This was such a "silly" project that turned out to be such FUN!      I added some "eyelash" yarn for the "feathers", and two over the top ruffle flowers and leaves to fill in the open space at the bottom of the cushion.

For the back of the cushion I overlapped two rectangular stripe pieces and then did a buttonhole row to fasten the cushion.

The back and front are joined by a round of single crochet and then finished off with a block stitch edging.

Only one of the cushions is complete, the other is about halfway.      For the second a different colour selection will have to be used.

I am actually thinking of hosting a little CAL, breaking it up into manageable portions over a period of weeks (say over the 5 Fridays in October??).      Is it too late in the year???    How many people would join in??

Please leave me a comment so that I can decide whether to proceed now - or leave it until the new year!

Primrose and Clover

One of my earliest childhood memories is of me sitting on a little footstool next to my great granny watching her crochet.      She would often stop making her fine intricate designs and make up a little design for me to practice.

I came across some of these motifs in a ziplock bag amongst my LATE MOM'S STASH

I gave the motifs my own little twist, and made them into a sweet little tray cloth with a clover picot border!

The pattern is available in my RAVELRY STORE

Readers will receive a 30% discount on the purchase of this pattern until Sunday, 13 September 2015, using Coupon Code PRM0001

This pattern is suitable for table mats, tray cloths, table runners, tablecloths and even blankets.     Just keep on adding squares until it is the size you require and then crochet the border and edging!!

Popcorn Photo Prop Blanket

A couple of months back my friend popped over and asked me to make a props blanket for her grandbaby's newborn photo shoot.     The little outfit was knitted with a pretty variegated DK yarn and she had 1 x 100g ball of Chunky in the same yarn for the props blanket.

I did a quick google to see what size the blanket should be - 60cm x 60cm seemed to be about the average.

100g of Chunky (12ply) does not stretch very far!     The only way I could figure to manage a 60cm square with 160m of yarn was to make a "mesh" using a huge hook.      A little swatch of this quickly showed that I was heading in the wrong direction.

Time was also a bit of a problem so I needed to make something that would work up super fast!

I decided to alternate rows of granny clusters in Chunky with rows of "popcorns" in DK and ended up with a lovely soft and "puffy" texture.     Add a simple border with a teeny little frill and Voila!!

Baby Blanket from Mom's Squares

While working through Mom's Yarn Stash I found lots of little"treasures" - some motifs that my great gran and I had made, a few very old crochet hooks and some squares mom had knitted and crocheted.

I felt really sentimental about these squares as they were among the last things mom made before she became frail.

My baby brother (who is 31) has not yet married, so I thought I would make up mom's squares into a baby blanket - a keepsake for him (hopefully for a little niece or nephew one day!).

The knitted squares were mostly pink so I tried to balance the blanket out with a good helping of blue and some yellow - so that it can be used for either a boy or a girl.

 
I wanted to preserve what Mom had made without making the blanket too "me"!  I kept it very simple,  just adding a join-as-you-go row to the crochet squares to make four bigger crochet blocks, crocheting around the knitted blocks and then adding enough rows to make the blocks the same size. 

Each block was joined-as-I-went with a row of Denim Blue.     The border is a few granny rows, edged with a simple half shell!

I have a busy week planned - taking photos of all my makes and adding a few new patterns to my RAVELRY PAGE

Off to have a nice cup of tea and bake a BANANA TEA LOAF before I get sidetracked by my crochet.........