WIP Wednesday...It's been a while!

The little ones are playing happily so I have ten minutes (maybe!) to collect my thought about my current projects.

<Haha just had to rescue the dog from the baby, this may take longer that I anticipated!>

The Granny Stripe Blanket: The awesome, simple, stunning granny stripe blanket! I am totally in love with this blanket and with rainbow coloured yarn. I had never appreciated that something so simple could look so impressive. Even the husband is impressed by this WIP!

I bought a Lucy pack of yarn from wool warehouse and used the attic24 pattern to get started on this blanket. I was a bit overwhelmed by all the colours so picked out the rainbow ones and a white skein and made a start. I took a while to get going but now I can do two rows in 15 minutes. I can manage two hours of crochet before my hands ache so I get 8 stripes done, just over half a rainbow. I have so far done two rainbow repeats...can't decide if I need three or four repeats to make it a decent size for a cot/toddler bed

Hooked using a 4mm hook and stylecraft DK yarn

Corner to corner blanket: Another colourful project! This is for a Betty's Bells order and is #1 of 2. The second one will be the same colours but a different order. The customer has said I can choose the colour for the border....decisions, decisions! 

Hooked using a 6mm hook and Hayfield bonus chunky

I'm also working on a baby sun hat for a friend in blue, yellow and white cotton. Pics of that one to follow!

Finished Friday

Writing my WIP Wednesday post always spurs me on to get something finished by Friday! I have a couple of things from this weeks WIP post to share, plus another that I started and finished in one evening.

The Blanket: Done. 

Finally finished this order. I just had the edging left to do and started doing it by doing a round of single crochet in grey. It made the edges all ripply though, and not uniformly so I ripped that back and just went with the scalloped edging I had done on one of these blankets previously. I have to say it looks lovely.

Corner to corner blankets

I used this pattern which I found via ravelry. The first time I made it, I used a chunky yarn and a 6mm hook as recommended on the yarn label. It looks great but it quite dense and not as drapey as I would like a baby blanket to be. It will be more suited as a cot or pram blanket rather than a swaddle or for tucking round baby in a car seat.

This time, I have used the same chunky yarn, but a 6.5mm hook. I prefer the feel of the blanket, it's not so heavy. So while it's still not a swaddling blanket, it would be suited to cot, pram or car seat. For a swaddling blanket, I reckon I would need to use double knitting weight (light worsted) and a 4 or 4.5mm hook. This would take a long, long time though, as the squares would be smaller and you would need many more to get the blanket to size. I like chunky yarn!

The Sun hat: Done.

This made up in no time at all. A couple of hours for the hat and half an hour for the flower and weaving ends in. It feels lovely and light, and the ripply brim is perfect for a toddler. Click here for a link to the pattern. 

Sun hat mk2: Done!

I only started this yesterday, while sitting in the car waiting for the big kids to get out of school. An hour or two in the evening and it was finished! I just need to wait until the morning to try it on the baby. 

It's a bit of a mish mash of patterns. The main part is from KT and the squid's Newsboy hat pattern. The brim, I made it up! I was hoping there wouldn't be any ripples but it has a gently rippling brim. If it fits my baby, I'll keep this one for him and try again, tweaking the pattern. If it doesn't fit, I'll frog it! (Frogging: ripping back :-( pulling apart...don't want to do this!). 

Both sun hats were hooked using Lily Sugar n Cream. I love this yarn. Beautiful colours and a beautifully defined finish. Wish I could buy it locally. Bet my husband is glad I can't!

Bunny: Not done. Will try and finish that this weekend. 

Happy Friday to you all, hope it's a good one x

WIP Wednesday

It's already Wednesday again! These weeks are going in far too quickly. Think it's a combination of being kept super busy with four children and using my spare time to crochet and then blog about it! Not to mention that I am on the back to work countdown... four weeks to go and I bet these four weeks go the quickest of all.

So, as usual, I am working on multiple projects. I now realise I'm not alone in this as a crochet group held a poll the other day: one project on the go or a few? The results were 100% had more than one on the go. Surprising? Not really. I think we all love the excitement of starting something new. Looking for the pattern, wondering what colour yarn to use, getting everything ready and making a start. I enjoy working items up but putting them together is my least favourite part and I guess that's when I start on something new!

Anyway, this weeks Works In Progress:

The Blanket: This is just about finished now. Just got the ends to weave in and the edging to do. 

The Sun hat: I'm going to try out a couple of sun hat designs but so far I'm really happy with this one. The pattern is toddler sized but this one fits my seven month old quite nicely (he does have quite a big head though and is the size of some one year olds!). I've two more rows to do on the brim and then need to think about embellishments. I thought the wavy brim might be a bit girly but it looks cute on him and will definitely keep the sun off his precious little face.

Amigurumi Bunny: So far, I've finished the head, two legs and an ear. I haven't quite finished the body and the one arm that are pictured because they require stuffing and then a few more rows. I've quite liked working with a tiny hook to make this tiny toy. I'm not quite sure about the colour of this yarn though...it's pink and white and has quite a lot of one colour before changing. Therefore the head's a bit pink, body is white, one leg is half pink, ear totally pink!  

Hopefully these will all be ready in time for a Finished Friday post!