hobbies

My Crochet Cushion finally completed!

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I haven’t blogged about anything crochet related for a while now. Mainly because I have been working on a big-ish project, a lovely rainbow cushion! I got the pattern from my mother-in-law ages ago but it took me a while to get round to it, as I was busy with my Granny Square Blanket and then I did some cute Christmas Crochet Creatures. Come January though it was time to get cracking.

Rather than buy the colours listed in the patterns I decided to use up what wool I could from my bag as I have lots of part used balls leftover. I am a bit OCD about colours and like them to be in spectrum order – I don’t know why particularly but we have some colourful mugs and they HAVE to be on the mug rack in spectrum order. Weird I know!

So these are the colours I got cracking with.

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It started off well enough as it was quite small, I made a big mistake somewhere on the first side of the cushion but thought I had rectified it enough (turns out I hadn’t but i will come back to that later!). In the pattern the reverse of the cushion doesn’t have frilly edges like the front, but hubby and I had a chat and decided we’d quite like the cushion to be the same on both sides.

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As I mentioned, it starts off quite easily but as it gets bigger, and the rounds get longer, it starts to take a lot longer to finish a row, and, well get s a bit repetitive and dull. I have now well and truly decided that I am better off with smaller projects. I just don’t have the patience to work on big things. Much as i love the way they look, I get so bored and then can’t be bothered to crochet in the evenings and it takes months for me to finish it as a result. It’s a hobby I have really been enjoying but I really don’t enjoy the big projects quite as much. Which is a shame, as I think the blankets and cushions look so lovely when they are finished.

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Anyway, it has taken me a while but I got to a point where both sides of the cushion were progressing nicely… then I compared them and realised that the side which I made a mistake on earlier was actually quite a bit smaller than the second side. boooo. It’s not the end of the world, it’s only about a round smaller, but that was a little demoralising and led to the cushion being put to one side again for a couple of weeks…. honestly I can be such an ostrich, I totally bury my head in the sand and ignore problems sometimes! Which isn’t the best idea!

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I eventually picked it up again, determined to actually get it finished and knew I just needed an extra row of trebles on the smaller side. I would have dine it in the same dark purple as the final rows… except for the fact that I ran out, I literally only just had enough to actually complete the final row of frills as it was (And that was doing a stitch less in some of the petals on that row) oops! So I had to use lilac for the joining row.

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But you know what, I am proud that I have finally finished it and it doesn’t look toooo bad!

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So that’s my creative challenge for this week (which has taken me months!) what’s yours?

Creative Challenge

Creative Challenge Linky #1

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Hello and welcome to The Creative Challenge!!

This is a new weekly linky for you to link up any posts (new or old) about you challenging yourself to be more creative.

Please click here if you would like to find out more, but the basic premise is that you challenge yourself to be more creative. You could be trying to be more creative with playtime ideas or messy play, or with a new hobby for yourself. Push yourself to try something a bit more creative, then come back and let me know how you’ve got on. Even if things haven’t gone quite as well as you hoped!!! We can’t all do everything right all of the time,  but the important thing is to try something new and push ourselves. That’s what this is all about!

My creative challenge so far hasn’t been very successful at all!

You may have read about the disastrous attempt at cutting and sticking that was the Failed Valentine’s craft attempt, which basically resulted in this:

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Like I say, it didn’t go too well.

Not to be put off though I tried again, this time with glue sticks rather than gloopy glue. Once again though Monkey was obsessed with the lid , and trying to pick the glue out of the stick, but he was not so interested in doing any sticking. (We used foam shapes and googly eyes this time.)

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A couple of times I thought he was getting interested in the sticking, but no, if anything he preferred picking off the bits that I had stuck down!! Once again it did not go the way I hoped.

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So we resorted back to good old fashioned stickers, which he loves sticking down. Not sure why he likes those rather than sticking with glue but hey ho!

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He was quite happy so it wasn’t an all out fail I suppose, even if it didn’t go the way I hoped it would! The whole point though is that I challenged myself to be more creative – and I did  even if it’s with an activity he’s not really ready for yet!!

Right, now it’s your turn to link up your posts, and tell me all about your Creative Challenge!

Creative Challenge

Here’s how this works.

  1. Write a new post (or an old one if it fits the theme) all about your Creative Challenge.
  2. Grab the Creative Challenge badge (by copying the code above) and pop it at the bottom of your post (in the ‘text’ version).
  3. Link your post  by clicking on the ‘Add your link’ button and filling in the form.
  4. Linkys only work when we take the time to read each others posts and leave comments so please let’s support each other and read and comment on as many posts as you are able to.

The linky opens at 6.30am on Wednesday and will close at 11.00pm on Sunday so there is plenty of time to join in.

The Creative Challenge – Join in with me!

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I recently posted about how I am challenging myself to be more Creative with Monkey.  My aim is to come up with some more arty crafty things to do with him over the next month, and then report back on my progress and how successful I have been! I have decided that this kind of challenge is more fun done as a team, so….

Do you think you could be more creative? Do you shy away from messy play? Is there are a craft/art/hobby you’ve wanted to try but never quite got round to it?

I CHALLENGE you to change all that and give something new a try!

It could be anything you like as long as it’s a bit creative, such as:

 Always fancied crochet/knitting? Now’s the time to try.

Do you shy away from sticky/messy play? It’s time to be brave!

Want to get more adventurous with cooking/baking? Do it.

Always fancied writing a short story? Why not start right now?

CHALLENGE YOURSELF. 

Then come back and let me know how you’ve got on.

I’m giving us a month to give time to prepare and have time to make a good start.

The linky will open on WEDNESDAY 26TH FEBRUARY for you to share your creative story.

Please grab my badge, and spread the word! #CreativeChallenge

If you think you are going to join in I would love it if you could comment below and tell me how you are going to challenge yourself

 

Creative Challenge

The Granny Square Blanket is finally finished! (for the moment at least…)

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Sooo, as I have mentioned before, I was getting pretty annoyed with my granny square blanket, which is why it has taken me this long to finish it! But it is done, finito, finally!!

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The border isn’t quite the way I planned or wanted but it is done and I am happy that it is finished.

So, I think the last time I blogged about it, I was frustrated by the waviness of the edge of my blanket and wanted it to be a straight edge. After a bit of a break I decided to embrace the wave. What I had originally wanted was a few rows of straight then a wavy edge, but instead I ended up with no straight, and just wavy edged.

I got a bit creative with crochet stitches to create the first line of the border, in the navy. This is what it looked like with just one line of border.

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I wanted to use this lovely peach wool for the next line of the border. I wanted to carry on the wave, but thought as I had already created a wave, that by just doing purely treble stitches in the next wave, that it would automatically follow the same pattern. Nope. This didn’t happen, instead it pretty much straightened out! When I wanted to straighten out the edges of the blanket, I couldn’t get it to do it, now I want to carry on with the wave and it goes straight, crazy! Anyway got a bit creative with stitches again (and got some inspiration from wave blankets from much better crocheters than I) and made the wave bigger and better.WP_20131011_19_53_31_Pro WP_20131105_15_19_16_Pro

I was happy with this, but this blanket is huge and it’s a lot of repetitive crocheting to get it finished. Add to that my boredom and impatience and it has taken me ages to get round to doing it. I had thought I would do at least one more layer on the border, if not two, but at the rate I am going it would never get finished. So I have decided to leave it be for the time being, and maybe look at doing some smaller projects, with more instant results.

I may pick it up and add to the border again one day but for now, I am very relieved to say that at last it is finished. It has certainly been a labour of love but I am proud of it, considering that at the beginning of the year I had no idea how to crochet.

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Cute Crochet Owl

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I’ve really been enjoying doing the crochet, I like being able to sit and work away at it in the evenings after Monkey has gone to sleep, while hubby and I watch some trash telly. I also do the odd bit during the day while he naps so housework has definitely been suffering! Oh well! 🙂

But, well, I am an impatient soul and doing the rows backwards and forwards, while very therapeutic, wasn’t really cutting it for me. I mentioned in my last crochet blog that I had found the fabulous site of Bunny Mummy. Now she really is very good at crochet and makes some gorgeous things, one of which being this adorable cute owl, and I couldn’t wait to give it a try! As I am a complete beginner I was very confused by some of the stitches and sought help from my lovely mother in law, but after a bit of explanation from her I was off!

It didn’t start out brilliantly as somehow the first circle I made was completely wonky. I started again and this time it wasn’t wonky but by the time I got to the third round, somewhere along the way I had miscounted and it was a bit skew-wiff and the wrong size.

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Not to be put off I duly started again and woohoo this time I had a correct circle! I carried on, fluffed my way through the new stitches and somehow managed to make something that resembled the pattern I was following. I continued the next night and managed to finish the bodies and eyes, but realised I didn’t have a needle nearly large enough for yarn so had to put it aside. Lovely mother in law is also making an owl and as she is much better at crochet than me she managed to finish hers already! Anyway she lent me a needle(bodkin?) and some wadding for me to put it all together.

The next day we had a lovely visitor in the form of my friend Monika all the way from Switzerland so instead of crocheting the evening was spent eating good food, drinking lovely wine and generally catching up. Although then we had a rough night as Monkey is really not sleeping well at the moment and hubby got a poorly tummy in the middle of the night – end result a very tired little family. Luckily Monika managed to sleep through much of it and wasn’t too disturbed, or I would have felt truly awful!

Monika headed home the next morning, via London to do some shopping, and we had a lovely visit to monkey’s grandparents and I got to see the lovely finished owl! Sadly I didn’t take a picture but will try to snap one over the weekend. After seeing Granny’s lovely owl I was chomping at the bit to finish mine so during Monkey’s afternoon nap the housework was once again cast aside so I could finish my little owly, and here’s the end result! Such a cutey!

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Not perfect by any means, in fact full of mistakes, but well, you can see what it is supposed to be and that’s good enough for me on my first try! Going to make a couple more I think, see if I can perfect it 🙂