Spiral Granny Square Blanket - Tah dah!

My spiral granny square blanket is finished :) I really enjoyed this project and it was a very good stash buster, 6 and a half balls of yarn out the basket and into useful occupation. I like that!

Front

Back

Find out more about this project on Ravelry. Also on LifesJewels.


PS. Are you into buying handmade? Yes? Then you should check out the amazing stuff in the Etsy Stock Take. If you sell your craft on Etsy, please come and join in :)

Spiral Granny Square Blanket Progress.

So I've made all my little granny squares and I am now in the process of crocheting them together into a spiral. They are super cute!

What I've learnt so far:

• I weaved in the ends for about an inch and then trimmed off the excess. Then they were blocked individually before I started to join them together.  Next time I think I will weave in the ends and not cut off the extra until after blocking the squares as some of them are already working their way loose and I'm a little bit worried about the integrity of one or two once the blanket is in use... oh uh! 

• I like the joining up method suggested by the queen of colourful granny squares, Lucy at Attic24. It's very rhythmic and the joining up stitches don't show on the front. 

• I took a picture of the squares laid out on the floor in the right pattern and referred to this when joining them up row by row. This helped with the confusion of working a spiral in straight lines (not easy for the brain I discovered!) 

• The little squares didn't all turn out the same size after blocking which is a bit strange and creates bumps, but I'm sure once I've blocked the complete blanket things will sit nice and smooth. 

 

Blocking makes little baby curly squares all grown up and smooth! More on the ins and outs of blocking knitting and crochet here, where I blocked Marmee's waistcoat.

More on this project in Ravelry.

PS. Are you into buying handmade? Yes? Then you should check out the amazing stuff in the Etsy Stock Take. If you sell your craft on Etsy, please come and join in :)

Granny Square Blanket.

Yum!

Oh yummy yum!

Sprial baby!

Solid, 3 round granny squares

 

I'm giving granny squaring another chance! This is a stash-busting exercise that should leave me with a sweet little blanket.

The wool is from my favourite LYS in Hamburg, MYLYS (you also get a great hot chocolate there. Marmee and me spent a couple of hours knitting, chatting and eating cake there yesterday!). It was meant for other projects: grey for a waistcoat and purple for a baby blanket, but I had leftovers, 3 balls of each colour.

I've gone with a solid granny square pattern, just doing 3 rounds. When I get sick of granny squaring, I'll sew in the ends and do some blocking and then when I'm sick of that I'll go back to granny squaring. So far I've made about 30 squares.

The squares are dinky and I love them. My hubby suggested sewing them together in a spiral which I think goes quite nicely with their simple colours and pattern... Watch this space for blanket updates :)




PS. Are you into buying handmade? Yes? Then you should check out the amazing stuff in the Etsy Stock Take. If you sell your craft on Etsy, please come and join in :)

Etsy Stock Take - Week Ten

Etsy Stock Take - Week Ten

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UPDATE! Don't post your links here anymore, please click on the link to go over to the latest Etsy Stock Take! I plan to do this at the end of every calender week, so please look out for the newest post!

I've made something new and surprising. A metal brooch. Well, not totally surprising, after all it's still crochet!

I recently got my hands on some high quality metal wire (usually used for scientific experiments - yes, I have my sources...) and decided to see if it would allow me to crochet it. So far so good. I made a granny square. After my first attempt at granny squaring ended in disaster, I'm quite chuffed with how this came out.

Very sweet. Rather vintage, in a modern way. Do you want a close up?

Until next week,

Kat x

Join me:

I hope that you fellow Etsian's will join me in showcasing your new items each Sunday (or anytime after that really!).  Let's blog hop!

You have 2 options:

1. Write a new post on your blog (telling us about your new items), title it Etsy Stock Take and link back here, using the Mr Linky widget (where it says 'click here to enter') at the bottom of this post.

2. Post a link that goes directly to your new items in the Mr Linky widget (where it says 'click here to enter') at the bottom of this post (you can put up as many as you like!).

I will list the links to each week's stock take on my Etsy Stock Take page. Please go and have a browse!

It'd be lovely if you took a moment to go and check out some stuff that others post below. Let's show our support for each other craftwise!

I'm hoping that my goal of listing one item a week will be a powerful motivator and a source of promotion for us all...

Granny square disaster.

So I recently posted about my change of heart when it comes to granny squares, detailing the start of a granny square project.

Today I want to note the progress of said project. I think in my head it was to be a floor mat, possibly to go in the bathroom in front of the shower cubicle. I happily hooked up a tons of squares from yarn made from old t-shirts and started musing on how to join them together.

After doing some research, I decided to go with crocheting together the outside loops of the stitches so that the joining would only be visible on the back of the mat.

That bit worked a treat and I will be doing it again. However, you might have noticed that this particular project can be justly labeled a disaster. Can you see the problem?

Somewhere along the line I put down my giantest crochet hook and picked up the next size down! haha!!

Now I did notice that some squares were a bit bigger than others, but figured blocking before joining would sort it out. Then when they still seemed a bit squiff, I thought they'd get comfy when joined together - no problem right?

Wrong!!!

The big ones puff up cos they don't have room to lay flat, bless their little hearts!

What I learnt:

• Only use one size crochet hook for an entire project!
• Pack away other hooks while working on something to avoid confusion.
• Don't try and join things that are very obviously not going to fit.
• A rather nice method to join granny squares that is not noticeable on the right side.

What next:

• I'm going to frog the lot and then start a new bathroom mat. This time I'm going to make a giant circle incorporating an old bedsheet.
• I'm reserving my judgement on granny squares until I can successfully complete a project involving them. Watch this space!