Patchwork Knitting Bag

Hello Everyone, I hope that you have all enjoyed your second day of 2015 and are still sticking to your resolutions for this year.

Today I am posting about my making which I did on New Years Eve whilst watching television.  I finished making this in time to watch When Harry Met Sally and the fireworks in London which welcomed in the New Year.

In November I went to a beginners Patchwork course held by Mandy Munroe (You can find her blog here at  Emporia Fabrics in Craft (you can find their blog here)  I made 3 x 9 patch squares and 1 x friendship star squares.  I bought back my spare fabric home to continue making something with my squares (I was thinking a table runner or mini quilt).  On New Years Eve I decided to finish cutting out the fabric and see how many different blocks I could make.  I cut out enough to make 2 more friendship stars but didn't have enough fabric for anything else.

I changed my mind as to what to make.  For Christmas my Mum had given me some bag handles to make my own bag.  I decided to make a knitting bag.I found instructions online for making a knitting bag.  You can see these instructions here.  Inspired by these instructions I eventually made 4 x 9 patch blocks and 4 x friendship star blocks (I didn't really have enough fabric for any more blocks)  I also had two further fat quarters, 1 was turquoise, the other was purple.  These were used to create the lining for the knitting bag.

After making the 8 blocks I joined 4 together to create a front and the other 4 blocks to create a back.  I then joined them together as per the instructions and attached the handles.

This is my finished knitting bag.

I am really pleased with how this turned out.  As you can see I alternated the blocks to create variety in the pattern.  I also like making square things and the bag is square shaped and fits in my love of all things square.  On top of this I can fit all the wool for the afghan blanket I am making for my bed in it.

I've got lots of fat quarters and am looking at making all sorts of different things from them.  I've ordered new furniture for my bedroom and will redecorating.  I will be making more things to help decorate my bedroom.  My resolution this year is to keep you all posted with my making and all things Sarahdipity Crafts throughout 2015.  Have a good weekend everyone.

Mum's Crochet Blanket

I hadn't posted on here for a while or shown pictures of anything I've made recently.  I've been busy working on a crochet blanket for my Mum.  In the summer my Mum had asked me to make her a crochet cushion, I bought some wool and made her this cushion.

I chose colours from my Mum's Curtains in her lounge.  Her curtains are a cream/green/red check.  There is very little red, but the cream is quite yellow and there are a number of different tones of green.   I chose some shades of green, yellow and cream and made this cushion.  I was really pleased with this cushion, the shades of yellow, cream and green were bright and sunny and it was a bright and sunny week when I made the cushion.  I had bought extra wool which I hadn't used in the cushion.  The wool in the cushion and the extra wool I hadn't used went into the blanket.

I made the blanket to go on the back of Mum's Sofa in the lounge to go with the cushion, therefore It wasn't going to be big.  It had different shades of green, yellow, green, cream plus a variegated wool that had shades of pink, purple, green and yellow.  This is the completed blanked/afghan.

It is made from 5 row granny squares using a 4mm crochet hook.  There are two colours per square and each square is made of either 3 rows of colour A and 2 rows of colour B, or 2 rows of colour A, 2 rows of colour B and 1 row of colour A.  4 crochet squares were made from each pair of colour, with the colours alternated around.  This meant no square is the same, each square is different.  To learn how to make a granny square check out this tutorial from Bethintx1 here.  I learnt how to crochet granny squares by following her tutorials on YouTube.

I used a mixture of different types of wool in this blanket.  This is the wool I used.

Patons, Fab, DK, Shade 02344 (the pink/purple/green/yellow variegated wool)

Stylecraft, Wonder Soft Merry Go round, Double Knitting, Shade 3140 - Sunshine
Stylecraft, Special DK, Shade 1263 - Citron
Stylecraft, Special DK, Shade 1114 - Sunshine
Stylecraft, Special DK, Shade 1065 - Meadow

Sirdar Hayfield, Bonus DK, shade 916 - Emerald
Sirdar Hayfield, Bonus DK, shade 957 - Primrose
Sirdar Hayfield, Bonus DK, shade 993 - Aran
Sirdar Hayfield, Bonus DK, shade 882 - Lime

When starting on the squares I started with pairing all colours with the WonderSoft Merry Go Round variegated wool in shades of white, yellow and green.  After this I then paired all the colours with the Patons Fab variegated wool and then all of the colours with the Hayfield Aran wool.  This then made 80 squares allowing me to make an afghan that is 8 squares wide by 10 squares long.  I joined the squared together using double crochet as I find this joins the squares together in a really secure many, especially when the blanket is at the back of the sofa which is used on a daily basis.  I used Hayfield Primrose to join the squares together and complete a layer of double crochet around the edge for the start of the border.

After joining together the squares and completing the foundation stitches for the border I stitched a border using Hayfield Lime, Hayfield Aran and Hayfield Primrose again.  This has two rows of treble crochet (lime and aran) and the final row is a double crochet with a 3 chain in between each stitch make a ripple effect..  As I had initially in the foundation chain stitched 2 stitches in the corner chains for each square and with the ripple effect of the last row, it made a really nice ruffled border to the edge of the blanket.

I was really concerned that the colours wouldn't really work, as the colours looked really bright and garish as I stitched the squares, but once it was all joined together and the border was added the colours worked together really well.  The yellow and green colours were inspired by Mum's curtains and the previous cushion and the pink/purple variegated was such the right colours to represent my Mum that I had to use it and it does work with the other colours, even though there isn't any other pink/purple colours in the blanket.

Anyway let me know what do you think?  Do the colours work?  Does it still look like a blanket made by a beginner crocheter?