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?

Creative sewing weekend

On Saturday I completed my first stint at the Emporia Crafts and Vintage Markets Pop Up shop.  I spent the remainder of my spare time stitching away and I made 2 simply crazy patchwork cushions and with some of the scraps I made 3 pin cushions.  I mentioned all of this in my blog post yesterday but I hadn't got any good photos.

Today I finally managed to get my new replacement Motorola Moto G working and managed to take a reasonable photograph consider its dark and I had artificial lights.  I think the phones camera did well, much better than the camera on my Tesco Hudl and my digital camera.

These are the 2 cushions and 3 pin cushions I made.  I really need some pin cushions as the only pin cushions I have are the one in my sewing box and the foam on top of my pack of pins which is now very disintegrated.  I explained on yesterday blogs where I got the pattern from.

At the start of the month I went into Hobbycraft in Maidstone and purchased way more stuff than I had intended.  As part of this stash I had purchased 3 packs of fat quarters which were reduced to less than half price.  These fat quarters were

This is the Visage Textiles Fat Quarters Pastel Patchwork pack of 6.  I have made one cushion and 2 pin cushions from this pack and still have plenty left.  This has created my favourite of the crazy patchwork cushions I have made.  The next pack of fat quarters I purchased was the Visage Textiles Fat Quarters Honesty 6 pack.

I have made one cushion and one pin cushion from this pack.  When I was at the patchwork class last week the instructor talked about having fabrics that blend and you can't see the patchwork effect too well.  I didn't understand what she was saying as I was looking at fabric choice in the same way you choose papers for card making and scrap booking. Whilst I like the colours of the fabrics in the pack I now understand what she means about blending.  The different sections don't stand out in the way the Pastel Patchwork.  When I first bought this pack I thought the fabric would make really good dolls dresses, but instead of making dolls clothes I made a cushion.  I do like the colours in this pack and I am sure the rest of you will do too.

The final pack of fat quarters I purchased were Hobbycraft Medow Craft six pack.  These are a nice mix if  blues and greens which work with the blues and greens in my bedroom.  

I used these fabrics in my first attempt at the simply crazy patchwork and cushion cover.  I enjoyed making this and finally worked out a way of piecing the different strips of fabric together to make a pattern I liked.  Again this pack could "blend" as Mandy said, but with a papercrafting head on I felt the fabrics benefited each other and worked really well in a cushion.  With enough time I am sure I will make some pin cushions with the scraps from this pack.

I hope you all had a good crafty weekend too.  What did you make?  I'd like to hear what you've been making.  Leave me a comment below.

Teaching young people to sew.

In my main job I am a Senior Youth Work Practitioner who runs Swanley Youth Hub.  As part of my work there I've been teaching the young people how to sew and creating art projects.  Back in June I got the young people to draw and colour designs onto fabric.  The theme was summer.  Its taken some time from the designs being done to completing the quilt, but we have.  Here is our quilt.

The white squares were not equal in size, so I would recommend that you measure the squares out equally before hand, rather than randomly cutting out squares.  This meant we've had to cut bits off the pictures when putting the strips of fabric in between. But for a first quilt, everyone at the youth centre are really pleased.  The quilt is hanging on a wall in the green room in the centre.

We made the designs on white squares cut from a white sheet bought from Asda.  The strips are made from a pink sheet from Asda and the backing and binding is made from a purple sheet from Asda.  Using sheets worked well considering we don't have money to buy standard price fabric.  We are about to start another quilt with the theme winter.  We are going to be using printable fabric for the designs and will use sheets again to make the strips, the backing and the binding.

Our other sewing project has been to learn how to use printable fabric.  We've printed pictures of ourselves on the fabric and turned them into cushions.  The cushions have all had lots of positive comments and lots of people want to be featured on their own cushions.

These are cushions using photos of staff.  I am the white cushion on the left.  The picture was taken using the special effects on the macbook we have at the centre.  Its certainly a different way of presenting photos, other than having them on the wall.  Our cushions are unique and personal to the youth centre.

Patchwork Cushion

I've been watching patchwork programmes on Create and Craft TV and have been inspired by Sarah Payne who is one of the quilting experts on the TV channel.  I have purchased the simply crazy and twinkling star template in order to learn to patchwork.  On Saturday I had my first attempt at making a cushion from the simply crazy template.  It took a lot of time as I was measuring and making up as I went along.  Anyhow, this is my first attempt.

This cushion is made from a pack of fat quarters I purchased from Hobbycraft a few weeks ago.  They were half price and cost me £7.50 for 6 fat quarters.  The blues and greens compliment the colours in my bedroom, but I shall sell this cushion for £20 at the pop up shop being run by Emporia Fabric and Crafts.  You can learn about them by clicking here.

I've cut everything out to make two more of these cushions, I just need to find time to sew them together.  I've not had time to do this yet, but I am sure I will eventually.  Again these will be made from fat quarters that were half price at Hobbycraft.

Crochet Cushions

I've blogged previously showing crochet cushions in the process of being made, but I've not blogged or shown the finished pictures of the cushions.  This post will be quite photo heavy, but it will show you my cushions and what I am doing with them now that I have finished them.

Most of the cushions were made from the free wool that comes with Lets Craft Knitting and Crochet Magazine.  You get just enough wool to make a cushion front.  I have then used good quality cotton fabric to make the cushions with and added coordinating buttons on the back to hold the cushions together.

So I've made 9 cushions which are going to be available to be bought at the pop up shop being run by Emporia Fabric and Crafts in Ashford.  You can find out more about this shop which has just celebrated it first birthday by clicking here.

Beginners Patchwork Class

Its been a while since I last blogged, but whilst I've been quiet in the blogosphere I've still been busy crafting, making things, making new connections and learning new skills.  Well today I went to a Beginners Patchwork class run by Mandy Munroe at Emporia Fabric and Crafts in Ashford, Kent.  I've had a go in the past with patchwork and have been watching the shows on Create and Craft, but I I felt I needed proper help to master this technique.

So I turned up for my class which started at 10am.  I was one of 2 people in the class and for our fee we got to choose any 4 fat quarters from the shop that is Emporia Fabric and Crafts.  My sister asked me to make her some new covers for cushions she use to have on her bed.  Her room is purple and raspberry colours and so I wanted to choose fabrics in those colours.

This was my initial fabric choice. As you can see there were purple tones, raspberry tones and cranberry tones, with an added shade of teal..  As part of the course Mandy explained how to choose fabrics, how to put the colours together and then we moved onto cutting out squares for the morning session.  This focused on making a 9 patch square.  I chose to use the top two pieces for this.  We learnt to cut 3.5 inch squares using a rotary cutter and large ruler.  We learnt to use a quarter inch foot on the sewing machine to make sure we have quarter inch seams.  This is really important to ensure all squares match perfectly.  We learnt how to sew together and how to but the seams together to make sure it was a perfect match.

I learnt that my natural wonk caused by my astigmatism effects my ability to sew a consistent quarter inch seam, even with a foot with a guide on it.  But my squares worked very well together. If like me you have a natural wonk that causes unevenness (you can see this on my cards that I make) I encourage you to persevere, but I did and by the end of the day I was sewing more consistent seams.

By lunch time I had stitch together to 9 squares and felt very proud of myself.  Below is a picture that shows the results of my morning and afternoon sewing.  You can see the 2 9 square patches I made plus the friend star patch I made in the afternoon.

we had a 30 minute break for lunch.  I went to the newly refurbished Muffin Break in County Square in Ashford.  I had a cheese and ham pannini, banana cake and a pot of tea.  It was lovely.  This was my lunch, Muffin Break is fast becoming one of my favourite places to eat lunch in town.

The afternoon was learning how to make half square triangles.  For this we had to cut squares 3 7/8 of an inch.  which make two half square triangle square which become 3 and a half inch squares.  I changed my cranberry coloured fabric and changed it for a teal floral fabric.  My friendly star design was made from raspberry fabric and the changed fabric.  After lots of careful cutting and pinning I sewed the design together with good matching seams.  Only to find I had stitched one of the triangle squares the wrong way round.  I then had to unpick and restitch but the final result looked really good.  All together I completed 4 square patches which I can use for either a quilt or cushion cover, I haven't decided.

I had a really good day and met some lovely people and learnt some new skills.  I would recommed these classes for anyone to tray.  You can find out more about Emporia Fabric and Crafts by clicking here.  To find out more about Mandy Munroe who taught the class then click here.  There is another patchwork class coming up on Monday 24th November and you will complete a quilt top in day.  I would recommend this for anyone to have a go at, it was a great way of meeting new people and learning new skills.