baby ghan

I have been bitten by the granny squares bug.  So a week ago I stopped by Lincraft (which has conveniently moved into the old Spotlight at Malvern) and bought up big on nice cotton colours – I think I’ve read someone refer to similar ones as ice-cream colours, which I quite like!

So am thinking that a baby afghan should be about 8 x 6 squares – which means that I’m almost halfway through – have done 22 of 48 squares. Of course saying “halfway through” doesn’t allow for the extra row of white all over and the joining and the edging, but I’m ignoring that at the moment and crossing that bridge when I have to!

spring brooch

I have been thinking of making a fascinator out of crochet or knitted flowers, and while I was playing around with that, I made Motif 140 from Beyond the Square Crochet Motifs :

Perfect owl brooch

This project is perfect – it’s gorgeous and quick and easy and owls are so IN right now!

I have been coveting the birds brooch in Crochet Adorned and drove to the library today to see if my copy was in yet, but unfortunately it was still in transit. As per usual, I have left it to the last minute to think of a birthday present for a friend – oddly enough I’m fine with small baby presents – probably because I get so much notice!

So I was driving home from work and the library today, thinking about alternatives to those birds, and how I might possibly try to make a brooch out of the owls and owlet sweater – and so I do a ravelry search and Ysolda has already done it!

Now I just need to teach myself how to cable!

Melbourne craft markets in a nifty google calendar

I get a lot of emails and other bits of information for all the various craft markets that are on around town, and have decided as I’m putting them into my own google calendar, that I may as well add them to a public google calendar and then other people can take advantage of it as well!

The calendar is available here:

http://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=v2chtg8dr86uim9cj76aei1b3k%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=Australia/Sydney

To add to your google calendar, you can use this calendar id:

v2chtg8dr86uim9cj76aei1b3k@group.calendar.google.com

You can also import it into Outlook and Mozilla Sunbird – there are fairly good instructions on the Google site

And it’s pretty easy to add as a widget to Lotus Notes, via the google calendar gadget.

I’ve even decided to branch it out as a google site – MelbCraftMarkets – mainly just with instructions on how to set up, but useful if anyone else is interested in contributing to or co-managing it.

100 flowers to knit and crochet

I’ve borrowed this fantastic book from the library and am going to make as many flowers in 4 weeks as I possibly can!

So I started on the Campanula flower – mainly because I had the colours that the book recommended – and it’s gorgeous!

It only took a few hours to whip up – it probably took longer to weave in all the ends of the stem leaves. I ended up with more stem leaves than the pattern has as I misread a bit of the pattern and ended up with many, many more stitches than I should have.

Amazon: 100 Flowers to Knit & Crochet

I just used scrap 8ply acrylic yarn.

Use worldcat to find it in a library near you.

More baby toys

I have been inspired by the chainsaw and axe on Anticraft! I think I will make the axe and maybe some other boy type tools like a hammer or screwdriver or spanner. Get ‘em learning early I say!

UPDATE: the hammer

I have spent some time on the train lately, and have been trying out ways to make a hammer – I love the idea of all in one pieces, but I think I need to give up on that, and accept that things will need to be sewn together.

iPhone sock

My brother has requested an iPhone sock, and he wants it to be plain and masculine, and no button. So taking the basic principle of “it’s a tube” and trial and error-ing until I had a firm tube for it to live in, here is my pattern:

• 4ply yarn or cotton
• 2.5mm needles

CO36 with the magic loop method/ sock toe method – http://knitty.com/ISSUEspring06/FEATmagiccaston.html

knit approx 50 rounds or until is the desired length

If you want to finish with a rib of K1, P1 you can – this will also stop the top rolling, you can also use a second colour like I have.

iphone sock

Dog rattle

I gave up on the yellow version of this rattle – as I’d used 8ply and a 4mm hook – it was far too big!

This one is more managable – 3mm hook and 5ply yarn. He was pretty easy to make up, only took a few evenings to do!

bluey the dog

Pattern: Dog Rattle – Suzie Fry on Ravelry

yo-yos are giving me grief

After a fair bit of trial and error and yelling at the computer, I have made some yo-yos:

yo-yos

Prior to this lovely photo, the yo-yos were causing me a lot of pain – maybe because it wa late at night, and because it seemed so simple that I was beating myself up about it because I didn’t understand the instructions.

I think part of it is realising that americans write their crochet patterns differently to english/australians – you know, where a double chain to me is a single chain to them, plus extremely minimal instructions in the pattern I was using.

But I perservered and found a youtube video with instructions for the first round. Of course, me being difficult, I wanted to do my yo-yos like Leigha’s (on ravelry) with no white border between each one, so I needed to find those instructions too.

How to make a yo-yo for australians in very simple language

First wheel

1. form a ring – you can do this either by chaining 4 and joining them with a slip stitch, or by using the magic loop method.

2. Chain 3, then do 11 treble crochets (or double crochets in the american patterns) in a row (so 12 spokes to the wheel)

3. once finished the trebles, slip stitch (single crochet for americans) into the second chain of the original chain 3 in step 2.

Second wheel

1. chain 3, then double crochet into the gap between the spokes of the first wheel.

2. chain another 3, then double crochet into the gap. Do this the whole way around, and finish with a slip stitch into the first chain of the first spoke of the second wheel.

There are full, proper instructions here on the many ways to join the yo-yos – I used the flat-braiding joining method: http://priscillascrochet.net/free%20patterns/Yo%20Yo%20Afghans%201.pdf

Old yella was actually an elephant!

I cannot stress this enough – this rattle is HUGE.

I am crocheting the dog rattle by Suzie Fry (on Ravellry) and I was expecting something a bit more baby sized. This thing is like a full sized marraca.

I do realise that a lot of this is to do with using 8ply yarn and a 4mm hook, so it’s reasonable to expect it to be twice as large… but still! It’s huge!