JC Baby Blanket

I am crocheting my fourth baby blanket in the Lion Brand Marbled Baby Throw pattern.  I love that pattern!  It is easy and you can totally zone out and it's all good.

This time this blanket is for a friend at work.  She went out on maternity leave and she will be due back really soon, so I really need to get on the horn if I want to send it to her before her return.

I am using Loops & Threads Impeccable (100% Acrylic, 128g each) in Clear Blue, Soft Fern and White.  While I am working with it, I am not loving this yarn; it is very stiff.  I am used to doing this large project with Berroco Comfort and that is relaxed and not so much strain on your wrists to get it out of the skein and to manipulate.  I wanted to save a few bucks (in case I never see this gal again; who knows, she may love staying at home and quit her job at work.  It would not be the first time I have seen this happen after the first child is born).

There is Razzy, helping me crochet.  Yarn attracts the cats, no doubt.  I ended up using one whole skein of each color and a little bit from a second skein. 

These types of blankets relax the more you wash them.  Acrylic is not the softest yarn, but it is sturdy.  It can withstand lots of wear and tear.

It will be nice to have a little blanket to cover either mommy or baby during those late night feedings or a nice square to lay down for the baby to hang out on the floor.

This was a simple granny square thing, around and around.  Perfect project for a beginner crocheter and a perfect project to use up scraps of yarn.

Palm Scrap Afghan

I think I have more unfinished projects right now than I have ever had in my life.  I am not even going to count them, I'm embarrassed!  Today I am writing to show off my newest project:

Palm Scrap Afghan

 

This project is an idea from a pullover/tunic project found in a new magazine I bought at my LYS.  The magazine is Interweave Crochet, Summer 2013:

 

Interweave Crochet Summer 2013

 

This issue has tons of cute things!  My gosh, I wish I had more time for crafts!  Anyway, back to my idea.  Thumbing through the magazine, there is a pattern Palm Tunic that I love love.  Here is a pic:

 

Palm Tunic



You crochet each triangle motif separately, but as you do your last set of stitches around the triangle motif, you connect it to the motif you crocheted before it...makes less ends to weave in.

 

I got this idea to do these motifs but make a scrap afghan out of it.  It will be eclectic, no doubt.  I started off with the blue yarn first.  Then added the light purple yarn.

 

 

I mainly started it just to see if I can read a pattern and actually crochet something that looks hard.  Although, it is a bit tight and the center part puckers...I am really liking it.

 

I added a few more a few weeks ago:

 

 

I do need more dark colors.  I am a very pink yarn collector, I have a ton of it, actually.  Which is why I want to use up the scraps so I can buy more yarn and be to justify it with a straight face.

 

My favorite motif is the darker pink one on the left.  It is a cotton/silk blend.  The stitches pop out more with this yarn.  I have a decent amount of this yarn left, but I have to save it to spread it out.  Mix it up a bit.

 

 

It has been awhile since I made a motif, it will be like learning the stitches all over again.  But it takes a good 30-40 min just to crochet one, so I don't know when this will actually get done.  I will just chip away at it as the days go by. 

Scrappy Quilt - Part 2

Happy Easter!

Since my quilt blocks have been done for weeks now, it is time to pick a layout and sew them together.  I first blogged about my Scrappy Quilt here:

• Scrappy Quilt - Part 1

Next step you choose a layout.  Since I chose the lap size, I only have three (3) layouts to choose from.  I mean, you can do whatever you want, but to have some pattern, there are 3 ideal layouts for this size quilt.  I will lay them all out for you and then I will tell you which one I am doing.

A neat trick I learned in quilting class, is when you have your blocks laid out and you are trying to figure out which one you like best, you look at it through a peephole.  Yup, a door peephole.  A peephole for a door can be bought at any hardware store for about $5.00.  If you work with colors and palettes, I highly recommend a peephole.  It makes everything look like a kaleidoscope.  Wait and see....

Ok, I'm getting ahead of myself.  The next actual step is to press your blocks on the wrong side to get all of the seams laying flat and pointing outwards.

That is the back of one block.  See how one seam is all crazy on the right?  You will press that down so it is neat as a pin back there.

Next you "square-up".  Squaring up is a crappy job.  Nobody likes doing it.  It is easiest if you have a clear plexi quilting square in the size of your block so you can just zip around it with the rotary cutter.  Alas, I do not have said plexi square.  When I measured my blocks, the numbers were all over the place.  I had real job in store for me.

Not sure how or why the blocks were as much as an inch off one another.  No clue how that happens, unless I cut the strips wrong, and I would have noticed a half inch difference when I was making the blocks.  Whatever, no need harping on what I can't figure out...

So, because of the measurement differences, I now had to pick a size and cut them all to that size.  In the end, no one will notice that the outer strips are a 1/4" thinner than the next one.  I cut them all to 13-1/4".  They should have been about 14".

Now for the fun part...the layouts!  You will now see why I separated the Lights from the Darks.

Layout #1: Fields and Furrows

Kind of chaotic.  Now look at it through the peephole:

Can you see the Light and Dark diagonal stripes?  Cool, huh? 

Layout#2: Timberline

That one makes one Light diagonal line with the other Lights pointing to the center stripe.

Layout# 3: All Sevens

I am noticing on this one that one block is not facing the right direction.  All Dark corners should be pointing down and to the left.  The bottom middle is pointing up and to the right.  Darn!  You get the idea!

All my log cabin quilts have been done in the Fields and Furrows layout.  Can you guess which one I am choosing to do??

If you chose Fields and Furrows, then you would be WRONG!  I'm breaking my rut and choosing Timberline.  Below is all of the blocks sewn together in the correct order.

The book explains how you ensure that your blocks are in the correct orientation when you go to sew them.  I won't explain it here.  All I have to say is pay attention when you do this.  I did make one mistake and had to take the seam ripper to it.  Also, be careful when you rip out these seams, you can poke a hole in the fabric.  Ha, trust me.

Next will be making the borders.  I will save that for some time later in April.  Thanks for stopping by!

Scrappy Quilt - Part 1

Here is the start of the scrappy quilt.  I bragged about my previous quilts in a recent post: Quilts - Brag Pics.  I got a couple of comments and a bunch of people viewed it.  It was great!  Now this quilt I'm making now takes a little bit from each one of the quilts, sort of like a memory quilt.

I am making another log cabin (they are easy and I don't need to learn anything new) and I follow the fabric needs and instructions in the Quilt in a Day book series.

This really is a great book, as you can tell in my previous Quilt post, I made several and had this book by my side each time.  This time I am choosing to make a Lap quilt size, which should be about 54" x 68".  I will need a total of 12 blocks.

Above is my collection of fabric.  Some are already cut into strips and some are still fabric that are whole pieces.  I tried to separate into light and dark.  The reason why I do this is so that you will see a distinction in the pattern when I put it all together.

I cut a bunch of strips, about 2 or three strips per fabric.

Those above are my "Darks."

Those above are my "Lights."

I chose the same fabric to be my center square.  I thought choosing the same fabric would give the quilt a focal point or points of reference that would give order in a chaotic array of fabric.  Now, I like the thought of scrappy, but I have rules to my scrappy.  They are:

1. Have to have separation from the Lights and the Darks; I could not let it be completely random
2. No two strips of the same fabric could be in the same block
3. No two strips of the same fabric can be next to each other once all together

I guess you could say this is an OCD Scrappy Quilt.

Here is the "Center."  It was one of the main colors in Alex's quilt. 

Once the center is cut into a square, you need another set of squares to be your first addition strip.  I chose two different fabircs, so they don't look that different yet.

Above is adding on the second strip.  You pretty much go around the square adding on either a Light or a Dark strip until your block measures about 14" x 14".

The beauty of strip quilting is that normally you make the blocks all the same so you sew them all at the same rate.  The challenge with this scrappy way is that I wanted each block to be unique, so I was dealing with having to constantly grab new strips rather than the same one.  Might not sound like a big deal, but it was a bit of a hassle.  A labor of love, that's all I can say.

Almost there...

Here is one finished block.  I have finished all 12 blocks.  You will have to stay tuned to see how it progresses.  I will leave you with that one block to fantasize how scrappy the other 11 blocks are.

Toodles!

Yarn Stash

I had a long weekend this weekend, thanks to Hurricane Isaac.  Tampa Bay was expecting tons of rain and heavy winds, but the Hurricane went further west than the original forecast models predicted.  My employer had cancelled work for Monday.  Last time we got a lot of rain, my work was like an island, where the parking areas were completed flooded, even the road in.

So, I decided to work on a project that I have been meaning to do for some time now.  The online knit and crochet database & fiber community, Ravelry, allows you to enter in your patterns, yarn, needles & projects.  I had previously entered in my patterns, magazines & books.  This weekend I entered in all of my stash yarn.

Here is a bin of my oldest yarn.  I have had some of this yarn for years, that I even moved from Mass with it.  I swear I will use it one day.  There are some unfinished objects (UFOs) in there that I have full intention to rip out and make better use of the yarn.  Someday...

Here is a picnic basket full of one skein or half skeins of yarn.  This mostly houses the leftover yarn from my completed projects.  It also has my metal straight needle collection.  My cat, Roo, is dying to jump in that basket.

Here is a small basket of yarn from projects that I have recently completed and don't have room in the bin or the picnic basket.

I need to start stash busting.  Some ideas I have are to make scrap scarves, striping with different textures of yarns.  I did a bit of that for the Trio Scarf and the Quintet Scarf. I have other patterns that would look nice with multi textures and colors.  I also want to make a scrappy throw blanket where I would knit different blocks of different patterns and sew them together.  It would be so kitschy; I would love it.

I have a few knitted Christmas gifts to get through (I'm limiting it to just a few) and then I may just start on some scrappy scarves and throws! 

 

Bebe Throw

I had a baby shower to attend yesterday and so I have been working on crocheting a baby throw.  Crochet goes by much faster than knitting and I was running out of time (shocking, I know) and needed one.  Her husband's family is Puerto Rican, so they are very immersed in the Spanish culture, so they call "baby", "bebe".  That will be the name of my throw.

I chose an easy crochet throw from the Lion Brand collection of patterns and it is pretty much one big granny square.  Here is a pic from their website:

Isn't is sweet?  It is a throw that I believe I can start and finish in time for the shower.  I went to Knit 'N Knibble and browsed their huge selection of yarn and settled on the following:

It is Snuggly by Sirdar and it is a dk weight baby yarn that is 55% Nylon/45% Arcrylic.  I normally do not like using arcrylics because they are often not soft or are prone to pilling.  This acrylic blend yarn is definitely the exception: very soft, does not have that dense, plasticy feeling you can feel when you rub it between your fingers.  It is lightweight and really a pleasure to work up.  I bought 2 of each color and used an I hook.

I chose 3 colors rather than 4, as the pattern suggests.  This is a pattern that you can do any color in any order and not worry about it.  The sex of the baby will be a surprise, so the 3 colors I chose were a buttercup yellow (Daisy), a sage green (Summer Lime) and a light blue.  I thought the blue was another shade of green at the time I purchased it, but when worked up, it is definitely blue. 

I started that very evening with the center square:

I will repeat the color order as you see above.  I will crochet two rounds of each color.  I took this throw in the car with me and crochet to and from work ( I carpool and often am not the driving), so this worked up even faster than I imagined.

I'm almost done in the above picture.  I bought 2 balls of each color and plan on crocheting until I run out of yarn.  I ran out of yellow first, which is supposed to be the color I end on: perfect!

Here are a few of the finished throw:

Now, here is a picture from the baby shower:

She loved it!  She said it was very nostalgic from her own childhood.   That was the only homemade gift at the shower, which had to complete with some pretty nice gifts!  A homemade gift is special in it's own way.

Now, I am off to start another baby blanket for a friend that had her baby already.  Better late than never, I always say.  It will be worth the wait.