Baby Blanket Centre Squares

Baby Blanket Centre Squares

Pretty in Pink Baby Blanket

and Little Boy Blues Baby Blanket

I have been asked many times for the pattern for the squares in the centre of these baby blankets and have been very pleased to share via email upon request. I have had the pattern written up for ages so I thought why not create a post to share the joy that I had in making them.

I hope the pattern is clear but if you have any questions just let me know

Centre Square Pattern

1. Chain 6 slip stitch into the first stitch to make a ring.
2. Chain 1 (counts as first dc) c 15 into the ring, slip stitch into the first chain made, 16 sts.
3. 4 chain, 3trtog into same st to make the first petal cluster, 3ch, miss next dc,

*tr 4 tog, 3 ch, miss next dc**  repeat from * to ** 6 more times, 8 petal clusters formed.

4. Slip stitch into the next 3 ch space, 1ch, 1 dc in same space, * 2ch, (3htr, 3ch, 3htr0 into next 3 ch space, 2 ch, 1 dc in next 3ch space, rep from * 3 times more, omitting dc at the end of the last repeat, slip stitch into first dc.

The final round is trebles and I think you will be able to follow that from the images. Any questions please let me know and I will be happy to help if I can.

Baby Blanket for a Little Man

 

Baby Blanket for  a little boy.

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My lovely daughter called and asked if I could make a blanket for the Christening of her friends baby, “of course” said I “when is it”, “next week” says Miss A.

I said I would love to make something. But within a week? Although I would say that I am not one to be easily deterred from a woolly challenge it would be unlikely to be ready in time for the christening date. We agreed that that would be ok and I have to confess that I was delighted to be given a reason to start this pattern, I have been eyeing it up for quite a while and wasted no time in getting started.

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I wanted it to be bright and cheery so went for a mix of blues and turquoise with white to give the patches a lift, the soft teddy bearish brown added an nice earthy tone to pull it all together.

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I just love laying the squares out as you go to mark your progress deriving great pleasure from seeing them all laid out once complete and ready for joining.

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Just to give you a closer view of the different blocks used to create this baby blanket, the heart is made separately then stitched into place in the centre of this simple crochet square.

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The Catherine Wheel pattern is employed for the one of the rectangle squares. I love the motion you feel with this one.

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A simple extention to the heart square base using treble crochet stitches.

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The simple Shell pattern, the only single colour block used.

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The teddy bear brown surrounds and joins each block together and is also used to frame the simple trebble crochet border before the lacy edging is applied.

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And then, it’s finished. Ready to wrap itself around a special little man!

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I do so love making blankets and this was such a pleasure I have no hessitation in recommending the pattern from a book I have used many times, Baby Crochet by Lois Daykin.

ps. I am going to ask Mama if I can share the photo of the little chap laid on his new blanket, what this space!

Scheepieswol CAL Completed

I have kept the words to a minimum as this is such a long post with all the images of each week. I did enjoy making this blanket even though the yarn and hook size were finer and smaller than I usually like to work with.  I find that smaller hooks are more stressfull on my wrist.

I made this for a very close friend and I am pleased to report that she was very happy with the finished blanket. There is something special for me in gifting a blanket, I think it’s because it’s a timeless item and is a reflection of our friendship.

So here are the week by week images.

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

I did start with the intention of doing all the squares in single colours but just could not continue when I got to week 4, I thought the flowers were just crying out to be shown off.

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Week 9

Week 10

All squares joined and finished with a simple edging.

My grateful thanks to A Creative Being for running this CAL, I commend you for the way you delivered the patterns, so easy to follow and keeping the printing to a minimum.

Scheepjes CAL 2014 – I just couldn’t resist it!

I was so excited when my parcel arrived. The Deramores website said it could take up to 28 days but you can imagine my delight when just two weeks later it appeared.

 I love the packaging too, I felt like Mary Poppins ripping into my  brown paper package tied up with string. And what was revealed …………………………………

An array of 12 gorgeous colours in a soft velvety cotton yarn.

Sadly lighting is an issue for me and my photography skills so this shot doesn’t show the truly beautiful shades at their best.

These are the squares from weeks 1, 2, and 4. I couldn’t resist the little flower centred square so missed week three and skipped straight to week 4. A bit naughtly of me but I will catch up soon, I am sure I will be forgiven for going out of sequence.

As a late starter on this project I am running behind anyway but who’s counting? I am just loving every minute of it.

I have kept the colours fairly simple so far but I am itching to do a stripy one next……….

Charity Yarn Bombing – Part 2

The seaside scene was really spectacular but I found it was the hardest to photograph because of the size. To give it some perspective the stretch of railing that it s dressing is 4 metres long. To get the whole thing into view it lacked detail so I will have to ask you to use your imagination a bit. I really regret not taking more close-up shots.

I had to wear a wrist support for a week after making two thirds of the sea blanket and was extremely grateful to Debs for taking over and finishing it. She made the wonderful pennant and ball bunting and the magical giant jellyfish too.

Sorry that the light doesn’t show up on the lighthouse but it really does work, honestly, the top lifts off and you just have to press down on the bulb and hey presto, it lights up! With a bulb top and bottom it gave off a good amount of light and drew lots of comments.

There was a family of whales swimming above the tiny fishes amongst the seaweed on the far side. In the centre were more fish,  jellyfish and a knitted submarine. The octopuses occupied the near side of our woolly sea blanket. As you can see some of the creatures were stitched into place and others were 3d and hung from the top giving the whole scene a life-like appearance.

At the back of the surgery the pond scene worked so well despite a last minute hitch about getting the cover made! We were very grateful to the local builders who we managed to rope into doing it for us just a week before the event.

We had little creatures nestling in the undergrowth.

And a tea cosy disguised as a fishing gnome.

Just around the corner from the pond was the little grotto.

Imogen finally got her wings thanks to Rosemary and she sat primly on her swing overlooking the scene below that was full of taodstools, mushrooms and gnomes.

At the front of the pond scene was this amazing tree that was full of little birds. It has found a new home as a window prop in a local shop in town.

The pond was home to a little family of ducks that swam amongst the groups of water lillies sent by my lovely Mama H.

And caterpillar was very good and did not nibble into our plants.

There will be one last post to show you that last of the photos including our safari corner with snakes, monkeys and friends.

Made By Patch Collaborative Hexagons

I saw Lucie’s post about the Collaborative Hexie Blanket Project and thought to myself “what a lovely idea, I definitely want to be part of this”. Made By Patch  has generously launched this project, we send in the hexagons and she will make them into a blanket then there will be a prize draw and the lucky winner gets the blanket. The rules are quite simple, use 100% cotton yarn, make your finished hexagons 15cm across and the last round must be white. Simples…………….

Oh, you can send up to a maximum of 5 hexagons and you will have as many chances in the draw as you send hexagons.

I realised once I checked my stash that did not have enough cotton yarn so I got busy online and ordered some from Wool Warehouse and set to work making my hexagons. The yarn I indulged myself with is Debbie Bliss Cotton DK, simply gorgeous, so soft and it is machine washable so will be easy to maintain despite the pale colours I have chosen. The soft shades are quite a change for me as I usually go for bright colours.

This is a shape I have not made before so I took the hint and visited the suggested links and fell in love with the African Flower design from Heidi Bears.

There are some amazing patterns on Heidi Bears using this design, I love the Hippo, go take a peak.

Charity Blanket Squares – Crafters Call to Arms

Found this great idea and wanted to share with you all as I know you too will want to join in and gift a few blanket squares to charitable causes.

It is very brave of our fellow crafter to volunteer to join all the donated squares as we all know this can be the most trying part of blanket making!

As soon as enough generous crafters pledge squares to make this a viable project the instructions will be published and we can all get going, I can just hear it now needles clacking and hooks a-hooking, it is after all the season of goodwill.

To pledge your interest click on the link below and leave a comment.

Help Needed to Crochet for Charity

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Blanket CAL Baby Sized Blanket

Here is my finished blanket, it is only a baby sized blanket which will explain how I have finished whilst this great CAL is still ongoing.

With the blanket about the right size I needed to think about the edging. I always feel that this is such an important part of a blanket as it frames it and pulls it all together to showcase the pattern. As there is a great deal of pattern going on in this blanket I wanted to keep it really simple.

I started with a simple double crochet followed by a round of 1 half treble chain 1.

Then I tried a stitch I haven’t used before as a final finishing round, reverse double crochet. I think I will be able to get this stitch neater next time I do it. If you haven’t tried it it is a single crochet but you work from left to right and creates a rolling twisted stitch that also has a bit of depth.

A huge thank you to Hannah over at not your average crochet for running the fantastic CAL and introducing me to some new stitch patterns. I am sure that many of us will be revisiting her pages again in the future to do this project again.

And for anyone who has not joined yet remember it is never to late to join in, my sister at happy to make you joined at week number 12 and has now caught up with the current week.

Apache Tears Free Pattern

I have some squares left over from one of the girls blankets so I thought I would join them together and make them into a cushion cover.

But they would need a back…………., then I remembered a pattern that I found called Apache Tears that I have been wanting to try. Yes I think this is going to work just fine.

Thank you so much to Sarah for sharing this lovely pattern.

Apache Tears free pattern courtesy of Sarah London

 

Stripy Mouse All Finished

I am so happy to say “ta dah” the colourful stripy mouse is finished at last! I know you cannot tell from the images but inside his tummy, hands and feet are some bags of plastic beans so he is nicely weighted and sits really well.

He looks so sweet on his matching baby blanket.

I just popped off to replace the battery in my camera and when I came back he was helping himself to some cheese and crackers, with a few grapes on the side no less! Think I have created a rather sophisticated chap?Really happy with how he has turned out especially considering he was originally going to be a giraffe! See link below for more on that little mishap.

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