Charity Yarn Bombing 2015 – Part 2

Here is the second part of the yarn bombing.

In addition to the five themes we had these gorgeous blankets that were donated by 2 lovely Mama’s. This one is called The Lily Pond and was very generously sent from Mama H, my lovely mother in law. There is so much work in creating a piece like this I don’t know how she could part with it, we offer our heartfelt thanks.

Colourful crochet hexagons make up the second blanket, these were made by my lovely Mum. The hexagons were made from a random batch of yarn and there was an odd number of each colour, this made it quite a task to get the layout right. We had it laid out on the floor so many times before we found a pattern where the colours balanced. I actually joined them all together and edged it and I think it worked out ok in the end.

This rose vine was very sought after on the day which was a huge compliment to the creater who fashioned this pretty floral garland out of donated oddments. Isn’t it amazing what can be made from scraps of yarn when you pass them on to a talented knitter?

Jungle Capers

Cheeky monkeys swinging amongst the vines were a feature in the jungle, these twin primates each sported a little flower, one blue and one pink. Don’t know how they managed to keep them in with all that swinging around!

“And how clever am I? Look one hand!” His lovely stripes must give him super gripping power.

Just in case you are wondering why they all have tickets pinned onto them, we used raffle tickets as an identifier. To make their bid our visitors filled in a form using the number and indicating how much they wanted to offer for the item before slipping it into a sealed box.

Slithering below were the snakes in there glorious stripiness.

This little critter was soooooooo long.

A host of other jungle animals gathered together on the steps just taking in all the adoration bestowed upon them

Under the Sea

If you saw last years event you may recognise the sea blanket but this year we focused on under the sea adding some more creatures and a trio of lovely mermaids. There were three honestly but one of our helpers popped into the pub over the road with a collection bucket and a local fisherman made such a good case for why she should allow him to make a generous offer (too good to refuse) and take her straight away, we were left with two. Their sister was already on her way out to sea on the fishermans trawler!

Sorry about the poor photography of the bicycle, I will try and get some better images for another post but for now I hope you can make out the little fishing boat with it’s net cast into the woolly sea on the front wheel.

And the fish and chip supper residing on the seat.

Round by the farm was also a basket of knitted fruits.

And a wheelbarrow just back from the yarn allotment.

Our event was suported by the local library and their knitting group sent us a several baby and toddler knitwear items. Also the sister of one of our dispensers is a prolific knitter, she sent us some gorgeous jackets and cardigans, I think we must have received one a week! Thank you.

We strung up a washing line and pegged out these hand knitted garments.

Last but not least at the bottom of the drive we put a rose tree and ………………

………….. a country garden crochet bicycle.

This shot was taken outside our house before it was transported to the surgery where it stood against the tree to attract passers by.

The event was a lot of work but so worthwhile on many different levels, it brought together patients, staff and friends of the surgery at our crafty Saturday morning gatherings. So many patients who couldn’t attend joined in by dropping into the surgery with yarn for us or with items they had made for one of the themes.  We were also very generously supported by the blogging community so thank you to all of you too.

 

Crochet Cat Inspiration

We have been donated oodles of yarn for the yarn bombing this year so a huge thanks to all our patients for their support. From the stashes that have been brought in these two felines have been created.
The inspiration came from a pattern bought on Etsy, I loved the mixture of knitting and crochet on the original pattern but sadly my execution was less satisfactory so I ended up adapting the knitted parts for crochet.

The pink pussy cat was first off the hook and was such a pleasure I just couldn’t resist making another.

Unfortunately I was not able to find the pattern again as Etsy is displaying ‘pattern not available’ but the link is below just in case. It is possible that our internet that is playing up this evening and you may be able to access the pattern if you want to make your own kitties at some point.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/59420476/crazy-cat-crochet-knitting-pattern

Crochet Meercat Bride and Groom

One of our patients, an avid supporter of the Charity Yarn Bombing asked if we would make a merecat bride and groom for her grandaughters wedding.

She dropped into the surgery a knitting pattern book and some yarn and left it with us. My colleague, who is a much better knitter than I, kindly took it all home to make them.

Unfortunately my talented colleague wasn’t happy with the finished item, the fine yarn was not easy to work with and a strain on the eye at the end of a busy day! So I had a look for a crochet version and found this pattern from Planet June. it was much easier to execute that the knitted version so we made amendments to suit our patients request and came up with this Bride and Groom.

We send our congratulations to the happy couple, or should we say couples!

Charity Yarn Bombing 2015

It’s coming round again, I can’t believe it is June already. Where does time go?

This years Charity Yarn Bombing at the surgery will be on 29 and 30 August 2015

Last year patients, friends and family and crafters from around the globe helped us create a woolly fantasy garden in the grounds of the small GP surgery where I work raising over £1000.00, the proceeds were shared between our local hospice and the hospital.

We have commenced our regular Saturday meetings to plan and share our ideas and creations for this years woolly display. We wanted to challenge ourselves so the themes are different as listed below, although we thought it was appropriate to keep a seaside theme again as we are on the coast.

• Dinosaur park
• Teddy Bears Picnic
• Down on the Farm
• Jungle Capers
• Beside the Seaside

Read last years post here and see the three posts showing what was acheived for last years event in Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3

If you would like to join in everyone is welcome, any contributions will be most gratefully received and put to great use. Just leave a comment or drop me an email if you would like any further information. Alternatively please stay in touch and we will share our progress with you in the coming weeks.

You may have already guessed that Stan the Stegosaurus and the crochet cave kids Magnar and Sadiki are for the Dinosaur Park and I look forward to sharing further makes with you all.

 

Knitting for a Change

Last weekend I decided to pick up a pair of knitting needles, not that hooks are out of favour or anything I just fancied a change and it’s ages since I have knitted anything. Yes you might have guessed, my continuing love of tea cosies now has another added to the growing collection.

Have to admit it was lovely to get my hands onto these lovely rosewood knitting needles once again, I have a whole set of these beauties bought for me by my lovely hubby a few years ago. It’s simply bliss because now I no longer have to wade through a pile of cold metal needles to see if I actually have the size I need when I undertake to knit a new pattern. I bought some funky needle cases too so they are neatly stashed when I am favouring my hooks and they temporarily decommissioned.

Anyway, enough rambling and back to the project, here is half of it.

This one is made to resemble a beehive. My plan is to make some nice chunky bees to go onto it too. The pattern is from Yarspirations website, they have a couple more cosies that I intend to make too.

If you fancy making one too here is a little tip I found helpful. Can you see where I have knitted in another colour on one of the rows? This was to highlight the pick up row, you see to create the hive effect you knit a few rows then double back to pick up a previous row and I got a bit muddled on the picking up bit and ended up with a wonky hive, adding the contrast thread kept me on track so I have nice neat ridges in my cosy.  I had to undo it a couple of times in the beginning.

Here is the finished Beehive Tea Cosy, love the rippled hive effect but looks a bit empty don’t you think?

After much trawling online I settled on this Bee from a free pattern generously shared by Crochet ‘n’ Play, thank you so much for sharing.

Here they are my ‘five on the hive’, all buzzing and nicely settled onto their new home where they can make the honey for the tea and muffins.

 

Charity Yarn Bombing – Part 3

This is the final instalment.

This was another of my favourites, I was so happy that I actually won the bid for it so we can keep it up at the surgery.

The wooden tree was made by a friend using a photo frame as inspiration. It stands 5ft tall made from MDF and stained with wood stain. I am currently making more leaves so it will look fuller, then the plan is to decorate it with snowflakes for Christmas.

Not sure if you can make this out but it is a real nest that we were given, it had been abandoned so no little birdies were dislodged from their home we promise. Debs made a little crochet bird to sit in the nest which was given a new home in our floal garland adorned tree.

 These were balls from a childs ball pool that we covered with yarn to hang like colourful woolly fruits.

 A pair of gnomes donated by Dean’s Garden Centre were yarn bombed and graced the front garden with their crochet flowers.

Then we had our safari theme, ok I know a koala does not really fit this theme but he is so cute we had to include him.

The colourful purple snake slithering along the branch. A little boy won the bid for him and when he collected his prize we were trying to help him choose a name. We were all suggesting names that would rhyme with snake like Syd, Sammy and Cyril, good names we thought. But no, “Bob” said the little chap, tied Bob around his waist and off he went. One very happy little man and a snake called BOB!

This colourful parrot was a great hit with all our visitors but sadly he was not available for bids, although his maker did offer for eggs to be laid and nurtured for baby parrots.

Cheeky monkey swinging on a crochet vine, his mate was sitting behind the parrot awaiting his turn on the vine swing.

Below all the activity on high there was an animal picnic going on.

Bunting and birds were hung and strung all around the building giving life to all the themes.

I have to finish by saying a final thank you to all of you who helped us achieve a display that in the end was more than we could have hoped. Both the Hospice and the Hospital are extremely grateful for the funds that we have all raised. And the patients too have continued to show their appreciation.

Thank you.

So here ends our Charity Yarn Bombing story………………….until next year!

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.

Charity Yarn Bombing – Part 1

At last, some photos of the event to share with you. I have to start with a huge THANK YOU to all of you for your support and contributions, all of which were put to very good use and helped to make our little event a huge success. The displays were manned over the August bank holiday weekend when we had the majority of our visitors. All the items were given a number and visitors could place a bid to buy whatever took their fancy in a sealed box.

A couple of weeks before the opening we started to stir local folk and patients curiosity when the tree on the roadside was wrapped in a clourful blanket. Patient’s would come into reception and ask “is the tree poorly’? There is a bus stop opposite and we would giggle as we watched people waiting for a bus chatter and point inquisitively.

I will break the photos down into a few posts so they are not too long starting with the floral delights and the bunting. We had lots of floral garlands and bunting around the grounds and building, it added a wonderful festive air to the whole event.

We used many of the flowers we were sent to create these flower panels to hang from the hand rail at the front of the surgery.

A friend made the gorgeous pink potted flower, if fact she made 5 of them and another friend knitted little butterflies and bees to decorate them. They were dotted around the  garden and I have to say they looked amazing.

The Happy Flowers from the pattern on Attic 24 worked their colourful charm in flower troughs with the leafy trellis on the walls at either side with bees and ladybirds nestling in the leaves.

Next I will show you the seaside scene so come back soon!

Multi Flower Squares Crochet Blanket Number 4 of 4

This is the last blanket, number 4 for my lovely Missy L and these are the colours from the Debbie Bliss Rialto DK range.

We have not discussed the pattern yet so I think I will be doing my usual and just starting with a few squares at random and seeing where it goes.

I found a pattern I really liked on Ravelry called Groovyghan although it gets its name in part from the bright colours used and my colours are more muted I wanted to use this particular flower pattern.

My thoughts are to do a few different flower pattern squares, I have chosen this design too which is a bit of a hybrid made using different patterns and some of my own interpretation.

I also want to incorporate a traditional granny square pattern.

These designs will be broken up with some self coloured squares. This is from the Jan Eaton 200 crochet blocks book that I have used before, pattern number 86 Sunray.

And pattern number 30 Shell Lace.

Now I am getting a nice collection of squares together I will have to start and work on the layout for this blanket soon. I think I am starting to have an idea about how it will work but I will share that with you soon.

Related articles

• Colourful Crochet Blanket – No 3 of 4 (thegrangerange.wordpress.com)
• Granny Flower Square – Crochet Flower Granny Squares (imaginemechanix.com)

 

How To Crochet A Granny Square Tutorial

I know this is a crochet basic and there are loads of tutorials out there already but I wanted to do this for 2 friends in particular, first is our friend Michaela who we met in Corfu. On our last holiday, I took a crochet project with me which I would work on while having our morning coffee, Michaela expressed an interest in taking up crochet so this is to help get her started. The second is a very creatively talented young lady who is a whiz with a pair of knitting needles and although she has crocheted some lovely things tells me she struggles to make a Granny Square actually square. So for these two lovely people and anyone else out there who needs a helping hand to get started, here goes…….

Make a slip knot to start and chain 6.

Join with a slip stitch into the first chain to form a ring.

Chain 3, these will count as the first treble crochet for the first cluster.

Work another 2 trebles into the centre of the ring to form the first cluster.

Chain 3 to make the first corner.

Work another 3 trebles into the centre of the ring to form the second cluster.

Chain 3 to form the second corner followed by 3 more trebles to make the third cluster.

Work 3 chain to form the third corner and another 3 trebles to make the fourth cluster. To complete this first round chain 3 to form the fourth corner.

Then slip stitch into the third chain of the first 3 chain worked.

Slip stitch across the next 2 trebles.

And again into the corner three chain space created on the previous round.

Chain 3, these 3 chain count as the first treble.

Continue working into the same corner space, work another 2 trebles, chain 2, 3 trebles to form the first corner of the second round.

Working into the next corner space, *3 trebles, 2 chain, 3 trebles* to form the second corner.

Repeat * to * into the next corner space to form the third corner.

And into the last corner space to make the fourth corner.

Slip stitch into the third chain of the first 3 chain worked at the beginning of the round.

As with the previous round slip stitch across the first 2 trebles and into the first corner space of the previous round.

Chain 3, these 3 chain count as the first treble, continue working into the same corner space, work another 2 trebles, chain 2.

Work a further 3 trebles to form the first corner of the third round.

Chain 1, work 3 trebles into the next space, chain 1.

Working into the next corner space, *3 trebles, 2 chain, 3 trebles chain 1, work 3 trebles into the next space, chain 1*.

Repeat * to * twice more, then to complete the round slip stitch into the third chain of the first 3 chain worked at the beginning of the round.

Continue adding rounds until your square is the desired size noting that each round will add another space on the straight edges.

Four rounds.

Five Rounds.

To complete my square I did six rounds ending with a slip stitch into the third chain of the first 3 chain worked at the beginning of the round.

You can end your square here but I like to finish with a round of double crochet as this gives a nice firm finish and a neat joining edge if you are joining several squares together.  As we will be working into each treble and chain space of our last round there is no need slip stitch across to the corner space to start this edging round, you can continue from the slip stitch at the end of the final round.

Chain 1, this counts as the first double crochet.

Work first double crochet into the second treble of the previous round, second double crochet into the third treble. Work 3 double crochet into the corner space.

Continue to work 1 double crochet into each of the next 3 trebles of the corner.

Work 1 double crochet into the next chain space.

Continue all the way round working 1 double crochet into each treble and each chain space of the previous round and 3 double crochet into each corner space.

Slip stitch into the chain at the beginning of the round and snip your yarn leaving a 2-3 inch tail.

To fasten off pull the tail through the loop on the hook.

Pull firmly.

Now all you have left to do is sew in the loose ends at the beginning and the end of your Granny Square.

Thread the tail into a wool needle and push through the chain next to your finishing knot to the back of your square. Then sew into the back of the double crochet round.

Cut of any loose ends.

Thread the tail at the start of your work onto the wool needle and sew into the back of the trebles on the first round, this will also tighten the centre ring.

Cut off any loose ends and there you have it, your first Granny Square complete.

I hope this tutorial is useful to my good friends and anyone else out there who wants to get started. If you have any questions or would like any further information please feel to ask away and I will do my best to help.