Love Heart Blanket - Crochet Masterpiece

And here it is, finally!



After nearly 4 months, I've finally finished it. And even if I say so myself, I'm very pleased and proud of it. I've loved doing it, and I'm already looking for the next crochet project to start, because I'll miss not having something to crochet in front of the television :(.

Alyssa keeps on asking me (everytime she sees me working on it) if this is her blanket or if I'm STILLLLLLL busy with Tannie Lara and Oom Iwan's blanket ;-). She insists that she wants one exactly the same, but I think I'll choose something different for her, I just need to find the right design. And then of course there is one for myself as well.

To be honest, I've loved doing it so much that I'll be happy to take on commissions if anybody is interested?? Let me know!!

I'm looking forward to packing it up beautifully and sending it to it's new owners, let's just hope that my Sister (and her soon to be husband) likes it too.

Beads - a new found passion!

One of the first things that caught my eye when I was paging through my Martha Stewart book, was beading. I instantly liked the look of it and thought the classic thought of "I can do that!".

So of course with any new idea or venture you need to go out and buy all the stuff, which, 'surprise, surprise', I did.

I have decided to start with seed beads, as they looked the least complicated of the whole lot.

I was amazed by the varieties in colour and finishes that are available, and had a hard time choosing only a few colours to start with. I naturally favoured the pinks and reds, and threw in a few creams and greens just to mix it up a bit.



I also bought this handy container to keep them all organised and easily accessible. As you can see, I've pretty much filled it up, so I will probably have to buy another one (maybe even larger ;-) ).

Each little compartment can open individually, and it has a really clever 'locking/unlocking' system that prevents you from opening more than one compartment at once and getting all your colours mixed up by mistake.



I've also bought 2 different kinds of beading wire. The main difference comes down to the thickness of the wire (or the guage as they say in America).



And of course I needed some wire working tools to complete the list of essentials. I found a handy little set of three on the Beadstore website and it came within their own "tidy it all away" case.



So now that I was all set to begin, I only needed to figure out what it was that I wanted to make... but more on that soon ;-).

Crochet - "Love Hearts" Blanket, part 2

So I've finally finished tidying up the last few blocks for my Sister's heart blanket and now they are ready to show you.

As always I've not stuck to the pattern (hee-hee-hee - I never do!) and have decided to only do 10 of the 12 designs, but as I said in a previous post, doubled up.

So below are the remaining 4 designs that you haven't seen yet, and I am nearly finished with putting the whole lot together as well. Once again, I didn't like their way of joining them all up, so I invented my own. :0)

I'll put up some images of the finished product before I send it off to South Africa, in time for my sister's wedding.

My new book of inspiration!

A few weeks ago, when I made the decision to spend more time doing crafty stuff, I went on a mission to Waterstones to go and buy some crafty project books. I was amazed at how many there where and how many seperate areas of expertise there are!

If I had to buy one of each of the books that intrigued me, I would have been bankrupt on the spot... not a good way to start off I think ;-).

So when I saw this book, it was the ideal alternative.


Martha Stewart - Encyclopedia of Crafts

It gives you an overview of a whole bunch of crafts (30 to be exact), from candlemaking, all the way to wirework and wreaths. It gives you the all the fundamental techniques, the basic supplies you'll need and a couple of little projects for each. It doesn't go into too much detail, but that's ok if you only want to try out these techniques to find out which ones you would like to persue more in depth.

I will be showing you the first projects that I attempt from this book soon... but first I have to order all the "basic supplies" that I'll need. Somehow I think that bankrupt status might just be lurking in the shadows... so much to buy, so little money ;-).

Crochet - "Love Hearts" Blanket

As I said in my first post (below), in October I was wandering around WHSmiths one lunchtime only to start paging through a Crochet magazine - WHY? I hear you ask ;-).

I have always wanted to know how to Crochet, as my Grandmother (Ouma Bettie) is so fond of it and I have never really had the opportunity to sit down with her and learn how to do it. Now that I live in the UK (so very far away from SA and my family...) I don't suppose I'll ever have the chance either. We normally have too much gossip to catch up on when I'm over there and no time for learning anything new ;-)

But I digress... In this magazine, there was a step by step teach yourself how to Crochet article and I thought - "This is my chance!" - and bought it. By the end of the weekend I had finished a couple of the sample flower squares, which was the pattern that showed you all the basic stiches. I decided to do a few more of those and turned them into a dolly blanket for Alyssa (my 4YO).

After these humble beginnings I went onto the internet searching for some free downloadable patterns, and came across the redheart website, where I found a loveheart pattern that immediately caught my imagination. It was the outcome of a design competition where individuals all submitted designs with a heart motif. Each month the winner's pattern got published and at the end of the year you had enough blocks to complete a blanket.

Now, my sister is getting married in April and I've was thinking of trying this design as a wedding present for her. If it didn't turn out ok, I could always buy something else at the last minute :0).

The pattern calls for 12 squares, each with a heart motif. In my infinite wisdom I decided that this blanket would end up being too small so I was going to double it up to 24 squares.

I left the wool shop with 4 bulging carrier bags of wool and my husband nearly had a heart attack when I turned up with that lot at home. It really looked as if I had enough wool for at least 10 blankets.

I hoped that 5 months would be enough time to complete all the squares, as I had no idea how long this design was going to take me. It was still a very steep learning curve after all.

I've finished all the squares now, and am in the process of tidying them all up ready to start putting them together.

So here is a preview of all the squares that are ready to go, and I'll show you the rest in a couple of days (as soon as I've tidied them up too!)




I ended up doing (and undoing) this one at least 4 times before I got it right and thought I would be stuck on it for all eternity at one point ;-)










Let me know what you think of my first attempt at the art of Crochet - All comments (and tips) would be greatly appreciated.

Lx

Addressing the work/life balance

This is the first post on this brand spanking new blog that I have created to showcase all the projects that I'm going to tackle in an attempt to re-address my work life balance.

I have decided to start doing more of all the things I love doing like cooking, baking, gardening and crafty stuff.

Years ago I signed up for one of these weekly craft magaziny things that you collect and put in a folder (you know the ones... they come out shortly after Xmas and they are 99p for the first week and then go up to 2.99 after that) - yes I know... I quickly realised how silly this notion was! So I collected about a 100 of these thingies and put them in folders (very expensive I hear you say ;-) ) and over the years I've paged through them a number of times and wanted to start doing some of the projects in there, but it always came down to lack of time, space and energy that stopped me.

Well all that is about to change, and here is how...

I've recently decided to leave my dayjob and to persue my photography business fulltime (well 3 days per week) and the rest of the time I am dedicating to my life!

I've also bought a magazine and tought myself to crochet from scratch and bought a secondhand sewing machine off a friend. (She's fantastic, please check out her new "Jennifer Bartram Designs" blog)

As a child I made/baked lots of stuff, as my mother was always up to something with either a sewing machine or a pair of knitting needles. I think I learnt to knit before my 6th birthday (if I remember correctly) and I was making doll clothes on the sewing machine shortly after.

Of my mother's three daughters, I am the only one that ever really took a fancy to all the sewing and creative stuff, and my hope is that my daughter (now 4 years old) will show an interest in the projects I'm going to be doing and would want to learn how to knit and sew in the very near future.

There are lots of other bits and pieces that I would love to tell you, but it is too much to fit into one post, so...

I herewith declare this blog - Needles, Spoons and Spades - open for business.

The first results will be appearing shortly ;-)

Lx