The Art of Crochet!

So! It's been a long, long time since my last post. That's due to my studies getting in the way of my creativity, but a lot has happened to me since my last post. I moved house! Yes, and I finally have my own room again, meaning I no longer have to put up with the Hobbit :D I am now a student rep as well as my current retail job which I am enjoying both of, and my boyfriend has moved up north to a little place called Hopeman. He has a beautiful little flat by the sea and I am currently enjoying my summer Holidays here with him. Earlier on this evening while grocery shopping we came across this crochet magazine: The Art of Crochet.

 It was only 99p so he decided to get me it as a little treat. when we got home I realised it was the first issue and that there will be many copies released weekly. So like a little kid I was all excited about opening this first issue, and inside it was: A tutorial DVD to get you started, two balls of wool (red and biscuit coloured) and a UK size 4 hook. The magazine has free patterns in it and intends on revealing a pattern for a vintage blanket on a weekly basis. So I gave it a go after dinner and was pleased with the results. As someone who had been crocheting for a while it was easy enough to follow the patterns but I do recommend this magazine for first time hookers and the DVD was excellent at showing the various steps required for starting out. I have taken it upon myself to purchase this magazine weekly and follow the weekly pattern guides on the vintage blanket and try out any of the other freebies that come along with it and keep the Blogg up to date with my progress. Wish me luck!

P.S check out the picture from my first square. It consists of 24 chain, dc,tc,dc,tc, and so on, to make a plain square that measures 13cm.

Enjoy!

The Art of Crochet



The DVD tutorial



 

Blankets!!!!

Well its 2012 allready! and I han't been sticking to my blogging as well as I hoped i would. Too busy with work and uni to even think about anything crafty! Luckily i have managed to squeez in a few wee things. It must be my age, but I have noticed that there are a lot of people having babies. What's that all about? We are still young, and free, and stupid! But on the plus side, the fact that i have been saving any money i get towards my Masters means that I have been forced to creat gifts rather than fork out on them. The cold winter months and the freekish weather has placed one thought in my mind. Blankets! Nothing better to keep people warm and cozy so enjoy the crapy pictures of my busted up Samdung phone :)

This blanket was made for a friend who became the proud father of a baby boy. As a gft I offered to crochet a blanket and asked him to pick 2 colours. Ofcourse I was a little confused as to why he would want red and black in a childs blanket however I went ahead and started. But i came to a blunder half way through. D: I ran out of that shade of red and Sod's Law, the shops discontinued it. So I went back and asked him if white was ok to finish it off and made a comment about the colours. He explaind to me that these colours stimulate a childs developing mind. Cliver or what? I did recall my brother in law doing something similar with my nephew baby wolverine. Fore more info on the matter visit Visual Stimulation for New Borns.

But yes the blanket. Made from double knitt wool using colours of red, black and white. Basically I didn't follow a pattern (well theres a suprise) but it's a bunch of granny squares sewn together with a granny square border.

It's quit easy if you allready know what your doing with granny squares. Here, I realised that I had made one granny square too many and decided to improvise as always and make a little pocket for a dummy or other baby ... things!

I hope it's suitable!

The next blanket was for another baby boy with the more traditional baby colours of baby blue. again i used granny squares to create this peice and sewn them all together. 

The Finished peice!

The only problem i had with this one was that some were down the line of blocking out it ended up quite a bit beveld (which shouldn't have happened) so instead of a blanket it looked a bit on the wavey side. I did still pass it on but only as an extra to the gift I did have. One other blanket that I managed to squeez in during my studies was a blanket for my cousins baby girl. Pink and white tripes of double crochet with bunddled corners. again i didn't follow a pattern as this blanket was very basic.

Starting point

I have these awesome tools to make things but to be perfectly honest, my means of storage is pretty appalling. For example, my desk isn’t just home to my laptop and TV, it also holds my makeup, bills, magazines, jewellery, piggy banks, lights, food and also my crafting tools just randomly scattered across the mess. I think the perfect way to start off crafting would be to create a pouch to store my crochet hooks in. I’m not following any particular pattern but I am using what’s called an extended double crochet (EXDC), which sounds harder than what it actually is. I appolagise for the poor picture quality.

 So for this I shall need my wool (yarn), crochet hook (size 4.00) and a pair of scissors, later I will need a darling needle.  This will be created by making 2 half’s, one slightly bigger than the other, and sewn together.

So I start off by making my slipknot and going on to make my chains. I insert the hook, wrap the wool round the hook, and then pull it through. I now have 1 chain. You can make as many chains as you require or to the specs of the pattern you are following, however for this one since it’s the beginning I’m not counting chains. Instead I’m going to chain slightly longer then my crochet hook.

So I start off by missing a chain and going to the third chain. I insert the hook; wrap the wool around the hook so that I have 3 loops around my hook. I then pull the wool through one of the loops leaving me with 2 on the hook. I then wrap the wool around again and this time I pull through both of the loops which should leave me with one loop left on my chain.

I continue this down the chain until I have completed the row and it should look something like this:

From here I turn my work and place the wool behind to make it easier to see. The chain that’s supporting the loop around the hook, this is the chain that we need to start on. It is a little tricky and requires some patience, but by keeping the remaining loop on the hook, slides the hook through the supporting chain. Wrap the wool around the hook and pull through the first loop. Wrap the wool around again and pull through both loops. And continue down the length.

Woopsy!!!!!! Looks like vie ran out of wool. A perfect time to show you how to add more wool or a different colour to your project. This technique is also tricky so take time to do it properly. In the picture bellow I have an unfinished sequence. With 2 loops remaining on my hook, I wrap the new wool round my hook to give me 3 loops. I pull the loop from the new wool through both of the remaining loops on the hook and I am left with 1 loop on the hook. I then use the tail end of the new wool to finish off the length as normal, trapping the tails of the old wool and the new wool inside the work.

I’m roughly working towards 5 rows, so when I’m happy I tie off the end and prepare for the other half of the pouch. I suggest 2 thirds of the length of the pouch for the second half.

I’m not particularly bothered about the colours used as this is just for practice, but lazy wee me already had black wool threaded through a darling needle, which is actually quite difficult to do, you need good eye sight for it in my opinion :P. But I use this to sew the sides and the base of the pouch together, fastening the ends of the black wool and then turning my work inside out.

And there you have it! A pouch to store your crochet hooks in, or pens and other objects of equal lengths. You can add buttons and Velcro onto it if you wish for it to fasten however the excess length has provided me with a nice little folder effect cover which tucks inside of it nicely.