Square Crochet

Hello Lovelies,
literally within minutes of finishing my Kaleidoscope blanket I was off to my Stylecraft stash with my hook. I am officially a crochet addict :0)

Towards the end of a project I always start planning the next in my head. I was yearning for some granny square simpleness.

The lovely Heather at Little Tin Bird  had treated me to a sneak peek of her latest secret project a couple of weeks ago and I loved it ,a LOT ! Heather has finished her baby blanket now...... take a look at it here. Isn't it wonderful . I love the small blocks of colour .Heathers choice of colours is just gorgeous and even better , since it's also made from Stylecraft ,I had a similar selection already.

So that was my main inspiration for my latest project. I've been making these squares for just over a  week now .They are so quick and relaxing to make . I recon I'm about half way to the number needed for my latest  baby blanket.......

I love the look of the squares piled up on my ripple baby blanket ,made back in November last year.
As you can see I've made my squares with a white centre . I'm not sure how much I'm liking it but the plan is to join the squares with white using single crochet(U.K. double ) joining on the front . So hopefully that will make it look better.

I've been wanting to try this way of joining for a while now . Do take a look at Debbie's gorgeous blanket , with squares joined in this way . I love the extra texture it gives.

Trouble is that just today I found this on Pinterest....so now I'm tempted to do a white round of Double (U.K. treble )crochet on each square . Ooooh , dilemmas :0)

Speaking of Pinterest, I've been good and resisted joining so far . I've heard how addictive it can be and I already spend a lot of time online some days. It doesn't stop me looking at other lovelies collections though. Heather has a lovely collection of pins .
But I HAVE to link to Rachel's ....wow , it's huuuge and everything is such great eye candy :0)

Hope you enjoy the links .
Jacquie x

Snow Pretty

Hello Lovelies,
 we were lucky enough to get a good amount of snow here on Saturday night.The boys were more than a little excited by this .By 9.15 am on Sunday we were here.......

Before most sensible people had thought about setting out in the cold......

My boys really love sledging and I love watching their excited faces , cheeks rosy from the cold.

There's a wonderful view of the wintry landscape from up here too......

After a couple of hours it's back home to defrost.......hot chocolates for the boys ...

The house is particularly light with all the snow on the ground and my first bunch of Daffodils this year are just opening up .They look so bright and cheerful.......

Just gorgeous.......

As soon as we defrost the boys get a call to go and play with friends . I'm happy to walk them , the roads look   special with their wintry frosting..........

It's midday  and the sun is melting the snow on the branches quickly now.....

I decide to have a little walk before it's all gone.........

Along the snowy path I spot some livestock...

I'm glad these guys are behind two fences.But don't they look gorgeous in the snow...............

More creatures with four legs........

It's so quiet , the only sounds are my footsteps in the snow..........

Nearly home and these guys made me smile...they have mince pies for eyes(somebody likes their cockney rhyming slang ).........

Later in the day ,after a hot meal ,we even went out again. Back to the same slope, where the run is much faster now .The sun is setting but the children (and parents)  are having too much fun to notice the cold........

Actually I notice the cold, my fingers and toes are numb and I want to leave. But it was a fabulous day .....

Jacquie x

Twenty Minutes of Solitude

Hello Lovelies,
school mornings are always rush,rush,rush .Probably due to my disorganisation:0)
Yesterday I came down with a cold ...first in ages ...and I was feeling fed up at all the sorting and nagging I was having to do to get us out of the house on time.

 Straight after school started I rushed back to  tidy the kitchen then out to the dentists,of course I did not leave enough time for the journey so I was  feeling stressed as they are very prompt at my dentists. Thankfully I  got there on time .

Next "appointment" was picking my Mum in law up to do our respective weekly food shopping.I still felt tense from the rushing and dental encounter, as I pulled the car over to one side to let another car pass, my eyes were distracted by a little spot I've passed many times but hardly noticed...if you know what I mean.
I pulled over somewhere safe, grabbed my camera and went for a little wander.

This small field is in a suburban area, with houses and roads on all four sides....it's not a park as such...just a green space for public use. I suppose that is what a park is .......... what I mean is there as no notices or play equipment, or flower beds or paths. Just a field with a few trees. There is one huge tree in the centre...

Wow, it's gorgeous,don't you think ?  I'm loving winter trees at the moment. The lower branches reach almost to the edge of this picture, though it's hard to see against the background

The night before  we had a very light dusting of snow and the temperature dropped to minus 7 degrees Celsius .So  when the sun came up everywhere looked so pretty. I walked about in the field, so glad that no one else was about . It was wonderful to relax and listen to the birdsong........

be enchanted by the frosty leaves.........

and ice crystals on the grass ...

I love the way the sun is shining through the grass blade and ice on the picture above.
I'm still using my little canon camera , it's a couple of years old, and nothing fancy but I LOVE the pictures it takes. It's  a compact so I can always have it with me and it copes really well with macro shots.I always go mad and take loads of pictures in this sort of situation, happy in the knowledge I can delete all but a few favourites.

I wander over to take a closer look at the tree...I think it's a Sycamore, judging by the leaves on the ground.....nothing unusual , but what a tree.........

Brilliant for climbing I would expect, if you are into that sort of thing. ....

I just like looking up at the brilliant blue sky through the bare winter branches.........

The sun is getting higher now, but it's still bitterly cold.I love the way it's rays have turned the top of the background in this picture back to green , while the rest is still icy and frozen..........

There are still lots of frosty things I want to photograph , but I'm getting frozen my self by now. So I head back to the car.....restored by twenty minutes solitude ....ready to brave the supermarket aisles. I feel balanced again and able to see what a wonderful life I have , good busy, with the opportunity to do things just for myself, like walking around a field, going for a run or picking up my hook.
Life is good and I'm so happy I discovered the wonderful bloggy community to share it with . Thank you all for your amazing comments about my Kaleidoscope blanket.They are appreciated more than I can say.
Hope you all have a happy weekend , with time to relax.
Jacquie x
P.S. back soon with news of my new project :0)

Kaleidoscope blanket Ta-dah !!!

Hello Lovelies ,
Well, I did it !! I completed my Kaleidoscope blanket on Monday evening . Yesterday I was at work all day so today was the first opportunity I've had to photograph it . I was so happy that the sun shone, despite the perishingly cold temperatures.
So would you like to see how it turned out ?? I do hope so. This morning I donned new stripy socks especially for the occasion...here I am stood on my little crochet covered stool ...........

Mainly because it's the best way to get an overhead shot like this ........

Whoooo  Hooooo. I LOVE it :0)

This blanket has been a long time in the making, mainly due to me getting distracted by other ,speedier projects.

I made 120 hexagons in total ,but ended up using 112 of them. As you can see alternate rows are different widths, mine ended up 12 and 13 hexagons wide and nine hexagons deep.........

Having the spares was great for being able to choose combinations I liked right up to the end ......

So the finished blanket measures 163cm x 102cm  ( 65" x 40" ) .Big enough to reach from my toes to my shoulders...ideal :0)

It was made from mostly Cygnet acrylic yarn . I bought it from a couple of local charity shops which sell this brand as new stock...not donated, for around £1.50 for a 100g ball. There's also stylecraft shrimp in there and an apple green from Wilkinsons .

I love the solidness of this pattern and it makes quite a weighty blanket....930 grams ( or 2Lb 1 oz )

Which works out at costing £14 ish for the whole blanket. I wouldn't like to try and work out the number of hours it's taken....I'ts quite a time consuming motif, but I guess as you only need 112 for a decent sized blanket it's not that slow.

What I can work out is that I would not have managed to get it finished as quickly in the end without all your wonderfully encouraging comments. It really was the reason I buckled down and got it done.

So ♥♥♥ THANK YOU !!!! ♥♥♥

As you can see I've gone a bit over the top with pictures but I was having such fun and I know you lovelies like looking at pretty crochet :0)

The border is 2 rows of half double crochet ( U.K. half treble ) .I treated the wavy edges like a ripple and decreased in the bottom of the V's and increased at the top. Despite this after one round this is what was happening ....

So I did the next round with the wrong side facing me and the turned it back over again for the final single crochet ( U.K. double ) and picot round.

I did not have a plan for where this blanket would end up , but right now I'm loving the look of it at the end of our bed .........

So that's where it will be staying for the time being.
It's certainly blanket weather here at the moment.Hope you are keeping warm if you are in the U.K.
Jacquie x