New Granny Square Project!

Hello everyone! It's been longer than usual since I last blogged, due to a few days' trip in lovely Dorset, preparation for a holiday in France, and building up towards a move out of London. That said, I haven't been idle craftwise, doing lots of crochet and sewing, and I can't wait to show you what I've been up to.

For today, since it's Granny Square Wednesday at Jijihook's, and since I recently managed to complete one of my WIPs, I am very pleased to share with you... what else... a new WIP!

This one will be another bag (is it me, or am I slowly specialising into the bag branch?), and a luxury one at that, since it will be made with Noro Silk Garden. I absolutely adore Noro yarns, but they can be very expensive, so I will always think twice before I embark on a project with them. However, my local yarn store recently had massive sales, and after rummaging a bit, I was very pleased to come across quite a few balls of Noro Silk Garden at a less eye-watering price.

With some of them, I decided to make a boho granny square bag, very much inspired by the sorely missed Wink's Noro Boho Bag.

The squares were going to be made out of three different balls of Noro Silk Garden, with highly contrasting colourways, but this was exactly what I sought. The more colours the better. Here are the three balls or yarn:

Amazing colours, aren't they? They're so delicious! Anyway, here's what the first six squares out of the reddish ball looked like:

Can you believe these come from the same ball? I find this absolutely fascinating. If you look closely at the centers, you can spot the continuation of the colour from the previous square. The progression starts from the top right corner towards the left.

And here's a closer look at one of the squares, a firm favourite of mine:

So vibrant! A true visual feast.

I shall be back next week with more squares, I am pretty sure :)

Thanks for reading!

Sewing Classes, Part 1 - A Cushion Cover

Hello! As I'm sure I have mentioned somewhere in the blog - although I can't remember where - I attended sewing classes throughout June. This was after I tried my hand at more serious sewing, and even though that particular attempt didn't go too badly, the sewing classes made me realise what I did wrong and what I could improve. They were absolutely invaluable, not to mention thoroughly enjoyable, which is why I immediately signed up for more at the end of the course. But more on this later.

Right now, I would like to share with you the first project we made in our first sewing class, an envelope cushion cover, using this fabric:

And here is the finished result, sitting proudly on my Blanket...

...and on the sofa, next to another cushion cover I made last year when I first bought my sewing machine:

A very simple project, which helped strengthen the basics I (thought) I already knew. The next project was an A-line skirt, which I still need to take decent pictures of. I'm telling you, that one was an eye-opener...

If you're based in or near South West London, here's the link for the sewing classes. They're excellent, and the atmosphere is great!

See you soon with more!

One Finished Granny Square Bag

Hello everyone! Here's another installment of Wednesday grannies with my finally complete green granny square bag I have been blogging about for the past few weeks. All there was left to do was to insert a lining.

So I used a bit of felt for padding, already sewn and turned inside out in the pic below, ready to be inserted:

I love using felt in crochet bags. It helps hide the wrong side of the lining fabric, especially if it's a print, and gives the bag body and stability. I have used it in many of my bags, such as this one and this one.

Then, I tackled the lining fabric, which I introduced to you a few weeks back. Do you recognise it? It's the remnants of fabric from my first sewn garment. Anyway, the patch pocket was pinned into place...

...and sewn.

Then, the lining was sewn together (not once but three times, due to a string of very silly mistakes), trimmed...

...and sewn into the felt casing, which procedure I have no pictures of, I'm afraid, as it was done late at night.

Finally, the lining was hand-sewn to the crochet bag, using my favourite tutorial by Futuregirl.

And done!

Love, love, love how it turned out, and I intend to make more with a similar layout of squares. Go see lots more grannies at Jijihook's, as usual.

Take care! :)

Jumbo Doily

Hello! For Wednesday grannies, I thought I'd share with you my version of Simply Crochet Magazine's "Jumbo Doily" from the June issue. I've forgotten the name of the designer but I'll be sure to check and update once I've found it. I used blue instead of green for the edging, and I can't quite get my head around how massive it is!

Here goes:

The blocking process... the amount of pins I had to use! :D

The whole thing... you can see how dwarfed that crochet hook looks!

And a detail of this gorgeous edging...

Don't forget Jijihook's website for more granny love!

Thanks for reading :)