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 :)

One Finished Summer Hat

Hello! So, early last month, I posted about a summer hat I had wanted to make for a while. I posted an update a couple of weeks later, and then stopped blogging about the hat altogether. But the truth is, the hat has been finished for quite a while now, I just wasn't happy with the pictures I'd taken of it, as it looked too floppy in them.

So, after inserting a metal wire all around the outer edge (no mean feat!), I decided - when I actually remembered about it - that it was time for another round of pics. So here we go!

The hat is worked in rounds of UK dcs (US scs), loosely inspired by Anne Egan's pattern, but with quite a lot of adjustments needed, as the yarn I used had overall a smaller tension. The yarn was all cotton DK from various brands such as Rico, Schoeller+Stahl, Wendy and Patons. I used a 4mm hook for the head and a 3.5mm hook for the brim.

The final round was worked in crabstitch, a firm favourite of mine used on the Blanket and a couple of other projects, here and here. I was originally going to go for a picot/shell edging similar to Anne Egan's creation, but after trying it over a few inches, I felt it was too busy, especially with that riot of colours going on, so I settled for crabstitch instead.

And in the end, I decided against adorning the hat with beads of any kind, feeling again that it is busy enough with all of its glorious colours...

I love those candy stripes, they make me feel slightly giddy, as if perpetual summer holidays were just around the corner. Unfortunately I finished it after the heat wave had hit the UK, but I'll be sure to take it with me to the South of France in September! :)

Thanks for reading, everyone, I'll be back soon with more!

Mandala Bag Update

Hello! It's Wednesday and time for a dose of granny squares! Back in May, I posted an update about the Mandala Bag I am currently making. I ended up NOT frogging the whole thing after all, and have finally managed to complete the flip side. This is definitely turning into a long-winded WIP...

Anyway, here goes:

I slip stitched around the side edges in the same colour as the top and bottom. All that is left to do now is weave all those ends...

...and attach the panel to the main one...

Relatively straightforward. But as I have a ton of other WIPs, it might take some time :D

Thanks for reading, everyone, and don't forget to go see the others' work at Jijihook's!

The Injured Flip-Flop

Hello, my dears! The story today - again, not crochet related - is that of a beloved pair of flip-flops which I have had for a couple of years. Here are said flip-flops:

But, o horror, can you see? Some of the beads have got detached from the strap on the left foot! Unspeakable tragedy! Look!

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!! 

So what to do? The missing beads were nowhere to be found, by now probably buried deep within the carpet, only to be unearthed again in half a century by an unsuspecting tenant (that being said, I hope the landlord doesn't wait half a century to change the carpet...).

Anyway, in a previous life, I most likely would have discarded my injured flip-flops, heading straight to the shops to get myself a new pair, and glad to have the excuse for another shopping spree. But these days, I'm not that much into shopping anymore, unless it's for yarn, fabric and other crafty trinkets like beads. And I have quite a lot of beads...

So I chose three at first - it ended up being four to fill up the whole empty space - in a similar colour scheme as the flip-flops' straps...

...strung them on a bit of thread...

...and sewed them onto the empty strap section with a regular sewing needle. I did quite a few back-and-forths, as well as sewed between the beads themselves to make sure they were extra secure. And there you have it, the injured flip-flop is repaired. Granted, they are non-matching beads, but I think that gives it personality!

Thanks for reading, folks! :)