Posh Pram Blankie

Now that my new little nephew has taken receipt of his blankie I can show it to you too. I used the same pattern as I did for this one but I made it a bit smaller so that it wouldn't be too bulky to use in the pram. Unfortunately I'm too far away to wrap my arms around him at the moment so this will have to do for now.

The Melbourne Reef

Image via Style Wilderness

Have you seen this amazing feat of crochet? It's called the Melbourne Reef and it's been created using a thing called hyperbolic crochet (very mathmatical). I noticed that kootoyoo has been at it too. It's hard to believe that this thing of beauty and diversity is made from scraps of wool, recycled plastic bags and old video and audio cassettes isn't it? If it's captured your imagination like it has mine I suggest you pop over to Style Wilderness to see more amazing photographs and find out more about this mind-bending blend of maths and handicraft.

The dark side...

I've gone over to the dark side... Not only am I crocheting instead of knitting but I'm using acrylic yarn. I've always been aware of a bit of an 'us' and 'them' thing between knitters and crocheters although hopefully there's not too many knitters in the world like the crazy couple in this hilarious clip. Many knitters - and I include myself in this - also have a bit of thing about using acrylic yarn (too squeeky, doesn't always wash and wear well) but the very talented Sarah London and Lucy from Attic24 have convinced me that the world won't stop turning if I indulge in a little acrylic stitchery.


Armed with this new confidence I headed down to Spotlight to buy some cheap and cheerful acrylic yarn. Acrylic yarn comes in a seemingly infinite range of colours and at between $2-$5 for a 100gram ball it's a steal. It's very difficult to find truly colour-saturated wool and when you do you often need to take out a second mortgage on the house to pay for it. So far so good. These are the colours we bought although we didn't end up using the yellow.




The blanket I made is Lucy's Granny Stripe Blanket made from continuous rows of treble stitch clusters. It's dead easy and grows incredibly quickly. I've made mine a bit smaller than Lucy's -more a large lap blanket than the double bed size she made. It only took a couple of hours a night while watching TV (box set of 'Bones') and voila, two weeks later I had this...

I haven't sewn in the ends yet or crocheted a border but it's already in high demand in the living room. I'm not used to buying such large balls of yarn (I'm used to wool in what now seem small 25gm balls) so I have oodles left for further projects...

The Swirly Scarf

Thanks for all your great comments about growing blueberries! I think you should all go out and buy one or two and we can grow them together, comparing notes as we go. As I mentioned in my reply comments, the tag on the plant said that one bush can supply 3-4 kg in a good season - that's a lot of blueberries! I'll keep you posted about our successes/ failures and hopefully by mid-summer we will all have blueberries coming out our ears -or not.

On another subject entirely some time ago I mentioned that I wanted to crochet this swirly scarf - well here it is elegantly modelled by Isabella. As it is the first thing I've ever really crocheted (apart from edging on knitted pieces) I'm really thrilled with the result.

This week...

I finally got around to starting the swirly scarf I first mentioned way back here. I've had this wool for ages but have never been quite sure what to do with it (an impulse buy when it was on special). Even though I'm a crochet novice things seem to be coming along nicely.

I've also been checking out this lovely book by Silvena Rowe. I saw it reviewed in Epicure yesterday and loved the sound of Silvena's artistic take on Eastern Mediterranean cuisine. Recipes mentioned in the review include Pink Peppercorn Meringues with Mulberries, Rose Petal Ice-cream and a tomato salad flavoured with pomegranate seeds, sumac, cumin and pomegranate molasses - yum.

Idle hands...

Image via the purl bee

You know what they say people, the Devil makes work for idle hands so I plan on keeping mine busy. Here's a few places I've found inspiration...

- I've already made three of these great crochet cuffs from over at kootoyou - one in black, one in orange and one in pink. I'm planning on doing some more in cotton and maybe 4 ply wool for a lacy-er look.

- I'm definately going to invest in Joelle Hoverson's (of Purl Soho) new book More Last Minute Knitted Gifts. You can see some of the patterns in the picture above.

- I've also been checking out iCrochet a new blog full of links to other people's crochet projects (I think it has been set up by the indefatigable Sarah London.

- Finally, I'm having difficulty deciding what to make from this amazing list of baby knits in the last Whip-Up newsletter. I really like the look of some of those kimono jackets.

What are you doing to keep your hands busy?

The start of something big...I hope...

This is my first fumbling attempt at a granny square. I've been teaching myself using Pip's book and online tutorials. As you can see I had a bit of trouble with the corners and with changing colours but I figure practise makes perfect! I'm hoping to work my way up to making something like this or this for Bella. Bella has seen me make enough rugs to know that this one won't be warming her until next Winter but she's cool with that.

Are you making anything at the moment (or making plans to make something)?