Back In The Swing Of Things...

I know that I said that I was going to try and update this on a regular basis, but time has just gotten away from me lately. Today I finally have some time to sit and actually spend more than 2.3 nanoseconds here, so I thought I would pay a visit while I had the chance!

I'm still plodding away with the Mood Blanket Challenge, I'm about a week's worth of squares behind, but I'm catching up. The hotter weather has finally started to disappear, it's still quite warm here, but nowhere near the 40°c+ days that we were having.

I've had yet another change of mind with the Mood Blanket squares and have decided that it was just going to be too plain for my liking. So I hunted through my stash and found a book with a variety of really nice square patterns, so I have been slowly working my way through, pattern by pattern and am going to incorporate these in amongst the "plainer" blocks.

The book I am using is called "50 Fabulous Crochet Squares" by Leisure Arts. There are some gorgeous patterns in this book and I plan on making all 50 of them :)

Here's just a small sample of them, from the book cover...

This is where I'm at for now with my squares (sorry for the picture quality, it was taken in a rush), you can see the squares from the book that I have made so far...

I still have some catching up to do with the "charity afghan" square - 3 each of the pink, light green and dark green, then I plan on getting back into the book and making some more of those gorgeous motif squares.

I'm still working these squares with the Bendigo Woolen Mills 4 ply cotton and am only just starting to make a dent in the skeins. They are 200g in weight, so I think that I am going to have plenty to see me through this project, and if not, I'll just have to pay another visit there to get more! ;)

In my last post, I mentioned that I was running behind on making my sister's birthday presents. I ended up just making her an owl (sorry I forgot to take a photo)in 4 ply cotton and bought her a cute little word art plaque that was all about sisters. She loved them to bits and they only arrived a day late. I'm saving the scarf to make in the cooler weather and will send it to her as a "just because" gift when it's closer to the time that she will actually need it and can wear it :) 

As well as catching up on the squares and my sister's gift, I took part in an amigurumi swap with another lady from one of the Facebook groups I'm in. I ended up making her an owl from Moji Moji's Rainbow Nesting Owls pattern (surprise, surprise! LOL) and a little kitty from Little Muggles - Violet The Kitty and she was very pleased with them. I didn't take a photo before I sent them, because I wanted to get them in the post quickly, but she did share a photo when she received them...

The lady had requested pinks and purples as her preferred colours, and this is all that I had in my stash at the time. I was quite happy with how they turned out. Although I didn't have any pellets to weight the bottoms so they don't quite sit as well as I would have liked. But the main thing is, she liked them :) 

In return, this same lady sent me an ami, it was the first one she has made and I think for a "1st timer" she did an excellent job. Of course, she knows me well enough to make me an owl!

The picture above is of the owl she made me and she said that it was from the Soren the Barn Owl pattern. I love it!!! :) 

I can't believe that we are already nearly 2 months into the new year! Time seems to go past so quickly these days!!

Anyway, looks like my time here for today is up, so I better get back to doing what needs to be done around here and hopefully the updates will be a little more frequent from now on :) 

Oh...and before I forget....

In The Mood For Crochet?

I'm lagging a little behind on my progress with the Mood Blanket Challenge, but only because we are experiencing a heatwave here in Victoria this week. The past 4 days have been 40°c+ and the A/C is struggling to keep the house cool enough to do anything. There has been so much going on around here this week, that I haven't really had time to pick up my hook.

Besides the extreme heat, we have had thunderstorms that had very little rain but a lot of lightning and thunder which has sparked some serious fires. The closest one was on Wednesday night, only 10kms from our house! It was a very restless and stressful night waiting to see if they were going to get it under control. Lucky for us that they did. The CFA (Country Fire Authority) do a marvellous job protecting us and they do it all as volunteers. They need to be better recognised for putting their lives on the lines to protect ours!

Anyway....back to my blanket progress....
I decided that I didn't want to use white squares in my blanket as I had originally intended, so I had to go and get a new colour to replace it, I decided on light teal. The white is now going to be used to edge my squares and make the border instead, which will hopefully make the colours pop. So far I have 12 of the 17 squares done.

I'm really liking the way that the colours are coming together. As you can see, my moods have been varied since beginning the project and I'm happy to say that there are more "good" days than "bad" days so far :) 

I haven't really made a firm decision on how I'm going to join the squares yet, at the moment I'm tossing up between 3 different ways - sewing them together with a whip stitch, single crocheting them together (through the back loops) or maybe doing a braid join. I guess it will all fall into place at some stage, but hopefully sooner rather than later because I don't want to have to sit and join 365 squares together at the end!! 

I'm seriously lagging behind on other projects too, it's my sister's birthday in 3 days and she has requested a scarf (why anyone would want a scarf in the midst of summer is beyond me lol)  and an owl, and I haven't even started on them! She lives 400km away and I will need to post them, so I think I need to get myself busy with those and get them in the post to her so she doesn't think that I have forgotten her. I know they won't make it there on time, EEEEEK! why did I leave it so long!!!

I guess I should start looking through my pattern stash to find something cute but quick.

'Til next time...

Crochet Mood Blanket Update

I've had a change of mind with the pattern that I had originally chose to do this challenge. I just didn't like the size that the squares were, they were too big for my liking. I may have to re-visit the pattern at a later date and use the squares that I have already made to make a smaller lapghan.

So, off I went on a hunt and found a pattern that I really liked and thought would fit the bill perfectly. I decided to use the Good Cause Afghan because I thought it suited the meaning behind the whole challenge.

I have to confess that I love working with cotton yarn, so much more than acrylics, so I delved into my stash and came up with 10 balls of Bendigo Woolen Mills cotton in 4 ply and set to work picking colours to suit moods and adding them to my journal.

I decided to also use a much smaller hook (2.25mm) and I am really loving the way that it is turning out so far.

These are the first 5 days squares that I have re-done so far, assigned with new colours for each mood of the day

I picked up a cheap little journal at a local store for a couple of dollars and set to work taking sample cuts from each of my colours, this is what I have come up with for my mood/colour chart. 

{Please excuse the owl coaster that is photo bombing, the page wouldn't stay open so I could get a good picture!}lol 

I've segmented the book into sections, the first half has the mood chart and on the following pages, I am listing each day and the mood I was experiencing. I've allowed enough pages for the whole 365 days. The rest of the book will be used to document why I was feeling the mood on that particular day. It will be interesting to look back on it at the end of this journey and see what my year was like :) 

While I was doing all this re-organising of how I was going to do this challenge, I wondered where on earth I was going to store all these squares as I was making them, then I remembered that I had bought a cute little case on clearance and had it stored in the craft room. So, out it came and has officially been delegated the task of storing the squares and journal.

It doesn't look all that big, but in real life, it is actually quite deep and I don't think it will have any problems at all holding the 365 squares that I have now decided to make :) 

Here's an inside view... 

so much room for activities! 

I have to say that I am quite excited about this whole project now, even more than I was before and I'm looking forward to seeing how this whole thing turns out at the end of the year :)