My first quilt!

Hey Everyone! Please excuse me if you have seen this already (I posted it to my facebook feed earlier today and have already received some lovely comments :) )

I finished my first quilt! :D hoorah!
What a lesson it's been. I did try, I tried my hardest!

I had 3 lovely fat quarters that I picked up in Detroit earlier this year. I picked them up on a whim, they were pretty and complimentary. After seeing a few people start their quilting 'career' I knew that pointing corners together could be a pain in the neck, and that subtle colours - or similar colours would be more forgiving in the final pattern, so I picked these out as an ideal choice.
Cut into many squares 10x10cms
and then started making strips, measuring and sewing.

Then I sewed the strips together. I had hoped that measuring precisely in the strips would ten work out with alignment when joining the strips together - but, by millimetres some missed the point.

I got advice and researched about batting. But since I only have a standard sewing machine - I got a thin middle layer to be sure that it'd go under the needle and not stress me out  :P
I backed it with standard white cotton, and quilted straight lines 'in the ditch' in the directed that I had actually managed to sew a straight line, and then I used a decorative stitch to quilt in the other direction to cover slightly those misaligned corner points. sneaky me.

 

I had some silky bias tape in my stash already - and by sheer luck I had enough in! so, finally it was edged with this and again my favourite decorative stitch.

It's got a million imperfection and yes, I know its a baby blanket, and yes, it's white - not ideal. But after receiving a quilt for my son when he was born (brought to me by the members of craftpimp) I knew that quilts can be, will be heirlooms. This is what I wanted for this. A summer, light baby quilt. One to keep. Shame its got so many imperfections!

So now, I'll launder it and then it shall be gifted somewhere.
Probably to someone who appreciates handmade things and will embrace those little mistakes and slipped stitches as little quirks.

Hope you like it too!

Cloudy Day - Beginners Crochet Baby Blanket

I finally finished this baby blanket!

Link to my ravely project page

 

TUTORIAL - on how to make a granny square

TUTORIAL - on how to join granny squares

INSPIRATION - on how I edged the blanket

(all external links are tried and trusted by me)

I started it way back in November last year, and it was always the plan that it was going to be plain blue with white clouds. In January I had finished the main blue blanket and was struggling to successfully make clouds that I liked. I tried many ways to crochet the clouds initially, and even though they ended up being correct and looking like they were meant to, I just was not happy with them. So, because of this, the blanket lost momentum and I had to put it away.

This past week, I eventually got round to thinking about this again - needing a newborn present for my new 2nd cousin Ben, it would be perfect! All that was missing was the clouds. Kicking myself up the rear, I went to a local fabric shop and bought an offcut of lovely soft fleece. Lucky that it was there as an offcut, as I knew I had to be really fussy about it. It could not fray or lose fluff at the cut edges. (a lesson I learnt the hard way recently with another fabric)

After cutting the clouds into curvy soft cartoon-y shapes. They were hand sewn on in the evenings.
Now, finsihed, freahly wahsed and ready to be packed to be sent to Ben.

I hope that you like it too! ♥

Blogtoberfest Day #14 - still going strong

I'm still going strong on the granny star Afghan. I'm wanting always to start other crochet projects, but I'm determined to finish this before I move on otherwise it'll never get finished.

It's reached an acceptable size now for a baby, but since this is going to be for a two year old. I want it to be much bigger. How much bigger is the question.

I'm just going to keep on going I think.
Maybe so it has 3 sections of red, 3 sections of blue... And however many white that'll mean too. Probably with a little edging too. Can't you tell that I'm not really planning this? I'm just going with the flow until it looks right!

I'm already through the white will that I had bought, need to get some more tomorrow. I am probably going to need more blue and red too but it's all guesswork from me on how much exactly, I may just get one at a time and then make multiple trips back to the store if necessary. It's a bit extreme, but I really do want to avoid building a big stash of wool.

My quota per day is to get done one block of colour (4 rows) but of course, since it's getting bigger and bigger this is getting harder to achieve. I will continue to try though.

On a happy note... I am happy with how my crochet is turning out. Each stitch is nice and neat and the tension is good too. So nice to have improved so much within 2 projects! At the beginning it was even a challenge to hold the wool to get a good tension.

I think even now I could make more things and give them to more people as presents too and be proud of what I make!

How would you make it for a 2 year old?

Blogtoberfest Day #9 - There's never just one right answer ...

Don't you think?
When it comes to creativity and definite colour combinations, so many can be right - so which one is the correct one?!

I knew that my next crochet project would start asap, I had such a good time making the blanket, that I wanted to get started on making a star afghan blanket for another Christmas present. This time for my 2 year old nephew. He can use it as a rug, a rag, playmat, something to snuggle in - whatever! One thing I knew is that it had to be a cool shape, and since I'm getting good at granny squares, after a search on Ravelry, I found a free GRANNY STAR blanket pattern! Perfect :)

I asked my sister-in-law what colour his bedroom is - light blue and red, with a hint of lime green.
Wow, what a colour combo. I had thought that red, white, light blue and mid blue would be great, and I'd drop the green.

When I went shopping though - I stuck with the same yarn type as I had for my previous project - and they didn't have a mid blue - they had a royal blue, which was too strong, and a navy blue - which was cool, but I really wanted light blue and I think it was also too strong. One or the other, so I stuck with the light blue.

Well, then - once I got them home - I had doubts.
Had I picked the right colours? Such a bold red and a pastel soft blue?
Should I have got the navy instead?

So many possibilities, none of them are necessarily wrong.
I went to my experts (The craft pimp forum - click here for the colour discussion), and everyone had fab ideas! All of them liked the colour combo already - but there were suggestions on adding an extra darker blue in and some not!

I decided really to be reasonable with myself and not just run out and buy more wool, but to start the pale blue and see what it was like in the piece before making any decisions!

Do you come into troubles like this? When there's no definite correct answer, everything is right but which is the best? Tell me I'm not alone!

Blogtoberfest Day #8 - Table Runner - FINISHED!

Woo-hoo! Another project finished!
that's quite impressive for me, two projects finished in two days.

Remember my GUILTY PURCHASE?

Well, it didn't stay ignored for too long! I told my husband the plans so then I'd definitely do it. I cut, pinned and pressed it on Sunday - so half the work was already done. All I needed to do today was to get it to the sewing machine whilst the little man was having his midday snooze. It does sometimes feel like a bit of a race when I'm trying to get things done when the little man is in bed. So, I do think it is a little bit rushed, but I'm happy with the result.

2.40€ for a scrap of material from Ikea, and then just snip it up, fold, press, pin and sew :)

I do still find sewing in straight lines hard to do though! hahaha! Practice makes perfect I suppose!

Hope you like it! (and more importantly I hope the OH likes it too!)

Blogtoberfest Day #7 - Crochet Baby Blanket - FINISHED!

Yay!

It's finished!

Super happy with this, my first ever crochet project! Other than the fact I ran out of wool just this weekend, I got off my bum and bought some more today to finish it, and it's DONE!

It's definitely smaller than I had thought it would be, but it is just for a moses basket, which will do just fine.

So, remember; even if you have never done a certain craft before - You can with determination (and a lot of youtube videos) figure out how to do something.

HERE is the link for actually HOW I learnt how to do a granny square
HERE is the link for how I learnt how to join the squares together.
HERE is the pinterest pin of where I got the idea of how to edge the blanket.

If you're curious as to what wool and how much wool it took to make it etc ... check out my RAVELRY PROJECT PAGE :)

Blogtoberfest Day #1 - Stash-a-holic!

Hi, I'm Nicola and I'm a stash-a-holic!

Guilty purchase of the day ... an offcut of material from IKEA.

It's cute, lovely china blue flowers on a white background. It's a gorgeous thick upholstery fabric and the offcut (150x80cms) was only 2.40€ ... I couldn't resist!

Now, the key really is to use it soon. I find that once I buy something, that if it doesn't get used soon, it goes into the stash and it could be there years!

I bought it not knowing what I'm going to use it for, luckily when I put it on the dining room table - an idea came along. We have a lovely new wooden dining room table, and what we don't have is a table runner. My husband did mention that I should get one, and I have looked - but nothing has stood out. However, I think this could work! I best get the scissors and pins out tonight so I can mark up where to sew!

It'd be really nice to get it finished asap, I have visitors coming tomorrow for a few days, so I'm going to out this on the to-do list for next week! Will show you pictures I promise!

Take Care
Nicola
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