Broadening My Horizons

I've been looking through all the beautiful crochet goodies on pinterest and slowly being eaten up with envy until I finally broke down and decided to give crochet another try.

I can crochet. I can even do it fairly competently...but I don't really enjoy it and I can't read the patterns, regardless of whether they're written or charted. And I don't like being made feel stupid by a short length of metal with a hook at the end! It's just rude!

So I decided I would use up a bunch of small acrylic balls of nice colours and make granny squares. I found some instructions I could understand on the bog Little Tin Bird and headed off!

It actually worked out pretty well. I loved the colour combinations. I even managed to figure out the end joins of each round to my satisfaction! I made 12. Now to join them up!

I was going to try and crochet them together but none of my attempts looked nice and they were lumpy. In the end I just whip-stitched them together. I sat back and admired my work...

I had a really small...REALLY small rug. Mmmm....?

Since I still had quite a bit of the yarn left over I thought I would crochet around the edge, tying everything together and make a (quite small admittedly) lap rug.

But the experience with the squares had taught me to be cautious.  I did NOT want to have to sew in hundreds of ends from knots tying each of the colours together.  So I Russian-joined them. Sort of splicing the yarns, cutting off half the yarn bulk and loop them together and passing the left over thread up through the working yarn. It really worked brilliantly! It meant I could just crochet around the squares and watch the colours appear!

I can crochet. And maybe with a bit of practice I might even enjoy it. For now, this was fun. But I think I'll pick up the knitting needles again...

We understand each other a bit better!

I'll tell you about some other forays into different crafts next time. Bet you can't guess what!

See you all later :)
Dx

My Pine Table

I've been wanting something to put over my pine dining table because we're kind of hard on it (it has lots of "character marks") and something that would be easier to clean since the bunps and scratches tend to collect dirt when you try and wipe it off.
So last Wednesday, while in Albany I went to Spotlight and bought 2 meters of clear vinyl and 1.5 meters of plastic matting that looks like crochet.

Took it all home.
After I cleaned the table carefully and positioned the plastic matting right down the center of the table, like a table runner and then I lay out the vinyl over it, cut off the excess and then stapled it to the underside of the table with an ordinary staple! Fortunately pine is a soft wood and I didn't have anything else. Also I hate dangling edges on table covers. Eased it over the corners. If I ever come across better fasteners or a more powerful stapler I might restaple the thing but it works so far :)


I've very happy with the results. My table not only looks pretty but it's protected and easier to clean and I don't have change and wash the table runner. And I think it only cost me about $30 and the time to get in on the table. Brilliant!


Project declared a resounding sucess :)

Finally, Crochet Critter!

I've often looked at those cute little figures that a lot of people seem to crochet, they've got a japanese name, starts with A? So I thought I would give it a try. Can't be too difficult, right?
Well, difficult, no. Fiddly? YES!! But I got it done!
















This is my guy next to the pic of the pattern. The face was fun!

But the making up of the arms and the ears was so fiddly! And as for stuffing it? It had this tiny hole to stuff it through and no matter what I did the legs didn't want to stay stuffed! It was a real relif to put the thing together, to sew the latch onto its back and have it finished!
My hands hurt so bad and it took me ALL DAY! By the end it was sheer stubbornness. I WILL complete this!




Brianna loves it which is I supposed all that matters but it will be a very long, long time before I stray from knitting again!

Keep Knitting :)