Baby blankets

I've been keeping these secret for a while! 

If you follow me on instagram (I'm henrys_shed) then you might have seen a sneaky peek! 

But I couldn't share here, or on FB because I would spoil the surprise!

 They are for a very good friend of mine who is expecting her 3rd baby.

I have already crocheted blankets for her 2 girls, so there was no chance baby number 3 would NOT get blankets!

 She announced her pregnancy to me by asking if I had time to crochet another blanket before September!

Not because baby is due in September, but because her and the whole of her lovely family are moving to Australia in September. Australia!!! I am sad, and I will miss them terribly, but what a fantastic opportunity! Plus, Miss M says she is having a gap year and spending it in Australia with them!!! Hmm, we'll see about that!

 So, she asked if I would wait until her 2nd scan, because they wanted to find out the sex of the baby this time.

I had trouble waiting. I wanted to crochet. Straight away!!

But I managed to contain myself, and as I'm sure you have figured out already, they are having a baby boy. Ahhhh!!

 The first blanket I made was a ripple. 

I love ripples!

I had a quick visit to Attic24 to remind myself how to start off, using this great tutorial again :)

I used stylecraft (excellent baby blanket making stuff) and I chose this lovely combination of blues, browns and green.

I really enjoyed this one, it had been a while since I had rippled!

 But then I had to decide about the edge.

I had not put an edge on a ripple before, I quite like them as they are, wibbly.

But I kind of wanted to try.

So I thought about it for a while, and eventually decided to go for it.

And I'm really glad I did!

I used Little Tin Bird's tutorial making-a-ripple-straight

 Then I went a little bit colour crazy.

I decided that the baby really needed a crazy bright blanket too!

So I dug through my stylecraft stash (mountain) and pulled out anything that wasn't girly and I hadn't already used in the ripple. Which wasn't actually that much - I have A LOT of pink/purple stylecraft!!!

I very nearly made solid granny squares, like an Elmer blanket. But then I saw a granny ripple on FB and just had to try!

 I love the pattern, really simple, really quick, lots of fun.

I was worried about the colours for quite some time.

They were a bit, well, LOUD!!!

But actually, I love it!

I gave the blankets to my friend earlier this week.

I'm pretty sure she loved them too.

2 big snuggly cuddles for what will, I'm sure, be a very gorgeous baby.

My way of giving him hugs, even though he'll be born on the other side of the world.

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Hexagons for my sewing machine

Hmmm, hexagons!

Love them!

I have had this little 3/4" hexie project on the go for a while now. I bought a scrap bag at FoQ last year and started turning the lovely little bits of fabric into pretty hexagons straight away. But then, I got distracted. How does this happen to me so often? I didn't think I had such a short attention span!!

Anyway, as part of my 'summer holiday finishing things off' project, I pulled out the zippy bag with this half-project in and set to work. I turned the rest of the fabric into hexagons and then... stopped.

I had no idea what I was making.

Never had.

I was just making pretty.

Which is fine, but not when you need to clear some project space. So I had a good think, and played about with the hexagons I had, to see what they might be.

In the end they turned out to be a table mat to go under my sewing machine. "Odd," I hear you cry!! But no! I usually put a tea-towel under my machine when I sew, so I can move it forwards and backwards on the table easily. And I stick pins in the tea-towel too, easier than a pin-cushion! So I double layered the wadding inside the long mat to make it good for sticking pins in, and there it is! A pretty hexagon mat for my sewing machine!

And another project finished!

Phew!

 

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Grace

Another finished project to share with you today!

 

This one was started ages ago, half knitted, and the left lying about. Not because I didn't like it, because it is a really beautiful pattern. It was a little challenging for me, although I have been knitting for a long time I have only ever knit 1 thing in the round before. And it was 1 sock. I hated it so much I never even made the other one! But I didn't stop because it was hard, I was really getting into it, but something distracted me. Can't remember what, it could have been so many things! So a couple of weeks ago I whipped it out and finished it off, just like that! (I'm totally lying - I had loads of problems, couldn't remember how to knit in the round!! There were bad words.)

 

They had a little delay because they needed buttons, which I purchased at the Festival of Quilts :)

Buttons are now all sewn on, and they look beautiful!

 

A certain 13 year-old is beginning to show an interest in photography (excellent as I am RUBBISH at it!) so I asked her to take these photos for me, and I modelled!!!

The pattern, called Grace was written by the fabulous Julie at button-button and can be found here on Ravelry. I used Artesano Alpaca 4Ply in beautiful soft pink, I think it is called sweet pea.

Another tick on the list! I'm off to find something else to finish...

 

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Festival of Quilts 2013

Oh, I looked forward to this for soooo long!

Pretty much the whole year since we were there in 2012!

We decided, my 2 quilty buddies and I, that we needed two days this year. One was just not enough. So we were super-lucky enough to spend Thursday and Sunday at the FoQ.

And my goodness did we have fun!!

I could bore you all to death here with ALL the photos I took, but that would not be very fair (and I might go a bit mad as my computer takes AGES to load photos!).

But I will just show you a couple, sorry!!

This is totally amazing! There is definitely a lone star quilt in my future, although I'm not sure mine will be as detailed and brilliant!!

Beautiful! I have no desire to make a quilt like this, but I would LOVE to own it! Such pretty colours!

This quilt is called "Every text he ever sent me" and it is amazing. We looked at this one for ages! It really is made up of loads of text messages, from 'I love you' to 'we need milk'. Brilliant!!

 This was my favourite. It was huge. I didn't even manage to get it all in one photo! Every star has been fussy cut, every star is different. I want to make one like this. This is going on my list.

Urgh! So many quilts, so much fun!

Obviously there was also some shopping. It would be rude not to, right?!!

Here is what was in my bag when we came home on Thursday.

So many pretties!

You'd think that was enough though, wouldn't you?!

No.

This lot came home with me Sunday.

Brown. Not sure what happened there. Sunday was a brown day.

 

So now I have ideas. And shopping. And 2 and a half weeks left of the summer holidays. Wonder how much I'll get done...

 

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July

Better late than never, right?

This month my collage is very small, only 3 finishes. But one of them was the hexie quilt so that's ok! That was a huge amount of work in July, and totally worth it. Miss M adores it, sleeps under it every night, and also drags it downstairs to snuggle under in front of the TV (when it's not scorching hot!). If you would like to see more pictures of 'Buttercup' you can find them here, not that I'm proud or anything!!

 

Apart from the quilt, I managed to finish the still nameless table-mat-thingy, and my 2nd Florence scarf. Both beautiful :)

 

Right then, I'm off to go and finish another WIP, I'm steaming through them at the moment!

 

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Saturday Sampler - July blocks

Phew!

It has all been a bit crazy round here this week!

We have been decorating, so very little time for crafting, even less time (and space) for taking photos!!

So I have a bit of catching up to do, lots of things to share :)

Here are my blocks for July.

 

Back soon with more finished projects! Yay me!

 

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