Doll's Ripple blanket

I started this ripple blanket because I've always wanted to make one but didn't want a big (and expensive!) project, plus I thought I'd be able to use up a goodly amount of my left-overs from my granny square experiment. As it turns out I ended up buying another ball of pink and one of the light green, so I'm not sure I entirely succeeded on the 'using up' bit! I thought I had heaps but crochet uses up wool like it's going out of style. The pattern came from Cute & Easy Crochet, which my friend Jess gave me when I was in Canada, but it's a pretty standard pattern with three increase stitches and three decrease stitches to get the zigs and zags.



I really enjoyed doing this, it's fun switching colours so often and using such bright ones was cheering. I think a larger blanket would be somewhat garish, but it's fun in this size. Originally I was going to make the cushion as per the instructions but it was going to be really small so part way through I thought I'd make it a doll's blanket. But then I changed my mind because Hazel is, in her own words "not much of a doll girl" and it wouldn't get used, so I finished it off square. About a week later we got an invitiation to our young friend Samantha's third birthday party and the doll's blanket idea immediately sprang to mind because she IS a doll kind of girl, big time. She loves toting them about and putting them to bed, the whole nine yards. So out came the ripples again! You can tell I had to abandon my repeat of six colours but I think it's fine. If I did something like this again though, I'd start off random so that using up one colour wouldn't matter so much.



Here is the finished bed. Since she's a girl on the go I thought perhaps a portable arrangement would be good, and I found this laundry basket thing at the Warehouse. Nice and bright, lots of handles, and it fitted the blanket fairly well. I made a simple box mattress, two flat sheets (crisp white of course), and a comfy pillow. I would totally sleep in here myself if I fitted!




 I can't wait to give it to her on Sunday!

Rada the rat

I've been working on this guy for quite awhile, Ravelry says I started in April, but at long last I'm done! The main hold-up was running out of yarn about half way through, and it took me ages to get into town to the shop where I'd bought it originally. Luckily the new skeins were exactly the same and I can't even tell where I stopped. The other major hold-up was my issues with finishing things and it's been 95% done for quite awhile now, only lacking 2/3 of an arm. It's not a hard pattern really, probably advanced beginner/intermediate, it's just involved and takes a lot of rounds!

He's really just so super-cute I think I'm going to have to keep him for myself! More info on the pattern etc. over on Ravelry.

My blog all gansta

Mat introduced me to Gizoogle.net last night. He was all excited about it and insisted I had to go and look at my translated blog and so just to humour him I did, and just about wet myself laughing so hard. It's not the kind of site you want to visit if the f-word (or several other -words) bothers you, but otherwise knock yourself out translating your blog, craft blogs, whatever you want. It makes them so much more interesting, I'm considering switching over permanently! Here are a couple of examples (language warning!):

"Mini-dawg school" heehee. I'll finish up with another bit that really made me laugh, it totally changes my perspective on my quilt group members:

Crochet rug

I've been hoping a reason to buy some Zpagetti yarn would come along for awhile now, and I finally came up with one! I needed a small rug to put in front of the basin in our toilet so that the splashes that come out (it's one of those stupid small basins that you can't help but make a mess with) don't get all over the floor and make it slippery. It's a total health and safety thing. Really. It suddenly occurred to me that a red crocheted rug in Zpagetti would be just the ticket. The yarn itself isn't that expensive, but it's heavy and the shipping to NZ from Australia cost as much again so it's not a cheap rug, but I love it! This rug took 1.5 large cones.

I used this pattern from Gosyo -the link is to the pdf of the pattern, you can see the whole range of their free patterns here. If you are a knitter or a crocheter and haven't been to their site you must, it's full of great patterns. I have yet to check out their yarns etc. but at a glance it looks interesting, not sure about shipping etc. from Japan though.

There are a few issues with it, and I'm not sure if it's the yarn or the pattern because I'm not all that experienced with doing ovals. The pattern called for seven stitches into the last chain at each end and that bulk meant that it turned out sort of lozenge-shaped. I think if I did it again then I'd only do five or even three. The edging doesn't sit all that well going around the ends, it pulls too tight compared to how it is down the sides. I suspect both these issues are more to do with the bulk of the Zpagetti than the pattern, and if I felt like pulling it all apart (I don't) and redid it then it would be just perfect!

Here is Ollie helping take the photos. The only way I could get him to stay out of the one above and stop attacking the rug was to make him sit and stay behind me. Amazingly it worked. Sometimes he really is an A dog even though he was a solid B at puppy school. Apparently he is very good at 'stay' and 'leave' - for a pug.

My new quilts on old beds

We set up the Monday Modern quilt exhibition at Highwic House this morning and it was a lot of fun - what a nice way to spend a sunny Sunday morning, lugging quilts all around a gorgeous old Victorian house and strewing them artistically on beds and chairs and any surface that wasn't already full of objects. Hazel came too and helped a little and enjoyed it so much she thanked me for letting her come.

The quilts looked so nice on the beds, and some of the locations were quite stunning. Pop over to the Monday Modern Flickr group to see some of the others' quilts, I've only posted my two here.

Being a perfectionist

Many (many) months ago it was my turn to have bee blocks made by the Monday Modern group.



It really is exciting to have them done for you, and they look great all together! The lovely ladies got me up half a Queen-sized quilt - and the rest are up to me! 

I'm finding the concept of 20-odd blocks a bit daunting! I'm not a fast sewer at the best of times, and envy those who are - I spend a lot of time visualising (which is free and can be done on the couch), then worrying, and planning, and working up to cutting and then cutting (which is the job I really loathe and put off), sewing and then it usually sits awhile while I work up to doing a back, then it sits awhile longer because I don't like quilting much on my little machine. See even my description of the quilting process is long and drawn out! So I've started back into the stars but I can't quite remember what my plan was for the bits I already have cut out so it's going to be slow getting back into it and then I'll have to do a bunch more cutting - I'll need to find the original tutorial I used to make up the instructions I handed out (if I can remember which one it was). The main problem though, is how SLOW this is going to be because I have to press each seam as I make it, and that slows things down big time. I'm better at not being totally perfect at things than I used to be, but I still require a certain standard from myself and I can't be slapdash. I don't think I'm being OCD or anything, I just wouldn't be happy if I knew I hadn't tried my hardest to do the best job I could. I don't care so much if the result isn't perfect, well ok just a little, more that I tried hard. Not pressing the first seam when making the individual points would be slacking off in my books. Why am I so hard on myself when I'm not on others? See I'm just using this blog as cheap therapy ;)

ETA: I came back to change how I worded this post, I don't know if anyone else thought it sounded a bit whiny and self-pitying, which I didn't intend at all, so hopefully now it reads more like I intended! Plus I've been working at not pressing that first seam today (with mixed results on the personal development front).

New Quilts for Old Beds

The Monday Modern quilt group is putting on an exhibition at Highwic House here in Auckland starting on the 18th. It's such a great pairing, an old house and new quilts, I think we're all pretty excited about it! It's nice and casual too, the quilts will be displayed on the beds and around the house, so along with the quilts you get to see all the other neat stuff at Highwic. Given my professional interest in the past, combined with my love of modern quilts, I'll probably be all overcome and stuff.

If you want to read more about it, here is the media release from Highwic. I have to admit that when I googled the exhibition I got kind of a rush to see that the first page was almost all about us! Now I suppose I'd better go and finish the binding on my offering...