Catch up - Some more crochet shawls for you

Welcome back!!!

Thanks for your lovely comments on my recent posts.  I realize I haven't talked much about my crochet shawls yet.

I subscribe to a few crochet magazines in England and I noticed there were some lovely shawls by the talented Elisabeth Davis de Herraiz. One that caught my eye was her 'All at Sea Shawl' so I dug out my copy of the Simply Crochet magazine and began making it!

You can find out more about this shawl (and photos of her original design) on her lovely blog here. I highly recommend it. I have been following her since last year and find her work very inspiring!


The All at Sea Shawl

All at Sea Shawl

Emerging pattern

Crochet in the car after a music festival

The light and airy pattern

The shawl was finished in late April and I started wearing it immediately. The colour is a fresh green, the acrylic yarn (Maya) was from Wibra.

However, about a week later I decided it needed something else and I added a large tassel from the same yarn. Now I love it even more!

My finished shawl with the added tassel

My Tahiti Shawl

This is the same shawl pattern I recently used for my Minty Shawl - here! It's such a nice pattern with a very easy 2 row repeat. This time the yarn I used is much finer, with a 3mm crochet hook. So it is growing a bit slower, but I don't mind. I will be quite large. I really like the colourplay!

New beginnings: starting a shawl with variegated cotton yarn

Tahiti Cotton yarn by Schachenmayr

Crochet time on the balcony in the sunshine

Crocheting before my dental operation

My Azalea

Balcony still life - this is all I need!

... and cats keeping me company!

The Festival Shawl

This was amongst my Ravelry favourites for quite some time. I suddenly decided the time had come to give it a go!

You will find the free pattern here!

After the initial few rows I realized how the pattern worked and had been crocheting happily along without further having to consult the pattern. I think that is the moment crochet really takes off!

I am using the wonderful Schoeppelwolle Zauberball in the 'Frische Fische' colourway. It is a typical sock yarn but with wonderful colours! Great for shawls, too!

And one more recent thing I learnt: some things do require blocking. Here you can see how the pattern is much clearer after a bit of blocking. Of course, the shawl is not yet finished. I recently bought a second ball of yarn and am continuing.

Festival Shawl pattern

Do you have a favourite shawl pattern - feel free to post a link, perhaps by ravelry or pinterest!? Do you prefer triangular shawls or the long rectangular ones (stole)?
What tip would you give to somebody who hasn't tried crocheting a shawl before?

I hope you enjoyed your post and I would love to know what you think. Please leave me your comment, no matter how short or long, it's always lovely to read!

Have a nice sunday!

Catch up - Some little sewing projects: A Cat Keyring, a Bird Plushy Brooch and Jewellery Bags

Hello everyone,

I promised you some catch up posts. Here is one of them. This time I am going to show you some little sewing projects I did not long ago.

I love reading La Maison Victor, it is a sewing magazine that gets published in Dutch. Their website is here! Even if you don't understand Dutch, you might find it enjoyable to look at their colourful and inspiring projects on their website.

They also publish the odd little book and recently I bought this one from them:
22 Easy sewing projects book.

It has a lot of small cute projects! Upon first glance there were two of them that I knew immediately that I wanted to make them.

This is the first one, a little Plushy Cat as a keyring.

My finished Cat Keyring from La Maison Victor - Ta-Dah!!!

Here is how I made it:

Book diagram and cutting out fabric

Handstitching the eyes

Using real wool felt

Sewing the body

I didn't add a pompom nose but decided to add a tail

Here is my finished Cat Plushy Keyring compared to the book

And here is my next project : A bird plushy made as a brooch. 

The book showed these birds as a mobile. I thought they were so cute with the handstitched eyes and I wanted to wear one! I added one of my handmade flowers as an embellishment! The fabric is from Veritas.

Jewellery Bags

And last, not least, here are two little jewellery bags I whipped up on Tuesday afternoon before going to my last Dutch lesson in the evening. These were given as gifts to my lovely Teachers!

I took 2 fabric rectangles, sewed a hollow seam for the drawstrings, then sewed them together as little bags. I added crochet cotton for the drawstrings in 2 contrasting colours.

The necklaces inside were also part of the gifts!

I enjoyed making these little projects. Do you have a favourite quick sewing project?

Feel free to leave me your comment, it thrills me to read them!

Have a creative weekend! Here the sun is shining and I will be going to a sewing workshop later at the Kringwinkel (charity shop) where they want to show how to upcycle clothes! Can't wait!

The finished Baby Blanket made from crochet squares

Hello again!

I just wanted to show you the baby blanket I finished this Tuesday and which I handed over to a friend from my Dutch class. She absolutely loved it!!!

Here are some pictures for you to enjoy!

The finished blanket is made of 7 x 7 crochet squares which measure approx 12cm across. The finished blanket size is approx. 84cm x 84cm. The squares are attached with the pale pink Apilou yarn.

Some close-up photos to show the details. I crocheted a simple shell border all around.

I was quite pleased with how even my crochet looked! It was a lot of work to block each of the 49 squares individually but it was definitely worth the effort.

For the finishing touch I made a long crochet chain with 2 mini squares to wrap around the blanket so it would look nice!

I had to work hard every day to get it finished within 2 weeks, which meant I didn't get much time to do any other crochet. Now that it is done, I can finally get back to them...

Do you like making blankets? What are your experiences? What is your favourite blanket style/pattern? Do you prefer making modules (such as squares) or working on one piece?

I would love to hear your opinions, please leave me a little comment below. I look forward to reading them!

PS: More catch up posts coming up shortly!!!

My latest project: Making a baby blanket

Hello dear Blogfriends,

Thanks for all your lovely comments and your patience, too! I love to welcome a number of new followers, glad to have you here!

As always, I hope you will find some inspirations here!

Since my last blog post quite a few things have happened, and I feel like I should apologize that it has taken me this long for an update. Sorry folks!!!

But you know how it is:

Not all that wander are lost!

One thing was that I went through various tests and the end exams for my Dutch classes....

Another that I had a dental operation on my jaw a week ago and have been slowly recovering from it, it still hurts a lot, though the swelling has gone down a lot.

And last, but also with a lot of impact, our cat Twinkle has gone missing recently which was very much out of character for him since he never ventured outside the house (and he didn't know his surroundings here in Belgium). We have tried everything we could to find him so far, but without success. Twinkle is the brother of Jasper and we had both of them since birth. We are very upset and miss him.

Twinkle

Well, to show you what I have been up to, I decided to break it down a bit. I'm still having computer problems and this makes blogging more difficult. So instead one long catch up post, I will try to do a few more following this one. Promise!!!

Making a baby blanket

This is what I am currently working on, much to my own surprise. A girl in my Dutch class is expecting her first child, she knows it will be a girl. So I spontaneously offered to crochet her a blanket, I hadn't previously thought about it. So I started on Tuesday, 12th May. Initially I said I would do it over the summer, but as I got started, I thought maybe I can do it quicker?

So I started making crochet squares, pink and white ones from Veritas Apilou acrylic yarn.

First I was aiming to make 2 every day, meanwhile I have stepped up to making 5 a day!!!

My initial idea: 5 x 9 squares (a rectangle) - 45

Then I saw that a square blanket might look better

So I adapted my idea to make it 7 x 7 squares (49)

I hope you enjoyed this (long overdue) post. Let me know what you have been working on, I must admit that I seem to have a backlog when it comes to reading blog posts and leaving comments... hopefully things will get better soon!

Please leave me some comments, I love hearing from you all! And to the new followers: How did you find my blog (just curious!!!)

Meanwhile... Happy crocheting and knitting!!!