Tuesday 30 August 2016

Return to crochet - Rowan Denim Granny Stitch Shawl, Tahiti Bubblegum Shawl, a book, Granny Square Day 2016

Hello my lovely blog friends,


Thanks so much for your kind comments and patience! And welcome to my latest followers!


I can tell you that my plaster cast came off last Tuesday and that I got a wrist brace now so that is a great help. I'm also doing physiotherapy and I still got a long way to go to regain full movement and strength in both my wrist and elbow.

Still, the good news is that I started back with doing crochet, hooray!!


Return to crochet

The day before I broke my arm, I had actually started a new project - a granny stitch shawl.

Last week I picked up where I left off and I have been working on it since.


My Rowan Denim granny stitch shawl


Can you believe it that I never made an actual granny stitch shawl before? I had some wonderful Rowan Denim yarn (made from cotton) that will fade when washed, just like actual denim fabric.


Starting my Denim Granny stitch shawl on 15.07.16

back to work on 23.08.16




3 different shades of Denim yarn



Crocheting on the balcony with Jasper last night

It is such an easy and soothing pattern to follow. As you can see from the photos, I had started with the slightly darker shade of Denim (6 balls), then I had only 1 ball that was called original Denim which was a tiny shade lighter and now I got some even lighter Denim, all from Rowan. I love that it gives an ombre effect! I'm using a 4mm hook.



A second Bubblegum Shawl - Tahiti Bubblegum Shawl

Does this surprise you that I also had to start a new Bubblegum shawl ? The pattern by Katia Loeffler (see Ravelry) is brilliant, and I knew that I wanted to make another.

Here you can see the new beginnings:


3 different shades of Tahiti yarn by Schachenmayr

Yarn cakes!


Started 28.08.16




What else has been going on? Well, I ordered some crochet and knitting books. This one deserves a mention:

Agnieszka Strycharska - Crochet Blocks (60 east to make motifs and 15 stunning projects)



As you can see from the cover image, Agnieszka also loves colour and is a crochetgirl after my own heart. The photography in this book is beautiful, each motif is given a large colour photo with written and graph pattern! As I prefer graphs, I can skip straight to them and get started.

The yarn she uses is Natura cotton which is a lovely yarn to work with.

On Saturday morning I just picked a motif and tried it out!





In the third photo you can see some of the book, and the two blocks that I made with the cotton I had at hand! It shows how versatile these motifs are, they look great in different colours!

I want to play about with more of these motifs!


Oh, and something else happened - International Granny Square Day!!!


As before, on instagram crocheters all over the world could contribute by photographing one or more of their granny squares under the tag #grannysquareday2016.


Foolishly, I didn't want to miss out despite my painful broken wrist/arm/elbow and so I made just one square! For me it was a real achievement at the time.



My granny square made on 15.08.16

Here is a collage made just from a small number of all the contributions, isn't it amazing?

You can find more images here on instagram under #grannysquareday2016



 :



Ok, I can see you starting to look a bit tired over there, 4 subjects are quite enough for one blog post!!!

Don't worry, there is still more to come and you can look forward to some interesting posts! I'm hoping to write up a pattern tutorial and I am thinking about doing a give away!

Meanwhile, take good care of yourselves and your loved ones, enjoy the little things wherever they find you and love life!

I hope you found a tiny bit of inspiration and would love it if you manage to leave me a comment, I enjoy reading them all. And hopefully I can manage to type some comments to leave on your pages now that my arm is slowly healing.




Rhododendron flowering in August!!










Friday 12 August 2016

Summer greetings - broken arm news, new creative outlets

Hello dear blog friends,



Thank you so much for all your lovely comments and wishes which were much appreciated. I find it truly touching how people from the online community have responded to my news. I'm so blessed to have your support.



An update on my broken arm

My arm is healing slowly. A few days ago I had another appointment for a check-up. My (blue) plaster cast was taken off and the many metal staples were removed thankfully. The operation wound is healing up ok.

Then I was fitted with a new (purple) plaster cast which still supports both my broken wrist and also my broken elbow. Having your arm in this fixed position is not much fun as you can imagine. Basically my right arm needs to rest.

I hope you are all enjoying your summer so far, even though the weather is continually up and down.

Last weekend we had a joint barbecue with our neighbours and it was a great success!


At the BBQ


As you can see I was wearing my funky fairisle knitted dress I made the previous summer. On my chair is the Rainbow Bubblegum Shawl I crocheted recently.

I found wearing some of the things that I had made cheered me up whilst I'm feeling frustrated about not being able to crochet currently.

Wearing my Flight of Fancy Shawl

For those of you who have been following my instagram feed you already know what I have been up to lately....



(Left handed) Adult Colouring In


I already started whilst I was still in hospital and I have been continuing since - doing colouring in using only my left hand. I am improving and learning new skills!

Here are some examples.


Mandala


new colouring in magazine - meer dan kleur

my favourite : colouring in page by Flora Chang

Made with mandala colouring app on my phone


My latest obsession is the new Prisma app!


I love making art using my own photos and transforming them into exciting new images!

Here are some of my works...


My artwork + layout app + Prisma app
 
  
using my photo + Prisma app

photo of my yarn + layout app + Prisma app

Jasper

Cleo

Well, there are more things I got to tell you about, but I will save that for the next time!!!


Until then, why don't you tell me what you have been up to and take care!!!



funkycrochet xx