I just love colourful crochet shawls!

Hello, my dear blog friends,


Good to see you back here! And a hearty welcome to my newest followers, you are very welcome and I value your input and comments, and appreciate your time!

Today I want to do a review post, one that looks back at some of my previous makes.

As you can see from the title, I just love colourful shawls. You might have noticed this before. It just struck me when I wrote my last two posts, and I warned you to wear your sunglasses!!!

Afterwards I thought to myself, wouldn't it be fun, if I took a look at some of my shawls and took some photos. So that is what I did! And I really enjoyed it, looking at all that colour together.

And the naughty cats proceeded to walk, no run and skid, across my shawls which meant I had to lay them all out properly once again.

So here they are, some of my colourful shawls, most of them are for the summer. Enjoy!



Scheepjes CAL2015: Flight of Fancy, my own Rainbow Circle Shawl, a small neckerchief South Bay Shawlette, All at Sea Shawl, Elise Shawl, Veritas Triangle Shawl, Minty Green Shawl



Here is a striped Crocodile Stitch Scarf I made some time ago (love how the stripes match up)

My Noro Lion's Foot Stitch Scarf in the middle

Some Skinny Scarves made from Katia Yarn, made with a 2mm hook

Here you can see that my colourful South Bay Shawl really steals the show, it is huge!

If you want to find out more about any of these shawls, just click on the right side bar on the tag called 'Shawl' and it will bring up all the posts that I tagged like that!

Obviously I forgot some, like the Tahiti Shawl I made last summer, it must be somewhere else...

And of course there are the two woollen South Bay Shawls which are draped over my chair where I sit, I didn't include them in the picture because there wouldn't have been enough floor space!

It makes me very happy to think that I got all these shawls waiting for me, that I can pick and choose which one to wear, according to my fancy! And to know, that they are unique, that I made them myself, also fills me with pleasure and joy!

I think this is something we all got in common, when we make things for ourselves and others - it brings joy to the maker and to the wearer.



Hope you liked this post, feel free to leave your comments, it's always great to hear from you!

Have a nice weekend!

Crochet updates: My Scheepjes LinenSoft Shawl, Fortune's Shawlette, Autumn Cowl and a Granny Square Blanket

Hello my dear blog friends,

A warm welcome to you all, time has just flown by recently. There are so many things I want to share with you.... Where do I start?

My Scheepjes Linen Soft Flight of Fancy Shawl (from the Summer CAL 2015)


First off, here is my finished Flight of Fancy Shawl!!!!

You can find the pattern and useful instructions here on the Scheepjes website!

The pattern is by Annelies Baes (who lives in Antwerp which is not far from where I am). She is a very talented designer. You can find her website and blog here.

Her designs are listed on her ravelry page. You might recognise some of her designs from crochet magazines, take a look next time you buy one!

You can check back to this previous blog page where you find how I got started on both this shawl and the Granny Square Blanket.

Here you can see how I continued further until it was finished.

After each motif had been crocheted around in contrasting colour blue, it was time to joint them to one another, all 75 pieces, laid out in 5 rows.

 

 

After joining, it was necessary to crochet picots all around the outer edges to finish off. This took quite some time!!! The finished length is around 170 cm (without blocking!)

Here are some more photos of the finished Shawl, I am very pleased with the result. Since these photos were taken in the evening, the colours look a bit darker.

I picked these colours myself, they are different from the intended colours in the pattern. I wanted something brighter and more colourful which reflects how I am.

Fortune's Shawlette


Recently I came across an intriguing pattern which I just had to try out!!! It's a bit like a corner to corner pattern I'm told (I've never tried one).

Here it is! It's from another fantastic crochet designer, Tamara Kelly, better known as Moogly. You can also find all her many (and often free) patterns on ravelry.

So here is my first foray into lace crochet. The lilac yarn is fine lace wool yarn and I used my 4mm hook. The olive green yarn is soft merino wool by Schachenmayer which produces a far thicker result.... but I went with the orchid lilac wool.

I blocked the shawl and added the border from the pattern. Despite this, the result was less lacy than I had expected. But I still liked it, the shawl was so light and fine and the stitches produced an interesting surface pattern. I gave it as a gift to a good friend!



My Autumn Cowl

For a while now I had been thinking of making a nice cowl in Autumn colours. When we went on a little vacation to Germany in October, I took my yarn along and got started!

It took 48 squares with 2 rounds. These mini Granny Squares were then joined up to make a cosy cowl! I chose Black as a border colour which really brings all the colours to life!

The yarn I used was Apilou by VERITAS.

And another Fortune's Shawlette!

I couldn't resist getting started on a second Shawlette as soon as the first one was ready. This one is made with 100% Merino wool from Araucania. It is so soft and fine. I love the colour changes! I just started the second 100g skein.....

My Granny Square Blanket for a Boy

As mentioned above, I also started making these Granny squares with 4 rounds, on and off. Last week I finally had 100 squares together and I thought that is enough for a blanket! I laid them out, then made the design more random and now I am busy crocheting them all together, 10 x 10. I will show you the finished blanket once it's done.

I hope you enjoyed reading this (long) post. Hopefully you will find some inspiration here! I urge you to try the Shawlette, do not be put off by the chart, there is a brilliant video which shows it all. Once you got started, you will find it quite easy really and very addictive!!!

Happy crocheting!!!

What did you like? Fancy leaving me a little note? I love to hear from you..... yes, that includes you!!! ;)

(PS: I left out my knitting adventures, soon more about that..)

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!!!