kadicrafts♥

Knitting, knitting and more knitting.

Wednesday, 7 March 2012

Knitted teddy and crocheted blanket

(I never know what to title my posts with!)

Today is Wednesday, and I decided that I need to post an update of everything that's been happening! I've been knitting a teddy for my Grandma's birthday - which is tomorrow - and got it finished over the weekend. I took a couple of pictures along the way, but completely forgot to take a picture of the final product. These are the latest pictures that I took: 

So, this is the teddy without the face, the arms and the sewn-up head.
...and this is the teddy with the face (white features and black safety eyes), picking up stitches at the side to attach the arms.

I will eventually like to post the pattern for this teddy, but I'd like to post a picture-guided pattern. I need to make a teddy for my Mum soon for Mother's Day, so I can do the pattern/pictures for that one. So stay tuned!
So, I had that teddy sat on my desk for about four days, and I completely forgot to take pictures of it completed. Yesterday, I wrapped it up to send off in the post to my Grandma - only then did I remember that I hadn't taken any pictures of it! Damn. Oh well. Like I said, I'll do a picture-guided pattern once I make the next teddy for my Mum.

The next project that I started, was my crochet Granny Stripe Blanket. Last week I posted a picture of the blanket sample that I made. I was planning on waiting until I had money to buy lots and lots of yarn for it, but I got too excited so I started with one of the balls of yarn that I already have. Naughty me. I took the yarn and my crochet hook to London for the weekend (I was visiting my boyfriend), and started the first few rows. The pattern requires you to chain 240 stitches. Every 20 stitches, I would place a marker, in order to make it easier to count the stitches at the end. Each set of 20 that I chained, I would count and count again, to make sure I had dead on 240. The pattern says that if you are out by one stitch, it can mess up the pattern (as it requires it to be a certain amount due to the repeat). Luckily, I had the right amount of stitches, so went along, chaining the next few rows. It took me a while to realise that the pattern said to chain the foundation chain loosely, and I later realised why. I had gotten to my second stripe when I noticed that my work would not lay flat, and that it was curving/bunching to one side - damn too-tight foundation chain.

So, unfortunately, I had to rip back the five rows that I had done, and start over again, with a bigger sized hook for the foundation chain (and then switched to the regular hook once I'd done the foundation) and start that dreaded Count all over again, checking and re-checking my stitch count, placing markers at every 20 stitch interval, making sure that the chain wasn't too tight. Nightmare. But, I am now on the 3rd or 4th row, and all is right in the world:
The next colour in my stripe sequence is this lime green colour. It looks lovely next to the purple. This blanket is going to be really brightly coloured. There will be 60 stripes in total, so depending on how many different colours of yarn that I will use, will depend on how many stripes of each colour I need. I'm undecided as to whether to do a random pattern, or to have a sequence of colours and an order to follow. Random would be good, but I'm quite OCD so I'm not sure if I can *do* random!

That's all for this week. Looking at my blanket makes me want to crochet more of it, but I have an essay to write with a deadline on Sunday, so I really ought to get cracking on that! I'm enjoying crochet so much at the moment (this is my first project) that I want to crochet at every possible opportunity, rather than studying. I have to restrict myself and 'reward' myself at the end of the day by crocheting before bed. Oh what an exciting life I lead!

Until next time - where I will have hopefully done more to my blanket, or have something new to report on this teddy for my Mum.

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