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.

A secondary introduction to this blog

I haven't posted in a very long time. I partly put this down to my university course, as I have been very busy since September, but I also blame myself, for not putting in the effort once a week to write a blog post.

Over Christmas, I picked up the needles again and started knitting some more. I also began learning how to crochet, and even have taken an interest in quilling. I've been reading through a couple of craft blogs when I have been looking for patterns and designs, and have had a nosy through the rest of the blog for different people. It made me realise, that I wish I had a blog and I remembered, duh!, that I do have a blog; a very neglected one. I felt bad an immediately wanted to write in it to liven it up again, and share my crafty wonders with the world!

I have changed the URL of my blog to 'kadi2tog'. I'm wondering how long this will stay (knowing me, not very long). I thought it was quite amusing, as when you remove the 'di' from my name, it sounds like 'k2tog' anyway. ...yes, a very lame joke ...moving on...

So yes. I am back, with an introductory post telling you all that I am  back, and that I promise, promise, promise (pinky promise!) that I will start blogging at least once a week. I realised that you can't just wing-it with a blog - it's best to have some sort of idea what you want to post about each week, so you don't end up rushed for time, or end up sitting at the keyboard with writer's block, not having made anything in the past week. So, I shall take my organisation OCD and whip up a plan each week of what to write.

I am rambling. I will stop. I have done so many things recently, but can't fit them all into one post, so I may have to backtrack and cover what I've done over the past few months. My latest projects have been to design my own teddy for my Grandma's birthday next month (the design of which I plan on writing up and posting online), and an increased interest in crochet. I want to knit a blanket in crochet - but first I'd need to buy supplies and to practice my treble crochet to get it perfect, before embarking on such a massive project. I'm really looking forward to it, though.

Oh, also, I'm getting a flat with my partner soon. Yay! I shall be moving out of my student accommodation and setting up home with him within the next few months. So exciting. I mustn't get too ahead of myself because we're still trying to find the ideal place. As soon as we find it, everything is Go!

That's enough for today. I'm off to do some more knitting of this teddy. ...I'll post a cheeky quick pic just to show you what I'm up to:

This is the teddy so far. The pink bits of threat are markers for where I'm going to place the safety eyes (they're on the way in the post). I'm knitting out the right arm by picking up stitches with a crochet hook and creating something to work with. I found the method here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt5h31YgclM&list=PLAB263A84CBC405EA&index=9&feature=plpp_video

I'll post a full entry about this little fella once I get going - must remember to take pictures at different stages! This is the little guy that I'm writing the pattern for, but I may need to make a couple of them before I get the pattern right (because that's what the professional knit designers do, right?). So, that'll be a fun task for me. Plus I'll have lots of cute lil' teddies laying around.

...and here's another photo of the sample I made yesterday for the Granny Stripe Blanket that I want to make:

I really need to fix up my edges. I did it wrong, I think. I'm no crochet master, but I'm enjoying it so much. So long as I remember to keep my tension steady, everything should be fine. I found the pattern here: http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/2010/05/granny-striping.html

The colours she uses are just lovely. I'd love to do something similar. It'd cost about £25 to get all the acrylic yarn that she used. A bargain, to be honest, as yarn isn't cheap. I need to settle into my new place first before I make any big spends like that. We're saving as much as we can to make sure we have enough. I'm itching so badly to go buy some yarn to start this project. I mean, I have a big plastic box full of yarn, but I need about 17 million balls of different colours for this blanket. I have nowhere near 17 million, I have about 20. So, I must be patient. At least it's something to look forward to, though!

That's enough from me today; I have to go to bed because I have lectures in the morning. Boo. I mean, yay for education, yay for learning, etc. etc.

Until next time, guys. Happy crafting ~ ♥

Lots to do, lots to do! Update of the past week

I've got so many new projects lined up, and have a fair few things to update you on. Fortunately, my projects aren't large as I'm going to make house-warming gifts for my house mates in September, so they're little teddies. Unfortunately, I don't have the right colours of wool for them, so I can't get them done quickly anyway. The 'queue' function on Ravelry is a god-sent to be honest, I don't bother writing my projects down now, I just save it all on there and can access it whenever.

Firstly, I'll update you on my socks. I had a mad knitting spree when I finished the first one, and knit about 2/3rds of the second one in about two days. Then stopped. No idea why, but I didn't feel like it, and I'm so close to finishing:

I need to knit another half an inch or so before decreasing for the toe. I need to give myself a kick to finish these, then I can wear them in bed when it's quite cold. :)

I absolutely loev the colour of this wool. I'll definitely be buying some more of this wool (DROPS Fabel, I think?) To make other stuff in the future. ...or just make more pairs of socks with it!

I also started designing my own blanket squares. I'm making a charity blanket as I've mentioned before, and I've made notes on the design for it. I need three different kinds of squares, and I was making notes to design my own. This is how far I've got:

 Above are my notes and general scribblings and the start of the square. It's a basic "YO, K2tog" pattern but it looks pretty cool. I did a little test-knit, and I should've taken a picture before I unravelled it all. But yes, hopefully it'll be good enough to make as part of a blanket. But I'm not sure about the colour, because the wool is horrible cheap stuff that doesn't feel nice at all, but I use the wool for test knits, or making teddies, as they don't have to be softy soft.

Speaking of teddies, I've started making a 'Miffy' bunny for my house mate, but encountered a problem. I ran out of wool. I've made the head:

...which needs stuffing and the face, but, I don't have enough wool to start on the body:

This isn't enough for the body. Plus, I bought the wool years ago and have no idea what it is, so I've got to go to my local knitting shop and ask them if they can help me get something similar. So this project is on standby until after the bank holiday.

So, I don't have many projects that I can do at the moment, other than finish the socks, which I'm going to crack on with right now.

Oh, one final thing, I was reading through some blogs earlier and they mentioned wordle. I used this ages ago, but now they've introduced a feature which lets you add your blog URL. I did this, and created one from this blog:

They're so fun to make, and you can sit tweaking them for ages, changing the colours, angles, etc. I've been playing with it for quite a while now. It's very interesting. And of course, the largest words would be knitting and socks and patterns. So yeah. That's about it from me today. Happy Knitting! ♥

Chubby Chirps

Yesterday I started to make a 'chubby chirp'. I've just found the link where I found the pattern from, and you can find it here. It was my first time using dpns, and I was so chuffed with what work I'd done.

I used some old wool that I had sitting around. I need to stuff it and then sew up the top, but alas, I have no stuffing! I need to go buy some. I'd go right now, but I'm house sitting waiting for a parcel, so I can't go anywhere yet.

I want to create a page of all my projects that I have to do, to see what I need to finish, etc. I have a habit of starting a project and not finishing it, because I get sidetracked by other projects - typical, I suppose.

But yeah. I'm so pleased with my work with dpns and want to make something else, now. That little thing up there that I made took me about 3-4 hrs! Very long process (and to be honest I was watching tv at the same time as knitting) but very rewarding. I look forward to finishing it. For now, I'm off to start on another square of my Refuge blanket.