Crochet along

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On the 8 September 2015 one of the blogs I follow, “Cherry Heart”, invited all to join in her CAL, I read, no I glanced over the post and kind of dismissed it, then I read “The Little Room of Rachell” blog, another blog I follow and thought, “why not?”. I have a yarn stash that I need to work through and it seems fun. The crocheting part started on the 22 September and will end on the 26 October, its only one month, and I kind of like crocheting row by row.

I dug into my stash and found that I had enough Rowan pure wool DK, my colours are not the same as Sandra’s. I replaced some of her colours with others, for example :- I didn’t have a turquoise, but had a dark purple and I also didn’t have a clay colour but had a grey.

Would you like to joining the CAL?

The blanket is designed by Sandra Paul of Cherry Heart blog. For more information click on the link, here you will find everything you need to know, even what a CAL is. The pattern notes and instructions are really good with photos and even tips regarding your tension. As for the actual crocheting part, it’s now on week 3.

Crochet along?

Love
NikkiM

I’m still hooking!

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I’m still hooking! This time its tray clothes, you can also use them for placemats. I follow this blog called “Little Woolie” by Julie Harrison. She crochets the most amazing things. In 2013 she started crocheting these Harlequin dish clothes using a crochet method called “Tapestry crocheting”, it’s like Fair Isle knitting, just in crocheting.

I started crocheting a dish cloth using her “Tapestry Crocheting” tutorial, starting with 41 chains as per her instructions, as I’m used to a double knit cotton yarn, the item looked a bit big and “hard” so I decided instead of doing a 3 x 3 harlequin pattern, I will go 3 x 4 and use them for tray clothes.

I used Strawberries and Cream DK – 50% Recycled cotton/50% Acrylic, made in Turkey for Kismet yarns using a 5mm (UK6 / USA H/8) hook.

Love to all
Nikki M

Flower doilies

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Spring has arrived in all its glory on the south side of the world! Not sure how I feel about the summer, they are pretty hot and if you are from the north side of the world you would think it’s always summer here! What I’m saying it’s not cold here at all! The heat interferes with my crafting especially the knitting and crocheting.

I’m kind of enjoying the crocheting at the moment and decided to crochet a hexagon blanket, it had to be a solid hexagon block. I hate changing colours from one row to the next so after a long period of searching and looking I decided on a hexagon flower pattern, had to kind of work my own one out, so I will share the pattern with you at a later stage, as a child my granny used to love crocheting. This pattern is for flower doilies that were placed all over the house, they were everywhere. At the time I hated them, now I think they pretty cute.

A year or two ago a bought 7 (3 x 50g balls each) bright colours of wool, I always knew I wanted to crochet something with it, but never knew what it was going to be. I also bought a brown bark colour to join the hexagon blocks and to crochet the border, this I will show you when I get there. The wool is from “Nurturing Fibres, Supertwist Double knit range” and is 100% DK merino. Each ball gives me 3 blocks with a little left. So far I have crocheted 3 of each colour, that makes it 21 blocks I still have 42 blocks to go.

I better get back to the hook!

Love to all.
NikkiM

Getting ready for Christmas

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I’m getting ready for Christmas. As we will not be home for Christmas this year, no, we are not going to Europe this time, we are staying home in sunny South Africa. Not on the east coast (we lives on the east coast side ), but on the west coast. This means we are going to Cape Town. We are renting a house in Camps Bay and hopefully the whole family will be coming down, our American and Brazilian family is coming, (this is my new daughter ’s family). Nice to get a daughter when they all grown up!

As we will be driving down, I decided to make everyone a little Christmas stocking. The pattern comes out of one of Nancy Halvorsen books called “Happy Holidays to you” 2003, it’s the Mini Christmas Stockings on pg 3. All the fabrics are from Nancy Halvorsen collection, I have been collecting her fabric for a few years now. The buttonhole appliqué was done by machine using a black machine cotton thread. I will find something small to put into each little stocking on our drive down.

Hope all is going well with all of you?

Love
NikkiM

Hope chest

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I’m working on my “hope chest”. The last few weeks I have been crocheting a baby cot blanket. I know they have only been married for 2 months and you should not start making things before the time, but I can’t help it. I’m in granny mode! I bought a bunch of flannels to crochet borders around and …., don’t get me started. Let me tell you about the blanket.

I bought 5 colours of a bamboo cotton yarn from a local supplier “Nurturing Fibers” called “Eco-Fusion”, the yarn is available on line from “Be Inspired” or you can visit Chantal at 18 Msinsi Road, Kloof, South Africa on a Thursday afternoon, 1pm – 3pm or Saturdays 9pm – 12pm.

The quantities and colours are as follows – 3 balls of Bessy (yellow), 3 balls of Anvil (grey), 3 balls of cornflower (blue), 3 balls of Lime (green) and 8 balls of vanilla (white), they are 50g balls.

I used Angie from “Le Monde de Sucrette” V stitch stripes (version 2) pattern, chaining 148 (49 x 3 + 1), using a 3mm (11UK) crochet hook. Crochet in the following order – 4 rows of cornflower, 2 rows vanilla, 4 rows bessy, 2 rows vanilla, 4 rows anvil, 2 rows vanilla, 4 rows lime, 2 rows vanilla starting again with cornflower. I didn’t start or end with the vanilla. The border was crocheted out of “Around the corner – Crochet Borders” by Eddie Eckman, border number 27 on pgs 74 – 75 using the vanilla. Finished size 35”x 46” (89cm x 117cm).

Happy hooking! 😜

Love
NikkiM