DIY Granny Square Necklace

The springy weather and sunshine were making me feel the need for some new, colourful accessories and I had plenty of bright shiny embroidery floss lying around, so I got out my crochet hook and made a good old granny!

I've got it on a long chain, because I am very much a fan of long chains to jazz up plainer tops. Any other long chain fans out there?

Weekend Music - Mumford and Sons

Who out there is loving the new Mumford and Sons album as much as I am?

I swear, there is never enough folk-tacular-banjo-rock-out music in the world.

I'm particularly enjoying this one - Hopeless Wanderer. 

It's a great album for sunny day crochet methinks! (You can also see a little peek of my first attempt at crocheting hyperbolic coral on the left there. It's taking forever but I'll upload once it's done!)

'...and I will learn to love the skies I'm under.' 

What's your favourite sunny day crochet music?

Friday Crochet

My sea penny blanket is growing...

...ever so slightly growing...

Well, it's come along way since it started at least! 

Sea Penny Blanket Update!

Quite a while back I posted about making a sea penny blanket, from Julia Crossland's tutorial. Little did I realise that my idea to make a blanket to cover about a third of a queen-sized bed was indeed foolish. 

It's going to take me fooooorever!

But as you can see, it's been slowly growing...

In fact, I think it's beginning to look a little like a sea creature. It's certainly very hairy, because I gave up on sewing the ends in as I went. 

I shall keep updating the progress! Has anyone else made anything out of sea pennies? Hopefully something much more sensible, like a scarf, or a shawl, because I know you are all far more sensible than I ;)

Where Are All My Crochet Hooks?! - DIY Crochet Hook Pouch

 I am forever losing my crochet hooks! It's really quite frustrating, but I have put it down to the fact that I have nowhere to keep them. I therefore decided to make a little pouch for them. 

It's super simple, pretty much a pencil case type thing, that you could keep anything in, really. I used this really helpful tutorial from over at Skip to My Lou (and modified it a little) to help me work out how to do the zip and lining. I'm an extremely novice sewer, so I'm just going to do a quick run down of what I did here, but for a more detailed version that might actually make sense, definitely check out the Skip to My Lou tutorial!

I picked these fabrics, the zigzags for the outside and diamonds for the lining from the wonderful selection I have collected from Patchwork on Central Park. 

I then cut four pieces of fabric (two for the outer, two for the lining), measuring approximately 23x11 cm. 

 You then need to sew the zip between the lining and outer, by sandwiching it in between two pieces, right sides facing each other, like so. 

 Pin these pieces together, sew it all up, and repeat, sewing the other two pieces to the other side of the zip.

 Once you've finished, you should be able to open it out into something that looks somewhat like this...

Then, lay both the outer pieces right side to right side, and both the lining pieces right side to right side, and sew around all the edges, leaving a gap of 7 or so centimetres so you can turn it out the right way when you're done. Make sure the zip's open before you sew, or you won't be able to turn it out!

 All sewn up!

 And voila, there we have it!

 Mine's actually not quite finished at this stage, as my zip wasn't long enough, so I ended up hand sewing the ends of the zip together. 

I hope some of that made sense! And I hope I will now be able to locate my crochet hooks, although I suppose that depends on whether I actually manage to put them back in the pouch after I've used them...this seems unlikely. 

 At the moment my pouch isn't very full and it's pretty wide, so I'm considering adding a little button, so it can fold in half. I will update if I do!

Grannies and Weekend Music

My granny squares from this week. I'm slowly making my way towards having enough for a giiiiant blanket!

A Comedy Festival themed song this week (can you tell I'm a bit obsessed?) 

Switzerland by Dead Cat Bounce. Love love LOVE these guys, I've seen them at the festival for the last three and can highly recommend them. They rock, like an old man's chair.

A Granny A Day Update

My granny squares from this week. I must say I've surprised myself by actually remembering to do one per day. Are you doing 'A Granny A Day' too?

A Granny A Day

My granny squares from this week...