Stash busting

Recognise the colours?  This is left over yarn from the Zig Zag Granny throw I made for my Grandmother's 100th birthday.  Seeing as it is allegedly returning to me now that she has sadly passed on, I decided to use the left over yarn to make a hottie cover.

I haven't perfected my technique yet, the edges are too square and messey but it's quite warm and much nicer than  a rubber hot water bottle on my back.

I started with a foundation chain of 35 stitches.

1st row sc
2-end of front (a panel big enough to fit end to end minus the neck of the hot water bottle) alternating sc and trebles to make the textured stitch.

I then made two more panels for the back half the size of the front each.

I crocheted button holes on one by missing crochet through two stitches and just making two chains the same way I make basket handles basically.

I think I will have to decrease to shape the tops.  I'll keep you posted and when I get it right I will post the pattern.

Meanwhile in an effort to use up more yarn....

Here is the front of a cushion I am making.  I have wanted to make a granny square with a flower on it for ages and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to play.  I found the pattern on pintrest.  It's not very easy to understand though so I only made the one.   I am busy crocheting the back now.  Just plain alternating rows of trebles and singles.

Work has been busy as ever, Winter is usually a quieter time for us but this year it just doesn't quit.

Mt Tongariro erupted last week.  That meant writing an emergency plan in case it happens again.  Apparently it's not a matter of if but when.

We seem to be having more than our fair share of natural disasters lately.

The last (almost) week of peace

Can you believe it's April already? This is the last week of the first school term and on Thursday, children all over the country will pack away their pencil cases, shut their books and skip all the way home in happy anticipation of their two week holiday.

This shortened week is my last bit of peace.  The hubs was on holiday last week and yesterday.  I find it difficult to accomplish much of anything with him distracting me but we did get some cleaning done, I still have the bathroom walls and ceiling to wash down, the windows to wash and the bedrooms to set right.  Unexpectedly the WG has a half day today, a forgotten (by her) school notice from Friday was revealed yesterday, it's put a considerable damper on my plan for today. With the hubs going back to work I had intended to really knuckle down and get some cleaning done.  That will have to wait till tomorrow and just a vacuum and dusting for today.

As you can see the dogs and I are just having our morning coffee and the tidying up will begin imminently.

LB and his fiancé have returned safely to their home and children in Australia.  The serious business of saving for his wedding will begin in earnest as we've now got official invitations and he has asked the hubs to be a groomsman...again!  I've been to many weddings since the hubs and I got together, very few of them with the hubs, he's a popular choice for a position in the wedding party and I usually get to be by myself at these things while he eats at the bridal table and gads about with bridesmaids.  At least this time the bridesmaids are 7 and 10 year old nieces!

I haven't crocheted in a few days and my fingers are beginning to itch to feel the wool slip through them.  I have over 30 squares of various colours sitting in my basket with more to come.  Alas my coffee cup is nearly empty and I have leftover lamb from the spit to turn into stew and stock as well as the cleaning.  Sad face because my crochet will have to wait a few hours yet.

Pranks and the no sew wallet

Where I work, we are often busy and the work is mentally taxing.  As a consequence we make our fun where and as we can.

One of my colleagues has been away at Police College on his Sgts course and we discovered he'd left his drawer unlocked.  Last year we got hold of his diary and covered it in pictures of the "Thunderbirds", you'd think he'd have learned!  So now his diary is covered in pictures of Justin Bieber.  We sealed it with clear contact and I crocheted a pretty "cosy" for his diary, in pink, complete with a large pink flower.  He's back at work tonight and we cannot wait!

Now my contribution to our little prank was literally dreamed up, literally and crocheted in the space of a couple of hours.  It's basically a wallet for his diary.  I crocheted a chain of 50, then single crocheted all the way around the chain to end up with a rectangle. Moved into granny stitch and within a few hours I had produced the A4 diary cosy!

When I got home from work I started again with my leftover gelato cotton to make something smaller. To reproduce it but this time taking a bit more notice of what I was doing.

See the bottom?  By crocheting around the entire chain I made a base.  I then switched to tr and crocheted two into a single stitch at the corners.  Effectively crocheting in the round.  Then I switched to grannies.  The key was having the base chain in a multiple of 3.  This little wallet began life as a foundation ch of 28, with one being used as the first sc when I began to crochet into the foundation chain.

In various sizes this would make an awesome Ipad or Kindle cover, cellphone sock, laptop sleeve, coin purse, make up bag or even a large messenger type bag.  The possibilities are endless and I plan to explore them.

You could use any type of stitch you want, I just decided granny stitch is one of my quickest to do and it grows so quickly.  I'd like to try all sorts of different things and once I have the method for creating the bottom perfected I will post a tutorial.

This one is going to be a make up bag to carry my seldom used lipstick and mascara about in.  I'm not big on make up so a tiny bag like this will do nicely.

I will make a liner and sew it in.  If nothing else my rudimentary sewing skills are getting a good work out lately.

The edging along the top is crab stitch, something I have never done before as an edging but am liking a lot.  It would look amazing on a headband.

It took me some time and patience to figure it out, there are instructions in my book the A to Z of crochet but I have seen instructions on line as well.

Stash busting

Making the granny stripe for the wee girl, and various other blankets, has left me with a stash of dribs and drabs of wool, some the better part of a ball, others just a small amount.  I was surfing yesterday evening and found this alternative granny on one of my favorite blogs, The Little Room of Rachel.  This is exactly what I need to get rid of some of those bits and pieces.

It looks a little like a Maltese Cross.  When you join the squares, the holes create a diamond pattern.

I started straight away and before bedtime, I had a dozen 4 inch granny squares.

They are extremely quick to make and much easier than they appear.  No fiddling around with different colours at this point, I am making solid blocks of colour.  They are also firmer than your average granny square.

I love Granny Squares because they are quick and awesomely portable.

It's also a bit warm still to be draping myself in wool as I crochet.

I'm also conscious I have a couple of unfinished projects on the go.  I have an Attic 24 striped bag to sew handles on to help keep my wool stash tidy.  I had my granny bucket bag to line and the blue and white granny stripe to carry on with when it cools down.

I've gone off the idea of the top, the bamboo cotton will be put to good use though.

So I got to work and lined the granny bucket with a remnant of dark green material I had in a cupboard.

I made a basic barrel bag open at one end.

Turned it inside out and sewed it in with the right side showing inside the bag.

I'm not the tidiest sewer so I plan to get some binding tape or pretty binding edging and sew it over my hand stitching at the top.

I made it fairly large, I wish I could give you measurements but I did it by eye seeing as I had no idea how to get the diameter of the circle base.

Somewhere in Auckland my math teacher is shaking her head and saying, I told you that you would need to know about Pi one day in the future!

The husband was going to help me (he's a math wiz!), but he's been busy all week, doing station visits both Monday and Tuesday.  On Sunday he spent the entire day at a fund raising gala for a new volunteer fire fighters station.  So I went ahead and did it myself.