FO Friday!

I totally didn't expect to have an FO post this week! However, in a fit of productivity Wednesday evening (and having had the bad experience of having to rip out a good two hours' worth of progress on my cross stitch) I managed to finish my Elise Shawl!!

And, to go off on a side note for a moment, it's remarkably difficult to photograph a shawl!!

Anyway, I finished the project from the one skein of Jellybean yarns, with about 5 metres of yarn to spare... which made a lovely little pompom, but I digress. It's a little small for an actual shawl, but perfectly sized to be used as a scarf, which is what I wanted... safe to say I'll be making another with a larger supply of yarn (I already have one in mind).

Blocking it was also a rather frustrating effort - involving a bath sheet, the majority of my living room floor space and a squirty bottle full of warm water... but, this was always going to be a piece that needed a fairly heavy amount of blocking - both to open up the texture and to make the picots show up around the edge.

Here's the before picture:

Please excuse the slightly crumpled background and poor lighting - this was at about 11.00pm Wednesday night... and I certainly didn't have the energy, time or patience to iron the towel before I started blocking!!

And here's right after it was pinned and sprayed with warm water (I prefer to pin most of my crochet when it's dry and then wet it, rather than pining after soaking in water):

Hmm... and I didn't realise the top edge was that wonky when I pinned it!! Actually, the more that I look at it, the more I realise that that's possibly one of the worst pieces of blocking I've ever done!!

Anyway, 18 hours or so and some hunting for a coat hanger later... Tah Dah!!!

I'm unbelievably pleased, impressed and charmed by it! :) So, uh, have a few more photos!

A very quick FO Friday

I've got a pretty busy few days coming up, and my WIP's list is getting slightly out of hand, so here's a couple of the little things I managed to get finished... uh... recently!! *coughs* not that I've been intending to post this for two weeks or anything *coughs*

Since I've been distracted by other projects recently (and work is kinda kicking my butt!) I've only got a couple of FO's from the last couple of weeks. The first is another Bower Bird - made with the intention of trying to correct some of my tensioning issues that cropped up during Lucy's workshop. I think I've solved the problem, though it's something I'm going to have to concentrate on as I go along I guess.

This little guy was made with my trusty Stylecraft Special DK.... mostly because I knew I had enough of that on hand that I wasn't likely to run out halfway through... that and I really didn't fancy the hand cramps that making him from cotton would likely provide!! He's also stuffed with a combination of normal fill and lavender - I couldn't resist!! :)

My other FO of recent weeks is this little guy:

As a first attempt at a (slightly confusing) pattern, I'm pretty happy with how he turned out!! The frill isn't quite as large as I'd like, and no matter what I tried I simply couldn't get his tentacles to curl... but despite that I think he's adorable!!

He's made (from what I can remember two weeks after the fact) from my declining stash of Sirdar Snuggly and is currently hanging from the shelf above my desk... though to be honest I'm tempted to take him into work to hang above my desk there! :)

FO Friday

Inspired by Tami again, here's a couple of projects I finished this week...

I finally finished my Gingham inspired cushion. Took a little longer than expected, mostly because I headed over to my parents' for a few days and got distracted by other things!

I simply joined the front to the back with a round of single crochet and then added a quick shell pattern to the edge. The buttons came with a copy of Mollie Makes and I added some loops of chain stitch to hold everything closed - this is the one part I'm not sure of and might end up unpicking and changing around. 

Overall, for a first attempt at crocheting both the front and the back in different patterns, I'm quite pleased! It's not perfect, but I know what to improve on my next attempt... namely making sure I've got the same number of stitches on both the front and the back!!

The other thing I finished off this weekend was a small crochet frame. I've had the frame itself made for a couple of months, but I wasn't completely sure what to do with it. Then inspiration struck... of course it did so at about 10.15 at night, and it had to be done there and then, no putting it off until a more sensible time the following evening! And so, a small crochet flower, some rusty embroidery skills, a few buttons and some gold thread later, I ended up with this...

I kinda like it! I'd probably go for a more neutral fabric pattern next time, as it's a little busy for the background, and I'm not happy with the placement of the red flower, but for a spur of the moment attempt, I'm kinda happy with it!