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!

WIP Wednesday

So... inspired by Tami, here are my current works in progress.

I like to have a large project and a couple of smaller projects on the go at the same time - sometimes it's nice to have something you can see the end of rather than a seemingly endless project such as a blanket.

My current quick gratification project is a gingham inspired cushion, with the front worked in 4-round solid granny squares and the back worked in simple stripes of treble stitches. It's made in my favourite so-good-for-a-low-price yarn - Stylecraft DK. I'll happily splash out for more expensive yarns for some projects, but considering my cushions suffer a fair amount of wear and tear, I want something that will wash fairly easily and isn't going to make me cry if I need to replace it.

My large on-the-go project is a ripple blanket, working from the neat ripple pattern by Lucy at Attic 24. It's a lovely pattern, easy to pick up once you get past the small amount of math at the beginning. It's a nice repetitive pattern to loose yourself in while sitting in front of the TV.

There are a couple of colour progressions not shown here - the light has been awful the past week or two (too much grey, rainy weather), meaning I've not had chance to get an updated photo. 

I've not planned the colours in advance on this project, meaning that there's been a couple of stalls in my progress as I've not been completely sure of a colour choice. When that happens I generally put a stitch marker in at the end of the row and leave the blanket where I can see it for a few days... at the end of that time I've generally decided that I like it, in which case I finish off the row, or I hate it, in which case it's easy to frog it!

I think I'm about halfway through the main portion of the blanket - I'm aiming for it to fit a single bed, that way it's also a good size to drape over the bottom of a double bed or for snuggling under on the sofa. When I'm a little further through I'll start brainstorming edging ideas.

I've other, smaller things on the planning list for when the gingham cushion is finished (this week, hopefully) and another blanket in the planning stages for a Christmas present - considering how slowly I work, I'll need to start soon to be finished in time for this Christmas!!