Grannies everywhere

Inspired by Pip, I have started crocheting granny squares.

I can’t crochet. I have never really wanted to, except for the making of granny squares. We have no one skilled in the art in our family, so I tried to teach myself without success. But now, I have managed it. I went away for Easter and hooked all the way in the car and back. According to my photos, I have finished 9, in 20 days, so it is not really a granny a day. But I will keep adding them to the Flickr pool, and here occasionally, because I am pretty happy with them!

These are my first four (published) squares. Sometime I will learn to not make mistakes, but for the moment I am coping. I am choosing sea-colours for the moment, for a cuddle-blanket for MrJ.

Here are some more:

Granny 5

Granny6

Granny7

Not really sure what I should be doing with those ends. The thought of sewing them all in makes me a bit nervous. If I knew someone with skills, I could ask…

Mittens for little hands

A family tradition has us travelling to the family farm every easter, to relax with our interstate relatives, who we don’t see often. Our farm is on the Murray river, and it has the extremes of country weather - frost and zero temps in the morning, and sunny, bright weather in the afternoon.

This trip I realised that I only have pink, girly mittens. I actually have few of them, as apparently they make good dress-ups. So in the passenger seat, I knitted these mittens from a guessed pattern. I had to knit the first one twice, as my son’s hands are much bigger than I realised, and his thumbs are freakishly short.

Of course, it was totally warm and gorgeous, and the mittens were never needed. It took me the last few weeks to get around to knitting up the thumbs and finishing off the ends. I was planning to make three of these to anticipate lost mittens, but they only get worn once a year, and that’s not for another 12 months, so I can’t be bothered now.

The wool is 8ply from Bendigo Woollen Mills. My mum bought it from the bargain room and couldn’t figure out anything to make with it. I am a bit the same. It is lovely and soft, but the colours just aren’t placid. I have tried to use this many times with not a lot of success. I like the way these turned out, but I don’t have to tell you that one pair of toddler mittens has not used up that much.

Stash enhancement

After getting involved in Chaletgirl’s vintage sheet swap, I started having a bit of a Ebay fabric frenzy. I regretted it when it came time to individually pay out 20 amounts of less than $8, but the fabric has been arriving….

These vintage sheets and yardage. I need to start thinking about what I want to make from vintage sheets. Sleepwear seems an obvious choice, but these are small pieces.

Some hand marbled fabric. This is quite thick, like cotton drill. I might make a cover for something from it. Not sure how sturdy the paint job will be, though.

And I got some patchwork pieces, ranging from 6 inch charms to multipacks of 2.5 inch squares. I have been coveting this Sugarcube Pincushion tutorial, so I spent some time picking out some squares this afternoon.

Brights:

Blues:

Moody blues:

And mutes:

How many pincushions can one girl have? Doesn’t matter, I know some crafters. I am looking forward to paper piecing again, which I haven’t done since primary school.

Found vintage

I had to share my great op shop trip this afternoon. (yes, I am working really hard - this was my lunch break).

I found this fabulous, wool, fully reversible cloak. OMG. It has pockets, all buttons present and original. It was way more than I normally pay for clothing, but a lot less than I would pay for retail ($25). I am so happy with it. Here is the front, sky blue with chocolate contrast:

And here is the other side, chocolate with sky blue trim. Excuse the colour. This is my only full length mirror and the light is awful.

And for the astute, yes, it is slightly small across the shoulders. But nevertheless, gorgeous. Which just means I have to lose weight before winter. From my deltoids.

Also found some other things including this big tin of buttons:

I have picked some of the interesting things out of the tin. I love that little red plastic horse. And what are the sticky numbers? And imagine what I can do with that buckle. Very exciting.

Excited about vintage sheets

I spent the weekend preening and packing up new fat quarters, created from old sheets. This vintage sheet swap is hosted by chaletgirl, and I am very excited. My package of 40 FQ’s is packaged and ready, and I naturally sealed the package before I remembered to take a photo.

A a certain point in the op-shop-raiding, washing, ironing and cutting, I realised I needed something to do with these fabrics. Oops. I have never been a patchworker, but I have lots of scraps. So I have spent the week searching the intarwebs for some great projects. And I finally committed to cutting out some men’s business shirts for a scrap quilt. Can I do this? Maybe. Let’s see, shall we?