skein

Babette tada!

I have finally, finally finished Babette!  Unfortunately the photos are rubbish!  I tried to get some shots over the weekend, but my mobile has gone the same way as my camera, seems to overexpose unless I get close.  Oh well, you get the gist.

 

I used the remnants from Groovyghan,  Stylecraft Special DK ACRYLIC.  Which works out fine for crochet blankets.  I had to buy extra balls of yarn, some colours which I'd used more than others in the Groovyghan.  Turquoise, red, yellow orange... 

 

Instead of plain trebles, I did granny squares, clusters of three trebbles. Much easier to do and less fiddly on the corners, crocheting into spaces!

 

This was started in September, and finished in Gebruary, as part of the ravellenic games.  It has been sitting in a bag in the living room for months. I nearly lost motivation but am so pleased to have finished at last.  The sewing up of the squares, and darning of the ends very nearly killed me!  But I'm so pleased to have a Babette at long last!

 

I may have more in my future, just not for a while!  I'd really like to try one in more subtle colours, and 4ply.  I once crocheted a koigu square. Blocked out wonderfully.  That's what wool has over acrylic.   

 

Babette blanket progress

It's been several weeks since I posted progress photos.  

Progress from three Saturdays ago

1x8 round, 16x6 rounds. SUPERB progress for one day!

Two Saturdays ago - no progress at all, didn't fancy doing any crochet.

One Saturday ago, a little progress.  

4x4 round squares and 2x2round squares. Excuse the photo, took it this morning with the curtains still closed!

The rest of the time was taken up with starting to sew together the squares.  Very little progress made at all. Due to having to DARN IN ENDS. What on earth possessed me to not darn in ends as I went??  I now have the really tedious task of darning as I join, as well as crocheting 93 2 and 4 round squares.  Looks like I'm in for a bit of teeth gritting if I want to finish this! 

Babette progress

Saturday was crochet day, though with our dreary weather it hardly made any difference when it came to choosing colours in daylight!

Babette's made up of 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 round squares. I'm starting with the larger round squares so that I can crochet the bigger rounds without worrying about running out of specific colours half way around.  

12 round squares x2 done

10 round squares x2 done

8 round squares x7 - six done

I have 1x8, 16x6, 49x4 and 50x2 round squares to do. Plus borders.  So far I've crocheted 35% of the blanket, less borders.  Sounds great, but I haven't darned in any ends and there's the sewing up of the squares, a massive task in itself!  I'm going to do the six and some four rounds, then start on the two rounds, so that I can start sewing and seaming.  Otherwise it will sit in UFO status for months!

 

Back to crochet

I've spent the last three weekends crocheting.  Babette has been on my to-do list for years.   Originally I wanted to crochet it with Koigu, and started collecting a bit of a stash, but then I started using it for the odd project.  That, and the odd donation here and there means that the Koigu stash is somewhat depleted. 

Three weekends ago I decide to use the remaaining yarn from my Groovyghan, Stylecraft acrylic.  I can't say that I'd ever knit with it, but I don't mind crocheting with it.  I started off with the bigger 12 round squares, and included three colours I bought but didn't use in my last blanket. A Christmas green, bright red and bright orange.  

Two weekends ago I decide I don't like these three colours in the squares. I also don't like a few of the Lucy pack colours, a plum and a sage green. So I've bought more - yellow, red, orange and turquoise, plus raspberry and fondant (which I hope isn[t too garish).

Lasst weekend I pulled out all of my work to date.  I've now decided that I want a granny square Babette!  I havnen't crocheted any of the bigger squares, am hoping I can incorporate the new shades into these. 

Bad indoor shot of the squares.  I'm really hoping that the Babette will look ok doing granny squares!

+

It's very addictive!

Groovghan!

The photos aren't that great, but I'm having to use my mobile camera as I need to find the lead to recharge the camera (and download the photos via work computer - laptop has the dreadful Windows 8 which is diabolically user un-friendly).

The colours are brighter in real life!

I blame Nickerjac for this - I spotted lots of tweets about a CAL and was hooked!  Another tweeter. Y. was considering the Groovyghan (and indeed she is in the process of crocheting it) and that was it, decision made!

Pattern Groovyghan

Start/finish Jan 13th to March 24th

Hook size 4.5mm

Yarn Stylecraft Special DK, an acrylic yarn in bright colours (to say the least), about 11.5 100g bakks. You can buy a Lucy pack at a very cheap rate (and have lots left over)

 

I worked on this at weekends, but had a few setbacks (which is why it took so long). I started with a smaller hook and didn't like the size, though the acrylic yarn didn't mind small or large hooks, it still looked fine. One strip done, sewn up and too small. That was pretty gruesome unpicking the squares!

 

I worked in strips. One week the dots stirip, then the flower strip and granny square strip.  The patter has a striped strip, but I fancied a ripple strip.

 

Not a ripply edging!  Just the grass!

I decided not to do the border as specified and went for a bobble border instead.  This took a while, not only long rounds but trial and error - what looked ok and what didn't.  I finally alternated a round of trebles, details on my ravelry project page, 

Proper groovy!

 

Catch up

A quick progress post, no photos, I'm too close to finishing a few things!

Really, not much going on at all here,  just three WIPs and one of those is socks which have been ignored for several weeks.

It's been all about my other two WIPs, the Bubbles DK scarf and the Groovyghan, and will be the whole weekend.  No casting on of any other stuff until they're done!

The double knit scarf is very nearly done.  Just four ends and the tubular cast off to go.  I've set up the stitches for the cast off (no way can I accomplish this as per the pattern, with the stitches for front and back on one needle,  dropping them off and putting them back on the needles as I graft, so they're separated onto two needles).  

I'll finish this tonight, and give it a good wash to even out the stitches somewhat;  double knitting and kauni yarn leads to very uneven stitches!

The Groovyhan. Well, let's hope I can finish this over the weekend.  A LOT of ends to darn in and the border to finish. I seem to have got a grip on the border, still takes forever but it's easier to do the bobbles and work out placement now that they're set up.  I thnk I shall do another few rounds of bobble,s and maybe finish with a final round of mini-bobbles every other stitch (or a picot type edging).

IF I finish these off I may cast on something else - for March goals I still have some mitts and a cowl to knit, plus finish the socks currently otn.  Do-able?  Probably not, but we do ahve a long weekend for Easter, so I'll give it a good go. 

 

 

Groovyghan progress #CAL13

Today would have been Jill's 76th birthday, still sorely missed by her friends and her family. There'll be several knitters out there with empty knitting needles, who would normally have kntted her a birthday present. She's in my thoughts today as I write this post, especially as she was never one to procrastinate or be indecisive.  She'd be rolling her eyes, and muttering JUST FINSIH THE BORDER! :)

****

Well no news, really!  I have minimal progress this weekend.  Most of Saturday was spent dithering. Do I do a ripple edging, as in the pattern?  Do I do a bobble edging?  If I do a ripple edging how do I cope with the corners? 

I quite fancied a bobble edging, though wasn't sure how it would look, if my bobbles would look like bobbles, as I've never tried crocheting them.

First attempt.  It took me FOREVER to do that first long round of trebles.  I usually go thought the top toops and that one just berore a chain stitch is tricky. 

Sunday I started the bobble round.  The pattern is a multiple of 6 plus 5 (you could do any multiple of course, but my bobbles will be every sixth stitch) and I had to count and try to make sure that each square had a similar amount of picked up stitches.  Then disaster struck.  With 18 of the 24 squares to go I realised that my yarn would run out.  What a pain!  56g!

Back to the drawing board.  This second attempt involved a different colour and a round of dc rather than tr, followed by the tr/bobble round.  Made it!  

It's that row of crochet under the red!  Far too lazy to spread out the balnket and take a decent photo.

This colour had 60g remaining, and some of the colouris don't have as much, especially the ones I like. So I tried doing another bobble round with a different colour, and it didn't look right. It would look better with that round of dc.  My next plan (and one which I'm sticking to) is to alternate bobbles with a plain roudn of treble.  AND work the plain round with rs facing, bobble round iwth ws facing, rather than working the whole border with ws facing (you need to do that with bobbles). 

I have managed that plain treble round!

The plain round is the red one..

I'm going to leave this one my chair, and might try to get in an hour or two each evening. I'm thinking of doing another three or four rounds of bobbles and trebles and then some sort of picot or tiny bobble edging. I'm presuming there is something out there in the crochet world.

 

Groovyghan progress #CAL13

More crochet!

I'm determined to finish this off in March.  This weekedn I finished the ripple strip (such fun) and then spent a little while dithering over an edge (to the strip) or not.  

I tried sewing the strip straight onto the other stipes and it wasn't too bad at all, but looked a little unfinished, so I thought I'd crochet somc dcs along each side, and then sew them together.  Mr C chose yellow and red, but I opted for yellow and orange.   

First the yellow.  No way was I going to crochet both sides and then find it looked terrible, so I started off with the yellow edge.  What a pain using a hook to pierce the side chains and trebles!  I thoguth I'd try to pick up the same amount as I did for the long shell stripe, which works out at 28-29 sts per square's worth of ripple  - twelve rows.  Then joined them together.

Tada!

and a close up

On the other side, orange, which was joined to the other three strips. 

All joined!

Now this does not mean that the blnaket is nearly done - I have so many ends to darn in and then the big decision on the border.  I'm not sure yet if I shall crochet the ripple border ro do a simple straight border.  I must go and look at other ravelry project sfor inspiration!

 

 

 

Groovyghan progress #CAL13

After a few weeks off I'm back to the final strip of Groovyghan,  This does not of course mean that I'm nearly finished. There's the sewing of this strip (once it's done) to the others, a million ends to darn in and the borders to do.  I didn't make such great progress on Saturday either, but that was down to indecision on my part!

First decision - straight stripes or wavy stripes.

Wavy.

Second decision - how wide?  

Wider than the others (42 not 28 so I get more ripples in the row).

Third decsion -how will I do the colour secquence?

Completely random?  I'm drawn to ones which aren't so random.

Two rows of colour or graduated colour - 2r A. 1r B, 1rA, 2rB, 1rC, 1rB etc

This is what I chose and I really like this way of placing colours.

I really like this way of going from one colour to another.  However, it means an extra two ends for every four rows.  And I decided I wanted a narrow stripe after all, so it was abandoned.  

Plan B - narrow stripe, with two row colour sequence.  Not that I don't love the way I did it before, but for a narrow strip it's too many ends!  I might at some stage consider a ripple blanket using this way of merging the colours.

Then I spent the whole day looking at ravelry and which ones I liked, which I didn't. I like a gradual change of colour, rainbow like (Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain!) but some of the colours didn't quite fit into this scheme.  Second idea was to do two or three similar colours grouped together, so it's still random but looks better to me. 

A whole day crocheting and this is what I managed

It's always a relief to look at it in daylight!

After another couple of hours we have all the yarn colours used, plus a few of them twice. I've tried to 'fill out' the troughs and peaks on the bottom row, not very successfully. It would have stressed me out if I hadn't (even it if's not quite right) in case I couldn't do it afterwards when applying the border.  Note to self though - the width is slightly less in a wavy row!  I'm sure it will not be noticeable overall,

So here we have the progress for this week

Can't wait for next weekend!  I must try to get up earlier, so I can do it in daylight!  My living room sees the sun in the mornings, but I'm not a morning person, usually takes me ages to get my act together on a weekend. 

Groovyghan progress #CAL13

More weekend crochet, though this time I maaaged to crochet a whole strip in one day, leaving Sunday for banal things suchs as cleaning, cooking, baking and knitting.  :)

First things first, I had to frog my first strip (crocheted with a smaller hook). This took all morning!  I had, unfortunately, darned in the ends ...

But I was soon crocheting.  I like to do do all the first rounds, then all of the second rounds and so on.  

So we have seven progress pics.  I'm afraid most were taken indoors with my lamp giving light. 

And a quick outdoors photo once I had joined the squares (no ends sewn in yet..)

Bright, bright, bright.   I'm just mixing randomly.  There's one colour which came in the pack which I've not used much as I don't think it goes well - an olive green.  I must try and get some use out of it on the stripe bit.  

I'm probably going away next weekend (so Mr C can have his man-weekend - beer, wine, comedy tv, sixties and sevenites music shows, guitar playing, singing out loud, chicken drumsticks, falling asleep on the sofa and waking up at 3am without me nagging him to come to bed) so no crochet but I've done the four strips I wanted to in February. I need a while to figure out that last strip anyway, see if I can sew it onto the others!