wonderland5

Bonjour, Babette!

Stomach flu and unexpected snow = days and days and days inside.  It's like january all over again!  I  needed a lift, perhaps something of the colorful variety.

I think I mentioned after I finished the granny square sampler, that I was going to try my hand at the Babette blanket from Interweave Crochet Spring 2006.  Above are the yarns I picked out.  I have it in my head that this is going to be a wall hanging for our bedroom rather than a throw per se...so I felt okay about blowing the budget on some really nice stuff.  Feels good, great colors.

What with the little man having the stomach flu, we have had a lot of down time, so I have gotten a lot of squares done in a relatively short time:

I think I am gonna like this one.

major undertaking: done!

Well, I have to say that I am excited about this one:  the granny square sampler 'ghan is finished, down to the picot edges.  Here she is, in all of her glory:

Not a great pic, it was almost harder to get it up on the wall to photograph than it was to create.  It's not really all wonky shaped ( well, not this badly anyway) it was impossible to get it all straight.

Here's a detail:

For some reason, the squares look like polymer clay canes to me in these pics somehow. 

More up soon on my flickr page.

granny madness

Isn't it funny how the craftosphere (as Sister Diane so cleverly calls this virtual community we have here) sometimes just explodes all over with a similar obsession or project?  I wonder if this happened before the internet?  Do waves of creativity just sweep over the world at times and cause people to spontaneously begin similar projects?  I wonder.

These past few weeks, it has been the granny square afghan.  I would post some links but I don't even know where to start.  Plus, if you are reading my little blog, you must be a dedicated craft blog reader and so would be better able to pin point good links than I (feel free to link away in your comments if you like.) 

The funny thing is that I am just finishing my own granny square blanket based on this pattern from a 70s BHG knitting and crochet book:

It is called "the granny square sampler" and it is crazy fun to make, as there are nine different patterns and then variations on each pattern.    It definitely kept me interested.

Here are a few of the squares before I got them sewed together:

As you might notice, my colors are a bit different from the original...since I am a fairly new crocheter, I don't have all the leftover little hunks to play around with.

One of the squares creates a 3-D flower effect that I love:

How cool is that?

I am working on the border rows and should be finished in the next few days--I am eager to unveil my new afghan.  See you then!