Hello everyone
Hope you've all had a relaxing weekend. We have had a lovely time, family 80th birthday celebration yesterday, short walk and a look round the 'Blue' exhibition at The Devon Guild of Craftsmen this morning
http://www.crafts.org.uk/ and a bit of extreme crochet this afternoon (the real reason for this blog!). Perfect!
I thought it would be great to link this post with Handmade Monday over at 1st Unique gifts
http://www.1stuniquegifts.co.uk/blog/about-handmade-monday/ as I know you all enjoyed the blog post about Chester. This project, whilst smaller, is created on an even bigger hook than Chester! Think what size Chester could turn out if I used the hook and yarn I used for these projects! Wowee! I'd have a job to get him in the house, let alone the car! Anyway, I'll stop waffling. I know you want to find out about these projects!
Well as I have already said, the projects are quite small but the hook and yarn is not! You may or may not know that I run workshops from time to time and I have an Extreme Crochet one coming up soon at the end of April and hopefully another one coming up in June, so I am starting to think of projects which can be achieved in one day. Remembering of course it also takes a while to sort out all the yarn! Anyway have a look at the first one and see what you think.
It is difficult to tell the scale in this photograph but the next one may be more helpful. I used a 25mm hook and 20 strands of dk yarn at a time. I thought this would look rather nice on the wall of a conservatory maybe. I did think it would look even better if I edged it in the same yellow as the centre but I haven't got enough!
Does this show the scale a little better? I hung it on the wall in place of one of the pictures and held up a bottle of wine next to it so you could see how big it actually is.
A close-up of the flower shows the stitches in this photo. Counting sewing in the ends it took about 1.5 - 2 hrs to complete. So, may be possible to make a couple in a one day workshop depending how much chat and eating cake is going on!
This next project, a Granny Square seat pad cushion for a garden chair (or a kitchen chair for that matter) or a kneeling pad for gardening, was suggested by In the Sky
http://inthesky1.blogspot.co.uk/ so I thought I'd give it a go.
You would not believe it, but this is only 2 rounds of a granny square! It probably took a similar amount of time to work up as the flower - perhaps nearer the 1 - 1.5 hours. It's the sewing in of the ends that take the time.
Here it is on a chair! Unfortunately we have no square chairs in the house, this was the nearest I could find, but at least it gives it some perspective. No stuffing needed for this cushion!
If you would like a few statistics, the flower took 28m of 20 strand yarn and the seat pad took about 32m. The flower is actually the same distance across as the seat pad. Accidental not planned!
If you have any other simple ideas for 'small' projects I would love to hear them and if any of you would be interested in a workshop please email me at www.alisonjoyw@hotmail.co.uk I will get back to you then with a price and let you know what dates are available. If you have a group of like minded friends you could get together, I would be willing to travel a reasonable distance from Devon and could arrange a date to suit you all.
Oh! One last thing, some people have been having problems commenting on my blog. If you do experience any problems could you please email me (as above) instead and explain the problem you're having and then I can try and sort it out.
Thanks for reading! I'll have a look at some of the other lovely blogs at Handmade Monday over the next few days.
Catch you soon! Alison x