Photo a day – Crochet
Crochet
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Pastel Colours
Pastels are usually described as “soothing”, “soft”, “near neutral”, “milky”, “washed out”, “desaturated”, and lacking strong chromatic content. Pink, mauve, and baby blue are typical pastel colors.
Travel theme: Square
The granny square is the classic crochet motif, and it is often one of the first things that a person masters when first learning how to crochet. The classic crochet granny square is made up of double crochet stitches that are crocheted in clusters of 3 and each cluster is separated by a chain of 2. The crochet granny square is worked in the round.
Ailsa’s Travel Theme Challenge
Hugh’s Weekly Photo Challenge: Week 9 – Stripes
This week’s challenge is all about stripes. We can capture an object or a scene which displays stripes. They don’t have to be vertical ones , they can come in all shapes and sizes.
A colourful stripy blanket that I have crocheted with all my leftover wool. My sister’s cat is now the proud owner of the blanket!
Handmade
Vinni’s Colours is a wholesale yarn company based in Cape Town, South Africa. They specialise in hand dyed cotton and bamboo yarns with a palette of over 200 colours.
In 2004, Vinni Nielsen, a nurse and a native of Denmark and an avid knitter since childhood, made her home in South Africa. She soon realised that the South African yarn market was in dire need of a good range of coloured cotton yarn. She began to experiment with dyes in her kitchen and Vinni’s Colours was born. Very quickly she needed to hire staff to skein and ball the yarns that were draped over her furniture and hanging up in the windows to dry. The business moved from the kitchen to the garden shed, where the yarn was dyed in baths. After 6 years she was finally able to move her rapidly expanding business into its current premises, which is two factory buildings in Cape Town.
Her success has had much to do with the dedicated help of a team of supportive staff (as well as faithful customers who love this unique South African product) who live within a stone’s throw of the factory. All processes are done by hand, from the dyeing to the balling and skeining, and the yarn is sun-dried in the factory forecourt. There are a wide range of colours, from soft pastels to deep, vibrant colours that makes their product perfect for the needs of the most artistic crafter. Vinni’s yarn is available in all the major yarn shops in South Africa and is loved by a growing number of clothing and interior designers. Many of these are entrepreneurs who are, in turn, employing many people who would otherwise have no work.
Here is my latest handmade blanket, made with Vinni’s cotton yarn.
Reward
What does reward mean to you?
“Beginning in itself has no value, it is an end which makes beginning meaningful, we must end what we begun.”
― Amit Kalantri
Last year, I worked on a crochet project for my niece.The idea was to make her something that I would think would be her! The inspiration came from this:
I only had about 3 weeks to complete this project! With the help of my daughter we managed to finish it in time!
The biggest reward was to see her face when she received her blanket!
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Soft Pastels
Making a Babette
When I finished my Granny square blanket last year I still had a lot of experimental squares of different sizes and colours and was not even sure what to do with it. I posted a photo on Facebook to ask for ideas and they suggested a Babette blanket.
I have never heard of a babette blanket! I searched on the internet and found a lot of interesting facts and stories. They’re crocheted blankets based on granny squares in different sizes and colour combinations, which create a unique pattern and a very beautiful “mosaic effect”.
I love them because they remind me of Klimt paintings.
http://craftykitty.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/pattern-of-the-week-thinking-of-babette-blanket/
It was also inspired by the work of designers Kaffe Fassett and Liza Prior Lucy This blanket offers a journey in color for the crocheter. The modules are all based on the same motif pattern; they vary only in the number of rounds worked.
In the following blog http://gingerschatz.blogspot.com/2011/09/tutorial-crazy-patchwork-klimt-blankets.html
the last sentence was meant for me. “But … if you have a basket of scraps that look kind of nice together and you’re willing to experiment a bit, then read on!”
My babette does not have the the same motif blocks! I used all the blocks with all the different patterns to make up this blanket.
Back to the drawing board! I did not have enough blocks! After I have drawn the pattern and calculated the number of blocks needed, I had to crotchet even more blocks.
layout of the blanket
It was a big relief when I eventually finished the last block.
Putting it together was quite a job!
Now that it is finished, I am very happy with the end product!
My Babette!
Granny square blankets
According to Edie Eckman in The Crochet Answer Book:
Any granny square begins with a small loop of chain stitches. Basic granny squares alternate sets of double stitches and chain stitches. Variant patterns use different stitch types or produce other geometric shapes such as hexagons. In order to achieve a distinct angle at the corners the designer uses extra chain stitches. Subsequent rounds are added by wrapping multiple stitches around the existing chain stitches. Hundreds of variant motifs are in use and entire books have been devoted to granny square designs.
Last year my sister-in-law challenged me to crochet a blanket for our grandson, while she was doing one for our granddaughter, but I have not done any crochet work in years!!
Frantically I searched for ideas to make a granny-square blanket for a little boy. I came up with this “design” for his “rainbow” blankie. While I was doing this blanket my friends and sisters pitched in and helped crocheting a few blocks.
After completing it , I helped my sister-in-law to put this beautiful girly blanket together for our granddaughter.
These two blankies had to be vacuum packed to fit in a suitcase all the way to New Zealand.
By then I knew that I was “hooked” and started to buy wool for the big one I wanted to make for our king-sized bed.
Although I had the wool I only started with the new blanket during the month of July this year. I have changed the design a few times, which resulted in a lot of extra squares in all different patterns which will have to become my next project!
I have finished this blanket today.
