St Patrick's Day Crochet Scarf

My daughter's class is learning how to make crochet granny squares in school and I've been roped in to help once a week, so since we were so close to St Patrick's Day, I decided to make a granny square using the Irish colours: green, white and orange:

St Patrick's Day granny square

I wasn't sure what to do with it, so I made 5 more like this and 6 using the same colors, reversing them (orange in the middle and green at the outer edge) and then I joined my 12 granny squares to make an Irish St Patrick's Day scarf:

St Patrick's Day scarf

Since I have to stand outside in the cold watching my 2 daughters playing with their school band in our local St Patrick's Day parade, I might as well be warm doing it!

And in case I'm not brave enough to wear the St Patrick's Day scarf outside, I'll always have my crochet shamrock pin:

Crochet Shamrock pin

 

Happy St Patrick's Day!

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Blue Cabled Cardigan Finished!

I am very happy to say that between the time I finished knitting all the pieces of my blue cabled cardigan and the time I sewed all the pieces together, no more than 2 or 3 weeks have passed, with an extra week to wash and dry it and deciding my cardigan needed some buttons.

The knitting pattern did not provide for buttons but mentioned that a shawl pin can be added if the cardigan was to be worn closed, so I knitted as per the instructions, without any buttonholes.

Last night I tried making a flower pin using a large safety pin to keep my cardigan closed but I wasn't happy with it, so this morning I added a crochet button band on one edge and 4 nice wooden buttons on the other side. The cardigan was then ready to be worn in public after roughly 2 months of starting it (please don't judge my awkward posture, I just don't know how to stand without looking weird):

Front

Back

 Now I must get on with my St Patrick's day scarf which I'm not sure I will dare wear in public: I might just hang it in the house as a decoration, but that's something I won't share here until Paddy's Day.



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My Daughter's Giant Granny Square

For the last few weeks my daughter's class has been learning crochet and even though my daughter already had basic crochet skills before starting, she had never made a granny square.

The lesson last Friday was granny squares, and it seems a certain 12 year old in our house is getting addicted to granny squares. Here is what she has been making since last Friday:

Ganny Square Blanket by my daughter

 She has got me to drive all the way to Knitwits and Crafty Stitchers on Monday to get her 2 new balls of each color (she's using King Cole's brightest dolly mix colors). I'm not sure how big she wants this blanket to be but I have a feeling she doesn't want to stop and will soon start yarn bombing our house!

I had never made a granny square before either so she made me try one and here's my first attempt:

My first (wonky) granny square

I know it's a bit wonky and I must admit there is now a bit of healthy competition between both of us (she won this round), but this was at the end of a long day and I was rushing to make this granny square before bedtime.

Granny squares are a lot simpler than they look and I can understand how one would get addicted to making granny square blankets.

That's it for today, I have a lot more knitting and crochet things to share but these are going to have to wait as my afternoon will be taken over by a certain 12 year-old birthday party.

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Knitted Daffodils for Irish Cancer Society

Each year in Ireland, daffodils are sold in every street corner to help raise money for Irish Cancer Society.

This year I found this blog post on Michelle Made This where you can find instructions on how to knit daffodils and the details on how to forward them to Irish Cancer Society so that they can be sold to help them raise money for their organisation.

So far I have knitted 11 daffodils, and I plan to make some more in the next two weeks which I will bring to the coffee morning in Roscommon on March 14th, unless I can find somewhere closer. I haven't contacted them yet (I have a bit of a phone phobia, and try avoiding making phone calls whenever possible, unless it's for a job that pays me to use the phone or a medical emergency). For more more information on any local events you can contact Irish Cancer Society on 1850 60 60 60.

Here's what I made so far:

Knitted Daffodils for Irish Cancer Society

I used the knitted pattern which can be downloaded for free here with a few changes in order to avoid bits of fiddly sewing:

• To make the trumpet, instead of casting off after the last row of petals where you get 7 stitches, I knit one row with one increase in each stitch: kfb (knit front and back of each stitch), which gives me 14 stitches. I can then knit the 4 rows of the trumpet and cast off before closing the daffodil, which does involve minimal sewing.
• In order to make the stem, I turn the closed daffodil on its back and pick up 5 stitches, trying to get them from around the middle, and evenly spaced to try and include one from each petal, then I use the i-cord method to knit the stem using green yarn - you can do this using 2 double pointed needles or 1 circular needle: once you have knit the first row, slide the stitches to the other side of the needle and knit the new row; you will need to knit the first stitch of each rows quite tight to avoid a gap and after a few rows you will start seeing a small tube shape. When you get to the length you want (I knit until I have an 8cm long stem), no need to cast off, just cut the yarn leaving a 8 cm tail, insert the yarn tail in a tapestry needle and thread through all 5 stitches starting from the stitch furthest to your yarn and make a knot to secure. Hide the tail inside the stem (I try bringing it up all the way to the top of the stem to make the stem a bit stronger).
• Add a safety pin. I'm afraid my safety pin doesn't look as neat as I would like it too, but this will not show once the daffodil is worn:

Back of knitted daffodil

The daffodils may look a bit complicated for beginners but they are actually very easy and I find them almost addictive to knit.

I'll get back to knitting some more next week, as I am busy crocheting a few bits which I can't share yet for my daughter's birthday party (which is coming closer than I thought since I realised there were only 28 days in February!) and I also need to sew the blue cabled cardigan I finished last week and gave myself today's deadline to do (5 pieces of knitted cardigan pieces aren't doing anyone any good when they're left in a shopping bag!).

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Blue Knitted Cabled Cardigan Nearly Finished

Back in January, I started knitting the "Chocolate Passion Cabled Jacket" from a free knitting pattern I found on Ravelry. Well, I can't really call mine "Chocolate", as it's blue.

I'm very happy to say I got all the pieces finished since yesterday. I did encounter a few problems along the way, why is bound to happen when you read the instructions too quickly and if you haven't knitted a full garment like this for a while.

The back piece had to be ripped partly and re-knitted twice but overall, I am glad I spent no more than 6 weeks doing all of the pieces. It would have taken less time if I hadn't been doing other projects between each piece, but knitting and crocheting small things in between helped me not getting bored with it.

Here's a picture of all 5 pieces on my kitchen table:

Knitted blue cardigan before assembling

Yes I know, it doesn't look like a cardigan yet, and the most difficult part is yet to be done: the dreaded sewing all the pieces together without making it bunch or having the tell-tale sewing lines showing on the outside!

I am hoping to get it all together before next week, but first I must procrastinate by knitting lots of little daffodils and crocheting children's hats for charity!

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Who Said Crochet Was Faster Than Knitting?

I think I have to disagree with what I'm hearing from most people, including my own daughter, who I now call "The crochet Ninja". I wouldn't mind being called a Knitting Ninja, if there was such a thing, and if I knitted fast enough to earn me that title.

More and more knitting and crochet projects are being added to my list of things to craft, and while I struggle to try and add more hand knit items to my Etsy store, most of the things I'm adding to my list are things I won't get paid for.

At the moment that list is in my mind, and hopefully one day before the middle of next month I'll have most of these done:
- Knit some daffodils for Irish Cancer Society (deadline mid-March)
- Crochet/knit some hats for Hats for Heroes for children with cancer, (no particular deadline but not to be put on the long finger as I usually do),
- Knit a Katniss Cowl for my daughter's birthday (deadline 11th March),
- Crochet treat bags for same daughter's birthday (deadline 11th March),
- Knit/Crochet some green headbands and Shamrock badges for St Patrick's Day (deadline fast approaching)
- Finish knitting my cardigan for which I have now finished the sleeves and realized I have to rip the top half of the back a second time, as my re-knitting wasn't following the right chart (there's always next winter!)
- *Finish crocheting the hat I started for my daughter:

2 evenings of crocheting a hat (Who said crochet was faster than knitting?)

* She doesn't need a new hat, but as she was hovering me while I was looking for crochet patterns on Ravelry, she saw the TweetHeart pattern I found and ordered me to make one for her, which I thought may be good practice for the charity hats I plan on making.

When I have all of the above done, I will still have to write and publish a few knitting patterns and hopefully I'll have time to think of new lovely knitted (and maybe crochet too;-) things to add to my Etsy shop.

In an ideal world, I would manage to finish most of these things on time, but unfortunately we don't live in that ideal world and I'm spending far too much time on Facebook, which is probably the main reason why the hat I started crocheting 3 days ago is far from being finished, and given the fact that I have to head into town, I don't think I'll be finishing it today either, unless I magically transform into a Crochet Ninja.

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Progress On My Blue Cabled Cardigan

Last month I started knitting the Chocolate Passion Cabled Jacket from a pattern I found on Ravelry and last time I wrote about it I had only knitted the bottom half of the back.

I have now progressed to nearly finishing the second front piece. It's a very unusual shape and due to my own stupidity I have had to rip parts of the first front as I was reading the instructions the wrong way. I won't blame the pattern writer, just my own little twisted mind that would not listen to logic.

I had the back finished (or so I thought!) and was knitting the first front piece when I realized that I had messed up with the back's underarms bind offs: I worked the underarms as if they were shaping decreases so I will have to rip about half of that piece, but I wanted to have both front pieces of the cardigan done before redoing the back, because the first side being still fresh in my mind, I thought it would be silly to work on the back before doing the second side.

To give you an idea of how it will look I took a selfie this morning, with the right side of the cardigan:

Right side of Blue Cabled Cardigan

I know it doesn't look like much right now, especially with the red lifeline still in it (that also acts as a row marker to make it easier to measure), but I'm hoping it will all come nicely together when finished.

It's not progressing very fast, as I am also working on a few things for my daughter's birthday coming up in March, which I hope will give me ideas for new knitty and crochetty stuff to add to my Etsy shop, and I'm also working on a bunch of knitted headbands too, while trying to find the time to finish my double knitting online class.

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