A-Z challenge G

G is for granny

Crochet might be thought of as granny-ish by some, but it is in the wind like never before and there are more and more stylish, wonderful and fun designs. Yarn has vastly improved since your granny's time and honestly the good old granny stitch is fashionable.

But let me show you some granny stitches, because granny stitch is 

not just for grannies and it is not just the classic granny square.

This is a granny square, a really big one I made in alpaca.

(yes, it is the one I frogged yesterday)

Here is the granny stripe pattern.

Here is the granny ripple stitch

Grannies are very in style at the moment, the colours you choose help define the project as either retro or modern.

I wanted to show you what you can make with this very versatile stitch.

A good old stash buster granny square blanket.

Granny Tree ornaments

Granny square baby jacket (no pattern)

Granny square top by Maria valles

Granny mitts

Granny stripe poncho

Shoulder piece with picot edges by Drops design

Granny square dress

Also you can get the granny square as circles or hexagons and with many different designs on the square.

Flower in granny square

Sunburst Flower granny square 

As you can see the granny is delicate, sturdy, classic and versatile and lots of fun!

Which granny style do you like?

Yoku dekimashita

Today started with shopping with mum. We had lunch and bought lots of yarn!

and some other small things... Like a new carpet and chocolate....

We weren't really going to buy that much, but when Panduro suddenly had a lucky bag sale we pounced. I mean 30 kr for something worth 200? We bought seven!

They belong to Mimle now! 

Also we got these awesome paper bags.

Just look at all these nice colours! Not all of this is mine I must add, some are my mothers and some she bought me so that I could make her an iPad cover.

*

Later I had friends over and was Sensei, I taught them how to make a granny square and then

 we had dinner and later tea. Both girls brought their own food. M called and asked me what I would like if he had time, I asked for either sushi or MacDonalds.... He didn't have time for either. Guess what my students brought?

Yes, One brought sushi and the other brought MacDonalds....

But M did bring me Burger King so he is not in the dog house. The men hang out together at Friend One's house while we had our session.

Apparently I am really good at teaching, instead of just showing them what to do I taught them what to do and how to tell if you have done it right. I felt like a real kindergarten teacher when answering their question of: Is this right? Let's count together to see if we get the number of stitches the pattern  states, and then I proceeded to count out loud whilst pointing to each stitch, my students said it was very educational. Student Two actually got quite far on her square, student number two hadn't done this since she was a girl and had chosen a more difficult pattern I think and to top it off she was tired after a week of hard work. But both had fun and got to take their yarn home to finish...

Pupil One made a five corner square in blue and pupil nummer two made a classic granny square. The colourful five point shares are mine, one I made today and the others are from before... The dark pink granny square is mine btw.

Pupil Two will just increase her square until it is finished and then it will be a babyblanket whilst number One plans to make several squares into a baby blanket. 

But for that we need more yarn! There is always an excuse for more yarn!

I look forward to next time!

*

So this year I am going to count how much yarn goes in and how much I spend, so here goes, this might sound a bit depressing.

300 gram Østland wool yarn, 150 in light brown and 150 in light pink, some of which I am going to make into an iPad cover for my mum.

300 Turqoise wool /acrylic mix yarn from Panduro

300 orange wool/acrylic yarn

200 purple wool/acrylic yarn

400 grams of red cotton for Christmas next year, last Christmas everywhere sold out so I am trying to  be smart, this is intended as a Christmas present, from Søstrene Grene.

150 grams og light cotton Turqoise

and finally 150 grams of darker Turcoise which will turn into a winter-pillow for someone.

Since two skeins of yarn left my house one could say I am 

50 grams of Drops Baby Merino Jeans ble and

50 grams of Søstrene Grene cotton in pale pink

shorter?

Lots of trees turning into sixty

First off I want to say Happy birthday to my mother, and we look forward to celebrating you next weekend. Hope you will like your present.

I promised to show some ornaments, these trees were super fast and simple, I used thick embroidery wool I already had but were not going to embroider with anytime soon to make these. One skein made about two trees, but some skeins were started so some trees ended up being a little bit creative. I started making these thinking I needed lots of green but then I thought if the recipients wanted to hang their trees on their tree they would be invisible so I made some in other Christmassy colours. And I really like the colour combinations. These days my colour appreciations have been growing, I actually like green now:O

I made another ornament, this one for my friend who loves owls:)

I think they might get a tree garland as well.

The plan was to make some hearts, snowflakes and stars as well, but I got so into making those trees that I just couldn't stop, I made 27 already, but I am keeping some so we will se if it will be only tree garlands or something else as well. Still plenty of time before Christmas!

In my ongoing knitting adventure I am still making hats for Christmas, only three to go, one of which I will crochet, the lonely sock will hopefully have its mate in time for the holidays and the yarn I bought when my mothers local yarn store went out of business is finally started and will become some wash cloths for Christmas.

I think I need to actually finish some of those presents soon if I am going to have time to make about ten more;)

How is my blanket doing?

I am still doing one square a day. Happily. Have I told you why I love granny squares so much? I love things in three, the flow of them and the counting is very soothing, I usually prefer even numbers to odd, but three is a very aesthetically pleasing number for things to be in. So I love it. I love counting, I hate math, but this is not math, this is rhythm, and I like that. I have always counted things to calm myself, steps, squares, cabinets, and I have always hated when they stopped at odd numbers, so I had to count again. Sometimes I like counting things I know the answer to, like fingers. I walk somewhere with music in my ears and count my fingers. I touch the tips to each other and mutter to myself the number, and since I am only counting one hand but I have two I count in doubles. It is very soothing.

I also love the use of colours, with just small changes things can look drastically different. And at the moment I am doing mostly one coloured squares. Whereas on the last blanket I used multicolored squares in different pink shades. I still use pink in this one, but here the colours are less vibrant, more muted and they mimic my feelings at the moment. 

And the weather. 

If I have counted correctly there are only six days left of the Olympics, so I either have to make one more row on the long row so that it counts six. Or I can make as many as possible and hope that I can finish ten and do two rows, which will be more blankety….

I don't think it would count as a finished blanket, I think it is too small, and I doubt I would feel satisfied with it being this small…. But we will see when Sunday comes.

Mimle is resting. Look at that adorable tummy, I wish my tummy was just as cute and yummy.

Friday is in the air

Happy Friday. I am drinking something hot and eating candy from my birthday presents from a friend. Also my cousin gave me the lovely cake stand where my granny squares are currently residing. 

My blanket is nearing its end, I can see the light in the end of the tunnel. I have 18 squares left to crochet and seven to attach on one side and the other 15 on the other.

I will do the  Ravellenic Games this year, and will participate in the Wip Dancing and I will finish this blanket! 

I will take another picture tomorrow when there is some light and show you how big the blanket has gotten. Now I will go back to my tea, candy and Buffy, a good combo.

Bunny is hiding under the sofa hoping for more treats.

Miscalculated in Pink

So I have decided to make my blanket 120 squares, I have not decided in what fashion these new squares shall be linked, (well, I have decided on the join as you go method for joining, but that is not what I am talking about here. ) how long should it be or how wide. My blanket used to be 10x6 in my head, but now that I will increase the number I am thinking more like 15x8. But we will see. As of now there are 16 squares not fastened but finished, 60 are fastened and finished and so if my calculations are correct (which they certainly are not I reckon because math and me are arch enemies) there would be 44 squares left to make…. So we will see how far I get before I get too bored.

I am seeing numbers before my eyes now, not a very good sign, I am not very confident in my math so I hope boyfriend wakes up soon so that he can look it over. Yes, I am really that hopeless in math. 

But I will finish this blanket this year even if it kills me.

 Before:

After:

It looks a bit more like a proper blanket, on top of my old granny square blanket. (Which is bigger than it looks in this picture because it is draped behind the chair.)

I am still enjoying this project, I usually stop a project when it is not fun anymore and I sincerely hope I will love this until I am done with it. 

Your bright smile is like the sunshine

This is how far I have gotten on my pink granny square blanket. 40 squares done and 20 more to add, I am thinking it will turn out too small and I will regret not making it full size. That means I have to almost double the squares and make a border, so off to buy more of the white yarn tomorrow. I added some of the pink glitter yarn too. Luckily I still have some of the pink and purple left so there is not that much to buy and since the blanket is half assembled it will not look too bad with different colours on different places so it will hopefully not be too obvious that it was meant to be smaller.
This blanket will look so nice and cozy and in the end I am sure I would feel happy I did not rush it to get finished.

I have done some cross-stitching too, for a swap, so in a couple of weeks I can show it off.

I now it is not TECHNICALLY Tuesday tunes anymore,  but I forgot about this song, when we saw the preview I loved it and vowed to show it for my nest Tuesday Tunes, but well, life got in the way and when I accidentally saw it on youtube while making this post (I always listen to music I like when I type, I seem to make fewer mistakes that way and my sentences for some reason turns out much more coherent. )
Anyway I love the song, and the lyrics are so uplifting, the dance and video is cool also. But I am
 fan-girling here.

These past weeks I have been watching Buffy the Vampire slayer, and in general being nocturnal.