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?

Baking, colouring, crocheting and bunnying around the Christmas tree

Today I had my tea (caramel and vanilla, I am hooked) in my crazy bunny mug that I made almost ten years ago I think.

Also I finished the second to last Christmas gift, the wrist warmers for my cousin. Yay me.

The bunnies gave me this Christmas colouring book for my birthday and I have been having lots of fun colouring, thank you buns. 

For Christmas I got the pink heart tin from our neighbour with glittering sparkles and the bake it easy serving and baking tray from my family-in-law, the gingerbread form thingies in the tin are mine, and the others I gave M for Christmas, and with all this baking things I felt inspired and make more cookies with M.

I even added some pink edible sparkle left over from our wedding in some of them. They were yummy even though M went to the store to buy white chocolate and came home with dark chocolate, his excuse was that the plastic around was white. >.<

The tree is having a hard time with these guys around.

Valmin is quite good at getting to the branches and chewing one off. Mimle usually tries to steal from Valmin or eats his leftovers because she does not work for her food. She is also known to just stare at her human until said human picks some needles from the tree to her. Said human is me, btw, in case you were wondering. 

A close up of the second to last wrist warmers, I really like these, I didn't use any pattern, I just looked at several and made them after my own hands. I hope they fit...

And I have started on present number two for next year;)

Yes, I still have one half wrist warmer left of this year's present making, but my cousin did get his present from last year this year, so isn't that already a tradition?

Final stretch

Today M and I had a slow day at home with fiddling with some presents again. I had green tea in a mug I made M years ago. The little green alien is him, and I am the pink bunny.

We saw Kaze Tachinu from Ghibli which I gave M, we played some Playstation that his sister and fiancee gave us, which was pretty amusing.

 The glasses in the back were gifted to us by M's parents and I love them, the glasses I mean. We needed a pair of celebratory glasses not for everyday use like our pretty green ones, and these fit with the fine dining pottery.

Something else that we watched which was pretty amusing was this sight: The bunnies having fun with the tree. Since most of the parts they can reach have been munched away we placed their bed beside it, and Mimle finally understood what to do. So now they are both snacking on the tree.

And another present is done and gifted.  I know I am still a bit late, but the person I gifted it too was not sorry she had to wait. She got a scarf and a set of wrist warmers to match. I started the scarf a bit too narrow and ended up starting a second you know which is why I was late, but the narrower scarf was given to someone else who loved their scarf and the bigger scarf fits my friend a lot more.

I have only two halfs of the last two wrist warmers to do. But my cousin who will get one and her brother who will get the other I won't be seeing until late January or so, so I still have time.

And while I am in a Christmassy mood I hope to start some gifts for next year so I won't have to make another mad dash to finish. But I think I will, after all, that is a tradition, and one I quite like, because I always add gifts or people to give things to which is part of the fun^^

I should be able to finish within this year, but I don't have to:)

Niende Desember

Today's tea was delicious, black tea with cinnamon, ginger,cardamom, cloves, nutmeg, pepper, orange peel, vanilla and apple. I like vanilla.

I didn't really sleep much last night, so today I have basically sat on the sofa all day trying not to fall asleep, I think I need to capitulate soon XD

But I was a bit productive!

I finished the last of the hats, fixed the threads after i took the picture of course and forgot to take a proper photo. But you can really see the cat ears in this one, here is the pattern if anyone wants to give it a go. This is the third hat I make out of this pattern, really easy, looks good and takes about an evening, at least when you have co-operating fingers.

Speaking of co-operating fingers, on Monday I did water gymnastics, and last time I was sore for a week, this time, nothing. Maybe because there was a different program or I didn't give it my all. It was hard though.

 I made ten hats this year, four crocheted and six knitted.

Also I can see I am getting better, yay me.

And I have another semi-finish! One half of a pair of mitts, or wrist warmers, this time I tried to make a half thumb. I got the pattern from somewhere, if I find it I will share it, but I think it is on the iPad and I am on the computer... But I have heftily modified it, but honestly I think it looks really good. Making the body took forever though, so I hope I have time to make another, it is not really good etiquette to give away half a present is it? Unless the recipient only needs one mitt?

I have two more pairs of wrist warmers to go, although keeping with tradition I could finish the one for my cousin next year, since he is getting his hat from last year this year?

And I must confess making proper knitted mittens is alluring, but I must be strong, knitting still takes me forever and I won't have time to make the rest if I start any knitting gifts (other than the last knitted wash cloth that is). Although apparently when you master socks, mittens are pretty much the same, so next year, next year I will make socks and mittens!

Fifteen

This is the second bracelet, and it is more of a bracelet than a wrist warmer than the purple one.

I used the same scallop the pattern that is used on the edge of the straps on the dress.

I think it looks great and I am sure it will keep me warm. 

*

When I bought the yarn for the dress I bought 14 balls of yarn, and I used every bit but one skein, so I think that was good planning. (although I initially only bought ten and thought I had plenty, but it is always a bit of a puzzle how much yarn you'll use when you don't use the yarn specified in the pattern. I didn't want to use the Japanese yarn that was stated in the pattern in case I ran out before I finished which might have turned into a crisis if I didn't have time to buy more yarn, which is the main reason I used Norwegian yarn.)

Tomorrow I think I'll weigh the dress and see how much it weighs, because even if it is a small dress it has been heavy on my lap whilst I worked on it... :) 

I also made some more leaves, I think I might have enough now, and if I don't, too bad, because I am all out of this yarn now;) 

The rest of the evening I'll spend sewing in the yarn ends and not eat any candy because I put on the dish washer and it just finished, and the store just closed.. Why do dish washers take three hours to finish? Boohoo... Oh well, I have soda at least.

Late February Accessories

I am finally all better from having a cold for a couple of weeks. So I thought I should blog a little again. When I have a cold my head feels like it is full of cotton and I have a hard time thinking and with a runny nose and clogged sinuses things have hardly moved at all these past few weeks. Boyfriend was only sick for a week, lucky him.

Anyway, I started another wrist warmer from Simply Crochet number 11.

This is the fourth set I am making, and this one I am making just to have a present if I am in dire need one day, plus I loved the pattern, it is really fun.

I am practising making hats as well before I tackle the hat for my cousin and his big head, my head is child sized so no help there. Which is why I am buying yarn and making a hat for boyfriend. Remember the bow I showed you last? I thought it looked good on this hat. I used some wool I had lying around on a 6 hook. The pattern I loosely used was this. Only I increased the size to fit me. I wonder if I am going to add whiskers and eyes. I might. But not today.

This is wrist warmers number 3. Made for me, here I used the same number of starting chains as the pattern suggested, in number 2 and 4 I have added ten chains if memory serves me right....

Simply Crochet magazines is a magazine I highly recommend crocheters, they make lots of modern and stylish clothing that even I can make. I made the first in two weeks and the second in one day so you can say I am back to feeling better.

Before Christmas I splurged on this yarn, it is black with reflector yarn so that the wearer is visible for traffic both from behind and the front. I used the same pattern as the other hat, only this hat is not finished yet because I ran out of yarn. Gluhwurmchen, from Rico, but my mother has kindly said she would check her local yarn shop to see if they have more in stock. (I have no idea how to make the appropriate dots over the letters, sorry.)

Sorry about all the bad pictures, there is not that much light these days and my phone is bad at taking pictures, but I thought better bad pictures in the blog than no blog post right?

Anyway I am feeling better now, so hopefully I can finish that table cloth within February as was my goal. Even if I am feeling a bit fed up with those snowflakes at the moment... The end is in sight so I better just chug along, make a couple each day before I start one of my more interesting and new projects? Might be a good plan.