A llama and a shawl

This evening, while watching poldark I quickly made up this cute little felt llama. My sister is feeding rather under the weather, with labyrinthitis and 3 children to home school, so I wanted to make something for her so she at least has some happy mail.

It’s from a kit by the make arcade and its quick and easy to do. I Like that you get templates, so if you like a design you can just get more felt and make another one! I hope she likes it!

Over the last week or so I’ve also been working on this windmill shawl, which is now quite a repetitive pattern of 2 alternating rows. I’m not sure what I think of patterns where the rows get progressively longer though… It feels a bit disheartening.

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Some successes…. And one not so much!

Hey there everyone. I’ve been catching up with a bit of crochet. The butterfly shawl is finally finished : I’m really pleased with it but I’ve realised I probably won’t wear it… Partly because it’s too green to match any of my outfits, and partly because I can’t see myself wearing a triangular shawl. Maybe I’ll have a go at making one in a rectangle and in different colours. I’ve also joined in Eleonora’s crochet along, with a stash busting blanket that requires 4 rows a week. Perfect! I’ve done my first four rows already, and am enjoying choosing colours and wools to use. Plus I decided I’d use this as an opportunity to have a go at learning a foundation treble crochet instead of crocheting a whole chain and then doing the first row. It looks a bit shorter than the next rows but I’m essentially happy with it! Finally I fancied joining in with rosina’s granny along. She also mentioned in one of her posts a heart blanket using squares from different people to make it up, that they will raffle to raise money for charities helping children who have great problems. I started working on one of the patterns but got myself very confused and ended up with too many puff stitches so it was growing too quickly. I was also reminded that I find puff stitches very frustrating as my hook often gets stuck or catches another bit of wool. So… It’s frogged, but it was fun having a go at it. Maybe I’ll try one of the other heart designs as there are several to choose from.

Dealing with ends

This evening I had a bit of time watching TV… There’s a new series of celebrity masterchef! So I could work on some crochet at the same time. I decided to tick one item off my to do list and weave in the ends on my rosie posie granny squares from cherry heart. I always find weaving ends a bit hit and miss , and just make it up as I go along. Is there a specific way it’s meant to be done? 

Having done this I now need to figure out how to join them, and I’d appreciate advice from anyone with ideas please. I really need about an inch between the squares but don’t know  if there’s a way to crochet that size of a border between them. 

Also, i don’t want to join them with one of the colours I’ve already used in the squares as I think that would look odd. At the moment i am considering pale grey. What do people think? 

I also remembered reading a blog about using bits of wool to make pretty dishes (I’m sorry, i don’t remember whose blog it was, though I’m half sure I commented on it… If it’s yours or you know whose it was then please comment before and I’ll link to it) and thought I’d try that with my ends, using the bottom of one of my pretty puffin bowls.

 Unfortunately I didn’t really have enough ends to make it very deep, so it may have to wait for more ends to be added! 

Finally, I carried on crocheting the shawl which is growing to a more decent size. Although each row takes longer to make I’m really enjoying working with this wool in these colours… It’s really soothing. The photo doesn’t do justice to the colours… I’ll try to take a photo in daylight so you can see the moorland colours better. 

Please do let me know :

How do you weave  in ends? 

Is there a way to crochet an inch join between my granny squares? 

What do you think about the pale grey, and do you have any suggestions of other colours that might work? 

Thank you all for your help. 😊

Finished shawl

I finally got round to finishing the prayer shawl. It says always a bit hit and miss whether it would be functional because the shop only had one ball of this amazing wool left which I thought were perfect colours for someone who likes purples, blues and greens. 

Having doubled the width to make it more shawl-like than narrow scarf I then ran the risk of it being ridiculously short. 

It’s not ridulously short but I could have done with another half a ball of wool for it to be perfect. However, I shall give it to my friend as it is, so she can decide how she wants to use it. It could be modified with a chunky button to fasten it in place as a shawl or scarf, or it could make a pretty thing to hang over the back of a chair.