Part 4 has just been published – you can find the pattern here.  This is an easy square, so will give you a bit of a break if you struggled with the last one!   It is also very good with variegated yarn or using different colours – so another good little precious stash-buster.

I can’t believe we are now at the hallway point in the CAL!    Only 3 squares to go and then joining/border.

If you haven’t joined in yet, there is still plenty of time – the pace of this CAL isn’t overwhelming 🙂

Happy crocheting xxx

Many of you will know that I have been truly inspired by Lynne Rowe’s ‘Use it or Lose it’ campaign.  If you haven’t heard about Lynne’s campaign-you can read all about it here.

I have been tidying my cupboards and recycling anything I know I will not use – local community projects, charity shops and my friends at knitgroup have benefited from my tidying.  It is also very ‘cleansing’ – I feel so refreshed and have space to see things in my yarn cupboards (yes, I have to admit my yarn cupboards were embarassingly full and I couldn’t find anything before!).  But I do have a problem – I LOVE YARN!  So I still have plenty of yarn and do need to use it.

I have started some large stash-busting projects; my Wrapped in Memories CAL was the first blanket but also I found 11 skeins of single-spun double knit merino in my tidy up, so I am doing another blanket.  It is a simple granny style blanket, with just a little interest in it occasionally so that I don’t get bored.   The yarn is superb to work with as it glides off the hook smoothly and that speeds up the crocheting, so it won’t be long before I have a photo to share 🙂

I am doing lots of other smaller projects as well.  On Sunday I grabbed a few balls of cotton DK and whistled off some simple dishcloths whilst binge-watching Requiem on the TV!  This is the result:

I just improvised the patterns – two of them were 8 round granny squares with simple edging:

They were each about 20 to 25cm square and used around 25g of dk cotton.   When making dishcloths I recommend cotton or linen yarn, both of which wear well and are good for the environment.  I pop my cloths in the wash after a day and, unlike microfibre cloths, washing them releases only organic fibres into the system.

I didn’t waste the ends of the balls either – I made a few cosmetic pads which you can see on the first photo above.   I have a free pattern for these here.  I have been using these pads for about 8 years now, making a few more every so often and recycling the oldest.   I used to use a packet of cosmetic cotton wool pads every month – so that’s a lot of cotton wool and plastic wrapping that I’ve saved!

The dishcloths ended up as little gifts for some of my cousins, but I am running a bit short of them in my kitchen so I plan to make some more for myself (yes, I still have plenty of cotton left!).   I’ll share photos of what I make with you, and the odd pattern for them as well.

Do you make dishcloths?   If so please share your ideas and makes – I’d love to see them.

Happy crocheting xxxx

 

 

 

 

 

I think you enjoyed Part 2 last week!  I have seen some lovely completed squares in photos and ‘in the yarn’.  Several people have used more than 1 colour and the design works well in multi-colours.

Part 3 has just been published, it reminds me of volcanoes!  OK, maybe I do have quite a vivid imagination, but it was the triangular peaks and the shells emerging from the top that gave me the thought.   These would show up better in multi-colour so I’m hoping some will take up the challenge 🙂

Are you joining the CAL?  You can find the pattern here and the Ravelry discussion here.

Happy crocheting xxx

Last week I gave you an easy start on the CAL, so you could get to grips with the tension and sizing. I have seen some lovely photos of progress so it looks like you enjoyed the start 🙂

Part 2 is now published and it is a pretty square, one of my favourites.

I can’t wait to see progress on this one!

You can find the pattern here.

Happy crocheting xxx

It’s Friday February 2nd 2018 and that means………… part 1 is released!  The pattern has been updated and you should have had a notification from Ravelry, if not just pop over there and check your library – and updated version should be available.

Here is square number 1:

It is the simplest square of the CAL, and one which is based on the traditional and much loved granny square.  I thought you would appreciate an easy start, but also you probably all know how to make a granny square so using this as the basis for the first start at the scrap blanket gives you the opportunity to test out your tension on different yarns.  It is even possible that you’ll find some yarns will need different hook sizes – so if you use this to start with you will have a good idea of what size or sizes of hooks to use for the next square.

I love this one, and have plans to make a cushion cover using just this square!

I’ve included some more information in part 1 to give you an idea on how many squares you may want to make depending on size of blanket and weight of yarn – I hope you find this helpful.

The pattern is here.

Please share progress here, on Ravelry  or Facebook.

Happy crocheting xx