Pie Blurb: February 2011

Friday, February 25, 2011

Art of Crochet squares 17 - 24

Square 17.

Again, more rectangular than square :-( I like the colours though. I've read in the Ravelry forums (from people who are ahead of me) that these ones are sewn together so that the stitches don't face the same way. WHAT??? I don't like the sound of this...

Square 18.

I really like this square. It's simple and still quite classy. It, along with three others, forms the centre of the throw.

Square 19.
Granny número tres. Muy bueno.

Square 20.

This one was a MILLION times easier to work up the second time around. A) it didn't take so damn long and B) I'd started to crochet in all of my ends as I go so there wasn't any evil weaving in after I'd finished. Yay!

Square 21.

The first of who knows how many checker board squares which are essentially DCs (US) and chains. Purty.

Square 22.

Another granny, using Maize (LOL) as the outer colour.

Square 23.

Another non-square-square.

Square 24.

I really like this square. It's the only embroidered one I haven't substituted, the reason being it calls for blanket stitch which looks the same on both sides. Very pretty and fun to make. Well done Hachette! The only thing I'd do differently is space the coloured hole rows more evenly through the square so that there were 2 rows between each throw, but Simon pointed out that it may look better as it is when in-throw. We shall see.

I'm actually up to square 36, but I haven't crocheted 26 & 30 because, you guessed it, they feature embroidery that I don't like an I'm stewing over what to substitute. I might actually catch up! Watch this space.

This throw's gonna be massive!

Art of Crochet squares 9 - 16

I've really left this far too long to post about, but hey. So.

Square 9.

A plain DC (US) square with an Aztec-style design embroidered on. You know how I feel about embroidery on crochet, so I used "Circle in a square" from 200 Crochet Blocks. I omitted the last round of the pattern to keep the square 13cm.

Square 10.

A mesh pattern square. Easy and very quick to crochet.Not sure I'd choose it for a throw I was designing myself, but I'll see how I feel about it when it's in-situ.

Square 11.

My first go at intarsia. Not so pleased with the colour changes; I know I could've made them neater had I read the pattern properly (I'm a bugger for R.T.F.P.ing). Still, now I know it's possible so I expect I'll incorporate it into my own crochet at some point in't future.

Square 12.

My second ever granny! I completely forgot how to do them, but was quickly reminded. I do like grannies. Hurrah!

Square 13.

The second repeating square, this time with an "aubergine" diamond on a backgroud of "vanilla". Give me strength. Why not just call the colours what they are? Purple's purple and white's WHITE!!

Square 14.

The first of a series of diagonal two-colour squares. I don't like how they end up more rectangular than square, but I expect that's me crocheting too loosely. Or maybe if I do HDC (US) instead of DC? Hmm. The mind boggles and I've done too many to frog them all now. Meh.

Square 15.

This was a square of plain DC (US) or HDC or SOMETHING with an Aztec-style lady embroidered on. I chose this square from 200 Crochet Blocks to substitute. I also chopped a bit out of the middle of the pattern to keep it the right size. Sailor blue? Pft.

Square 16.

This was the square that started all the frogging of previous squares and serious pattern design questioning. As per previous post I decided to do all squares with the teeny embroidered star using granite stitch + tiny crocheted appliquéd star. The star features of both sides so that it looks less plain on the "back".

Art of Crochet squares 4, 5 & 7 - v2.0

Having subscribed and fallen massively behind with T.A.O.C. I have the chance to see what's coming up & what repeats etc. With this information I decided to re-crochet some of the more repetitive squares and jiggle about with what substitutes for what. So, with this in mind here are squares 4, 5 & 7 again.

v1.0 v2.0

The original 4th square was plain DC (US) with a cross stitch diamond embroidered in the centre. Blah. While I liked the granite sttich I used on my original sub, I thought the whole design more suited to sub for some of the later squares. So I used "Diamond in a square" from 200 Crochet Blocks by Jan Eaton. I omitted the last round to keep the required 13cm size.

v1.0 v2.0

Square 5 was another embroidered cross stitch which I replaces with bobbles and worked using a 3.5mm hook. After crocheting a lot more squares I realised I wanted them all to be made using a 4mm hook. So. I frogged and re-crocheted using said 4mm hook and so a new square 5 was made.

v1.0 v2.0

Again, the original square 7 was embroidered, but I chose a different square from 200 Crochet Blocks. Decided to frog & simplify the design so that it was more in keeping with the original embroidered star square and to re-crochet using a 4mm hook. I used the original granite stitch + tiny star sub design from square 4 and will use this for all repeat squares.

I'm happier now that I have my subs set up so that when a repeat crops up I know what I'm doing and haven't got to find a new square. I've pretty much seen all the squares that will be crocheted now so I'm all good. In an O.C.D. sort of way.

Continuation of a theme

So he still seems to like books!

Not sure if "Who's Who In The Ancient World" is what all 17 month old boys like to read, but seems to be gripping stuff...for 5 minutes at least!

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Bookworm...?

Isaac has never been really fussed about books. We've tried all manner of different of books, but he was always more interested in posting them though little gaps or stacking them (the chunky cardboard kind). Sure he liked the touchy feely sort, but even they didn't hold his attention for more than a minute or two. However. Today he picked this one from the shelf and spent a good 10 minutes looking at it, all of it, in it's entirety!

Even more exciting for me (an avid reader in my pre-Isaac-still-had-time-to-do-lots-of-whatever-I-wanted days) last night he let me read him a bedtime story! We hadn't even tried before because it just didn't fit with his routine. Needless to say, Mummy book nerd is now very pleased and hopes this bodes well for a future with Isaac and books/stories/reading.