Thursday, October 4, 2012

Fun with Crochet


What is it?  It's this:


I started planning this post right when I started this blog last year, but it got lost in the shuffle until now. I just thought it would be fun to show all the stages of these crochet octagons at once!

This was intended to be my easy tv project over a year ago now.  Once Clara was done I thought of it again and pulled it out.  It is the Spanish Tiles afghan from 50 Sensational Crochet Afghans & Throws, edited by Bobbie Matela.  As far as easy tv projects go, it is not actually that easy.  I have the octagons down, but yesterday I tried one of the small filler squares:


That final round of orange is stitched both under and over the previous round of red, and it requires complete concentration!  I'm hoping I will get used to it.

Here's an idea of where it is all going:


Yes, the square seems a little large for the octagons, but I think it will all work out when I sew them together.  It's not quite the same as quilt fabric!  There's lots of ease.

I have to say, though, that I am not completely happy with those squares, now that I see them in the photos.  I like the circle in the middle, but after that I may simplify things.  Anyway, there's no rush on this one!

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Clara - Finished!


I popped over to Art of Fabric in Pickering last weekend to look for the thread I needed to finish Clara's ears.  It wasn't in my stash, but judging from the other colours I did have, I thought it was probably DMC 841 that I needed.  Wrong!  It was a good thing I brought everything along with me to the store.  It turned out to be DMC 3864.

The new thread looked ever so slightly darker.  I used one old thread and one new thread together in the needle to blend out the transition, and I don't think you can see it at all on the finished piece.

I gave you a bit of a close up in the photo above so you can see the Algerian eyelets in the waistband, and the great shading you get from the Sampler Threads in the blouse.  The light blue squares are Morning Glory, the green ones are Evergreen, the purple is Hyacinth, and the pink is Victorian Pink.  The dark indigo of the apron is Midnight, and the lighter indigo of the skirt is Blue Jay.  The inside of the ears and the hearts on the apron are Cameo Pink.

Because I decided not to use any of the charms in the kit, I added another heart to the band on the apron (see below), and just used French knots for the buttons on both Clara and Henry.

Once they were both done, I saw that Henry was actually a little taller than Clara:


The plan is to set them both into pillow covers.  Given the great faded indigo look of the Sampler Threads, I think I will sacrifice some old jeans and make the covers out of denim.  I am glad the flood uncovered them. Clara was a fun and easy project, and I think they make a nice couple!
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