Summer Daisies

When I'm feeling smart and witty again, I'll tell you about my Potential Life of Crime as a pregnant woman. In the meantime, I'll show you what I've just finished:

This started off as a round-ish blanket because I didn't want the bother of designing a half-hexagon to straighten out the edges:

Sadly, my OCD tendencies just could not cope with the chaos and a solution had to be found, even though I was reassured that round-ish blankets are also quite fetching and have their place in home décor.
But ...
I - just - could - not - deal - with - it

Already someone has suggested that this pattern would make a nice Christmas afghan, with red flowers (poinsettas) and a dark green background. Hmmm!

Now all I have to do is write up the pattern, take the photos, get my testers on their starting blocks and then I can finally offer it for sale - maybe even before the Gingerbread Cookie makes his appearance.

PATTERN: Emily's Roses

The pattern can be downloaded as a PDF here. This link will take you to a PDF hosting site called Mediafire, where the pattern can be downloaded directly on to your computer.Alternatively, you can download it on Ravelry if you are a member.

Ravelry download: download now

This is a pattern for an 8-inch square. It's also a charity square, which means that while it's free, you are strongly encouraged to use it for good, not evil, and to spread joy and warm fuzzy feelings to people in need. There are a lot of charities that would dearly love squares/blankets/lapghans - the "payment" for its download is that you consider sending at least a square to a group collecting crocheted/knitted squares to be made into blankets for charity ... or donate a blanket using these motifs for a children's charity ...  women's refuge ... homeless shelter in your area. Although this pattern looks quite lacy, it's actually very warm. If you are considering donating squares (and having read the heartfelt appeal above, you probably are), please think about using a more easy-care colour for the background - blue, yellow, grey, black.

The square is called Emily's Roses because when my little sister Emily was a baby, she was given a crocheted blanket with Irish rose motifs. We loved that blanket and I don't mind telling you that I was deeply envious that she had one like that and I didn't. This might have driven a deep wedge in our relationship but things were evened out somewhat with The Ice Cream Cake Controversy of 1981, when I had an ice cream cake for my 7th birthday - and my mother promised the other Gingerbread siblings a similar treat on their special day. But by the time Emily's birthday rolled around in April of the following year, production of birthday cakes made of vanilla ice cream had been discontinued. For a long time she was of the opinion that I, as the eldest child, had been shown preferential treatment with this choice of celebratory confectionery, and I have a sneaking suspicion that somewhere deep in her heart she still nurses a grudge against me, the intensity of which cannot be assuaged by a by-now tatty crochet blanket. I have seen her eyeing my desserts at the dinner table. I have feared for my chocolate cake and apple pie.

I hope that this conciliatory gesture will smooth things over between us once again.
Emily Gingerbread: here are your roses. xx

PATTERN: Equalizer Blanket

This pattern can be downloaded as a PDF here.

First of all, you need to know how to crochet a solid square:

Abbreviations:
American English: DC = double crochet
[British English: TR = treble crochet]
This pattern is in American English terms, the British terms are in [brackets].

An important note about corners:
I've used a DK weight yarn. This is lighter than a worsted weight yarn, so I created my corners by crocheting two DC [TR] + two chains + two DC [TR] into the corner space. If you find that your work is bunching or curling, it is possibly because your yarn is heavier or your tension is tighter. One way you can correct this is by only crocheting one DC [TR] into your corner spaces, i.e. one DC [TR] + two chains + one DC [TR] into the corner space.


Coloured blocks:
Start by chaining 4, then join with a slip stitch.
Round 1: 
Chain 3 (counts as the first DC [TR]), do 2 DC [TR] into the ring. Chain 2, 3 DC [TR], chain 2, 3 DC [TR], chain 2, 3 DC [TR], chain 2 and join to the third chain of your first 'fake' DC [TR] - like this:

Round 2:
Chain 1, do 1 DC [TR] in the same stitch below. Crochet 1 DC [TR] in next two stitches, *in corner space crochet 2 DC [TR] + 2 ch + 2 DC [TR], then crochet 1 DC [TR] in the next three stitches.** Repeat from * to ** twice more. Join with slip stitch to the top of the first DC [TR].

Round 3:
Chain 1, do 1 DC [TR] in the same stitch below. Crochet 1 DC [TR] in next four stitches, *in corner space crochet 2 DC [TR] + 2 ch + 2 DC [TR], then crochet 1 DC [TR] in the next seven stitches.** Repeat from * to ** twice more. Join with slip stitch to the top of the first DC [TR].

Round 4:
Chain 1, do 1 DC [TR] in the same stitch below. Crochet 1 DC [TR] in next six stitches, *in corner space crochet 2 DC [TR] + 2 ch + 2 DC [TR], then crochet 1 DC [TR] in the next eleven stitches.** Repeat from * to ** twice more. Join with slip stitch to the top of the first DC [TR].

Change to BLACK
Round 5:
Chain 1, do 1 DC [TR] in the same stitch below. Crochet 1 DC [TR] in next eight stitches, *in corner space crochet 2 DC [TR] + 2 ch + 2 DC [TR], then crochet 1 DC [TR] in the next fifteen stitches.** Repeat from * to ** twice more. Join with slip stitch to the top of the first DC [TR].

Round 6:
Chain 1, do 1 DC [TR] in the same stitch below. Crochet 1 DC [TR] in next ten stitches, *in corner space crochet 2 DC [TR] + 2 ch + 2 DC [TR], then crochet 1 DC [TR] in the next nineteen stitches.** Repeat from * to ** twice more. Join with slip stitch to the top of the first DC [TR].

Chain two, yank tightly. Leave a long tail for joining, and cut yarn.

Black blocks
Do the pattern as above except, of course, that you do the entire block in black :-D

Now, the bad news...
This diagram represents how many squares you'll need to do. Brace yourselves, hookers!

(Yarn needed is given as an approximate amount. I was virtuously using scraps, so these amounts are approximate and represent the maximum amount I used.)

You need to crochet:

• 9 turquoise squares* (75g yarn)
• 17 green squares (150g yarn)
• 14 yellow squares (120g yarn)
• 11 orange squares (100g yarn)
• 6 red squares (50g yarn)
• 51 black squares + edging on other squares (1100g yarn)

* If you want to make a slightly longer blanket, crochet 18 turquoise squares (two rows of nine blocks), not 9!

Lay your squares out as per the diagram above and sew them together. I edged the blanket with a round of DC [TR] in black, then a round of SC [DC] in a contrasting colour (I used turquoise) and finished it off with another round of DC [TR] in black.

Baby Realta

I actually finished this last week but I just haven't had the chance to post it. This is the same pattern as the Realta afghan, but done in worsted weight yarn and in more demure colours. It's destined for my new niece as a ... um, what do you call them? Blankets that you plonk gently lay babies on so they can flail around wave their little limbs about? Let's just call it an extra thick blanket for the sofa or the floor.

Anyway, same pattern, different colour combination:

Finito!

I spent this morning edging the blanket, weaving in and snipping ends. Ugh.
But now it's finished and all that remained to be done was to take a few photos. Sadly today is so windy that the daffodils in my father's garden are bent double to the ground. So taking a decent photo was a challenge. Zuppy turned up to help and then scuttled off when it got too cold. If you look closely at the photo, you can see that he was watching me out of the corner of his beady eyes: as Iset up the photo I had to push him away with my leg while struggling to pin the darned blanket down in gale-force wind. He was determined to get up on the bench (and note that he's a vertically-challenged terrier so he tried to use his sharp little dog-claws to get a leg up) while I tried to shove him aside and keep the blanket from flying across Farmer JohnJoe's field next door (and they spread slurry yesterday so I was rather stressed.)

The pattern has just been tested and - all going well - it will be published at the end of March!

Miles of Tiles

Gingerbread Mammy phoned me on Sunday to give me a run-down on all the action in our town. This is often like the Births, Deaths and Marriages section of a major newspaper, except that there is often an indepth genealogical footnote to each entry ("Lisa Kenny had a baby by C-Section. That's Lisa Kenny from the Dry Cleaners, her mammy worked in the Winkle's newsagency at the weekend - remember the blondie-haired woman with the funny eye who used to sell the Cadbury's Creme Eggs after Easter Sunday mass? Her grandda had the greyhounds and we used to see him walking them down by the railway every morning on the way to school?" etc.
I have no idea who any of these people are.)
She also keeps me up to date on my father's antics - he has a new laptop. He had another laptop that was (helpless pause), well, it was pretty good and then there was a new laptop on the market that could (helpless pause) - do other things that the first one couldn't so they exchanged it for this new one which can do (helpless pause) other things. She thinks.
"But it's an Apple," she adds. "By the way, you haven't posted on your blog recently, missy."
"I know," I say. "But I've loads of photos of the blankets I've been working on, so I'm going to put them up later on."
Miffed pause.
"Ah, we're not very interested in crochet," she says. "We prefer the other kind of posts."
I suspect my parents are primarily interested in posts in which they play the starring role. And with this introduction, I hope I have kept them happy for tonight.

Now, on to the crochet.
This is what I'm up to now:

 
The pattern for this afghan - provisionally entitled the Tiles Afghan (because they look like ... well, tiles) - is being tested by half-a-dozen dynamic crocheters that I have locked up in a top-secret facility, guarded by FBI agents and a pack of vicious dogs. While they are checking the pattern for incidences of my (in)famous numerical fuzziness, I've been trying the pattern out in different ways. This is a baby blanket in cream and denim blue, which I call the Dutch Tiles Afghan - because the pattern looks like Delft tiles.

I Am Colour Starved

I like this pattern, I really do. It lets me do all kinds of weird and wonderful things with colours. This is the tester-blanket for a pattern I'll write up as soon as possible. I started off in another colour subset, but I need a model blanket for the pattern picture. So I decided to use ALL my colours (and we all know that I don't shy away from colour. Nom, nom.) I have enough blankets to cover almost every shabby chair and sofa in the Gingerbread House (= no mean feat, let me tell you) so this one is going to be a present ... maybe for my youngest niece, a toddler who seems to enjoy dancing around in little more than her mother's half-finished crochet blankets.

The Sunshine Babette

It's finished. At long last!


Laid out on the floor:



The pattern can be purchased here: Babette Blanket.
Normally this pattern requires 17 different colours, but I only worked with eight: black, purple, cerise pink, deep red, bright red, orange, sunshine yellow and a paler yellow. Because I was working with fewer colours, I adjusted the pattern as I went along, so this finished blanket is actually more like a Babette-inspired blanket, rather than a true Babette.