Here are the crochet ravings of me, the projects I do, and items related to the site. I apologise Im not a great blogger, I have good intentions but get easily side tracked, especially by my crochet hook.
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Posted By Liz on June 21, 2010
Normally, Im the first person to say I hate granny squares, but, I have a cunning plan so am I working on a number of granny squares which will be sewn together to form a nice big blanket – Ive seen a few ways to join them together that seemed fairly striking so, I’ll see how it goes!
Posted By Liz on June 10, 2010
So, I have mentioned the “How I did that” section, Im working on it, but I want to mention most some software I use to do what I do. Im working on part 4 of the how I did that where I talk about them, but, I use a cross stitch program, sound daft? Well, the one I use has option for crochet in it! Yep puzzle all you like but the nice man who makes it added it when I explained what would be useful to us crochet types and how then his program has more audience for well what I hope for him was actually not an amazingly complex bit of work.
Hes added an option for us which produces counts. What does that mean? Well, if you think of a picture, say a heart, so its 2 colours, if you start from the bottom you need to work x stitches in say white, then do 1 or 2 red ones, and then more white, the next row would be slightly less white, a few more red, then more white.. etc. Well his program will put the counts down for you. So rather than you having to count the number of squares, it will tell you. Clever huh? His program caters for tunisian where its always right to left for right handers, left to right for left handers or alternating for those choosing to do single/double/treble crochets and turning the work! What a nice man!
You can see his work at http://www.ursasoftware.com – I have winstitch 🙂
Posted By Liz on June 8, 2010
For those who visit the site rather than read the blog you may have noticed ive been posting some pages on “How I did that” as to how I make my patterns and so on. Take a look, drop me a note on what you think, and things you want me to add!
Posted By Liz on May 31, 2010
My plans are to put some “How I did that” pages/posts together. While I don’t view what I do as exciting or complicated, I do know that sometimes its just because maybe you never thought it that way.
First plan is making a pattern – now, if i give you an idea of my general premise perhaps it will make more sense. I will of course do properly explained post but:
I decide how big I want my blanket to be – I generally make blankets.
King size is about 300×330
double is about 275×300
single is about 200 x 250
lap is about 150×175
what are those numbers, those are rows and stitches. (depending on which way round you make it.. For me, I generally would do given that its a rectangle, smallest side (be it height or across of your picture) as your number of stitches you’re going to have each row. Because its less to fit on a hook)
Now, lets say you want to make a picture of some famous cartoon character.
Go to http://images.google.com and type in the name of what you want. Find a picture you like, if you can find one almost spot on the size you want, pick that, if not you’re going to either have to expand it, or shrink it – shrinking is better because it just works out that way, when you try and add information to a picture that isn’t there it can look funny.
Download the picture, then making the next bit sound simple, every pixel of your picture is a stitch. I try and use as few colours as I can, as well as try not to have too many small patches of colours, just to save sewing ends and chunks of wool.
Now, as I use Tunisian, I chain number of pixels + 2, and ignore the 2 outside stitches. Follow my picture pixel by pixel across.. Till I’m done.
Now, making your own pictures if you can draw is simpler because you can control it but, there’s no way you cant use this method to do US Double crochets, or UK treble crochet based pictures, if you get black and white pictures you can use it for fillet, grey scale pictures don’t work of course in that manner, fillet is really an on or off square, its either open or filled.
That was it, that’s all I do. However, resizing and fiddling around to reduce colours and so on, can be more fiddly than it sounds. But, that’s the outline of my plans on what I’m going to be posting. Hope you’ll be interested.
Posted By Liz on May 20, 2010
Im currently working on a plainish blanket, but I dont think I am going to finish it in time.
However, I do plan to put up some tutorial type posts on how I go about working out and planning and doing what I make. Examples of picking a pattern/picture for a blanket, and working out how big etc, and then making.
Posted By Liz on April 29, 2010
Well, I find myself making a new summer top, but, at the same time thinking of thick warm cuddly blankets, the summer top is called “Summer Breeze” and is by coats and clark, and can be viewed free in pdf form on their website.
For blankets, with the new colour chart out, I should start on my list of wants theres only 1 problem most people havent got back to me with colours.
I was wondering – would you be interested in how I go about doing this? If I did a “How I did that” page or so would that be interesting?
Posted By Liz on April 23, 2010
Amazingly, its only late April, but the new colour chart promised back in Jan has finally come out. I can now go about working out my colours for patterns and get ordering the truck load of wool I guess I will order (I dont ever tend to order a little, that and from where I order you order in packs of 10 of 100g wool, so, to give you an idea, an average blanket say around 6ft bt 4ft or so, is around 15 balls of wool … But of course if you need 6 colours, you end up buying at least 60 balls of wool…. that and then I worry I wont have enough so would buy 2 lots of any colour I think is going to be more than say 8 balls of wool just in case I needed 12.. Estimating wool is the hardest thing I think. Especially if you have a main colour last thing you want is to run out and get a different batch and it looks horrid.
Posted By Liz on April 7, 2010
OK, you may have noticed Ive been a little quiet, life has been twisting and turning like a twisty turning thing.
I havent forgotten the blanket list, the new wool list isnt out, and Ive been very distracted. Sorry
Posted By Liz on March 6, 2010
I meant to post I had finished my blanket, I will make sure I take a pic and upload it. I need to sew the ends, but it is finished. Go me!
Posted By Liz on February 7, 2010
I just remembered, I took a pic of my blanket this morning, and havent posted it yet.
So, here it is:
PS – Sorry for the dog under the blanket, he didnt want to move !
