my creative space | hexagon blanket

There is something magically about the summer holidays. Morning sunshine, lazy afternoons, the feeling that you have all the time in the world. Enter the hexagon blanket. I have been loving the look of crochet hexagons for quite some time, yet they always appeared in the two hard bag. Until, the summer holidays came along and I stumbled upon the easiest tutorial I had seen for them yet. One thing led to another, and before I knew it I hard started to make my own hexagon blanket!

I've been using a similar kind of join as you go technique that I used here. It's not perfect. I'm not really convienced that I like how they join together. But at the moment, I don't want to learn a new joining stitch, as I would never finish the blanket if I didn't join them as I went along.

I am embracing the perfectly imperfect hexagon blanket. I am loving the look the solid colours give when joined together. I love that I have a new go to whenever project.

What are your currently working on?
Do you prefer long term or short term projects?


Linking up with my creative space for the first time this year.

creative space | simple square blanket

Love starting a new project. Love finishing it even more.
 
I started working on this blanket, sometime towards the end of January. It has been with me through hard days, long weeks, sick days and times when I need calmness. I think it is the repetition of patterns and stitches that draws me to long term projects like this. I loved that I could pick this project up at the end of a long day and not have to think about where I was up to or that it could sit there for weeks without being touched.

Inspiration for this blanket came from the lovely Pip and her super simple squares. Initially, I thought I would stitch the squares together... that lasted approximately three days before I realised how much extra time it would take me to do that and I decided to join my squares as I went. The blanket ended up being 132 squares and I added one row of treble stitch around the edge (still not sure on the best technique to 'finish' a blanket). I wasn't too fussed with the pattern that was forming, my main criteria was that the same colour couldn't touch! Once again, the most tedious part of the blanket making process was stitching in all the ends, next next, I must remember to do this as I go.

For me to finish a project it needs to be achievable and I need to see it coming together as I am working on it. This blanket was perfect for that. 

Are you glad to see the end of a big project?
What have you been creating?

Playing along with my creative space
(it's good to be back!)

my creative space | split personality pillow

I made my first crocheted pillow!

I was cleaning up my wool basket and found a couple of circles in squares grannys I had made a couple of months ago, which were going to become a blanket. Turns out I never got around to that project. I decided to turn them into a pillow, for my friends birthday. It was Wednesday when I had this idea and her party was on Saturday. Nothing like a good challenge!

I used the join as you go method to join my granny squares. This meant they ended up with two rounds of cream yarn. As I had never made a pillow before, I didn't really know how to finish it. I spent some time on pinterst and google trying to find a tutorial with not much luck, so I decided to just wing it, and make a giant granny square for the back. This was going great, until about two thirds of the way in and I ran out of orange wool, it was late Thursday night and I didn't have time for a visit to the shops on Friday. I finished the square off with purple wool.


I continued crocheting the square until it was roughly the same size. All my searching before, had told me that the most popular way of joining the two squares together would be to use single crochet. Which I planned on doing, until I discovered they were slightly different sizes and didn't have the same amount of treble clusters.. there was no point stressing over it, so I single crocheted the two squares together with my own unique method!

I was really happy with how it turned out. I love that it has two distinct personalities, the calm look of the grannys on the front and the bright orange/purple square on the back, depending on your mood!

Do you crochet pillows?
How do you join the pieces together?
Do you use a pattern or prefer to make things up as you go alon?

I am still working away at this blanket too.
I needed a bit of a break from making the same thing over and over again.

Do you finish one project before you start the next?
Do you like to have a few different projects on the go at once?

Go here to see a variety of fab projects.

my creative space | more squares

Things are getting really busy around here and time for crafting is become harder. I really need to find some of that work/life balance people talk about. My creative space really has to thank a stupid virus that paid me a visit because there isn't really much you can do on sick days besides watch reruns of friends and crochet some granny squares! It's all about finding the good in everyday, right? 

At the realisation of how many squares I am going to need for a queen size bed blanket and the slow process of individually stitching them together,  I started joining them as I was going, using a my own joining stitch, loosely based on this method. I love it. It is so much easier knowing that not only does the last round finish the square but joins it to the blanket. Love watching this blanket grow.

The best thing about making blankets? snuggling under them on cold Melbourne nights.

Take a look over here to see what other lovely people have been crafting this week. I know that is where I am heading :)

creative space: arcade fire blanket

As soon as I saw this post, I knew I had found my next project. It has affectionately been labelled the arcade fire blanket because I can't say the word arcade without breaking out into this in my head.

With work going back this month and my crafty time becoming precious, this blanket has been the perfect unwind at the end of the night project. There is nothing more therapeutic then crocheting row after row after row and watching it grow.

Hopefully, it will become an awesome blanket to snuggle under before winter sets in.


Go here to see lots of amazingly talented people.

Casey x