Granny Square in fashion

I've never understood why people insist on making clothes of granny squares... It is so tacky and looks just horrible.

 

 

Then there's the occational good ones... Like this one that I randomly found. I like this! I kinda want to try and make me one of these scarfs! And the colourful jacket ain't to bad aswell!

 

Scrappy New Year!

Woop! I have totally given up on blogging every day over here, I just don't have the motivation anymore, so please excuse the long breaks inbetween each blogpost.

Anyway! It is 2015 suddenly, not only that but it is my birthday as well! Nothing exciteing happening today though, I'm just gonna stay in, craft and enjoy my pizza.

I haven't really done much important crafting at all this year...or at all since I came back from visiting my parents over the holiday. I just couldn't get myself to focus on anything cause I was stressing too much with crafts before christmas, I couldn't find time to stop and breathe and do something for myself. So this past week I've done nothing but scraps.

I've spent DAYS working on my Granny Bacon eternity scrap blanket. Just look at all of the scraps I still need to work into it!

It's so much! I haven't touched the blanket since summer, and the scraps have just been builing up, so much that I've had to get a bigger container for it...henche the glass jar. So far, I've managed to work about 9 rounds into my blanket since I started just before new years eve.

The reason why it has taken so long, is because I'm russian joining them all together. That limits me to use scraps that's from 30cm (11,8") and up, when I've used scraps from 10cm (3,9") and up before. So I need to measure them all up and toss out the ones I can't use. All of the shorter ones, I've collected in a bag and I might use them for a scrap yarn bowl.

Trying to use every single bit of scraps. I hate tossing yarn away, no matter the lenght or quality. So I'm also using the longer scrap bits in a certain wool weight for a different scrap blanket. A normal granny square blanket.

I've got tons that I need to work up on this end to, it all just keeps piling up and makes my whole crafting nook like a mess. There's also very few bright colours on these...so far. Might be a very gloomy granny square blanket. There's loads of scraps to get from these for my Granny Bacon blanket as well, so they kinda flow into eachother.

AND EVEN AFTER ALL OF THIS!!! There's the bag of leftover yarn from the mystery advent scarf... I need to do a couple of sock pairs and so on from those though...but I need to sort them all out so I can use the smallest ones for these two blankets.

*sigh* I think I need to make 2015 the year of scrap and storage busting...

Close-up

Inbetween projects!

Zup?

I finished up the leggings for my niece the other day and threw it into the washing machine yesterday so now I'm just waiting for it to dry so I can snap proper pictures of it. But this thing was horrible...and I knew that when I started it. This is the third time I've made leggings, second time in ribbing and let me tell you something...I hate it! I don't mind doing ribbing on sweaters and socks and whatnot, but leggings, that's ALL ribbing on teeeny tiny needles...that's just pure nightmare. But I did it! Once again! And I'll probably end up doing it a couple more times if I know myself right, and I'll bitch and moan just as much about it when I do. But for now! I'm done! I finished these and they look good! I just hope that they'll be better than the last pair I made. These are ment for my middle niece, but I bet that my oldest niece could easily fit herself into these.

 

*sigh* Another project done... (I'll get new and better pictures up sometime later) And now I'm in that inbetween spot again. It's weird...after every big project with a deadline, I feel kinda empty inside and have problems starting on the next one. There's these couple of days (or sometimes only hours) where I don't know what to do next...and I just end up doing some small, mindless things instead. Like my Granny Bacon blanket! I worked a few rounds of that one before I pulled out the Dovremittens again. 

I did 20 rounds on the second mitten before I pulled out scrap yarn and started working up some Granny Squares.
For some time now, I've been longing for my own traditional Granny Square blanket. And while I've got a bag full of wool scraps lying around, I've been putting it off... The thought of Ugly Scrap Socks has claimed all my scraps already.

But last night, I did pull out a bunch of small scraps from this bag (which only made me want to tear Granny Bacon to pieces and save more scraps) and worked up some squares. The plan is to do a good bunch and then join them together by the last round. I'm too lazy to sew them up together, and I'd like to not use too much fresh yarn skeins. I'm using scraps for a reason.

NOW! Just watch me grow tired of it only to have a handfull of finished granny squares lying around for months before I either frog them or use them for something else...

Granny square scrap blanket?

Hello everybody! Thought I'd do a little update on the scrap blanket after my kinda grumpy and frustrating blogentry from yesterday.

As I did mention, I was tempted to just say "fuck it" and do the scrap blanket in granny square so that I could get it more or less evenly no matter what I did. The normal back and forth one did not go so well...at all. Actually, I haven't told you guys that I did try out two other stitches before going back to single crochet again. I did half double and slip stitch and also a combination of the two, but I did eventually decide against that because the edges looked too jagged for my taste.

Please, don't pay tpp much attention to my keyboard. It's not dirty, it's actually yarn dust from when I frogged the blanket in the first place.

So yeah, I scrapped that idea and went back to single crochet, which didn't go that well if you've read my previous blogentry. I don't know what caused it, might be just my horrible crochet "talent". I did pay a lot of attention to my tention and the stitches that time around though...

I ended up having to give granny square a try. More precisely, rectangular solid granny square. I found this one guy on Youtube that had a little tutorial up about it, and I decided to give it a try to see how it went. And after a few tries and one frogging, I think I've got a result that I'm pretty happy with.

I've yet to frog the previous attempt, so I ended up just winding up a new yarn cake and start with that one istead of going back to the very start. Lucky for me, there's longer scraps here, so I've got a good beginning. These are also long enough for russian joining, so I'm trying my best to keep knots and ends at bay. I did have to work with one scrap that I couldn't do the russian join with though, but since I'm doing solid granny square, it's easier to hide the ends than with normal granny square by just crocheting over them. I'm still not 100% sure, but I will most likely work up this whole yarn cake and see how it progresses and then make a decision.

Also, I decided to give it a nickname. It'll still be called eternity scrap blanket, cause that's what it is in reality, but I just can't decide on what to call this thing otherwise. Rectangular solid granny square scrap blanket is too much of a mouthfull, so just to cram another reference into everybody's faces, it's now called Granny Bacon! Cookie if you get the reference.

We'll see how it goes from here! I might have to toss out a bunch of the smallest scraps if they can't be worked into this one...which I'll be pretty sad about, and will set me back a little. But I'm already cutting out some of the biggest scraps that I added at the very beginning of this blanket, scraps that I can work into ugly scrap socks instead. Here's two examples of what I've taken out already, expecially the blue one. These are way too big for this blanket in my opinion and could easily work several rounds on a pair of socks instead.

Latest projects!

Well now... It has been over a week since my last update on this blog... I am SO good!

I didn't really have much of a reason for this hiatus either...maybe except for this past weekend. You see, the 17th was Norway's national day over here, and also the 200 year anniversary for when we got our own constitution, so it was a big thing! Usually, I've gone to my parents for that day to celebrate it in my home town. But this year, since it was the 200 year anniversary, they were moving the celebration and the...parade? thingy...up in the mountains and my parents were going to celebrate it in Levanger and join in on that...parade...thingy...thang...along with my ex-sister-in-law and my oldest niece. So I was left straded, with no real place to go and people to celebrate with... But my brother, my sister-in-law and my two youngest nieces, which lives close by. Their kindergarden was going to join in the same parade in Levanger, so they offered me to come and stay with them over the weekend.

SO! Ofcourse you gotta dress up nice during this festive day, and usually, I'd wear my bunad (our national costume), but since mine is back home at my parents place...and also a tad bit too small for me, I ended up just using a normal dress. Ofcourse I needed accessories. What I've allready shown on my blog here, is this bag. I needed something to hold my wallet, camera and phone.
I used the Quinn Cabled Bag pattern from Ravelry and used leftover yarn from my Jackie sweater, Drops Nepal. It turned out a little bit wider than the pattern though, I ended up with 14 stitches too much.

I also figured that I needed a pair of socks. After a quick search, I found these lace, lightly ruffeled socks that was just perfect! The yarn here is Silja, the same as my Batman sweater.

As if this weren't enough, I also made myself a pretty little hair ornament! I knitted three flowers in leftover cotton yarn, representing the colors of our flag, and crocheted two green whines in more leftover cotton. No real pattern here.

Also a little snap of them in my hair.

The last completed project that I got to show you guys right now, is the granny square blanket that I made for Pepsi. It didn't take long to work this blanket up, with a 4,5mm hook and three skeins of yarn, it was a quick fix. Two skeins was Amazing from Lionbrand and the last skein was Eco Wool DK from Sirdar. He was obsessed with the Amazing skein that was sent to me from Drunk Uncle June earlier this year, so I just had to make something for him with it.

 

That's all for now! Currently I'm working on dishcloths to fill the time before my next project. If you are wondering, I'm working up a good bunch of the bleached cotton yarn for these and I'll be posting pictures soon!