Everest blanket for Derek Eland / Artist on Everest

It was a good while ago that I made "The Everest Blanket" for artist Derek Eland.

Each section of the blanket was taken from a photograph that Derek took whilst he was "Artist on Everest"

I crocheted four rows in each sitting, using the colours from one photo at a time.

The split photos before show the photo of Derek's that I worked from along side the crochet I created from those colours that jumped out at me.

And then it was done! A riot of glorious colour.  If I had have told you I was making a blanket based on colours from the photos taken on Mount Everest, would you have expected it to be so colourful?   No, me neither.  White, grey and blue I expected.

As I say, it has been a while since I made this and it has now gone to it's new home in Derek's house, but there is an exhibition of Derek's amazing work on Everest.  It is at Rheged and is on from SATURDAY 29 APRIL – SUNDAY 2 JULY 2017l

If you can, do take the time to go and see it, it is free entry and I am sure it will blow you away.

https://www.rheged.com/event/derek-eland-being-human-at-base-camp/

Colourful Baby Blanket

I made this a long while ago for a blog post, but it was never featured so I guess it is ok to share it   :) 

It is made from W.I.  (Women's Institute) yarn called "Soft & Silky".  It really is the most gorgeous feeling yarn, really satiny - and it is 100% acrylic so it washes really well.

I chose these candy, springtime colours, as I get bit sick of seeing babies in either blue or pink.

Zingy lime, refeshing orange, with a soft lilac and lemon, all joined together with a warm vanilla cream.  Sounds a bit like a posh pudding, doesn't it?

I did a series of rows, alternating the colours.

I shall write the pattern up very soon, just in case you fancy making one for yourself  :)

A super chunky, ribbed crochet blanket.

I was asked to do a commission piece a little while back.

The yarn had to be super chunky and the design just a basic rib.

Sure, I could do that.  And I did.

I used the Soft & Chunky W.I. Yarn, which is a 70% acrylic / 30% merino mix.  The colour was a gorgeous shade of grey.

I actually loved this so much that I have a plan to make one for myself... eventually, once I have finished everything else that is.  (like that will happen!!)

I quickly found that I couldn't knot the yarn in as I went as it showed up quite badly, and I couldn't wait until the end of a row to restart a new piece of yarn as I would be wasting far too much, so I had to "splice"

I split apart the fibres of both the old yarn and the new one, then plaited them together before smoothing it out to be the same thickness as the yarn.

It worked really well and you honestly cannot see the joins.

This was a work in project, if you are wondering what the little tail is mid way up  - I have since trimmed it off   :)

The customer seemed delighted with this, as I would hope, because if not I wanted it back!   :)

Now, what colour should I make mine?

The planning of a Peacock Feather blanket

I was asked a little while ago if I could make a Peacock Feather Blanket.  I am sure I can, I thought, as the requester then sent me a photo of someone elses.  I shut it down quickly as I don't like to be over inspired by other people's work, I would rather work things out myself and come to my own design.

Ok, so sometimes it is similar to other people's work. I guess with something like they eye of a peacock feather, it's going to have similarities somewhere, or they are not going to look like what they are supposed to look like, but hopefully different enough not to be a copy.

The first thing to do was find inspiration. Not a difficult task when you have Google, and a quick search gave me these...

When I started this design I was at my Parent's house, without any kind of yarn that would go anywhere near to being the correct colours, so I just grabbed what I could from my Mother's stash and got to work.

I worked out the eye, then the shape, all ok so far..

Now how to join them?  I added an edging to make it easier and worked out which parts of the edging needed to be joined together to make all the pieces fit.

But, I am not sure about this bit.  It makes it look a bit odd, I might pull it out again.

So I decide the best thing to do would be to get the correct colour yarns, make up a load of the motifs, and go from there....

Stylecraft Special DK in Bright Green, Cloud Blue, Bottle Green, Plum, Gold and Royal Blue.  (and a cat tail)

So, watch this space, as they say....