A mini Rainbow Swirl floor rug.

 

As well as trying to squeeze as many crafts into this little shed as possible, I also want to cover varying skill levels.  I want to show that crafting is accessible across all generations and ages and to people with limited dexterity.  Anyone can craft. Everyone should craft. Crafting can heal your soul.

 

So, I returned to something I had done as a child… apart from the regular slapping of paint on a piece of paper, this is the first craft I can ever remember doing and I thought it would make a most marvellous floor rug for my Mini Shed.

 

Back then we called it a Knitting Nancy.  The first one I had was a wooden bobbin with four nails banged into it.  Can you imagine my joy when one Christmas I was upgraded to a beautifully painted tall one which looked like a little wooden doll.  The problem was, way back then, that I used to make miles and miles of this knitted tubing and make loads of, always unused, tablemats.  There wasn’t the internet for inspirational ideas of what you could make with your tubing, so you just made it.  On and on and on.  Until it got to the point that people refused to give you any more yarn as it was a waste  😊

If you Google FRENCH KNITTING IDEAS, there are loads of inspirational things to get you excited.

 

Anyway, I grabbed a knitting doll – my old one is long gone…. or is it?  (I might have to check my parents attic and come back to you on that one) and some multicoloured yarn.  One thing I used to get excited about when I was young was seeing a new colour pop out of the bottom of the knitting doll.  This still happens.

I got to work making the tubing.  You need to make an awful lot of tubing to make a dinner mat sized rug.

On and on and on…….

Until I thought I probably had enough.

It took ages to sew it, probably as long as it took to make it. I wanted to sew it in a way that it formed a ridge all the way round in a spiral design.  It worked well. I am really pleased with the rainbow effect that the yarn gave me, it also had a glitter thread running through it, everyone loves a bit of sparkle 😊

It took about 6 hours to make the tubing and sew it up.

Ripple blanket update

Time to share my blanket update.

I have found myself with two on the go.  This is because I cannot be trusted to finish off one project before starting another.  Ho-hum.

So, let's start with Blanket No 1:

In shades of pinks and purples, this one is hopefully for throwing over the back of my sofas.  One of the sofas is in front of the window, the cats love to sit there - people watching and sunbathing (sometimes!)  Due to this it can be quite hairy and has faded considerable in the sun.  Problem is, I will have to make two of this one - one for each sofa.  I might change the design a little for the second though.

Blanket No2:  is for my daughter, Shona's, room.

Her big brother is moving out into his own pad and she is moving into his room.  Her girlfriend, Marie, is in the process of making her a HUGE canvas in her recognisable doodle art style so I thought I would do her a blanket to match.  It is quite vibrant and cheerful.

I am struggling with the colour arrangement on this one though..... should I have swapped the blues over perhaps?  Then swapped the purples, blending into the pinks..... Oh I dunno!

As each line takes 20 minutes to crochet and I would have to unpick 28 rows - that is 560 minutes, or 9.33 hours.  Hmmmmmm, think I might leave it be.

A Slice of Rainbow

Another of my time-consuming, fiddly, annoying, 'why did I start this', cuffs :)

This time I used a rainbow of colours - Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet - and in that order.

I did design a pattern and followed it to begin with, but then I got fed up of trying to work out where I was so after about 3" I freeformed it. This resulted with it being picked back a good few times. In retrospect I should have stuck to the original pattern :)

To fasten I added a large press-stud which is not seen when the cuff is worn, but it also needed something focal for added oomph, so I found a very pretty large green button and added that as decoration.

Now, when you work with Delica beads, which are really very tiny, you should make sure your lighting is as bright as possible, you might notice that there two black beads within the Indigo section, I am really annoyed by them, but not annoyed enough to start again :)