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| Crochet is back in my heart! |
No, I am talking about Crochet! The other side of the fibre artists brain!
My sister taught me to crochet many years ago and I was quite adventurous at first - even made myself a pretty crochet blouse from a Phildar pattern with fine cotton and a small hook - took me months but I was very proud of it. I have a photograph of my much younger self wearing it - which will stay firmly hidden for the time being.
Anyway as a first love knitter I have not really done much crochet over the years - the odd granny square and once I made some crochet headbands but thats about it.
So imagine my surprise when I found myself ordering on a whim the Last Dance on the Beach Crochet Along blanket kit by Scheepjes! There is a lot of background to the CAL which I won't go into detail about here - you can read all about it on their website - but I felt drawn to the concept and as Flo had already decided that the blanket would be perfect for her new student house - my fate was sealed....
So each week I have been following along and crocheting four 18x18cm squares - which will come together and make the blanket. I chose the 'Last Dance in the Rain' colour combination in the Colour Crafter yarn which is acrylic - and yes I know I don't often do anything in acrylic - but firstly my purse is rather shallow since I lost my job and secondly - this is going into a student house........ I have seen the luxury merino kits and part of me wishes I could have stretched to that - but again THIS IS GOING INTO A STUDENT HOUSE!
I did however treat myself to some new hooks and went for the Clover set with soft handles - I love them, very well worth the money. I got them on offer for AED220 (heaven only knows what that is in £ now as I watch it currently free fall) but I reckon about £40 - which is probably more than the UK but I got them in the UAE so no delivery charge to pay!
My crochet skills have improved 100% since the start of the CAL - my stitches are much neater and whilst I will admit that most of the time I have watched every second of each weeks video tutorial - I have learnt such a lot. Some squares I found more difficult than others - and often the ones which I thought looked next to impossible have turned out to be my favourites. The only thing that saddened me in the whole process was some of the comments on the Facebook page - whilst most people were excited to share their work and ask questions there were a few people who were downright nasty - there is no place for that in our craft and I for one am fully supportive of the moderators kicking them out - imagine Trolls in a Crochet project which is supporting mental health awareness...... unbelievable!
As I write we only have 2 more weeks of squares to do before we start the fun of putting them all together. And I could not get past this week without mentioning the lovely Sarah from Crafts from the Cwtch who designed this weeks square - looked easy, but was deceptively tricky!! But thankfully as I said my crochet has got a lot neater and that helped a lot!
Since I started the CAL I have also made Florence a 'Festival' Top and am planning a crochet shawl as my holiday project - yep I am truly in love with my crochet again!
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| This is my colour way (with a few changes due to unavailability of shades - photo courtesy of Scheepjes website |
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| Some of my works in progress...... |
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