Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Crochet your cares away

I've been struggling to motivate myself with my continuous cable border exploration. I find that that long stretch of time needed to really concentrate and make notes is just not available to me! Baby bunny (who is now nearly 11 months old - can you believe it?) is into everything - cupboards, toilets, bags, kitchen trashcan, drawers - anything and everything is of great interest and needs to be explored and explored now!

So I've put down my concentration-needy knitting and picked up my crochet hook. I found this idea on Ravelry and decided to take it on a bit further for the border of a blanket.
The petals are scattered at random on one corner. This method allows you to crochet the flowers as you go - so no messy strands or sewing flowers onto the blanket.

The trickiest bit of the border was working out how many crochet stitches were needed for the sides of the blanket.I used the same sized crochet hook as my knitting needles. For the starter row used 1 crochet stitch for every knitted stitch at the ends of the blanket ("sc into knitted st, skip next knitted st and ch1" repeat to end) ...
... and 7 crochet stitches for every 9 knitted stitches for the sides of the blanket: ("sc into knitted st, skip next knitted st and ch1, sc into next knitted st, skip next two knitted sts and ch1, sc into next knitted st, skip next two knitted st" repeat to end). The corners are made by sc 3 times into same stitch. I hope my scrappy diagram above explains it a little clearer. Once the starter row is complete just keep sc into every st - 3 sc at the corners - adding the flowers as and when you please. I crocheted 4 complete rounds of the blanket - adding flowers on rounds 2 and 4.

13 comments:

Sue said...

That's a very pretty idea. I can't believe Baby Bunny is that old already. Where did the time go?

hetty said...

Those little flowers look like fun. 11 months have gone by so quickly! It sounds like she keeps you busy!

For the Love... said...

Love the way you scattered them...it just looks wonderful!

Anonymous said...

I love your blanket, the scattered flowers are great. I remember when my little monster was that age, the only time I could relax was when she slept or was amused in a playpen!

dottycookie said...

What a gorgeous idea! I'm fairly amazed you're mamnaging to crochet flowers with an on-the-move baby about - I seem to remember doing little other than chase mine about and fall asleep when they were sleeping! Good for you!

Ravenhill said...

How very lovely. I think the simplicity of it is brilliant. How nice that you can crochet the flowers right onto the blanket as you go, not needeing to sew each one on afterwards.

LizzieJane said...

I really love the little flowers scattered around the blanket too. It looks like someone has just thrown them there just like nature would. Surely baby bunny cannot be almost a year old already. My goodness that went fast...well for us anyway!
x

Sarah said...

Wow 11 months! Seems only like yesterday that I saw the scan on your blog :)

Your talent with your needles and hooks never fails to amaze me.

Hugs, Sarah x

蜘蛛 said...
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A Spoonful Of Sugar said...

The scattered flowers are the perfect finishing touch!

Sew Can Do said...

Hi Rachael,

I enjoy reading your blog & all the great things you post about. Since it's one of my new favorites, I've given you a Beautiful Blogger Award. You can check it out here:

http://sewcando.blogspot.com/2010/02/my-first-award.html


:)

Cheryl @ Sew Can Do

オテモヤン said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Laura said...

Nice handmade blanket.