My Sock Yarn Blanket Begins...

So the thought was in my head last week, and it wouldn't go away, and now it would appear that I have started a new project, one that might well be a long time in the making...

 I gathered all of my leftover sock yarn, and my trusty 3mm hook, and I began making little squares. And suddenly there were five of them...

 The pattern is one that I found on a search of the internet, a sweet little mitred square pattern that works very nicely indeed. My particular method and exact stitch numbers are...

(UK stitch abbreviations)Using a 3mm hook and 4Ply yarn, chain 31 and turn

Into the back loops only (which gives the nice textured ribby effect) double crochet 14 stitches, skip 2 chains and dc14. 

Ch 1, then dc into 13 stitches, sk2, dc 13. Turn.

Ch 1, then dc into 12 stitches, sk2, dc 12. Turn.

Ch 1, then dc into 11 stitches, sk2, dc 11. Turn. And so on, you get the idea...

Until you have only two stitches either side of the gap, and you simply draw up a loop from each of the side stitches (still skipping the middle two) and wrap and pull through all of the loops. Then cut your yarn leaving a tail to sew up with!

This gives you a square that is approximately 5cm square. I just stitched them together through the side stitches, and added each square as it was made, hopefully this will help me to avoid the dreaded colour OCD...

My thanks to the creator, Mary Grace at Hooked on Needles for the wonderful pattern! 

Makings...

As the Summer is drawing to a close and the Autumnal chill in the air seems to be a more regular visitor, I feel the need to spend as much time as possible cosy at home and crafting. Knitting socks is my comfort-craft of choice (along with making granny squares of course) and no matter how many other crafty projects are happening there is always at least one pair of socks on the needles. 

These ones are lovely Drops Fabel "Pink Dream" yarn, and I think they're pretty splendid if I do say so myself. The moment they were finished I immediately cast on a new pair, these ones are super-thrifty "Frankensocks". They are made from leftover bits of yarn from other pairs of socks, and since I have rather teeny feet there is always quite an abundance of leftover yarn. So these ones are going to be a fancy-pants pair with pinky/greeny stripes. 

 My other thrifty project is to make use of a big bag of vintage quilty hexagons that came to me as an appreciator of vintage floral goodness. I am having a delightful time picking out and putting together patterns and colours and making squishy little puffs. Progress will no doubt be slow on this project, I think it might be a labour of love but eventually it might become a quilt. 

Granny Rectangle Cushions

I'm working on cushion covers at the moment. They're quite a quick project, so I thought I would share how I'm making them...

I started with some pillows, which I cut in half (and stitched up the open edge) to get a nice size for the cushions. Using this fantastic pattern (be aware that it's a US pattern and so double crochet stitches need to be changed to trebles if you're in the UK) I made the fourteen-round granny rectangles using seven nice summery colours(they're for my garden chairs)in Double Knit acrylic yarn with a 4.5mm hook. When the fronts were done I made another rectangle (in one of the colours from the front) for a nice plain back. I then joined them together using double crochet stitches through both pieces, leaving the last side open to pop in the cushion before joining completely, and then did a nice frill edge. 

It's a really straightforward edge - (from the join of the row before)

*skip 2 stitches, treble 5 into next stitch,

skip 2 stitches, slip stitch into next stitch* 

repeat from *to* until you have a frill all the way around. 

I've only made the four so far, so I still have two to make so all six chairs have one. My favourite part is choosing the colour combinations!