Granny A Day 138 & Cardigan A Long News!

Cardigan A Long News

Well as you can see, I spent a lot of my free time today working on finishing the right sleeve of my Cardigan A Long, and here it is:

It may look wider than the one already attached but that's just because it hasn't been sewn together yet.

I am not going to risk doing that tonight as I am very tired, after a fraught day, so I won't risk it, but will leave it for a job to do tomorrow.

Now Granny A Day 138 comes with a warning

Prepare your eyes for this burst of colour before you scroll down to view it

You have been warned

Sorry about that!

Granny A Day 137 & Cardigan A Long

My very talented Left Handed Crochet Student, the one who has FORCED me into making a cardigan with her, came for a lesson today.

I was really pleased that she followed my lead from the other day, when I was having problems with the length of the sleeve that the pattern was recommending, as she herself realised that her sleeve would end up too short and not only that but too tight too!

So she knows that she has to increase the width of the sleeve and the length too.

Here she is joining the shoulder seams together

And this is CA trying her (sleeveless) cardigan on 

It's a great fit on her

And it's looking GREAT

She is so thrilled with it that she gave me a big hug today!

So in class we decided that we would work on the border / edging together

Here are some pictures of my finished edging.

I am really pleased with the way it's turned out.

I just have to make and attach one more sleeve to mine!

Granny A Day 137 is being joined in place as I go

Here's a close up half way through the join as you go method

And this is 137!

Ta Dah!

Summer Top Work Continues & Maltese Crochet GAD 136

If you were following my blog yesterday, you will have seen that I picked up a WIP that I was determined to finish off, as it's been a long time since I started making the hundreds of motifs that make up the top.

Actually I have just added it all up and the pattern says to make 123 of them, but get a better fit, as I am not a size zero like the lady in the picture, and despite the pattern saying that it will fit a size 34 inch bust etc., I have had to make a few more.

So I started today with making some of the larger motifs

Making sure that I was making the right size to fill the gaps that I found

Once I had joined the front to the back

As you can see

There are quite a few of them!

And I even took some motifs of, from around the back neckline, as they seemed to flop over and were therefore surplus to requirements!

Now here it is

This is the back

And this is the front

I still have some more little gaps to fill, which I will now do tomorrow as I have spent most of my free time today working on this.

Now for GAD 136

I had the Maltese Flag in mind when I started to work with the white, so I naturally chose red for the next colour

So this Granny Square is dedicated to my fellow countrymen, women & Maltese Crocheters out there

GAD 135 & WIP news

WIP News:

I decided that I would have a good go at finishing of the joining of the motifs on my Summer Top today

Here is the back before the last 10 or so motifs were added

And here is a close up of the painstaking work involved

Once I had joined the front to the back via the shoulder straps there was only one way to proceed

and that was by putting the whole top on my tailors dummy

It's still not finished but at least it's looking more like a top

The pattern says "one size fits all" and "it's meant to be a tight fit" but I am not so sure!

I think I will have to make a few more motifs so that the fit is a lot more comfortable.

Now for Granny A Day 135

I used Cream, followed by Purple, then cream again with a Fuchsia Pink edge 

And here is another view of the back

to show off the neatness of the join as you go method

Which I am very pleased that I have used

Thanks for reading

Ali x

Granny A Day 134 & Tunisian Crochet

I am sorry that I don't have a great deal to share with you today

I have made Granny A Day 134, mainly using the yarns that I have been using on my scarf

And I have added a few more rows to my scarf, the one that I am making using the Tunisian Crochet method.

I am not totally "sold" on Tunisian crochet yet.

I am sure that I will get to like it more once I have practised more.

I have taught myself to "darn in as I go along" when I make colour changes, as I could not find anything in the book that I bought or on You Tube

I will add a few more rows to it tonight and go from there.

I do hope that you have all had a good weekend.

Ali

Tunisian Crochet, GAD 133 & more!

Yes, I am trying my hand at Tunisian Crochet Again

If you remember, I did some basics the other day on this post

CLICK HERE

And today my new book arrived!

So I thought I would be a little more adventurous 

So I chained 45 and started again in the basic Tunisian Stitch

And after a few colour changes

I have decided that I will make a multi colour scarf

I am now blocking out what I have done so far as it's a little "curly" at one end, but I plan to add more to it later tonight

Granny A Day 133 is REALLY made from scraps of yarn, so much so that I have had to join several pieces together in some places!

This is the "and more" bit

I also bought two other books along with the Tunisian Crochet book

One is on Micro Macrame Jewellery and the other on Button Jewellery

I am looking forward to delving further into both books!

Cardigan News and GAD 132

Cardigan News

This is the stage that I blogged up to yesterday and I voiced my concerns about the length that this sleeve would turn out if I followed the pattern to the written word.

My guestimate is that it would end up a good 5 inches longer than my arm!

I know that I have followed the right size i.e. to fit my body as 

(A) I measured me

(B) I measured another cardigan that I thought would be of a similar fit 

and

(C) I tried the body of the cardigan on and it's fine

So after sleeping on it I decided to do this:

I put on a cardigan this morning and once I was happy with the sleeve length, I took it of and measured it and then measured it against the work in progress.

As you can see from the photo above the WIP sleeve measures approx 16 inches and not the 19 and 3/4 inches that the pattern recommends.

I then added the top shaping but I followed the smaller size for rows, so only adding 2 repeats and not 3 of the stated rows.

I then decided to soldier on and see how the sleeve fitted to the body, so making sure that I had the right side facing me, I attached one to the other with stitch markers

*Perfect Fit*

It was going to work! Hooray

So I got my needle out and started to join

(The body is to the left and the sleeve to the right of the photo above)

Ta Dah!

Please note that there is edging to add so what you see above is not the "finished" article

I was right to query the pattern and I have made notes of my adjustments so that I can make the same sleeve for the right arm

I am really liking this cardigan so far and I know that I will get a lot of wear out of it!

I am so pleased that I have done this in advance of my Cardigan A Long pupil arriving next Wednesday!

My only problem now, is that I am likely to run out of yarn very soon as I am waiting for it to arrive at the wool shop!

Next is Granny A Day 132

Here it is in full "orange"

I decided to go for a change and made Sunshine Lace which is Square 64 from the book

200 Crochet Blocks for blankets throws and afghans by Jan Eaton 

And here are all 132 squares

My blanket is now 11 squares by 12

And I just about managed to get them all in the photo!