Crazy Colors Blanket for Nyslin's Project

Aura's House update:

Ana's Project: $1548/2770 - we're over halfway there!!
Nyslin's Project: $414/550 - only $136 left to raise!!
Zoila's Project: $293/824
Joey's Project: $236/723
Lesly's Project: Completed!

The totals for my fund raising projects over at Aura's House continue to creep up. Slowly but surely we are getting there!

To add a boost to the fund raising process and to say Thank You! to the generous people who have donated, I am giving away this blanket:



I hand crocheted this blanket from cotton sock yarn. I love the happy colors!



This picture shows a good idea of the overall size of the blanket.



Do you know a child that would love a cozy blanket for their crib? The blanket is machine washable so it would be perfect as a snuggly blanket for a child. Or keep it for yourself to keep warm while watching TV this winter. :)

The close up photos are an accurate depiction of what the blanket actually looks like. The others are slightly washed out. (My photography leaves something to be desired. Sorry!)



The bright colors make me think of the famous traditional woven textiles and embroidery of Guatemala. So I will be giving this blanket away to anyone who has donated to Nyslin's Income Generating Project.

The giveaway will work the same as the one for the blanket I am giving away for Jester's Project. Every $5 donation to Nyslin's Project will be assigned a number. So if you donate $25 you will get 5 numbers. (I realize that some of the donations are smaller than $5. Any donation from $1 to $5 will also be assigned a number.) Donations that have already been made will count. When Nyslin's Project is completely funded I will have a random number generator choose the winning number. Then I will announce the winner and send them their new blanket!



Nyslin's Project is only $136 away from being fully funded! Let's see if we can get all the way to the $550 we need. I want to give away a blanket! :)

Good luck and thank you to everyone who has been so supportive!

One Finished Blanket

I've got some photos of a baby blanket I finished crocheting a few months ago and never got round to posting...mainly because Hubby took half of the photos of the wrong side of the blanket. Ooops!

Oh well...here it is anyway.

Edging, right side.



The border, wrong side.



The border, right side.



All folded up, wrong side.



The only shot I have of the whole thing. Unfortunately it shows the wrong side. :(



Oh well. At least I've illustrated that crochet does indeed have a wrong and a right side. Crochet's wrong side is a little less "wrong" than knitting's wrong side. But still, wrong is wrong. Right? :)

I've packed this up and sent it off to little Alison Nicol that I introduced on the blog a few days ago. It's just the right size to make a snuggly blankie for a two year old. I hope she likes it.

So, what have you been up to?

I've been crocheting squares.



Seriously.

Edges of Squares

So let's see...where were we? Oh yeah, squares.

Today I give you edges of squares. :)







Today I'm thinking about:
How ominous a helicopter overhead sounds,
What to do about Indy,
Starting a new (and expensive hobby),
Taking a sewing class,
Making Chinese bread in the steamer.

Oh - and I've lost 12 pounds so far. I think actually more but I won't really know until the good ole PMS passes. Drat that water weight! Violet's mama says I should reward myself for losing weight by doing something fun that I haven't gotten to do for a long time. Unfortunately that would be...eat. Eat really, really fattening Mexican food. At this point if I ate food that calorie and fat laden it would probably just make me sick. So I've got to come up with something else....

Stacks of Squares

Continuing with my showcase of squares, here are some photos of stacks of squares. I particularly like the first one.





I'm still enjoying this project but it is starting to reach the slightly overwhelming slog point. I'm starting to yearn for some knitting and thinking about sweaters and yummy wooly fall weather things. So I am working really hard on this crochet so I can finish before the magic wears off and I end up with a HUGE UFO pile.

Currently I've got the basis for at least three blankets, and right now I am doing some more crocheting of certain colors to "fill in" what I think the blankets need. I'm able to complete a whole sewn up four quarters patch in about a day and a half. I'd say I'm about 75% finished. That seems like a pretty good number - but when you are working on three blankets at once you realize there is still quite a ways to go. :(

At least I when I finish I will have three blankets completed "all at once". :)

More Sewn Up Patches

Here are a few more examples of what the patches turn out like once they are sewn up. The color is all washed out on these for some reason...and I also think that Hubby accidentally took pictures of the backside of all but the first patch so they look slightly weird...but you get the idea at least.



This one is going in the "crazy" colors blanket.



This one will either go with the "crazies" or the "normal", haven't decided yet.



This one goes in the big blanket.



I think this one will also go in the big blanket. I'm hoping for a king size on the finished blanket. I will likely be keeping that one! The other two blankets are for a charity project which I will tell more about later.

I used the other Flickr blog function for this post. It's better I think! Hubby described how to used it in the comments section of the previous "squares" related post. I also took every one's advice and cleaned up the sidebar. Don't worry Carrie, I kept the reading list. :)

ETA: Whew - I fixed the picture sizes so that they aren't ginormous! That was like the attack of the killer photos! I don't know folks, I may be too old to figure out this new fangled Flickr technology. :)

Square Target Patches Phase 2: The Close Ups

Square Target Patch
Originally uploaded by Stephanie@ontheneedles

This shows the medium sized patches.

Square Target Patches Phase 2: The Close Ups

Square Target Patch
Originally uploaded by Stephanie@ontheneedles

More close ups - just because I like them. :)

Square Target Patches Phase 2: The Closeups

Square Target Patch
Originally uploaded by Stephanie@ontheneedles

:)

This is a close up of the smallest squares as they look sewn together. They are only two rounds of crochet each.

(None of the patches are blocked. I doubt if I will bother to block them at all.)

Square Target Patches Phase 2

Square Target Patch
Originally uploaded by Stephanie@ontheneedles

Memba the crochet patches I have been working on? The ones that were all different sizes?

Here's an example of what they look like all sewn together into the large patch. This colorway is in my "crazy" colors blanket. :)

From this point, the large patches will be sewn together to form the final blanket. Except for an edging of course.

Still alot of work to do!

(I'm trying out the "blog this" function on Flickr. Hope it works.)

Scraps

Here's what's happenin with all the scraps leftover from my Square Target Blanket. I have crocheted them into one big continuous square.



I've woven in all the ends, except a few close to the edge. I don't consider this a finished project yet. I'd like to add more yarn to it (but it would have to be a cotton sock yarn. It's acceptable baby or lap blanket sized now - but I always want to go bigger. :) Also I need to crochet a border for it. I think I'm going with a simple single crochet edging in a solid color.



I have ordered five skeins of cotton sock yarn I saw on crazy discount sale. I don't know yet if I am going to make more patches for my blanket - I'll decide when I lay out what I have and see how it looks. So for now, until more scraps are generated, the Scrap Square est finis.

Patches, Patches, Patches

Sewing squares in the day time.



Sewing squares at night.



Patches...



Patches...



Patches...



:)