Crochet Quilt Finished

I finally finished the crochet quilt and it is off to it's new owners. I hope they like it. 

I think it came out pretty good and I want to make myself one; with different colors. I don't know how long it took to hand stitch the binding to the blanket because I was watching tv and stopping. I like not being able to see the stitching. I can say stitching to the crochet side was a bit tricky because you had to make sure you were catching the thread onto something to hold. 

Updates...Sunburst Grannies & Crochet/Fabric Blanket

Update 10/7: The sunburst granny blanket is complete. 

I chose not to block it because I liked the way it looked in its natural finished shape.  I did a few rows of hdc around the edges and finished with a picot edge. It's now for sale in my etsy shop. 

Thanks for stopping by.... T Mitchell

Update 9/23: All the Sunburst granny's are done. I laid them out today to see how I wanted to piece them together. Some of the toes came out different as some of the squares got mixed up. So far the rows have been joined horizontally with a slip stitch and now working on joining the other way.

Progress has been made on both the Sunburst Granny Squares and the crochet blanket with fabric on the back. I debated whether to complete the fourth round on the granny squares separately or join as I go. I decide to do them separately using white yarn for the fourth round.

I used the tutorial from Nittybits blog- as mentioned in the original post about this topic. Additionally I added a fifth round of single crochet in each stitch across with three sc in the corners. I have four more squares to go- 42 total them I can begin to join them. I plan to do six rows of seven and I think I will use the flat single crochet method to join and see how it looks. If I don't like it I will use the slip stitch method. Still debating what type of border I will go with. 

I have made my binding for the crochet and fabric blanket. Since I wanted a wider binding I cut more strips to make a continuos strip and zig zig stitched them together with the sewing machine. I pinned it to the crochet quilt and proceeded to sew it with my sewing machine. 

After sewing for a few. I liked the way the fabric side looked but not the back side since I tried to do both sides at once. So after a few attempts I ripped out the seams and began to hand stitch the binding instead. 

Hand sewn quilt binding

If I would have done this in the beginning I think I would have been done but I thought it was going to be much harder than it really is. I watched multiple YouTube videos and read many tutorials to see how to do this. I found the instructions at the blog Stitched-together on how to hand see a quilt binding very very helpful. I still have the back side to go. So far it seems to be going ok. Me being my worst critic there are some spots that I want to go back and redo.

Again, thanks for stopping by........ T. Mitchell

Crochet and Fabric Baby Blanket

So I made progress with attaching the fabric to the crochet blanket. 

I think it came out very nice and I really like my fabric choice. I first did a 1/4 inch seam around the fabric and then attached it with the sewing machine. I did not make the fabric too tight so if the crochet side is stretched then it would have some give. I attempted to attach a binding using the circle fabric- mentioned and pictured in previous post. I cut a 2 1/2 inch strip and preceded to attach it but for me it looks way too small especially on the crochet side. So I painstakingly removed what I had already sewed and cut more strips. I plan to attached the two sets of strips that I've cut to make one wide piece of binding then attempt to attach it to the blanket again. Hopefully this time I'll have better results.....

Thanks for stopping by!

Next Crochet To-Do....

So I've always wanted to make a blanket with crochet on one side and fabric on the other. I had this idea a very long time ago and never got around to it but of course like everything else when I looked more into it someone had already done it. Well that made my life somewhat easier because now I know what and how to do it and that it will work. I finished the blanket which is done in single crochet and purchased some fabric for the backing. 

This is a gift for parents of a new baby. Originally no one knew the sex of the baby so I figured the red and the circles could go either way. Since it took me I long to finished this blanket, thanks to my sewing machine, the couple had the baby, a girl- which prompted me to purchase more fabric. So now I will use the colorful paisley and flower material for the backing and the circles for the binding. I thought about crocheting a border but I figured a fabric binding would be different. I finally got a new sewing machine since the Pfaff I have would not cooperate. After attempting to fix it on my own with the help of YouTube- it would work fine then the needle would hit the bobbin housing and brake. I think the timing is off. It's old and one day I think I'd like to get it repaired.  Ive been putting this blanket off to try and get some other things done but maybe today I'm will break out my new Brother and work on it.  

Tunisian Crochet Started...

After indecisively trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my newly purchased Tunisian crochet needles I finally decided on something. I had seen a lot of mentions that it is a good stitch to use for charts so why make a plain boring afghan when I can find a cool chart to Tunisian crochet. I used YouTube to learn how to work a graph using this method. I first started with a circle chart with circles of different sizes and colors but after about 25 rows I was not pleased wit how this was going so I did one thing I don't like to do....pulled it apart. I continued my search and wanted a whimsical heart that could be done in any color but still be for a baby girl. This is the pattern I chose from Passion Creative Blog after looking at many images on Goggle. There are a lot of cross stich patterns on this blog.

The blog/website is in French which is where the translate tool comes in handy. Although I did not need any directions because fro cross stitching as a young child I remembered how to read a chart. The thing I like about doing this in the Tunisian crochet method is that I only have to read the chart one way. I wanted this to be a nice size blanket that could be used in the crib, in the car seat, or whatever so after finding the middle mark in the chart I added stiches to both sides as well as below and above the charted area to add size to the blanket. I printed two copy's and put one in a sheet protector an used one to mark off as I go as well as any notes about stiches and color (as seen in the first picture). I chose a tan color for the heart that was in my stash and I found a pound of caron in an off white in my stash also which I'm using as the background. I did use the bobbin method in the form of bobbins and mini yarn balls as far as the different sections so I wouldn't have to carry yarn except in some spots. It's fairly easy and only gets difficult when my three year old tries to take off with my balls of yarn as I am crocheting. When I run out of a color in a particular section I use the magic knot method to attach more yarn. I have made more progress since I took this picture-15 more rows completed so only about 76 more to go.... My goal if to do at least 10-15 rows a day!

Another Project at the Same Time- Sunburst Granny

In addition to my Tunisian crochet heart blanket I have grown to like the Sunburst Granny Squares. I found a great tutorial over at Nittybits BlogSpot. Jenny does a great job with this tutorial. Again with yarn from my stash I just chose three colors and this is what I came up with. I now have about 34 sunburst and I still want to make some with a purple center so maybe I'll do about 42 total or more depending on how I feel.

As you can see I still need to add the 5th row to make it a square but I'm debating whether to do each or join as I go. Row five will be white.

Now I'm back to crocheting...

Thanks for stopping by,

T. Mitchell