Making for the baby - Part 2

It's finished!

I can't believe it's finished!

I started it so long ago I didn't actually think I'd get it done, but once I knew I was adding in pink for a girl I had a sudden burst of enthusiasm to complete it.

You know what I'm talking about don't you?

The blanket!

The baby blanket for our little girl! I finished it!

Woah, need to calm down on the exclamations. But I am a little, teensy winsey, tiny bit proud of myself :)

Without further ado, I give you my first ever crocheted blanket - especially for my first born. *drumroll*



What do you think? Do you like it? Do the colours work? I was a little unsure about the pink at first but now I love it. Joining the squares was really fiddly and I think I need more practise but I couldn't find a decent tutorial anywhere, it's as though everyone just *knows* how to do it. Well I didn't!

I wasn't too sure what to do for the border, I wanted it to work quickly so I did a row of trebles to add depth, then a row of doubles. To finish off I wanted something a little but fancy, I though about a scalloped, frilly edge but thought that might not be good for a baby blanket. Not sure why, but it didn't feel right. Instead I went for a reverse double crochet stitch which has given the blanket a lovely ropey edge, still nice and soft but it looks finished.

One picture just isn't enough to show you how proud I am of this so here's some more.









I know there are some parts which don't look the best but I'm still a beginner here! And as my first ever blanket I think it looks pretty darn good. I just hope she likes it too.

Oh and if you'd like to try your hand at the teddies, the link to the pattern can be found in Part 1

Making for the baby! Part 1 :)

Woohoo! So I've actually been making things for the baby :)

I've been making this particular item pretty much since I found out I was pregnant, but I couldn't finish it until we knew whether we were having a boy or a girl. Now we know that she's a she I'll be able to finish it!

Using my new found crochet 'skills' *cough* still very much learning *cough* I decided I wanted to make a crochet baby blanket for the little one. My fiance's nan was always in charge of crochet items in his family but she sadly passed away a couple of years ago - someone needed to pick up the hook so I'm going for it! I'm not the best at granny squares as I get bored too quickly and I was determined that I wanted to make something that was clearly for a baby so I decided to try my hand at fillet crochet :)

What is fillet crochet I hear you ask? Well to be honest, I don't have a clue! I saw a pretty pattern here, decided I wanted to use it for the blanket and then found out it was called fillet crochet! My best definition would be that it's a way of making pretty pictures within your crochet.

Teddy bears seem to be perfect for the blanket, they're cute and cuddly and could be for either a boy or a girl - as long as I picked the right colours!

Following the pattern, I had a bit of trouble - it just wouldn't work, but this is probably due to me reading it wrong somewhere rather than the pattern itself. Feeling determined that this would be the pattern for my baby I didn't give up, instead I enlarged the picture and copied it! Spaces were made with tr-ch-tr and then the 'block' parts were just straight trebles.

Clever right?

Here's one of the squares!



Argh, I'm so proud of it!

I chose an apple green and a lilac yarn to begin with, planning to add in a blue or a pink once we knew. Now that we do, and with a huge thank you to a competition I won with Abakhan, I've gotten more green yarn and lots of pink to finish off the blanket!

This is how it's looking at the moment :)



What do you think?

I'm pretty darn proud of it! I'll be using the pink to join the squares and make the border :) Though that will probably take me another month!

EDIT:

I've just noticed that at some point I made a mistake with the bears and carried on making them that way! Whoops! I hope it's not too noticeable? Kinda hope it adds the handmade-ness of the blanket....eek!

Waste Not Want Not

I hate throwing things away.

I'm not a hoarder (yeah right) I just hate throwing things away before they are definitely, 100%, undeniably, irrevocably finished with.

Which is the reason I've had this candle for about 3 years.



You see, this candle is lovely - but useless. The problem is that it's burnt so far down the jar that you can't really light the wick without burning your fingers, and if you do manage to light it the wax from the sides will melt and drown the wick so it only stays lit for about 10 minutes...Useless.

Until I had a brainwave!

I actually had this brainwave this morning and put it straight into action :)

Do any of you have oil burners? You know the pretty things with wells in the top for fragrance oils (and water - always add water!) and a space at the bottom for a tea light? Did you know that instead of buying oils, you can also get wax melts for the burner? You pop them in the well at the top and they melt to release a lovely aroma, they then re-set and you can melt them again and again - clever yes?

Well my thinking is that the wax left around the side of my defunct candle is going to be the same as the wax in these melts! Time to start melting!

I've used an old single cup cafetiere that I broke the plunger on for melting (I swear I'm not a hoarder!) as it's heat proof and can go in the microwave. I scraped the wax from the sides of the jar candle and popped it in the cafetiere:



After about 2 minutes it looked like this:



A little note: Your microwave is probably stronger than mine - Keep and eye on it! Watch the wax and make sure it's not bubbling and do not touch it when it comes out - hot wax isn't for playing with (unless you're feeling kinky).

Next step is to try and make the melts pretty :) I poured them into muffin cases to give them a pretty shape and left them to cool, it took about 20 minutes for them to be solid enough to pop out of the casing:



Lovely! Time to use one! I popped one straight on my oil burner to give it a whirl:



Whoops! It's a little too big but that's fine, as it melts it will melt into the well and stay there - I've got a pretty smelling living room right now :)

So there you go, waste not want not!

If you don't have any old candles and want your own wax melts, pop over to The One Stop Pamper Shop where you can buy some utterly gorgeous scented candles and melts along with lots of other goodies. I speak from experience when I say the goodies from this shop smell 100 times better than the candle I've used today! But like I say...I just can't throw things away!

Let me know if you give this a go!

BIG NOTICE! I have been warned by the almighty candle maker that you shouldn't melt wax in a microwave...whoops! So if you give this a go you need to melt the wax in a saucepan over a saucepan of hot water (like you melt chocolate - yum).