CosyWool knitting competition

Going back a couple months ago, I was invited to take part in a knitting (well, in my case, crochet) competition by the brand Cosy Wool.

The challenge was to knit/crochet a scarf in any style I like.  Because I signed up to the challenge early, I also received £5 of yarn (it's the yarn I used to create the scarf, I did end up buying another 2 balls of it as 2 wasn't quite enough - it took 3 in the end).  What was really cool is that when the yarn came, it was vac-packed, so it went through my letter box.  There was also a mini Cadburys Fudge in there :D  My second order was slightly different, I don't think the vac-pack worked properly as it was quite puffy and didn't go through the letter box, also, no choc the 2nd time :P

I searched high and low for a pattern, I wanted something that would lend itself to a chunky yarn, and something that looked different - I started off thinking about crocheting the 'Just be happy' scarf, but I struggled to follow the written instructions, so I searched again and found the Caron Bellflower scarf - it looks similar, but I could follow the pattern really easily, it was an instant winner!

It took about 6 rows before I could stop looking at the instructions, then it just clicked and I was off! Because I chose a chunky yarn, progress was quick too.  The yarn was decent quality and really cheap - depending on when you look, you should be able to pick up 2 balls for just under £5, for me it took 3, so £7.50 for such a great scarf is a bargain in my opinion!

Anyway, enough of my rabble, I'm sure you want to see some pics!  I'm sorry they're not all great quality, I've really struggled to photograph it!

This is the yarn I used, it's in shade Thistle.

A bit of a close up when it was still a work in progress

You can start to see the pattern coming together

 The finished scarf, on!  Ends all joined so it's endless :)

 A close up of the finished scarf, folded, so you can see the pattern

It's such a gorgeous scarf, I've had loads of compliments on it too.  In fact, my friend has asked me to crochet her a blanket in that pattern (in duck egg blue - going to look gorgeous!).

What do you think? Would you wear it?

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*Competition entry

CROCHET | What I've been working on

If you follow me on Instagram, you'll know Crochet has kinda taken over my life recently.  What's weird, my love for makeup has really waned, but my love for crochet has totally taken it's place - it's literally all I want to do!  I even take it to work and crochet in my lunch time while sat in our chill out area :)

Anyway, I always have lots of works in progress (WIPs) on the go, some big and some small, so I thought I'd show you what I'm working on and what I've finished recently.

Giant Sofa Blanket

This has been a WIP for me for ages now - it's massive.  We sit on a 4 seater sofa, and I'm making this big enough to span us both and tuck around our arms, and cover us shoulders to toes.  It's about 20 squares wide, and will probably be about 18 squares long.  In all honesty, I don't see me getting this finished before Christmas, but that's fine :)

Tartan Granny Blanket

This is going to be a present for my step Dad, who's Scottish.  I was trying to do it in his tartan colours, but it's now more 'inspired by' those colours and will form a rough tartan pattern.  Just 2 months left to get this done, and this is all I've done on it so far... long way to go!

Snowflake Christmas Decorations

I know these aren't the easiest to see on a white background (D'Oh!), but I followed Bella Coco's tutorial to create some pretty white snowflakes.  I bought some white yarn with a little sparkle to it a couple months ago, and was waiting for a snowflake tutorial to crop up so I could crochet some Christmas decorations.  She's also teamed up with Kirstie Allsopp and Love Crochet for Home-Start's Christmas appeal - they're asking for people to crochet snowflakes (and raise money) to help vulnerable children - you can see the video here if you're interested in getting involved.

Sunrise Crochet Blanket

Gosh, I really need to send these squares off, they're supposed to arrive by the 31st.  But basically remember just a few weeks ago that poor policeman who was murdered by the runaway drivers? PC David Phillips? Well, the crochet community are coming together to make a sunrise blanket for his family.  The idea is that a sunrise appears after the darkest of times, bringing hope to people going through a horrible time.  We had a colour scheme (sunrise colours), and lots of us have crocheted some granny squares to send off.  The person organising it will then crochet them all together, and give the blanket to the family.  I love getting involved in little projects like this, it's lovely to do something worthwhile with something that brings me so much joy.

Autumnal Hex Blanket

The other night, I asked the hubby if he'd like me to crochet him a blanket - he usually has one over his shoulders when he's at the computer.  He said he'd love a hex blanket, and when I asked what colours, he said Autumnal (you can see why I married him) :)  So this is the first stack of hexes that'll make up the blanket - there's 20 hexes all in Stylecraft DK, this shade is from their limited edition range, in Tomato.  There's about 5 different colours going into it, maybe more :)

I have to say, I've enjoyed crocheting hexes more than granny squares, I find them so much more fun and satisfying! I can see more hex blankets in my future!  One of my next projects is a geek one, I'll be crocheting a big hex blanket based on the Settlers of Catan board game :)

Amigurumi Teddy Bear

I've been learning how to crochet amigurumi and this is my first project.  It's not perfect, the stitches are a bit loose, but hey, it's my first project :)  I just have one foot left to crochet, and then I need to stitch them all on, and stitch him some eyes.  Then I can give it to Squidge :)  I might save it and give it to him for one of his Christmas presents :)  If you're interested in trying something like this, here is the tutorial I have been following.

Corner to Corner baby blanket

A while ago I bought some really pretty yarn, I thought it was going to be proper self striping and so a corner to corner blanket would be perfect.  I have pretty mixed feelings about this blanket.  I really enjoyed making it, and the way I've folded it for the photo I'm hiding a multitude of sins where I've made mistakes and didn't notice until it was finished (woops).  But as you can see, it wasn't exactly self striping yarn, and I'm not overly keen on the colours.  I'd definitely use a different yarn next time.

Baby Boy Blanket

A local mummy friend of mine has a baby whom Squidge has lots of play dates with.  Her baby turned 1 just 3 weeks before Squidge, so about 3 weeks before his birthday I decided to crochet him a blanket as his mummy takes him out in the pram for walks every day and has a lovely bright blue pram.  I wish I could say I enjoyed this project, but I think because I had quite a tight deadline on it I didn't enjoy it as much.  I'm really happy with how it turned out and love the little single crochet border around the edge :)  I didn't follow a special pattern or anything, I just made it all up from a palette of 4 different blues and 2 different yellows.

So there's my current WIPs and finished projects (recent ones).  If you have any questions to ask feel free to leave a comment.  Also, if you're thinking about getting into crochet but aren't sure where to start, I wrote a bit of a 'Crochet for beginners' post here which you might find useful - I've linked to all the YouTube tutorials I learned from, and go through the kit you'll need to get started.

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A beginners guide to crochet

When Squidge was born I decided to make him a creeper face blanket (Minecraft), at the time I could only knit, and not very well, so I decided to learn to crochet.  My mother-in-law lent me a book 'Kids learn Crochet' which taught me the basics (hey, if it can teach kids, it can teach me!).  Once I'd mastered chains and some different stitches, I started crocheting little squares.

Then I got so busy with Squidge and the blog I didn't crochet for months and months.  Well, about a month or two ago, I picked it back up again and have pretty much crocheted every day since! I'm fully addicted now!  I finished the creeper blanket (it's only a small baby blanket for the pram), it doesn't look great, but I'm so proud of it, I know that in years I'll be able to look back and see how far I've come.

Anyway, over on Instagram I've been putting pics up of my crochet progress and I've had a couple of people ask me to put a post together about how I got started, what I bought etc - something I was already planning to share with you :)

So - here's what you need to get started (links under the pics to the bits I bought and where from).

Yarn (I buy Stylecraft DK from Wool Warehouse - it comes in a bag that's perfect for putting projects in) | Crochet hooks (this is a really decent cheap set £4.99) | Markers (great if you're working on multiple projects at the same time) | Small scissors (these are Tommee Tippee baby nail scissors) | Darning needles

These essentials (excluding the yarn) cost a grand total of £8.51, each ball of yarn costs £1.79 (if you buy this brand - I like it because they're decent sized, a good range of colours, they're soft and cheap).

FACT - did you know why people call it yarn and not wool? Because not all yarn has 'wool' in it - the stuff I use is 100% acrylic :)

That's one of the things I love about crochet, it's a cheap hobby to get started in :)  Once I learned the basics from the book, and felt like I'd learned how to stitch rows together really well, I tried to learn how to make a granny square... holy moly it took a lot of attempts! After a lot of practice I realised I was doing the wrong stitch (there's American terms and UK terms, I'd learn UK and the pattern was American... all very confusing!).  Once I realised, I corrected my mistake, learned how to Treble Crochet (TC) and there was no stopping me!

Here's some of the projects I'm working on:

I'm making a giant granny square blanket for us to keep on the sofa for the Winter, at the moment I'm making the width, so joining lots of squares together in a big row (it'll be 20/22 squares wide).  It's not perfect, but I'm still very much a beginner and learning. I learned this granny square from this video, and I learned how to join them together from Bella Coco in this video.

This is a giant granny square baby blanket for Squidge, it's still not finished, I need to add a lot more rounds to it, but that's the beauty of granny squares, you can be so creative in the colours you choose - it would look so different if where I used beige, I used black instead, and instead of the pastel colours, if I'd used orange and purple etc :)

I've just finished this baby blanket - the pattern was surprisingly ok - it only took 2 attempts to master, it's still not quite perfect, I think I've added an extra stitch in a couple places which is why the star doesn't have straight edges and has curved edges, but still a decent attempt :D   Again, I love how by changing the colours of this, or doing more than 1 row in each colour (I did 1 row blue, one row cream etc) it would have looked completely different.  This is the tutorial I learned this pattern from.

I'm really hoping my colleague doesn't read my blog, this is one of the baby blankets I'm making for her baby (she's due in Oct).  I wanted to learn a new stitch/pattern, and thought a grey and yellow chevron would be great and neutral for a boy or girl.  It's not perfect, I've made some mistakes, but for the most part it's pretty decent :)  I found the tutorial for it from a YouTuber called Jayda InStitches - she's amazing!!! 

A close up of the stitches - it looks more complicated than it is :)

Not all of my projects work out though - this was a granny chevron - it wasn't a great pattern as it didn't really tell you what to do with the ends/sides, so mine was getting smaller and smaller - that's when I found the pattern for the one above, which I love!

If you're thinking of learning, I really can't recommend it enough, especially if knitting wasn't for you. I find crochet much easier than knitting, and it's much easier to correct a mistake with crochet too - plus, I think the patterns are prettier - and I can actually follow a pattern in crochet, I never could with knitting :)

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