Always on the lookout for new patterns, I jumped at the chance to crochet something new when a friend asked me to make a couple of ninjas for her. She wanted specific ninjas in bright pink and purple - she had seen pictures of them online and fallen in love with them - and I was fortunate enough to find the pattern on Amazon for relatively cheap.
The pattern is relatively simple, although I still don't quite understand the unusual pattern of increases when crocheting in the round. I find that - more often than not - a pattern requires increases every n*6 stitches. This pattern didn't follow that formula. It still works up lovely though, and was a welcome distraction from the multitude of blankets I have been making! The pattern worked up so quickly that I feel fairly confident that I could make several of these in a day, were I not baby-wrangling at the same time. It was darned cute, too! I used scrap DK acrylic yarn and a 4mm crochet hook.
In fact, they are so cute that said baby saw them, and she fell in love with them too!! Have you tried telling a four month old that they can't have something? Ok, she is a bit too young to understand reasoning. I might have gotten away with putting the ninjas high on a shelf while she wasn't looking...but....well....she's just too damned cute as well! I can't say no to her! So against my better judgement I let my baby play with the purple ninja. She played, she drooled, she chewed and she threw the ninja around... Luckily the ninja held up through it all, but I couldn't send my friend a drooly ninja... So I made another one!!
To thank her for letting my daughter claim the first ninja, I also made her a baby elephant, Meimei. Meimei is a free pattern, available from Look At What I Made. As a side-note, this blog happens to be the same pattern blog from which I got the pattern for Sophie, and the same designer who has written the patterns for the Amish puzzle balls I am currently making. I love these patterns so much and will often browse the page looking for new ideas.
There are several elephant patterns by this designer, and they all use the same head pattern. I own the pattern for the elephant puzzle ball, and had previously crocheted the elephant lovey for a friends baby, so I felt confident crocheting this mini elephant plushie.
Meimei herself is easy to make, and as all of the pieces are crocheted into the body as you go, there's actually no sewing involved! Amigurumi often involves a lot of sewing, and the Little Lady Ninjas are no exception - arms and legs must be sewn onto the body, which must be sewn onto the head. It's not a difficult task, but it gets very boring very quickly. It's nice to find a pattern which doesn't need any sewing. One downside to Meimei is that I found it very difficult to place the eyes levelly due to the asymmetric way the head/face is formed. Maybe it's just me - again I used scrap yarn and a 4mm crochet hook, so maybe I just crocheted too tightly for the safety eyes to fit in the right place.
Difficulties aside, she was still an enjoyable make, and I hope she's very happy in her new home!
Another blanket post! I get the feeling that I make more blankets than anything else! Still, at least people are warm, am I right?
This wonderfully colourful blanket was recently made for my friend's nan. She (my friend) came to me in March to tell me that her nan had recently been admitted to hospital and diagnosed with dementia. She asked if I might liaise with the local crochet and knitting group, "The Crafty One's" (sic) and maybe come up with some sort of fiddle blanket that she might give to her nan.
Now, this woman dragged her ass out of bed in the middle of the night to pick me up and take me to hospital after our taxi abandoned us on my doorstep when the driver realised I was in labour. Contractions were two minutes apart - my daughter was on her way and would have been born on the doorstep were it not for this lady. There was no way I was going to say no!!
Stash wasn't a problem - I have yarn coming out of my metaphorical ears. I had more than enough buttons, beads and patterns, and I even had some left over pink granny squares from when I was making blankets for the preemie ward at the hospital. However, with a relatively new baby to care for, there was no chance I was going to be able to do much in and short space of time. So even if my friend hadn't suggested I ask the Crafty One's for help, I was going to have to ask for it anyway.
I put a plea out for donations of squares - any colour, any size, any stitch, and of course the wonderful ladies of the craft group were more than happy to help! I had an influx of wonderful squares from people, and added to the 12 that I had somehow managed to do, we had the makings of a great blanket after only a week, including some knitted squares.
What I hadn't considered previously was how I was going to join said squares. I had squares of all shapes, sizes, gauges and stitch counts, and I am a person who likes things to be precise, neat and orderly. When I realised that it would be impossible to make all of these squares the same size and stitch count, I had a little bit of a minor melt down! It was a real challenge to accept the "chaos" of the mismatched squares, the lack of coordination in the colours. I opted for a join as you go method, as my usual method of simply crocheting the squares together was not going to work here, and I again turned to Wilkos Stripes yarn in rainbow colours. Its a relatively cheap mixed fibre yarn, a little scratchy at first but very warm and washes well. The self striping rainbow colours enhanced the patchwork random feel of the squares, and in the end it actually worked up quite well.
To truly make it a "fiddle" blanket though, it needed an assortment of appliques, buttons, and other varied textures. I had mentioned that the blanket was hopefully going to have a garden theme, and one of the ladies at the craft group had kindly donated a bag of flowers, which I sewed into the name squares to look like entwined vines. I added flowers of my own, as well as a fox, rainbow, and squares which spelled out the lady's name. I used the chunkiest buttons I could find in my collection, (and they're really not going anywhere now - very securely attached!!)
Overall, the whole blanket took four weeks and cost only £8 in rainbow yarn. Despite this relatively low cost and me feeling very outside of my comfort zone the entire time, I did feel good when it was finished and I got sent a photo of the lady snuggled under her nice new blanket. A lovely community project which only serves to prove that - if you look for it - you can still find the sense of community in people. :)
About two years ago I took delivery of some My Little Pony sock weight yarn from Dye Candy. Originally, I blogged about how I would like to make a knitted mitre blanket, buuuut...that didn't happen.
This yarn was always going to be for my son - He might be 13 years old (now) but he's always been a My Little Pony fan. He has so much of the merchandise, and even did a presentation in school 18 months ago about how he liked MLP, and that was OK because people can like whatever they want. I did try to get him to let his little sister have the yarn for a blanket, considering they were very feminine colours and he did already have a blanket, but no. He was adamant. And so in July last year, I started work on what would become the most frustrating granny square blanket ever...
It started off well. I wanted to make a solid granny square blanket with a rustic feel. The size of the blanket was always going to be an issue because it was a comparatively small ratio of sock yarn to a much larger teenage boy. As such I worked out that I could get 13 2-inch squares to one mini-skein of yarn, and that if I added some white and cream I could make blocks and make the yarn go further. I had 5 months til Christmas and it would be a great gift! It was a great idea, in theory...
I was pregnant at the time. Hot, heavy, tired, and struggling with all of the negatives that pregnancy could bring. There were days when I was so ill that I couldn't bear to lift my hook, days that were so hot that working on a blanket was out of the question, and towards the end, days when I would just sleep. All day... But still I thought I could do it. I pushed through, often running out of the Drops Safran cotton that I bought from Wool Warehouse and having to wait while more was delivered - I had miscounted so badly. I was only getting 18 squares per ball, as opposed to the 25-30 I had expected.
Then December arrived. "I'm so close" I thought...."Only...how many squares to go..?" It was then that I felt the impending failure... I still needed over 150 squares... The blanket on a whole would later comprise of a total 493 3-inch squares. My contractions started on the morning of the 4th. The never-ending blanket felt like it would never be completed. I tried crocheting while I was in labour but I couldn't focus on my counting... It was just too much of a distraction. My daughter arrived on the 5th. I tried crocheting while she was sleeping, but I was just too tired... Christmas came and went, and I felt so guilty, like I had let my son down.
But as my daughter got older, I learned to crochet while she was feeding, or sleeping in my arms. But I had a lot of long nights in those early weeks, and I needed something to keep me awake after the midwives had put the fear of God into me. It was still extremely slow going, and as I started top-stitching some definition onto the blocks I felt that it was going to last forever, it was getting just that tedious.
Obviously it didn't last forever, though how I found the will to continue through to the end, I'm still not sure... On Mothers' day in March, (funnily enough, four years on from the Mothers' day on which I finished the Minecraft blanket) I was ready to give my son the blanket which he had waited two years for. At least the end project is enjoyable, even if the act of creating it was somewhat of a chore.
Yes - my name is Mister Fliiiibble,
Mister Flibble, Wibble, Nibble, Dibble!
Yes - my name is Mister Fliiiiibble,
Mister Flibble, Wibble, Nibble, Woo!
Meet Mr Flibble:
Mr Flibble is a mischievous imp from the bottom of the garden. Mr Flibble likes mud pies, throwing snowballs, and making little green stains appear on your trousers when you're sitting in the grass unexpectedly. He communicates in a series of squeaks, and you can detect his presence by the mysterious rattling sound he makes wherever he goes.
Mr Flibble is a toy I made for my daughter after spending around 9 months making blankets. I needed a break!! I was so bored of squares it was unreal. I still am, to be honest... So one day I went browsing through my book collection and I found "Edward's Imagination Emporium". It's a book some good friends bought me for my birthday nearly 2 years ago, and I never really did anything with it until now. Mr Flibble is a very basic model from the book, and he took a whole 50g ball of Wilkos Stripe yarn. But he didn't take very long to work up - near instant gratification. With an large bag of squeakers and rattlers to use up from a project I never even bothered with, he seemed the perfect make.
After he was finished, I was flipping through the book and I realised I could probably make a unicorn pretty easily... So I did. Jacqson even has a butt-heart. He took me a lot longer because of his curly mane and tail though. Trying to find the time to finish each one of those spirals while wrangling a small infant was not easy. It took WEEKS. As such, I probably won't make another one!! He too used a whole 50g ball of yarn, albeit this time from Poundland sparkle yarn.
Like Mr Flibble, his arms rattle and his feet squeak. Unlike Mr Flibble, whose limbs are just sewn on as per the book's instructions, Jacqson has limbs that were crocheted into the body as I went, for safety. And if I were to ever make a third toy from the book, I would change the pattern slightly so that the limbs crochet from the feet/hands up, rather than from the shoulder/hip down. I have more faith in my starting chain to hold true and not work loose. Maybe I'm weird?
It's all irrelevant though. All that matters is that he's a hit - My daughter loves him! So, I've been inspired to make more toys for her. Plushies, stackinf rings, Amish puzzle balls, dolls, even crochet play food! She's going to be drowning in crochet toys!!
Wow. I can't believe I didn't think of this before! I've been unable to post properly for a while as I haven't been at the PC, and I didn't want to faff with blogger on my dinky little Samsung mini. Who'd have thought there'd be an app, huh? ;)
So, I guess the biggest crochet related news is...We have a new wool shop!! It's called Westcliff Wools and is literally just down the road from me. This development has devastated my bank account. Not even the birth of my daughter five months ago caused such chaos.... Seriously - this is my yarn collection as it now stands:
And even that didn't stop me from buying an extra 11 balls on Monday for my amamani puzzle balls. I recently bagged it all up by colour - red, orange, yellow, green, blue,purple, pink, cream, white, grey, black, variegated, and hand dyed.... Even though I AM using it, I guess I'm still buying faster... on the up side, this benefits me for when I want to start doing craft fairs next year. I literally have every colour I could possibly need!! Yay me!
This is not a crochet related post, but it had to be made. Back when I was more active, studying my BSc, I used to post my travel experiences to a website called MyWanderlust. Due to the rise of websites such as Facebook and twitter, MyWanderlust as it was doesn't exist anymore. I didn't have a lot posted there, but during the time I was posting I was featured twice in the editors "Best of" section for 21st December 2012. I found out today... The article I wrote can't be read on that website anymore, but for posterity I decided to post it here. Just because.
Welcome to the Jungle
My top three experiences from the university trip to the Brunei rainforest.
Do you know, I wouldn't even know where to start. My trip to Brunei was the most amazing experience of my whole life, and currently I'm not sure of anything that could beat it. Rather than describing the entire two weeks in great detail, I just picked out a few of my favourite moments as highlights, so even if nobody else ever reads this, when I'm old and forgetful I can look back and think "I did that!" :) So....Here are my top three Borneo experiences.
Canopy Sunrise
Watching the sun rise over the Bornean rainforest canopy of Kuala Belalong may just be the single most awesome moment of my entire life. No matter how much I try, and no matter how many photo's I took, I still can't describe how amazingly peaceful it was, nor how unbelievably beautiful.
We got up while it was still dark to take a boat to the walkway before the sun rose. The ride to the walkway in the dark was rather uneventful, and we got to the walkway pretty easily. Walking up the path along the side
of the valley to get to the walkway entrance was pretty harsh though! After two weeks of kayaking and forest hiking, I had thought that I was getting fit. Apparently not! Heheh. As with most of the forest hikes, I was bringing up the rear in our little group. Still, walking through the forest in the dark was a whole new experience, and I found myself more focussed on where my feet were going on the ground than where everyone else was ahead of me.
When we got to the walkway, it was definitely not what I was expecting, although right now I'm not entirely sure exactly what it was that I WAS expecting. The walk way consisted of a large scaffold structure, with staircase towers and long gang-planks between them. I've never really been afraid of heights, (although I do get vertigo at times due to my crazy glasses prescription!), but standing there at the foot of the tower and looking up, I had the craziest urge to run away, and I actually hesitated. My lecturer had to look at me and say something along the lines of "Well, go on then" before I even moved. But move I did, and before I knew it I was climbing up the seemingly-neverending ladder of doom, passing several small wasps nests on the way to the top.
At the top, the view was so absolutely amazing, that the evil pathway-of-stumbling-and-tree-roots and the daunting staircase-of-infinite-steps suddenly didn't matter any more. The sun wasn't peeking over the horizon just yet, although the sky was lightening up all around, and the birds were beginning their morning chorus. Bees buzzed past on their way to places I can only imagine, and fine clouds of mist were floating just over the top of the trees, following the path of the river that we had left behind a while ago. I felt like I didn't dare speak, lest I completely ruin the moment, so I just took my camera out and started taking some video recordings. I stood there just watching for what felt like hours as the sky lightened and the sun rose, and more and more calls joined the dawn chorus.
I don't think I'll ever experience anything that peaceful again, (certainly not with a hyperactive 8 year old!), and so of all of the amazing things I did that fortnight, the canopy sunrise was possibly the most amazing moment of them all.
Crocodile-spotting
The water was perfectly still and black, and all of the stars were out in a cloudless sky when we decided to go kayaking on Tasek Merimbun lake and look for crocodiles. Stealth-kayaking behind our lecturer who was shining a torch around the lake until he found the eye shine of a croc, we could barely see anything. I never knew there were so many different shades of black!
When a crocodile was found, we'd all turn our torches on and point them in that direction, lighting up its eyes even further, before quietly paddling towards it. What amazed me was that the crocodiles were actually scared of us! I never expected that in a million years! Of everything I've ever heard about them, shy was never one of their descriptors.
We stayed on the lake for over an hour, paddling around as quietly as we could, talking in hushed whispers while listening to the fish splashing around us, jumping out of the water to eat the midges flying above
the lake. At one point, a fish landed in my kayak, and so I had to reach around to catch it and let it loose over the side, and believe me it was the slimiest thing I've ever touched, xenopus frogs and aquarium fish included.
Overall, it was one of the most relaxing things I've ever experienced. The blackness of the sky seemed to wash over everything with an almost muffling effect. Nothing could be heard of the people in the hall, and the few out on the lake seemed almost afraid to break the silence, so it was just us, sat in the starlight, listening to the chirping of insects, splashing of fish, and trickling of water over the paddles.
I have no words to explain adequately how amazing this was. It was just.....perfect. Absolutely perfect.
Snorkelling
Disaster!!! I'd never been snorkelling before, and I am an appalling swimmer. So why in the world I thought I was suited to a lifetime as an aquatic biologist, I will never know. Nevertheless, despite my first foray into water deeper than my waist being incredibly humiliating, trying, and immensely difficult, it was still amazing, and I now I have the knowledge that I should really ask Santa for a lifetime membership to the local pool!!
My first difficulty seemed to be with my sense of balance. There hadn't been a considerable amount of rain in the Brunei area for quite a while, and so the Kuala Belalong river water level was very low in areas. This meant walking (and wading!) across slippery rocks in order to get to where we needed to go. Apparently, slippery rocks plus me equals Bambi on ice. If you've ever seen that movie, you'll know what I mean. Legs in all directions, with frequent landings on my backside. It was physically painful, and unfortunately for my ego - not an amazingly large presence at the best of times - it was destined to continue the entire way down the river, into the tributaries, and then back again. Ouchies! I thought I'd be safe once I reach the deeper water, but that was not to be. I had not been swimming since I was 9 years old, at which point I had managed to get my 25 metre swimming badge before being banned from the pool for running into breathing difficulties! I kinda forgot about that in the excitement of going splashing up river. Ooops! So, combined with my incessant falling, my weak swimming led to my trailing a good distance behind my lecturer and peers.
We got to the tributaries, and went snorkelling in the confluence of the river, looking at the different fish there. Of course, like the numpty I am, I kept holding my breath under the water. Hello?! Snorkel here?! Heheh - my scuba-loving high school biology teacher would have been SO ashamed of me! I had to keep coming up for air, which was quite ridiculous, but I did eventually begin to override my innate sense of silliness and I even got to see some fish! My lecturer pointed out this really cool eel, and as he poked it out of it's hiding place, it shot past me in a streak of brown and was gone as quickly as it had emerged. The endemic suckers were the best though. Amazing vibrant greens, with streaks of yellow and little black spots. There were other fish, too. I was actually amazed by how many fish were present in the river, and even more surprised by the fact that 9 students and a lecturer splashing about in the river didn't scare them away!!
Moving on up the tributaries turned out to be just as much an exercise in bi-pedalism as getting to them! Climbing up the waterfalls was much easier than staying on my feet once I got to the top, for example. At one point, I slipped so badly that my friends thought for sure I *must* have broken something! But I didn't. I did find a teeny weeny little frog stuck to my arm though. He was black, and shiny, and I very nearly wiped him away thinking he was river ooze! And I'm not sure whether I was more or less embarrassed when the lecturer turned around and said "Get to solid ground before you begin multitasking Alex - Three points of contact, not seven!" On the one hand, it was kind of funny and took the heat off of me, but on the other..... >.<
Still. As black and blue as I was by the time I got back, and as stiff and achy as my muscles were the next morning, I would do it again in a heartbeat. And I *clearly* need more practice in the water. ;)
More unicorns! I swear, this little guys are the only thing people would have me crochet! Beautiful blankets, creeper toys, even the My Little Pony plushies I have planned.... Nope! None are enjoyed as much as these little chibi unicorns! I think I have made nine of them so far, maybe more! Most of them have been gifts, but since people have been asking me to make them for other people, I have started asking for a donation to the Aching Arms charity. These guys made such a difference when we lost our son last year, and it's nice to be able to give something back. I usually ask for a teddy bear to be donated in Quinn's name - a plushie for a plushie seems fair to me! It seems like such a small thing, but having that bear to cuddle when you have to walk away and leave your baby in the hospital - It's actually a very big thing.
As always, the pattern used is the Shy Little Unicorn, by Ana Paula Rimoli. The pattern is available as a paid download from Ravelry, but I have it as a pattern in a book - "Amigurumi Toy Box". It is a very simple pattern, and I have had very little difficulty in mastering it. In fact, parts of it are becoming permanently embedded in my memory now. It's not often I have to pull the pattern out to make a unicorn - usually only when it's been a while, to refresh my memory!
The first unicorn was actually finished a few weeks ago, before the end of the summer holidays. I started the latest three plushies at the same time, but one of them had a rush on it as it was for my son's LSA at the school he just left. Of course, it had to be ready before school broke up, and so it was the first to be finished. Fortunately, the unicorn was much loved! I do like it when gifts I make are appreciated - A lot of effort goes into them.
The remaining unicorns were a little less hurried. The first is a gift to my niece for her first birthday. I have made unicorns for all of my nieces, and so I couldn't let this milestone pass without making one. I'm hoping she will like it, though I am sure she will be completely spoiled on the day. I haven't seen a kiddies birthday go by yet in our family where the kiddie isn't spoiled - My son lead the way for this. Ooops! The second was a request from a friend, who wanted to give a unicorn to his friend as a birthday present at the end of August. It's finished well in advance (for a change!) and has already been delivered.
Hopefully I won't have to make any more unicorns for a while. They're very cute, I do agree, but making so many of the same thing can get very dull after a time. It becomes almost a chore to make something so cute, and surely that in itself is a crime to crochet?
One of the things in my seemingly never-ending 'to do' list has been to weave in the ends on my sister's wedding blankets. I should really have done this long ago, as they spent three weeks in South Asia on their honeymoon, but the weather was just too hot for working on a blanket. When I make blankets I spread them over my legs - I mean, where else would they go? And unfortunately, the short-lived British summer made this impossible! So the blankets were not ready for them coming home from Bali. They are ready now, however!
Fortunately for the blankets, the temperatures have dropped since my sister returned home (though probably not so fortunate for my sister, coming home from a tropical paradise to damp and dreary?!) and so I was able to bite the bullet. I hate weaving in ends with a passion! I usually like to weave as I go, crocheting each row over the ends of the last. I could do this for some rows, but unfortunately the nature of the blanket design meant that I had a lot of ends hanging out, and in the name of a speedy finish I made the rookie mistake of leaving all ends til last....
It literally took me days to get these ends finished, but I finally finished them several days ago. I am so glad to get them off my plate though - the blankets look amazing. I don't think I will ever use this pattern again, as I didn't enjoy it as much as I enjoyed, say, Sophie. But I can't deny that it is a beautiful pattern, and I know that my sister will treasure it. And with the UK winter coming, you know they're going to need them!!
Success!!
Following my first attempt at intarsia, I learned a number of things. The biggest thing I learned was that I hate intarsia! I can't stress this enough. Working on the Star Wars blanket for my partner is definitely going to be a labour of love. I also learned a number of minor things, such as the need for a printer that actually works, or that there is such a thing as a ball of yarn that is, in fact, too big. But mainly I learned that the Star Wars blanket is going to take me a LOT longer than I realised, and that it will be imperative that I actually weave my ends as I go. As a result, I am trying to get up to date on all the little odds and ends that are lying around. Having half a dozen unfinished projects lying around when I am about to start a monster doesn't seem like a good idea.
The first project I decided to finish was my Truly Hooked circles blanket. The latest pack was pack six, and the colour scheme was yellow. And I do mean yellow - Like, the standing in front of you with a megaphone, screaming YELLOW!!!! at the top of it's voice sort of yellow.
I didn't enjoy this pack as much as the previous packs. It's not even the colour that bothered me (as it did others). I don't mind the brightness of the yellow - there were bright pinks and oranges in previous packs, and I'm fully expecting an almost neon green at some point. I love bright rainbow colours, so the colour didn't bother me in the slightest. What did bother me, however, was the texture of the really bright yellows. The texture of the yarn I use means a lot to me - I prefer soft yarn over the scratchy feel of cheap acrylic. In all of the previous packs I have gone on and on - almost gushed - about how wonderfully soft and squishable the yarn has been. When I received the first pack, I sat there for a good ten minutes just squishing the yarn over and over. When I was showing off the yarn packs the first thing I said to people was "feel how soft it is!!!" And this time I just couldn't feel it. I don't know whether it was the dye that hardened the yarn, or whether it was maybe a guest dyer (I know that the next pack features a guest dyer) but the neon yellow skeins had the feel of acrylic rather than the soft wool feel that I have come to be used to. That said, the remaining colours in the pack were as soft as I remember, and once I got the neon colours out of the way I began to thoroughly enjoy working with the skeins again. I don't expect that I will come across many more that I don't enjoy working with. Overall, the blanket club has been a wonderful experience! I would love to do it again one day.
I am really beginning to love this blanket as it works up. I have loved it from the beginning, but as I see it grow I love it more and more. It makes me feel a bit sad to think that it will be finished soon - We are two thirds of the way through the packs - but I am also excited to finish it! I am definitely keeping this blanket for myself. It's a bit small to go on my bed - I think it's the perfect size to be a single bedspread - but it will make a great sofa blanket, if I can only keep the cats off of it. I think what I really need is a box by the sofa in which I can store blankets for the cold nights that come with having those pesky British Victorian sash windows. I would also put my ever suffering rainbow ripple blanket in there, my scrap square a day blanket, and the three shop-bought blankets I have - though those would be right down at the very bottom, for when we are desperate!! Alas, our flat is way too small, but I can dream, right?
It's been a few days since I had any crochet news - I am still recovering from an impromptu family 'holiday' to Chessington World of Adventures. It was a full on couple of days in which I did more walking than I've done in a very long time, drank more Cola than I thought humanly possible, and got absolutely no crochet done whatsoever! Now I am catching up on laundry, resting my aching muscles, and hoping our bank account recovers quickly! :D It was worth it though. Look how happy he is!
Since getting back, I had my first attempt at Intarsia. I have decided - I hate intarsia. I was watching the tutorial videos linked in the Star Wars blanket pattern by Ahooka, (last mentioned here) and I noticed that the edges of the motif always have little 'bites' out of them if you use single crochet intarsia. I hate it. I would like a smoother edge, similar to what you get with a C2C blanket. So I tried my first design for the blanket in the C2C style... I got about one third of the way up the edge of the motif before realising that this was impractical - The square would work up to be about 45 cm long on each edge!! That's fine if you're only doing a few designs, but my partner has expressly told me - "As many designs as possible". Using C2C and a 4mm hook, the blanket would be at least 3 metres along it's shortest edge. While it would be a lovely snuggly blanket, it's really too big! So then I tried double crochet intarsia. This made the square smaller than the C2C did, but it was still almost 30 cm along each edge. Still too big. And so I had to resign myself to single crochet intarsia. And I hate it.
I probably didn't start with the easiest pattern for my first try - the number of colour changes along a row gets to be quite high in some places. I think at one point I was working with six balls of grey and six balls of black, all at once! And I didn't do a very good job of keeping the balls separated, so the strings all got tangled up towards the end and I got quite frustrated. But the tutorial said to start with a pattern that only used two colours, just to get the hang of the colour changes at first. I don't think I've done too badly for my first time. It helped to have a symmetrical pattern, so that it didn't really matter which direction I read the pattern. I do need to get the hang of reading the pattern in the right direction for future squares though. My Jabba will come out a bit squiffy looking if I don't get the hang of it!
At least you can sort of tell what it's supposed to be....right?
