LEARNING TO CROCHET

I taught myself to knit last year when  friend of mine and his partner were expecting a baby and I wanted to send them something nice. I also wanted to make it myself and after a great deal of thought decided on some knitted beanie hats for when their little one was slightly older. Everyone gives expectant parents tiny baby things and pretty soon they grow out of them so I made the hats for around 6 months - 1 year old.

I picked up the needles and got started having never knitted before and after much cursing and being extremely annoyed I slowly got the hang of it and made several little hats. I enjoyed that greatly and have had a go at knitting a few other things since but I also wanted to learn to crochet.

My lovely Mother-in-Law gave me some plastic crochet hooks but I kept snapping them and eventually gave up trying to crochet... until a couple of weeks ago. I suddenly became determined to master something simple so started with a granny square and three days later I was just feeling frustrated and annoyed and then suddenly it all clicked into place with the help of this video on YouTube and I managed to start a square off without any problems.

Well, that was it then, I decided to set myself a project and always biting off a bit more than I can chew decided to make a blanket of the granny squares so set about designing one. Thus my huge 8 x 8' square colourful blanket idea was born. I would knit 64 10 x 10" panels and join them together using this method.

So, in three days I managed to make 6 panels using a bone crochet hook which I found rather easier to use than the small leftover halves of the plastic hooks which had been a nightmare to use. I only had 4 colours of yarn at the beginning, Pale Blue, Yellow, Pink and Pale Green but on the way home from visiting my Brother-in-Law my partner stopped off outside the Yarn shop in Charlton, London and told me I could go buy some more colours and some new crochet hooks.

I was delighted and spent a few minutes chatting to the lady who was serving me about yarn as I was really confused about the different names such as Double Knit, Chunky, Aran etc. She was wonderfully helpful and I came away with two new crochet hooks and 3 more colours of yarn to experiment with.

I really loved the new colours and soon had some Lavender, Peach and Aqua squares knocked up to add to the rest of my squares.

In eleven days I have made 27 panels of the 64 and am still going strong and making around 2 panels per day.

I now simply cannot wait until it is finished because it will have been the biggest challenge / project I have ever undertaken and am really enjoying myself but most of all, I want a huge snuggly, warm blanket for when we move into the cottage and it gets a tad nippy

I purposely made it in pastel / bright colours because the windows in the cottage are small and leaded to boot so I want bright / light colours in the place to make it seem brighter than it is.

Well, only a few days now until we leave London for good, lots of boxes and chaos all over the flat but also lots of excitement too. I may not be updating for a while after the 8th January as we will not have internet access for a while but I will be back with more exciting things to tell you about.

Until then HAPPY NEW YEAR and here's to a happy and prosperous 2010 for everyone!