I am ready for my close up...

I had a fab time this week at The Sewing Sanctuary in Thornton.  I went along to their Product Photography workshop to get some top tips on taking photos of my items.  It was very informative and I got to take a few photos while I was there.  Emily, who ran the workshop, was really helpful and showed us all sorts of little things that really make a difference to how you showcase your products.

Here are a few of the photos I took on the night ( though not my products!).

Working outdoors...Baby Blanket

The beautiful summer weather has come at last and my crochet has moved out of doors.  I love out door living and when the weather is nice we spend a lot of time outside in the garden.  Our little patio doesn't get much sun so it had to be warm to sit there but on hot days it is a beautiful, shady place to sit and crochet.

This weekend I started making a baby blanket.  A friend has asked me to make a blanket to give as a gift and that got me thinking about gender neutral baby wear.  These days, most people seem to know what gender their baby will be and it certainly makes planning for it much easier but some couples still choose not to know and making baby items in pastel shades of green and lemon can be a bit tedious.

I have had a couple of balls of Hayfield's Baby Changes colour phase yearn in my stash for a while, one in pink and one in blue.  This is a space died, variegated yarn that goes from the palest shade to a vibrant colour and back again and comes in 100g ball.  I decided to make a small blanket that used the pink and blue yarn combined with a white baby DK and chose the old favourite granny square motif. as usual I kept notes of the work and the yarn so I can remember how I did it.

The motifs had a white centre, then two round of colour finished with a round of white, 10 in each colour.  The changes yarn meant that each square had a different shade of the colour. 


Arranged so that the colour changes rippled across the blanket, the squares were joined with a dc seam.  I like to use this in blankets because it gives a nice checked effect and provided a strong seam.

The changing weather drove me inside at this point and this is still a work in progress.  Next stage is to give it a treble border with a band each of pink, blue and white.  the finished blanket will be small, car seat size but could easily be made bigger by adding more squares.

The finished effect will be of a lightweight, soft covering ideal for summer use in bright summer colours. 

Ideal for a boy or girl!

This week has been all about afternoon tea.  I have been making tea cosies and coasters in lovely summery colours.  The tea cosy is decorated with leaves and flowers inspired by the summery weather and the flowers in the garden.  The large flowers on the side are like the clematis flowers which are just opening in my garden.  The coasters are made in complimentary colours.

The tea cosy is made up with a double strand of double knitting yarn to make it nice and thick to keep your tea warm.  I make tea cosies from the top down in the round, like making a beanie hat, splitting it into two halves for the  holes of the handles and then joining again at the bottom.  This avoids a bulky seam that can spoil the look. The decoration is sewn on afterwards and there is a ring on the top,  a plastic ring crocheted over with yarn.