crochet blanket part two - i finished it!

i finished the blanket! yay!
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im delighted with it, its a bit wonky and definitely not perfect, but completely made with love (and some frustration)!
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here is how i finished it off:
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once i had sewn together the squares, i added about 2 rows of doubles around the whole thing.
then a single row of trebles and on the next row after that, i put 3 trebles in each of the trebles
on the previous row (this achieves the lovely ruffled effect of the border). then a last row of
doubles again to make it abit more rigid and tada!

F-I-N-I-T-O!

now that im on a roll, the next project will definitely be a 100 square blanket! (cue boyfriend rolling his eyes..!)

blueberries

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a couple of weeks ago, myself and the boyfriend went blueberry picking in the woods of sligo. as a swede, blueberry picking comes quite naturally to me, but mr boyfriend has been claiming the title of master picker three times in a row now... hm... i suspect that he most certainly must be cheating, but i have yet to discover exactly how...

we ended up with a nice result of 2.5 kilos though, so who am i to complain! and soon the mushroom season is starting, lets see who will be the champion then! (that would be me!)
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{lavender hearts}
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these lavender filled hearts will
find their way into the shop soon!

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{crochet blanket}

this project has been going on for quite some time...
the plan at the start was to make a large amount of
crochet squares which would be combined into a big blanket.
id say for a decent sized blanket you would need
about 100 squares and alot of patience...
i made 12. then i got bored. talk about perseverance!

anyhow. i thought i would share the last part of
my journey with 'the blanket that was never to be'
as this might actually trigger me to finish it!
the size is going to be considerably smaller than planned,
but nonetheless it is going to be a blanket and i think
that is a happy enough ending to this tale...

so this is what i did once i had all the end bits sewed in:
i had a frame laying about onto which i stretched
a piece of material and used this to block the squares on.
blocking is something i had never done before,
but my lovely crochet teacher told me to just wet the
squares, squeeze out excess water and pin them up to
dry using normal sewing pins.


as you can see in the picture above, some of the
squares werent exactly perfect looking, but once they
were wet i could shape them the size i needed them
to be and smooth out any funny corners too!

the pictures above show how i pinned down
the corners first (left) and then did the sides (right)

the dots on the fabric helped me shape all the squares the
same size. it didnt take long, it wasnt complicated and now
im just waiting for them to dry so i can crochet them together!

then i will add abit of a border around the
blanket to finish it off and tada! it will be done!

(a post on how that goes will be up soon!)

{strandhill gymkhana}

it was a while ago it was on but here are
finally the pictures from the strandhill gymkhana!


i had made new lavender hearts, mobiles
and pin cushions and brought with me burt the cat too!
(he is looking kind of lonely these days so i am thinking
he might be joined by a few friends soon..)

i had the pleasure of sharing a stand
with my friend natasha of aireefairee!
(we both got a lovely mention in the
sligo weekender the week before the market
was on, which was such a nice surprise!)

i got to meet my good old butter-making friends from
last year too! hello violet and sean!

and i was loving the little hares and birds and that
lovely minty green glazing of sligo based Breerogue Pottery.
(this stand was right in front of my stand and i was drooling
over them the whole day... as they say in japan;
they were super-kawaii!)