Baby Blanket - done

Hey Guys!

I'm still recovering from a really, really bad cold that had me tied to the couch for the last few days. I have being sick, but as my job was rather stressful in those last weeks and I didn't take enough time to eat well and go running every now and then it's no surprise that my immune system went on strike. So I stayed at home, used about fifty tissues a day and used the time for crochet and reading.

A few weeks ago I told you about my Sunburst Flower Granny Square Baby Blanket. I finished it in those last few days. There are still a few ends to sew in, but right now I don't have the patience to deal with it! ;)

So let's enjoy some colorful pictures of my lovely blanket. I don't have a new owner for it, so for the time being it will live here at home with me. But I don't doubt that it will move to a new home soon!

//

Seit letzter Woche hat mich eine heftige Erkältung fest im Griff. Nach zwei Tagen daheim hab ich den Fehler gemacht und bin wieder ins Büro. Hab ich dann auch gleich wieder bereut, danach lag ich nämlich wirklich komplett flach. Wenn man schon an die Couch gefesselt ist, muss man diese Zwangsruhe halt auch nutzen um zu häkeln und zu lesen. 

Vor ein paar Wochen hab ich meinen Sunburst Flower Granny Square Baby Blanket schon mal gezeigt. In den letzten Tagen hatte ich jetzt die Zeit um sie fertig zu stellen. Ein paar Fäden gehören zwar noch vernäht, dafür hatte ich jetzt aber mit meiner Rotznase wirklich keine Geduld. Kommt schon noch.

Also hier noch ein paar Fotos von der Farbexplosion. Noch ist die Decke bei mir, ich denke aber, dass es kein Problem wird, in nächster Zeit einen Abnehmer zu finden. 

Blog Anniversary

Oh boy, I totally didn't notice that my blog had its first birthday earlier this month! At the beginning of June last year I wrote my very first blog post! I just noticed it now when I looked for an older post. 
So - Happy blogiversary to me! ;)

And because I finally gave the baby blanket to my NIECE (after two nephews, we now have a GIRL in the family) I can show it to you here. We already visited the little bundle of joy when she was fresh out of the hospital and a mere 5 days old. Of course she's the prettiest baby I've ever seen! 

drops baby merino. I love the colors!

the first rows...

nearly finished!

Our little girl loves the blanket, her mother sends me pictures of her wrapped up in it constantly, but because I have to respect her privacy, you get the baby blanket pictures sans the baby.
I saw a similar pattern at little woollie and immediately fell in love with it! I started the blanket in January. At that time we didn't know if it would be a boy or a girl, so I tried to make it gender-neutral. And a rainbow is always nice. 
I used Drops Baby Merino wool and I loved it. It's not the smoothest or softest wool, but it's a natural fiber (which was important to me and the mother) and you can throw it in the waching machine which - in my opinion - is an important point when it comes to baby blankets!
I have lots of the colored yarn left so right now I'm thinking of making myself a colorful rainbow-ripple-cushion cover with it. I really fell in love with that colors and with Drops yarn. Won't be the last time that I'm working with it. In fact, I'm already working on a new Drops pattern which I'm sure I'm able to show you soon! :)

any tips as to why the edge curls up so much? What did I do wrong?

close up of the colors. I love those neat rows!

close up of the edge. a little rainbow!

Happy Weekend, everyone! 
Xoxo

P.S.: I'm thinking about subscribing to simply crochet magazine. Has anyone of you experience with a subscription outside the UK???

The Mario blanket - TA DAH!

Guys, you won't believe it, I actually FINISHED a piece of crochet! And not just any piece of crochet but by far the BIGGEST piece that I've ever made!
If you read this blog semi-regulary, you might have read about the Mario blanket once or twice. I started this blanket sometime in the summer, thinking (haha, how delusional!) that it might make a nice christmas present for my man, as he is a huge Super Mario Fan. So I only crocheted it, when he wasn't around. That lasted for about one or two weeks, then I realized, that I would never finish it that way. So I told him about it.

I saw a similar blanket somewhere on the internet, so the idea isn't clever or new at all. But I still liked it. So I ordered the yarn and started to crochet simple, dense, 5-round Granny Squares. Nothing special about them. Then I found the pattern for a crochet top, so I put the (rather dull, I have to admit) Granny Squares aside to make this. Then I started working on the blanket again. Then my mum saw my finished crochet top and demanded one for herself. So I put the work on the blanket aside, to make my mum her top. Then I worked on the blanket again. Then I started to work on snowflakes for the christmas market. Then I went back to the blanket. Then I...well, you see the pattern.

After New Year I told myself that I'm not allowed to work on anything else until I've finished that blanket. To be honest, it was rather tiring for me, to crochet all those same, simple squares in all those same, simple colors. But I gave up on one Granny Square blanket right when I started to crochet and I didn't want to fail again. So I worked and I worked and I worked.

I got some new yarn deliverd this week. Two packages: one contains fluffy Drops Baby Merino which will turned into a lovely baby blanket for my yet unborn niece/nephew. And the other package contains Drops Silk Alpaca Yarn. Probably the softest and most luxurious yarn that I ever bought. I'm going to turn this into a shawl to wear with my wedding dress on my wedding day which is less than two months away! So I had a really good motivation to finish the blanket.

And as you always have to see the bright side of life: Thank god I got knocked down by a nasty stomach flu this weekend, so I spend three days on my couch with the big blanket on my lap, darning in the ends (because I left them ALL until the end. Very clever, huh? That way I was so far along that I HAD to do them, no matter what. Whereas I would have probably thrown the pile of Grannies out of the window, if I did all those ends square by square. I guess I'm a tad masochistic in that way) and crocheted four loooooong rounds of edging onto the blanket.

But all the work paid off because....TA DAAAAH!

It's finished!

252 Granny Squares
Measures approximately 1,80 m x 1,40 m so it's very nice and cosy and big and snuggly

I don't know how much yarn I used, but I used an acrylic yarn (as the blanket would otherwise have been too expensive and probably also too heavy). One skein (50g) of that yarn made about 20 Granny Squares, so that should give you an idea.
I used a 3,5 mm hook.

Sorry for the bad photos but I finished it yesterday in the evening. And I'm never home in daylight (thanks to my work schedule) and I cannot wait until next weekend to take proper picture. I might take some additional proper pictures then to show the blanket in all its glory. But for now, these have to suffice.

Oh and just for the record:

NEVER AGAIN!

brrrrrr

God almighty it got cold over the last two days! We had a really lovely weekend, warm and sunny, no jacket needed, no scarf, no thick sweaters. We spend the whole weekend outside. This morning I went to the train station - like every morning. But that morning the walk was different. I usually enjoy those ten minutes. I have an office job and sit the whole day, but these ten minutes to and from the train station are sometimes the only time of the day that I move my body. But today I was sorry that I didn't take the car. Not only was it extremely windy. It was also really, bloody cold. You needed a scarf. And a thick sweater, a jacket and most importantly: you needed a hat. A HAT for heaven's sake, it's still SEPTEMBER! The fact that it started to rain halfway through my walk (rain and strong wind. You get the picture. Did I mention that it was really, really cold?) didn't improve my mood.

Anyway, since the temperature dropped so significantly, I am even more determined to finish my Mario blanket! I started to crochet on the train. It's not much, I get about two squares done on one ride, which means about 4 to 5 squares on one day. But it's still more than I made in the last few weeks - which isn't that hard when you know that I didn't crochet at all. But it won't be long before my beautiful blue larksfoot blanket isn't warm enough anymore. Don't get me wrong - I love that blanket, I really do. But it's made of pure cotton and it has too many holes in it to be really snuggly and warm. So I'm on a crochet mission.

But that's not my only crochet mission. I worked on my mother's top yesterday. The back is nearly done, here's a picture of my progress:

I know, not really impressive and you need A LOT of imagination to see the finished product. But believe me - it's going to be lovely. Yesterday my mom started a four-week-rehabilitation to get her back on track after her long stay at the hospital and I thought it would be nice if she would come home to find the finished top lying (pretty wrapped up, of course) on her bed. So I have four weeks. Should be doable.

Aside from this there isn't actually very much to tell you, so here I give you (again) some random pictures of my weekend. As I said, the weather was lovely and my man and I went geocaching. Have you heard of it before? If not here's a quick explanation: You download an app on your mobile. There you get the GPS coordinates for a specific location. Somewhere at this location the cache is hidden. It's like a treasure hunt. Sometimes you only find a piece of paper, sometimes there are little boxes with actual small treasures inside. I recommend this highly if you have children. My nephews love it, and it's a great way to spend a day outdoors.
We just recently started it but really like it. My man doesn't like to go for a walk just for the sake of walking. He needs a purpose, a destination. So geocaching is the perfect way to get him outdoors. He's going for a walk and he doesn't even notice it. S

o you'll get to see some more pictures of the beautiful landscape I'm surrounded with. I'm sorry if that bores you, there's just not much else to show you. Unless you want to see the pile of laundry that's waiting for me. Or the layer of dust that's slowly accumulating on the stairs. Or the mess on the kitchen table that just keeps reappearing, no matter how often we clean it up.

Oh, what was that? What did you say? You prefer the beautiful landscape? That's what I thought. Enjoy.

on our geocache mission

if you look REALLY closely, you see tiny white spots just after the houses. Those are sailing boats on the lake. 

I didn't take that pic while we were geocaching. We did a little boat ride on the lake on Sunday. The weather was turning by then. But to be honest - that's the real color of the lake. Muddy, groomy, grey. 

no filter or anything added to this pictures. I am simply to lazy. 

what a weekend...

...what was supposed to be a relaxing, calm and nice weekend turned out to be quite chaotic and stressful. BUT there was some time spend at my parents house. They have a wonderful garden where I love to spend my time, especially in summertime. Look at the pictures below, you will understand what I'm talking about.

This is the back of the garden. It's not their house on the left, this was the house of my great-grand-aunt (or something like that) and I guess it must be about 100 years old. Nobody lives there anymore, nowadays it's a garage and storage room. In the front of the pictures is the strawberry patch. Not many strawberries are at this time of the year, but I managed to get the probably last ones.

Enough for me and yes, they were as sweet and delicious as they look! 

After picking the strawberries I wanted to relax at the pool and spend some time reading in the sun.

This is probably my favorite part of the garden. I love being around water. It doesn't matter if it's a pool, a pond, a lake or the sea. Water and sun make me happy. But the sun didn't stick around for very long. As soon as I changed into my bikini and made myself comfortable big, grey clouds pushed themselves in front of the sun. 

This was the last patch of blue sky. It didn't stick around for very long. 

And what do you do, if it's too cold to chill outside?

Right - you work on your current project. Now the color combination may look slightly ugly - but it will all work together, once this very biiiig thing is finished. 60 squares done, 195 to go. It will be some kind of pixel blanket. Again an idea that I found somewhere on the internet, again a blanket for my man. Stay tuned for more information. 

Wish you all a lovely sunday!