Eindelijk… tadaah! - Long overdue: tadaah!

Vorig jaar in juli had ik het terloops over een crea-project waar ik mee bezig was. Ja, inderdaad VORIG JAAR! Het leek wel eeuwen voor ik eindelijk trots kon zeggen: ‘t is af! Tadaah… Maar nu is het echt af :-)

Last year in July I mentioned some kind of creative project I was working on… Yes, LAST YEAR… It took ages before I could really say: Tadaah! But now it’s time :-)

Het begon allemaal met een oude koffer van de kringwinkel, Mod Podge en vintage stofjes.

It all started with an old suitcase from the thrift store, Mod Podge and vintage fabrics.







Het oude, lelijke papier moest eruit en werd vervangen door de oude, mooie stofjes.

The old, ugly paper came off from the inside and got replaced with the vintage fabric.





De buitenkant van de koffer kreeg eerst een laag witte verf, daarna met de Mod Podge nog een stofje erover en een bandje als afwerking.

The outside got a coat of white paint, also a fabric cover and a ribbon to finish the edges.







Ik maakte een kussen op maat van de bodem, het roze, gehaakte dekentje en de slinger mochten ook meedoen. En het resultaat is…

A pillow was made to fit the bottom, also the pink crochet blankie and the bunting got involved. All that resulted in…









Een kattenbed voor de koninklijke kat!

A pet bed for the queen of the house!







En? Is ze geslaagd?

So, what do you think?

Love, Zjizjipke!

A pink little blankie!

From the box of squares I have standing here, I made a new little, pink blanket.





It even makes a nice roll!



All different shades of  pink, with splashes of contrasting colour.



I just sewed them together and crocheted a simple border of dc’s.



A small blankie, only 5 x 5 squares (about 45 x 45 cm).



What do you think of this little one?

Love, Zjizjipke!

Granny stripe blankie ta dah!

In September I ordered some new yarn, yes, what a joyous day that was! Shopping for yarn and fabrics are two of my favourite things. (indeed I have a quite substantial collection of both, hence the rarity of those treasured shopping sprees…)

But since Blankie the second had been given another purpose in life, I just had to make another Blankie, right? Enter the need for new yarn, I already had the colours picked out! At Wooly.nl I came across a beautiful acrylic yarn: Simply Soft from Caron. It comes in a nice range of colours and has a little shine to it.



The pattern I had in mind was the famous Granny Stripe Pattern from Lucy (Attic24). I started with a crochet hook number four, but the first rows turned out too rigid, so I restarted with a number five hook, which was better. Seems I crochet my stitches really tight, so next time I’m going to try a number six, just to see the difference.

The yarn was a real joy to work with, the pattern was a breeze to crochet, so the blanket grew and grew quite quickly…

Ok, enough with the blabla, here comes the Ta dah!!


Isn’t she gorgeous?? I’m totally in love with the result!


I haven’t got the exact dimensions, but she’s big enough to keep one person nice and warm!


A row of grey between four other colours gives a really nice effect, doesn’t it?


As a border I just crocheted some rows of treble crochet (US: double crochet, Dutch: stokjes)





Yes, she inspected the new Blankie and claimed it as hers (again) :-) But this one’s mine!

Love, Zjizjipke!

Whatever happened to Blankie n°2??

You remember how enthusiastically I started Blankie n°2 way back in January? With her 450 squares I needed to make?

I know you all are thinking ‘finally the here-she-is-in-all-her-glory-post is here’. Well, yes and no…
During the summer doubt started to creep in, doubt about the heaviness of the end result, all cotton for a double sized blanket equals a lot of weight… The practicality, will it fit in the washing machine? And I lost my drive to crochet another 200 squares for a Blankie that would be absolutely cute, but unused probably…
Then I started to think about the box full of squares that just sat there… What to do? What to do?

Take them all apart and re-use the yarn? Well, no! Maybe I could use them for smaller blankets? Like baby-blankets? Yes! That’s it!
So two new-born bundles of joy are now the proud owners of the very first batch of Zjizjipke’s babyblankies extraordinaire…
The first one for a beautiful baby girl.

The second one for a gorgeous baby boy.

Hopefully I can make some more baby’s happy with some blankies, I can make loads of colour combinations with my squares :-)
Can’t wait to hear what you think about the babyblankies!
Love, Zjizjipke!

WIP: Lacy shawl n°1

Yes, I’m back online! Wow, did I miss you guys! I will be taking a break from the photo a day project for the moment, maybe I’ll do it again in a few months. Did you like it by the way? For now on my blog I’m going to focus more on the crafty things in my life, maybe the inspiration and creativity will be flowing more freely :-)
At the moment I’m working on 2 hooky and 1 knitty project at once. Of course blankie the second is still on the agenda, though she’s on a vacation right now :-)

Hooky project n°2 is a lacy shawl for my mum. She bought the yarn, a gorgeous brown, really thin, but fluffy kind. Drops Kid Silk (colour 15).

The pattern is Eva’s shawl, found online here. It’s a really easy pattern, after the first five rows, you just keep repeating row 3,4 and 5. It gives a really nice effect!

After a while it’ll look something like this: including the paperclips used as stitch markers ;-)

Lucky these days it doesn’t get dark until late, because with the colour and the thickness of the yarn, daylight is needed to find the right holes to put the crochet hook trough! Hopefully mom will like the finished shawl!
I’ll tell you more about the knitty project one of the days!
Love, Zjizjipke!

Blankie (p)inspiration!

Well, it’s about time to show you some more of my favourite pins!

Today it’s all about gorgeous, warm and cosy blankies! While I’m (still) working on blankie n°2, I already have some ideas in mind for the next one!

Hope you like my (p)inspiration!

Love, Zjizjipke!

Tutorial: square for blankie n°2…

I’ve been making more squares for blankie n°2, the counter stops at around 80 for the moment… It seems like I made hundreds already, but then you start counting… Oh, so few?? Oh well, keeps me busy in front of the TV :-)

For those who are interested, I’ll post the pattern! Maybe somewhere somebody already made squares this way, maybe not… I kind of made up this square using individual rounds from various patterns, so if I’m not the first: sorry!

Pattern:

Chain 4 and join into a ring with a slip stitch or use a magic circle and work round 1 into the circle. (I‘m using the chain 4 method)

Round 1: Chain 3, crochet 11 dc's into the ring and join to third stitch of beginning chain with a slip stitch (slst). Cut yarn and pull through. You’ll have 12 dc’s now, in a circle.

Round 2: Join the new colour, ch 3, crochet 1 dc in between 2 dc's of the previous colour. Keep crocheting 2 dc’s in between 2 dc spaces, so you’ll end up with 12 pairs of 2 dc’s. Join to third stitch of beginning chain with a slst. Cut yarn and pull trough.

This will be your result so far:

A circle in two colours.

Round 3: Join new colour (white in my case) ch 3, make the first corner (dc1, ch2, dc2) in a dc from the previous row, crochet 5 dc’s in 5 dc’s from previous row, make second corner (dc2, ch2, dc2), dc5, third corner (dc1, ch2, dc2), dc5, last corner (dc2, ch2, dc2), dc5 and join into third stich of beginning chain with a slst.

Round 4: Still in white or if you want in a new colour, ch 3, make first corner (dc2, ch2, dc3) into the gap you created making the first corner from the previous row, 8 dc's in 8 dc’s across to next corner, *make corner (dc3, ch2, dc3), 8 dc's , repeat from * 2 more times, join to third stitch of beginning chain with a slst.

And you’ll end up with a square looking like this:

Tuck in those annoying ends and repeat process a lot…

The dutch version will come soon, for the moment you could use my translation spreadsheet!

I would love to hear your comments about my very first tutorial!!

Love, Zjizjipke!