Scarf bouquets and OCD patterns

Some of you might remember my mammoth granny square blanket, which was how I taught myself to crochet in the summer of 2011:

God I love this beast

I still had quite a bit of yarn left over from this project, but all scraps and half-skeins. I needed a patchwork kind of project to use these odd bits up.

Last Christmas, as well as making scarves for small relatives, I decided to make one for a friend as part of her secret santa present. I've done a lot of work with scarves now - partly because I'm lazy and they're quick, but mostly because they make good gifts. So I was working on four scarves last November/December... I do like to bite off more than I can chew.

I hadn't done any smaller granny square projects before, and was keen to learn how to join them together. I found this pattern by the brilliant Lucy of Attic 24 (all of her stuff is amazing) and figured I could use these squares to make up a scarf. I was really keen to find a granny square pattern with flowers in because I'd recently made a few flower brooches for a Twitter friend and had flowers on the brain:

Mmmm broochy

The squares were really easy to make. They start out as little circles with what looks to me like a sun in the middle. Lots of little suns. It's quite odd at first when you start turning the little circles into squares, but satisfying.

You can see the square starting to form on the right there.

One of the biggest beasts when it came to this project was sewing in ends. Ye gods, that took a long time.  

Here an end, there an end, everywhere you look an end.

Another 5 bladdy ends

I decided to do the third round of each square navy blue so that I could join them all together with the same colour later and to make the finished item look all neat and tidy. Also I liked the way this made the colours pop out like actual flowers.

...Also also, I had a lot of navy yarn left over from the Spiderman blanket.

I have a mild form of OCD, which really kicks in when I'm doing any projects with multiple colours, because I like to get the pattern just right. Before starting crocheting I worked out the colour combinations.

The (self-imposed) rules were:
- each colour of yarn would be used in two different squares
- no two squares would have the same colour combination
- each colour had to be used once for the inside of the flower and once for the second row (the petals)

Once I had crocheted them all I could start the really fun bit of working out colour combinations. I now added in an additional rule:
- the same colour of yarn couldn't be in adjoining squares.

These rules combined meant major flippin' brain ache as I tried to work out all of the possible colour combinations. Add to this that I was working with two different (but very similar looking) shades of yellows, reds, dark pinks and greens and... *brain explodes*

This is me joining them together. If it looks like this kind of a mess then you're doing it right.

I didn't want to follow how Lucy had joined them in her pattern, as I wanted them to look like they'd been crocheted at the same time, as one big piece of work, rather than sewn together later. I had found this pattern for joining squares together as though you're just putting in another row, by a lady called Carina. It worked pretty well. The joins do have a visible front and back in the way they bend though, so I alternated how I joined them to give a kind of accordion effect. This probably makes no sense, as explaining it requires hand gestures, drawn diagrams and maybe a large glass of wine.

All explanations require wine.

 Joining... joining... joining...

Feeling pretty chuffed with how it had all come together, I finished up joining the squares and had this...

In case you're wondering, bottom left are two different shades of green and top right are two different shades of dark pink. And yes, this does still bother me

Excellent!

Except it's waaaay too small for an adult and probably even a child to wear.

Oh dear. 

More squares required!

Because I am batsh*t crazy, I had to continue with the rules. So now:

- each colour of yarn would appear in four squares

- each colour would be used twice as the inner circle and twice as the second row (or 'petals')

- none of the squares would repeat a colour combination

- the same colour couldn't appear in two adjoining squares

- I didn't mention this earlier as it seems obvious, but I couldn't use the same colour for both the first and second row of the same square (because that would look ick), or use the navy blue in the flowers

- and my brain should be doing a cry at all times, trying to work this out.

Also I was starting to run out of some of the colours, which was really limiting my options. 

And I was unwilling to introduce new colours into the sequence. 

........

 

Every time I use multiple colours in a project it becomes a massively complicated mathematical equation. And it's not even like the friend I made it for will ever notice the very specific sequence of colours *sigh*.

Anyway, once I'd finally cobbled together my squares and joined them, I could begin the border. 

Leopard print nails FTW

I just went around the whole thing with an extra few granny square rows to straighten out it all out (particularly after the accordion joining technique) and make it look all neat and tidy.

 I had sewn in the ends after each stage, thank goodness, or it would've been a hideous task at the end!

TA-DA! I LOVES IT!

Why yes, I did just spell out WIN in pictures, what of it?

 

My friend loved it, and I was pretty chuffed with how it turned out. 

I'd definitely like to make a blanket with small granny squares in the future, even if it does mean a lot more work joining them together.

When taking photos of the finished item I thought I'd give wearing it a go. I've seen other crafty blogs where they have worn the item and done a selfie...

 

Probably best to change out of your Christmas pyjamas and put a bit of slap on first though. This is my 'wanted by Scotland Yard for further questioning' look.

An owl and a pussycat

Warning: this is a massive post. Get yourself a cup of tea first or something. Seriously.

One of the nicest couples in the world got married last year. They live in Ireland and I met them through Twitter and was really touched to get an invite to their big day. They are just perfect for each other and it was an absolutely bloody beautiful wedding. I danced all night because my feet were happy too.

I started to make these toys before the wedding but (in typical Goggins fashion) it took me months to actually get round to finishing them.

The owl and the pussycat poem was perfect for them; not only because it's a brilliant poem about love, but because one of them is an Owlyface on Twitter. Originally I didn't put their @ names in because I thought they might find it awkward, but if you follow me then there's a high likelihood you follow (at least) her too (if not both of them).

(Pssst, between you and me... they're called @midweshterner and @sirthopas. And they're really very lovely)

I thought I'd do this as almost a tutorial. Not a proper one, because I made the patterns up out of my head. If it's too rambly then you can just look at the pictures, but you will completely fail the quiz at the end.


I started with the owl.

I cut out bits of paper to work out the shapes I needed, then used these as templates for cutting out the fabric.

I went for gold, blue and green for the owl because I think they're the colours of my friend's favourite sporting team. I couldn't tell you what the sport is, because it's a weird made up one which only Irish folk have ever heard of. Something like lacrosse but where you kick peoples' heads in or something.

Anyway... then I pinned the shapes to the front of the Owl so I wouldn't do anything crazy when it came to sewing them on.

I've used this gold material for making an owl before (I've made some owl toys in the past as presents) and I remembered after I'd started how I'd sworn never to use it again because it frays like mad. It's a really silky material. Too late by this point though, I was committed to it now.

Then I added buttons for eyes.

 I like to do a kind of embroidery around the edge of the fabrics so it looks neat. I don't know what the correct term for this is, but it's bloody time consuming and fiddly. The technical terminology in my house is 'arsing about because of the bloody OCD'.

On a related note, I do all toy sewing by hand. This is probably very silly, because I'm sure a machine would do the same - or better.

You can see the gold fabric bulging here too. Annoying gold fabric. Once I'd finished the face it suddenly frayed to the point where I had to go over the whole lot again. I did not have a happy.











Pre-fraying incident. Happier times these.

Oh yeah, and at some point I stitched on the wings. This whole tutorial thing isn't quite working out yet eh?










Now for the back:

This was my first attempt at sewing text and I was pretty happy with the results. I printed the words out on paper first, traced it onto the material, and then sewed over that. I think this was my favourite bit and definitely something I'd like to try again.

Once I'd finished I cross-stitched the piece of material onto the back of the owl.














Now that both sides were ready I could pin and sew them together - good sides facing and leaving room for turning and stuffing later. I left the space for stuffing where the cloaca would be on a real owl, but that's because I'm a wrongun. You could leave the space anywhere really - so long as you're a neat stitcher later on.

 That's a leather sofa by the way, not a horrible skin condition.

Turn them the right way, et voila!

 Hooray!

And then get stuffed. Stuffing... get stuffing...


I use a toy stuffing that's machine washable and designed to be used in toys. You can probably get some from a craft shop. I bought loads when it was half price in a closing-down craft shop sale (sad face).

Once you're stuffed you need to sew up the bum hole and you're done! (Ahem)

I couldn't get the stuffing to sit right on the bottom. I don't know why it was being difficult, so she had a wonky derriere. She's still cute though.



Now for the pussycat

If you're still with me at this point then congratulations! You should probably have a sweet. Go on, you deserve it. I'll try to make this one less wordy, because it's basically 'repeat as above - except make it a cat'. I've never made a cat toy before so this was, in a way, a bit more exciting than the owl.

The gentleman part of the couple isn't a cat on Twitter, so to be honest he mostly got lumped with the cat because it's the other animal in the poem. However, he does have amazing red hair, so I thought I'd use a lot of red for the cat.

Cat-face.

Cat-feet.

Stitch-y tail-y

 Front and back.

Besides the red colour scheme I basically just used fabrics from my stash which I felt complimented each other.

I cross-stitched on a lot of this material because it was less inclined to fray.

Sewing over the pencil tracing.
















I love that the backs continued the poem and were therefore matching. This is the bit which made me feel warm and fuzzy.

Deflated cat (pre-stuffing, and now with whiskers and toes).

And now for the big ta-da moment!

...drum roll please...

........................................................

................................

.............

 

 

The next one's a bit terrifying...

They're beautiful aren't they? I am so pleased with how they turned out. Sorry about running out of steam verbally in the second half of the post, I figured I'd let the pictures speak for themselves.

Laters potatoes! 
x