Red and Aqua

You know how color combinations have a spike in popularity before fading?  Remember peach and green?  Peach and grey?  Burgandy and hunter green?  Brown and pink?  Orange and Blue?  Okay, maybe only the Denver fans love that combo but I say it's one of the best out there.  That is a forever kind of color combo love though.  My favorite color combo of the moment is aqua and red.  A little trendy, a little chic and a little Dr. Seuss all rolled into one.  It's probably the type of color combo you tire of quickly, but I have to say,  I'm a little obsessed right now. 

Instead of a long verbose post, I leave a little color inspiration that has been accumulating in my Picasa folders for quite awhile now.  I'm still procrastinating on reading the 7D book now you see.

I had red yarn.  I had this almost aqua yarn.  Last year I wouldn't have dreamed of combining them. Now I can't think of separating them.

I tried a wispy flower pattern.  I tried a ripple pattern, and in the end, I settled on the african flower pattern.

Will I really finish it?  Yep, right after my quilt I'm sure....sometime around 2021.  Maybe a pillow would be more reasonable.

One of my favorite Tanya Whelan fabrics.  I love it with the gingham. I do believe everything goes perfectly with gingham though.

When I don't know what to sew but I want a finished product in an hour, I sew an apron.  It's perfectly reasonable to have 9 aprons hanging in your kitchen.  I'm sure.

Hexagon Granny Blanket

With Blogger losing half my comments from my last post, there were a few people I didn't get to respond to--I meant to, I really did.    What I do recall from the ones that are there and the lost ones I read before google sent them into oblivion, is that there were a lot of questions about the Hexagon Granny Blanket.  I wish I could take credit for the cleverness that is the Hexagon Granny Blanket, but alas, I just followed a pattern. I did blog about it here,  but the actual tutorial is over at Attic 24 and it's a phenomenal one.  Lucy takes you step by step through the entire hexagon--I printed it out and kept it right by my side for the first few hexagons.  After you memorize the pattern, it's the perfect project to sit down to a movie with as it's pretty brainless after that. Lucy also has the most amazing crochet blanket collection...don't you just love all the bright cheery colors in her blanket fest post?  Have to admit that I've already started a bag of yarn to make the Japanese Flower blanket, that is in between the blanket I'm knitting and the quilt I'm making.  Yes I know I live in Las Vegas now and the weather is already in the high 90s.  I'll turn the A/C up.

 What I especially love about these granny type blankets that are created in pieces, is that they can also be deconstructed in pieces.  I love the colors in this final version but the blanket didn't actually always look this way.

Once upon a time, before I started buying "scrap yarn" (ridiculous I know), the blanket had some hexagons that I did not feel a deep connection to.  Every time I looked at the blanket, I would fixate on the neon orange, shiny lemon yellow and electric green hexagons.  The genius of this construction is that it just takes a few snips, and you can extract the hexagons that just are not jiving with the rest of the blanket.

Replacing them is just as easy as crocheting up the new ones and then using the same attaching stitches you use for the entire blanket.  While it's a bit time consuming overall, the fact that it's created in such small and manageable pieces makes it a pretty easy and feasible project for anyone. Give it a try--you'll be glad you did. 

And isn't he a cute little guy?

Happy Friday all!  (No work tomorrow...yipppppppeeeeee!!!!)

Granny Means Granny

A update request on my progress on the Granny Square blanket reminded me that it existed...I seem to forget these things.  So out it came for a brief bout of progress.  At this point my my brother pointed out that it "looks like something grandma would have."  Yes--duh.  That is indeed why it is aptly named Granny Squares.  Or hexagons in this case.

This process is a bit out of control.  I've been connecting them as I go along--connecting it takes just as long as crocheting the base.  9.5 minutes per circle and another 10 minutes to connect them.  I timed it many times because I could.  Luckily, I had some assistance this time...

I'm using a pattern I found on Ravelry--but it links out to this blog post.  It takes just a few hexagons to learn the pattern and then it's completely brainless from there.  Except for the joining of course, which involves acrobatic feats of headstands and blanket twisting.  Ambidexterity is helpful as well.  But all of that is still better than crocheting all of the hexagons and then sewing them together.  If I crocheted 200+ hexagons separately, all I would ever have are 200+ hexagons.  Which isn't so bad for Peanut who found them to make delightful tea cakes and schmancy necklaces.