Cheap & Cheerful Winners

Our Cheap & Cheerful Challenge has finished!

What a joy to see what these ladies came up with, to show that even some of the cheapest yarns around CAN be used to produce a beautiful blanket.  

Here's the info on the background of Cheap & Cheerful, and my own contribution

and these were the three winners:

Helen's snowflake blanket

Helen chose to work with Chick, the very cheap supermarket acrylic that I also chose, in two blues, grey and white.  Upon finishing the blue and grey motifs, she realised that gaps between these were too large for her liking and  - given the restricted colour choices of Chick - came up with the plan to dye some her acrylic yarn (easier said than done!!).  Google and YouTube came to her aid and she added the brownish motif with white center - and it was as if the blanket was designed to look like that.

I love the unusual colour combination and the handdyed effect on the brown.  Plus the snowflakes brighten everything up.

A beautiful blanket and clever solution.

Brilliant Mommy's stripey C2C

Everybody's seen the Corner to Corner blanket, and many have been making it, right? There have been some beautiful variations, but you haven't seen it all until Helene's came along.

Three colourways of variegated Pullskein scream at each other...until you work it together, alternating after each row. Then it absolutely work, and blend in, the one with the next, into a harmonious, pastel rainbow.

These colours had Ons Hekel swooning.

Lara's chevron

Lara used the same almost shock tactic with her chevron blanket.  Who would put red and pink together with ...brownish and greyish? And yet the colours and stitch patterns mellow together, making the photo jump out from the rest.  

See what can be done?

There's no reason to think you can't make a beautiful item because you don't have great yarn.  Sure, working with Vinnis, I Love Yarn, Malabrigo, Rowan makes it a lot easier, but you can also get by with what you can find at the local co-op or supermarket.

I was so happy to see these three and the other entries.  And all 20 will make a difference as part of the Make A Difference charity, to be distributed come Winter 2016.

Well done ladies, be proud!  And enjoy your gifts packs :-)

(Thank you to Yarn in a Barn, Dalena White of Cape Wools SA, Brilliant Mommy for sponsoring some prices, as well as yarn donors!)

Done! A Cheap & Cheerful Blanket

At last I'm finished with a blanket that shouldn't have taken me more than a few days!

(But alas, I don't have the attention span).

A couple of months ago I launched a Cheap & Cheerful Challenge on my FB group and explained a bit more in this post.

Basically, it boiled down to showing that you can use dirt cheap acrylic yarn, but still hook something pretty; that cheap yarn doesn't have to equate to shrill, ugly colour combinations.  This challenge was not about the quality of the yarn, but about using the cheap supermarket variety, or worst case - that only yarn which is available to you.

So off I skipped to my local Checkers where they just unpacked the winter's load of Chick yarn.   This is typically the colour ranges for this cheapie, a 100g DK @ R20 (roughly £1, €1.43 or $1.58 today. Toldya it was cheap).

Stop street red or maroon?
(No, this is not marsala)

Dusky pink or sugary baby pink (this is a hot favourite at church bazaars)

Blues: cobalt, denimish, baby

Also available were brilliant white, pitch black, lemony yellow, light minty green, emerald and primary green, and some variegated combinations of the above.  And grey. 

I took the grey (let's be fancy and call it silvery grey), plus denim(ish) blue, a ball of emerald, plus the blue, emerald and something else variegated.  The variegated was dismissed to the donation bag after 2 or 3 rows of trying it out, and with it went the emerald.  So that left me with the silver-grey and denim, which suited me well, as I was after a simple look, simple colours, and something suitable or a man (the idea was to donate these blankets to the Maak 'n Verskil group who will distribute to various charities again).

Starting out my C&C, trusty Prym nr 4.5 to get it done swiftly. 

I decided to wing it, aiming for a basic stripey blanket that I made up as I went along. One silver-grey between blues became two, became four and so on, until I'd reach a midway point and reverse back.  

Starting out and it's looking fine. 

Oh wait, here:
*dragging photo from bottom of post*

There's the pattern repeat - add another 8 of silver-grey, and then three of 16 before I turned back

As this was a simple blanket to hook, I could easily tag it along and it was particularly useful during cold road trips!

A pit stop at a local favourite pizza place in the mountain.

It was also useful during cold nights in front of the tv! 

Tommie cat also took a liking to it

And then, after taking on and finishing numerous other  projects, it was done.  Even so, it took me another bloody week to just sit down and get to the ends!

 I didn't make it too big, only suitable for a lap blanket (useful for wheelchair users or to use while sitting), or then for a baby.

This photo might be upside down.
But
It's fine.  The blanket measures 105 x 118 cm.

Done!

A manly grey and blue granny stripe.

I haven't worked with Chick ever, before this challenge, but have used other acrylics numerous times. Truth be told - it wasn't that bad to work with this yarn, in the sense that it produces a neat, tight stitch and it didn't split (which is a common occurence with the nicest cotton yarns...  :-( and I could live with the squeak as I knew it was coming.

That said - I won't work with it again. Not for any of the above reasons...but that's a story for another day ;-)

But here'a a useful blanket that someone who needs it can use, and it won't hurt your eyes.  And that was the purpose of the exercise.

Next post: some of the blankets that came in .

My non-random placement of randomly placed squares

I am (now really) nearing the end of the Summer Throw aka Projek Bohemia V.2

There goes Tommie Cat

I was checking it out for size, out  on the floor and over the bed, and decided that the hooking will Stop Just Right Here, and posted about it on Ons Hekel, when my friend Hilda said I Must Please blog about my seemingly non-random square placement (I explained my line of thinking to her previously and she totally got it when she saw the photo).

(The size is right - the left and right rows hang over the sides of a Q-sized bed).

Now first - I have a Gemini mind.  

Left and right.

Mad colourful and monotonechrome.

Cool and warm.

Noise and quiet.

Order and chaos.

And so forth.

You should see my whole brain profile...it's almost square. Not really dominated by any one quadrant.

See?

So where I wanted to make a blazing technifullcolour blanket, it also had to be ordered.  I can never get random placement right because I have Rules.

Cool must be offset by to Warm.

Tints by Shades.

Hues by Tones.

I make myself crazy with moving squares and stripes around until I get the right order, and then still That One will jump our at me and I will see it ALWAYS.  It's not in the right place.  

I hate it when I look at other "random"  blankets and I see dark squares clustered together and it's not balanced on the other side.

I might also be a bit OCD about this.  

So, here's how I went about placing the squares on this blanket (I had a simpler try-out with Projek Bohemia V.1):

Balancing precariously on matress on quite a high bedstead, hence a distorted blanket

Starting out with nr 1, right in the middle of things. 

Then (2) added two contrasting squares, either sides.
Then (and here I wasn't thinking, coz I used the pink) on the other two sides (3).

Now I needed to fill in some corner gaps, so in went the neutrals (4).
And here I ran into trouble, because I LOVED the green (5) and wanted to use 4 here, so it went next to the previous cool colour...horror. 

Okay, flank it it with yellow (6).

Can't use orange now, because I just used it in the edges, so I cringed and went for the lime (7).
Okay, corner gaps, so back to the blue (I loved the blue as well) (8).
Brought in some warmth again with pink (9).

Flank it with turquoise (10) because that will look lovely.
It's been a long time since red, so...red (11).

And so on and so forth.  

And even so, with my rules, I had to break my rules.  

The same with the joins - the idea was to join the squares in very contrasting colours, hence the lime with navy, orange with taupe, green with pink.

And again, I broke the rules.

I'm not entirely happy with the navy-lined orange, but there's no way I'm going to undo anything now (contemplated that for a few minutes).

In retrospect, I could have left out the neutrals.  But then I also didn't want the throw to be too girly, because my poor, suffering husband has to live with it every day as well.

What I AM happy with, is the symmetry, or the balance. I must have balanced colour placement.  It irked me to add the rows on either side to make it hang over the bed (but I didn't want to add it on all four sides).

See, it will fit.
(That bookshelf?  It's the Still To Read.  Giving me nightmares).

So.  Now it's done and nothing is going out or in and I'm working on some border samples.  

My sistah says I always overthink these things.

Can't help it :-D

(So shall I add a row or to of SC in red or navy before I start The Edge? Just to mark the transition??)

An unexpected Malabrigo Friday!

As it sometimes goes, you wake up from a nightmare at 04:00 and after you've dropped the kids at their school, the day is already 4 hours old and you're ready for a nap.  

Too early for that.

So you settle for a great cappuccino and and orange & almond cake for breakfast.

Lucky Bread Co, Brooklyn Mall
(Images: Google)

This is my go-to for cappo in the mall.  I practise my very rudimentary, broken French greeting on Kyria and Bastien, and teach them the same in Afrikaans.  Bastien complained that the locals couldn't pronounce his name, so I told him to just say "Basjan" - they'll get it then :-)

Then I had to take a stroll through the bottomless trap that is Exclusive Books and walked out two books the richer...oh, the guilt.

A promising novel and 45 poems
(Images: Google)

Books is never a bad idea.

But I was actually after mind space, so off to I love Yarn I went, to sit down for a bit of hooking and catching up with Elaine's trip to New York, and Stephni's AfrikaBurn.  Alas, the moment I walked in, I noticed, in the corner , like a moth to a flame, north pole to south pole magnet...

MALABRIGO yarn!

Now that is not something that is easily found in South Africa (see here)  I've previously managed to get my hands on two skeins via my good sis, from a shop in Dublin. And wouldyabelieveit, we meet again!

In seconds I hand four skeins in my hands.  Don't know what I'm going to do with it; but it's soft as a cloud, and in beautiful bright colours!  Scarves/cowls, most likely.

Colours of the sea

Very fine, very soft raspberry

By now I was a bit manic, so into the basket went ...

...more blues and greens for The Great Romany Blanket V.2

and

...just to try out something for the future summer blankets for the boys...

and  also

...some aquas from I Love Yarn, for a planned myasthenia gravis-awareness snowflake scarf...

Feel Good Friday, they call it :-)

No guilt, no, none at all.

Colour my world

I was that Grade 2 girl who knew colours by the description on the wax crayon wrapper.  Not "green", but olive green, apple green, forest green, moss green, sea green. Not brown, but dark brown, sienna, khaki.  Post box red, tomato red, sunshine yellow, mustard, lemon yellow...

I dislike primary colours when used in crochet/knitting.

I like pastels, but deeper, and muted, not fluffy and sugary sweet.

I don't like pink, although it can be very pretty - and I do love raspberry.

But my best colour is green and its versions.
Forest green, moss green. Greens with blues (bedroom), green with red (my living room/kitchen!), "Shutter Green" (a favourite Plascon paint colour).

When I buy yarn, though, I don't necessarily go for my favourite colours.  Then my colour choice will depend on the project, like when I wanted to do a Rainbow Ripple...

...or a blanket for a baby boy, using what Vinnis I had available:

...or the blue/green/lavender ripple.

What about the green/blue Malabrigo Rios, just because it was so utterly beautiful?
...or then the sunshiney yellow merino when I hooked a scarf for a snowy holiday,
the stool cover inspired by Klein Karoo veld colours...

and and and...

That is me - flitting from one to the other, but never too bright, never too sweet, never too light

Those clever colour palettes

For ages I wanted to know How To Make those useful colour palettes, so I don't have to stand in the yarn shop and try to match yarn colours from a tiny little photo on the mobile...

Then, at last,  I found THIS post:

http://www.themotherhuddle.com/how-to-make-a-color-palette-from-a-photo/

(Thank you,thank you and thank you)

And now I'm playing away.  Some are better, some are not, who cares, it's great fun :-)

Enjoy!