Zana's Homemade: stash buster

I have been making hearts today! Well, it is Valentine’s day. I want some hearts for a tea cosy. You see I want an elegant tea cosy for when I play at ladies! Wool cosies are lovely, but you could never call them elegant. So I had an idea of using cotton and some fancy stitch. I thought of using hearts to embellish it and went looking on Pinterest and Ravelry, but amongst the hundreds I saw, nothing hit the spot. I realized I wanted texture so thought of popcorns, so out came the hooks and cottons this morning and I experimented.

These were very nice and I think I will turn them into brooches. However, I wanted something bigger to put on the side of the tea cosy and voila…..

It needs refining a bit as I think my sides are not even, but not too shabby for a prototype.

Last week I feel in love…… with Sophie’s Universe Cal, I had been keeping a weather eye on it and when I saw how it turned from a circle to a square I could not help myself. A rummage around in my stash and yippee I have almost enough yarn, will have to top up later. So I can justify this as a stash buster for Linda's February's Link Party

So on Tuesday as the weather had turned bad I had a lovely crochet day and did weeks 1 and 2.

The instructions and tutorials are the best I've seen!

Yesterday and today I have been working on week 3.

It took me a long time, and that is the reason I was unable to do this week’s Mini Rings of Change, that and this, Lucy deciding that it made a wonderful place to have a kip! I couldn't move her could I?!

However that is on my radar for tomorrow! That is if I can keep my hands off the lovely Sophie’s Universe blanket! Well, week 6 instructions come out tomorrow and I have a lot of catching up!

Have a wonderful Valentine’s Day and a great creative week. Thanks for visiting. Ambrose Sends his purrs along with Lucy and Peggy Sue.

This week, I have been plugging away crocheting my nieces blanket. Nearly there, hopefully I will be able to start joining the squares before the end of next week.

When I have been blog reading this week I came across two inspirational projects; one from Lucy at Attic 24 and the other from Sandra at Cherry Heart. They preyed on my mind and I had to start!

First of all, the project that made my heart sing - Cherry Heart’s Painted Rose Blanket. I had decided earlier in the week that I wanted to make the blanket and it went into my queue of projects. Yesterday I succumbed and rummaged around in my stash and came up with similar colours. My hook came out and before long I had made two squares.

I just love them, makes me think of my paternal grandmother, these were her colours. I don’t have enough of these colours in my stash to make a blanket, but these squares will become a cushion for my bedroom. I think I will be able to match the colours but it will be a different dye run I suppose. But it wont matter as they wont be next to each other.

For any Kiwi readers I have used Crucci Olympus for the blue (it is not quite as bright as this in real life) and the pink petals and Patons Panda for the mustard and green, I had a lime similar to Sandra’s but it was too strong and dominated the square so I went for this khaki colour, makes it look vintage. I still am trying to suss out the joining colour, it is between a teal and the light blue I have used above.

The other inspiration I had this week was Lucy ofAttic 24 Cosy Blanket Cal. Last Monday I pulled out some wool that I had earmarked for a scarf last winter and never got around to doing. I thought that the texture of the pattern would make a wonderful scarf and it does.

It is such an easy pattern and soothing to do, and I will definitely be making a blanket at some stage using this brand of wool (Countrywide Yarns, Windsor), I have never used it before - it is so soft and the colours are quite lovely.

Both of these will be linked to Linda of Linda’sCrafty Corner November Stash-buster link party.