A long time in the making... Frida's Flowers Blanket

Hi there!

At some point I thought I would never be able to write this blogpost. That is a post where I share my finished Frida's Flowers blanket. In the end, it took me close to two years to finish it. As you might guess, it sat in the naughty corner looking reproachful at me for quite some time. 

How did it come to this? Well, as some of you might recall, I translated the Frida's Flowers CAL into German and boy, that was some work. I also managed the German Facebook group, wrote the German pattern errata list and so on. At some point I was just over the blanket. That I had no idea what to actually do with the blanket once it was done. So... after finishing part 1-3 while I was on holidays in Denmark in 2016, the blanket kit moved into the WIP/UFO corner. 

But whenever I walked past it, it looked at me and I felt pretty bad. What to do with the already finished pieces and what to do with the left over yarn? I couldn't get myself to repurpose the yarn and well, sometime last year, I "bite into the sour apple" (German phrase) and started working on it again. And guess what? I actually enjoyed it (not the ends but that is another story)! I was going to finish it for Christmas but as usual life had other plans. So, I finished it in January/February instead and will ship it off to it's new owner (who doesn't know she will get it, so I won't name her here) soon. Pheww! 

The pattern is very well written and along with Michelle's helpful tips from two years ago, the crochet process wasn't too hard. The crocheting together? Not my favorite part but that is not the blanket's fault as I don't like putting crochet pieces together in any case. I used the recommend Stylecraft Classique Cotton and fell in love with it. Finally a cotton yarn which doesn't split all the time! I will certainly use it again in the future - when the right projects comes up. I adore cotton yarn but it makes blankets so heavy and amigurumi a bit hard (if crocheted tight). 

I can't even express how relieved I am that this project is FINALLY done. There are tons of projects which moved into the naughty corner (and stayed there) in the past, tons of projects   frogged or thrown out but this one... this one needed to be finished. And now that it is, well, we will see where it takes me!

Project details

Pattern: Frida's Flowers Blanket by Jane Crowfoot 

Yarn: Stylecraft Classique Cotton DK

Hooks: Clover Amour 4-5 mm

Duration: March 2016 - February 2018

Take care 

Anne

P.S. It is the middle of winter here in Germany... The weather is ... um... not good for photos.  Thus no outside picture of the blanket as it would get wet and soggy within seconds!

Stylecraft Blogstar Meetup 2018

Hi everyone!

Hard to believe it is February already! Didn't 2018 just begin yesterday?! Sometimes I wish time was flying by less fast and unless someone invents the time turner Hermione used in Harry Potter, we will just have to make most of the moments we have and actually notice them!

Something very notice-worthy was the first Stylecraft Blogstar meet up of the year last weekend! Stylecraft invited its blogstars to a meet up twice a year and while we couldn't attend in person (again, no one has invented apparition for us muggles yet...), we joined the others via Skype on Saturday! The lovely people from Stylecraft installed a table microphone this time and thus is was so much easier to hear everyone at the table! 

Over the course of the morning we got plenty of exciting news and background information, talked about social media annnddd got to see the new yarns which will be released this spring! A big box with samples of all these new yarns arrived in Germany and Australia weeks back and after days of just looking at the box, we were finally allowed to dive into it! You see, there was a big sign on it, telling us not to open it before the meeting! Oh the anticipation! Some of the new yarns are released already (have a look here), some others aren't yet and thus we can't tell you about them (except that is is worth waiting for them!). Michelle really loved the new Bambino yarn, while Anne is rather excited about one of the still super-secret yarns. 

(The picture above is from Stylecraft because ... well obviously we weren't there to take the picture ourselves).

There are some really exciting projects coming up over the next year which we Blogstars plan to do together but... it is all a secret for now! Cross your fingers that everything will work up as dreamt up. :) We certainly can't wait for the next meet up in July!

On a side note: Helen from Josiekitten has a bit of fundraising going on at the moment. She is raising funds for the British Heart Foundation in memory of her late husband. When you donate just two pounds, you will get the change to win amazing yarn-y prizes! Have a look at her page, drool about the prizes (there are over 70!) and donate to this worthy cause! 

We can't wait for the next meet up and really hope we can join the others in person one day...

Take care

Michelle & Anne