Paisley and Diamond Crochet

Hello, I've had an unplanned break from both blogging and crochet recently so it's been a while since my last post, I'd like to say thank you for all the lovely comments you left for me while I wasn't around. I have only managed a few minutes here and there with my hook over the past weeks so I didn't get my second summer cushion finished before sliding gently into autumn, however I thought you might like to see what I have managed to do so far and I'll finish it to use next year. I had started with the pink Paisley motifs I showed you before.

These motifs are smaller than the ones I made for the previous cushion, measuring only 6.5 x 3.5 cm. We have had some lovely September days here so when I could I went outside to enjoy the warm sunshine before the temperature dropped in the evening. Though I haven't had a lot of time to crochet I have enjoyed seeing these bright colours in the sunshine as I hooked up motifs in spare moments.

I knew I wanted to use both the pink and green this time and I also wanted a completely different design. I played about with the pink and green picturing different designs before choosing diamonds to go with the Paisley motifs and edging them in yellow.

 I decided to have a deep border running along the bottom of the cushion this time with a narrow border along the top. I've been making it up as I go along which makes it all the more fun.

This design was inspired by a photograph of a sari which had a beautiful pattern along the bottom, though the actual motifs, colours and design I chose for the cushion are completely different.

Although my progress has been slow I've enjoyed putting these bright colours together, a last piece of summer before turning my thoughts to autumn. Have you noticed the different feel in the air recently? I'm lucky enough to live in a quiet location and often think this time of year sounds different too. The slide into autumn feels gentle this year, it will soon be time to cosy up indoors and I've already started thinking of making gifts for the end of the year, but not quite yet.

Til next time.

Hx

Simple Paisley Granny Cushion

Hello there,

It's taken me a bit longer than I expected to reach the next stage of my Paisley cushion. It would have been easier to go looking on the Internet for a pattern but I really wanted to do this myself so I beavered away in spare moments turning my Paisley motifs into granny squares. There has been ripping out, a lot of ripping out, then more working up again until it looked passable.

First I had to make my mind up which colour to choose for my first cushion, despite thinking I would choose yellow and pink, in the end I plumped for orange and pink.

I've mentioned before that I am rather too good at procrastination, I'm also not very good at making up projects right away but this time I decided to weave in the ends and make up as I go, otherwise I'll never get the cushions made in time to use this summer. There were quite a few ends.

Next decision was what colour to use for the background and I went for the turquoise. This is the bit which has taken me a while to work out as I'm not one of those talented people who can sit down and put it on paper, I just play with the yarn until it looks right to me. So I played and played, it still didn't look right, so I played a bit more and finally got a rectangle.

A few more rectangles and I had enough to play about to see how they looked. I haven't decided yet whether to make all the blocks the same or not.

I'm joining the sections one at a time as I finish them so I can see the cushion cover grow. This is the bottom section already made up.

 I'm looking forward to finishing this and being able to use it in the garden, when summer eventually arrives. This week has been cold and miserable here and very un-summer like, the perfect excuse to snuggle indoors with some crochet and the colours have helped keep me happy. On the down-side, it has made taking photos difficult as the light has been so poor, thankfully the weather has brightened up this afternoon so I can finally share my latest make with you.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Til next time,
Hx

Inspired by India

Hello folks, have you had a good weekend? Here in the UK we have just had our second May holiday weekend, for us a quiet time of pottering about, enjoying the garden and of course crochet for me.

As the weeks pass and summer comes closer I find myself thinking of days out, tea in the garden and picnics, especially picnics. I'd been thinking for a while that I'd like to make a summer blanket, perhaps in ice-cream shades or bright summery colours however I didn't get around to it early enough for this year. I still feel the need for something bright, colourful and new though so I had a think about it and came up with the idea of making bright crocheted cushions which would be much quicker to make for use in the garden and for picnicking.

I haven't ever been to India (yet, maybe one day) but I love the vibrancy of the colours I see in photos, magazines and film. What colours do you think of when you think of India? I think of vibrant colours such as cerise pink, turquoise, orange, lime green, yellow, purple, jewel colours, all these colours suggest to me brilliant hued saris, wending their way through the streets and markets of India on the backs of the women. This train of thought reminded me of the beautiful cushions I have seen made from pieces of sari fabric, those cushions are stunning so why not try a crochet version? What would the pattern be? For me it has to be the instantly recognisable kidney shape of the Paisley pattern. With this idea firmly in my head I set off.

A visit to my local wool shop allowed me to gaze at all the beautiful yarns and find inspiration before buying the yarn I showed this peek of a few weeks ago.

It's Robin DK acrylic in shades Bright Turquoise, Cordial, Fiesta, Sunflower and Marigold. I love these bright colours and using acrylic yarn means I won't be precious about it being used outside, I could never be that relaxed about a silk yarn. I brought it home and started playing around with it to develop a Paisley type shape. I worked out the pattern then tried it with both 4mm and 3.5mm hooks. In the end I decided to go with the 3.5mm hook as I tend to crochet fairly loosely and it just looked a better shape. The 4mm hook gave an elongated Paisley shape, however I preferred the curvier motif made using the 3.5mm hook. I have made this using double crochet and half treble stitches to keep it simple, do you like it?

I worked up motifs in different colour combinations to see how they looked,

 and laid them out to choose which ones I like best.

 I definitely like the yellow (Sunflower) and pink (Fiesta) and the turquoise and orange (Marigold) but haven't decided about the other colour combinations yet. What do you think of them? Is there one you are drawn to or a combination I haven't tried?

Once I have decided which colours to use I will make a smaller motif to go with these and work out how to join them. I'm using a 50x50cm cushion and I'm still deciding whether to do an all-over design, just a border, or a mix of designs for each cushion, I'll see how I get on with the first one. What would you do? I'd love to hear your ideas too.

Hx