Back to Blogging!

Well hello! It has been a while, hasn't it? This past year I've had some heatlth concerns as most of you know, but I am finally getting back to beeing me. I have learned so much this past year. But most of all that I have to listen to myself. My body and my mind always give me signs when it's time to slow down. I became more consious of my own (well) beeing. And it's a good thing right? 

When I started this new year - 2018 - I decided to set myself some goals. And two of those goals are getting back to Blogging and designing more patterns. As the designing is going well lately I found myself in a place where I am able to pick up on the Blogging again. I have always loved it, but I couldn't find the energy for it. 

I truly hope that you are doing ok?

Recently I have opened my Etsy shop and I am super happy and excited about that! You all have been so super kind and supportive and I really want to thank you all from the bottem of my heart for that. You guys made it all possible. Thank you for sticking by me and ofcourse for buying my patterns. My ultimate dream is to make a decent income out of what I like most: designing crochet items. 

May be you have missed it, but my first crochet design this year was the Spring Daisy Coaster. I have created them for Easter, but they actally look really nice on the coffee table or dinner table at any given moment, don't you think? 

If you missed out on these and really would like to get the pattern, you can find them here. They are available in Dutch, UK and US terms.

I really wanted to design a couple of blankets and starting this year I decided to just do so. I usually get bored with crocheting blankets. It is so time consuming, isn't it? But I couldn't stop with this one anymore! I really loved the squares and once you know how to make them, your stack will grow soon. This blanket ended up beeing called Spring Blossoms Blanket. With great thanks to Mieke and Elif for comming up with this beautiful name.

The link to the pattern of this blanket is here. 

I couldn't recist making a pillow out the squares as well. Below I will explain how I made this one.

It's actually pretty easy. 

When you have bought the pattern of the Spring Blossoms Blanket, you know how to crochet the squares and how to join them. The back truly is a piece of cake., I've used Yarn and Colors Epic for the back. It's 8 ply yarn. I've used hooksize 3,5 mm. The back is made out of two pieces. The one with all the colours and the pink piece. Both I started with 61 chains. Crochet 2 rows of the same colour with: 

•  60dc (UK) or 
• 60sc (US) or 
• 60v (Dutch)

by going forward and back. Start each new row with  1ch. The 1ch doesn't count as a stitch. The coloured one has 35 of 2 rows.

The coloured piece needs to get another row. I've made this one in yellow. 

• 20dc, 10ch, 20dc, 10ch, 20dc (UK)
• 20sc, 10ch, 20sc, 10ch, 20sc (US)
• 20v, 10L, 20v, 10L, 20v (Dutch)

I've used 4ply yarn for the white edging: 1dc (or 1sc, 1v) in a stitch, 1ch. Repeat this all around. See photo below. But leave one of the shorter sides untouched like you can see in the picture above. 

Now comes the tricky part. These two pieces need to be used for the back of this pillow and needs to fit the 6 granny's front that you've made first. Just lay them on top of eachother and make them fit with the front. It will need some counting to make it fit, but I know that you've got this! You will see that you get a bit of an overlay with these 2 pieces. Like you see in the picture below. 

Now attach the front to the back. I did this by starting in a corner with 3ch, and 4tr counts as 5tr. Make sure you crochet through the frontside 1ch and backside chain. Then 1dc in the next 1ch from the backside and frontside. Just repeat this all around: 5tr in chain, 1dc in chain. See photo below.

Add the buttons and you are ready! 

Have a wonderful new week! 

xxx Frederika