Psycho Delia: ta-dah!

It's here!  It's happened!!  Delia is COMPLETE  :D

Remember when it was all just circles?

...and the cirlces grew and grew...

...and the piles of circles got bigger and bigger...

...and then the circles turned into squares.  It started to get exciting...

...and the excitement grew at each step...

...and along with the excitement, the worry that it might not work...

...that maybe it was just too psycho...

...it required a lot of patience and persistence.

It felt giddy to be joining the last sqaure...

...and sad to find that the border colours just didn't quite reach.

But it got there eventually.  It was worth it...

...and the thousands of ends just celebrated the achievement.

Now take a deep breath.  Stand back and see: ta-dah!

Wow!  I'm a little bit stunned.  All along I worried that it was just going to be a massive mess, and all of that hard work would have been wasted.  And then it got to the end, and I realised that I loved it.  Strange, eh?

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It's only fair to credit all the hard work that other people put in designing the patterns and techniques I used on this:

The main pattern is Lucy's Summer Garden Granny Square

And the general gist of the composition is inspired by Lucy's Sweet Flower Granny

The border follows this brilliant crinkle-free pattern

My Ravelry project page is here

I used mostly Sylecraft Special DK (you can read more about that in my post here, although I didn't end up using all the colours listed).  I also used some other balls of DK acrylic mixed in.

The finished blanket measures approx 153x108cm, with 13 large sqaures, 98 small squares and a grand total of 1002 ends.  It took approximately 1 month to finish.

It's also an absolute pain in the bum to get a decent photo of the whole thing!

Delia's Wedding Celebrations

Consider this my contribution to the Obligatory Royal Knees-Up Blog Posting bonanza ;)

I'd never really considered getting married before yesterday.  And then Kate looked stunning, and William suddenly became peculiarly attractive, and the little-est bridesmaid cranked up the "aaaww" factor with her hands over her ears on the balcony...  and for the first time EVER, I imagined what my wedding would be like should I ever have one.  This came as something of a shock to my mum (I've never had any desire to get married at all - my own mother once predicted that I would end up a cat lady!).  She's probably out buying hats now as I type!

Mostly we celebrated yesterday with Pimms and homemade battenburg cake (courtesy of my lovely friend Rachel).  Jolly spiffing, what!

Then when I got home, it was hooky time and while at the palace Kate was probably kicking off her heels and the Queen was probably shouting for someone to "get the kettle on", I added Delia's final square!

A monumentous occassion I'm sure you'll agree!  :P

I toyed with the idea of showing you where Delia's at now, but then I wanted to save her as a surprise until the border is finished, so you get to see her in all her Psycho glory :D

In the meantime, just imagine 13 large squares, 98 small squares, and 992 ends to tie in and you'll get the idea.  Needless to say that I'm VERY excited about it

Have a lovely bank holiday,
Kim x

Psycho Delia

Oh dear.  Blog week didn't go all according to plan here at eggbird did it?  I'm quite sad I missed out, but these things happen.  I wasn't feeling too great last week, and lost interest in a lot of things that I usually enjoy - blogging seemed to be the worst hit.  Sod's law really, but happily I can report feeling much more enthused now and normal service should be resumed forthwith!

The squares you see at the top there are the starting blocks of my new BIG project, which I'm pretty excited about.  But first, I'd like to share a story.

 
You are of course all aware of the terrible tragedy which happened in Japan.  A couple of weeks ago, a group of Japanese students in Bangor started fundraising for the Red Cross.  They did a really amazing job, and raised an incredible amount.  As part of their efforts, they organised a cultural day: an event to promote Japanese culture which would also raise funds to send to the Red Cross.  My friend Yuka asked if I would like to be involved by crocheting things for people to buy.  Since I only had a couple of days, I needed something quick and simple, so I made some Pretty Little Petals (you can find the tutorial in the sidebar) in the colours of the Japanese flag

We asked only for a small donation for the flowers, but people were incredibly generous.  It was a fantastic day, with so much love and support for the people of Japan and for the Japanese students in Bangor.

And then on the way home from evening service on Sunday, we were approached by a friend of a friend of a friend, who from nowhere asked "are you the girl who makes the flowers?"  That was a strange feeling I can tell you!!  Such a strange coincidence, but it really lifted my spirits when I'd been in need of them lifting.  And now I have another Japan flower made which will be passed via friend via friend via friend to someone I don't know.  Awesome!  Just goes to show that kindness and love is always returned somehow or other when you most need it :)

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Psycho Delia - or Granny P. Delia - is finally making progress.  I had so many false starts, I uhm-ed and ah-ed about colour combos (hence the psychedelic reference in the project title), I very nearly gave in and sold off the Stylecraft via Rav (madness I know!!).  But then I looked again at Lucy's Sweet Flower Blanket from which I'm drawing my inspiration, and decided to just GO FOR IT!  Hurray for Lucy, eh?!

Even though I'm joining-as-I-go, the amount of ends already trailing about is really rather frightning!  Good thing I can ignore those for a while then!!

Anyway, I'm very glad to be back in blog-world - now all that's left is to catch up on all of your marvy posts that have stacked up in my reader!

Much love,

Kim x

Granny in the Attic: ta-dah!

I'm very happy to introduce the newly finished Granny in the Attic (link will take you to its Ravelry project page).  Isn't it gorge?!

It feels so long since I stumbled upon this beauty on Lucy's Attic24 blog; so long since I was showing my mum every granny stripe photo I came across and repeating I just can't wait to make my own!!  (Sorry mum!  ;))

...it feels like a very long time ago indeed since the first batch of yarn arrived; so long since I set up this very blog just to chat about it.  I love that picture of each ball waiting patiently for its transformation :D

I sort of wish I'd taken more pictures of Granny's stripe-by-stripe progression.  Imagine how brilliant a time lapse video of her construction would be!  (Something to keep in mind for the inevitable Granny 2.0 I think)

Granny grew quickly.  Very quickly!  Many people have said the same thing about their own Granny projects - that there's something about them that becomes extremely addictive.

This, I think, is quite peculiar.  When you consider the criteria that many people (myself included) use to distinguish a good pattern from bad, there'll often be a nod to "not too repetitive" or "complicated enough to sustain interest".  By the time I finished my first blanket - an extended granny square - all I felt was relief.  I hated not just the double crochet, but crochet itself.  I despised it.  In fact, I didn't crochet anything else at all for almost a year.

But this time, I could quite happily start another Stripe tomorrow.  Most peculiar!  Perhaps it's watching the colours unfold?

...my colour philosophy for this was simply "balance".  There was no hard and fast rule, just a general idea of not having two colours in the same order twice, whilst keeping the stronger reds and yellows distant enough from themselves that they didn't overwhelm the other shades.  This didn't always work, but I just went off instinct - if a colour choice broke a rule, but still looked good, then what the heck?

Now all I have to do is work out what to do with the leftovers...
 

There are a few ideas up my northern sleeve which were inspired by a recent trip back to Manchester.  All I need to do now is sit down with a hot drink and an episode of Heartbeat, and work out how to bring them to life...

...luckily I know just the blanket to keep me company while I do so ;)