Crochet - Baby Blanket

A couple i work with are expecting their first child in August.  They know they are expecting a boy, which made choosing colours easier.  

I wanted to do a little blanket, but wanted it to be a bit more interesting than just a normal granny square blanket. 

So, I made one big granny sqaure for the centre and surrounded it with little ones each with a different pattern - no two patterned squares on this blanket are the same. 

I then found a lovely little pattern for an owl applique and made two of these for the middle.  

Here's hoping they like it!

The cute little owl pattern can be found here

Crochet Minecraft creeper iPhone sock

So, hubby has a new mobile for work, but wanted something to keep it from getting scratched in his pocket.

He is a fan of Minecraft so I thought I would try to make a creeper style cover.

This started with a trip to buy some yarn.  I wanted something that wasn't just one shade of green to try to emulate the pixelated effect - this was much harder than anticipated, so I settled for the best I could find.

I couldn't see that there was a pattern for this, so made it up as I went.

The cover is made as one rectangle of single crochet.  Mine was 27 stitches across and i just kept going until it was tall enough.

One it was done, I used black yarn to sew around the stitches to form the creeper face.

All that was left then, was for the cover to be sewn up et voila:

Not bad for an afternoon's work and Hubby was pretty pleased with the end result.

Crochet - American Flag blanket

One of my best friends moved into her own place in November.  I wanted to make her something to mark the occasion...but what?

I decided a blanket would be a good idea as she mentioned her flat wasn't always the warmest.  She loves all things American so I thought I would try to make it look like the flag.

I had a look online for some inspiration and decided to make it in squares.  With a little help from my Husband we worked out the right dimensions and it all seemed to work pretty well.  It did mean we were one star short, but you can't have everything!

This is the completed blanket:

It is made up of 234 granny squares.  Each square measures about 10cm x 10cm making the blanket approximately 180 x 130cm. In total it has 98 red squares, 87 white squares and 49 blue and white squares.

It took just under 2 months to complete.  I did it line by line, sewing as I went.  I think sewing the whole thing at the end would have been pretty horrendous, but doing it line by line was ok and it meant you could really see how much progress you had made.

Overall, I was pretty pleased with the end result and my friend loved it!

Cooking - Jaffa Cakes!

So my Husband LOVES jaffa cakes.  I had never even considered that it might be possible to make them. 

This is the link to the recipe, courtesy of Marcus Wareing: http://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recipes/jaffa-cakes-recipe

He is obviously a very accomplished chef and his jaffas look really pretty.  Mine... not so much. 

I used a cupcake pan to bake the 'cakes'.  The recipe calls for a mini muffin tin, but I think it would have been difficult getting them out of something deeper. 

It was a bit difficult to tell when they were done, as you don't need them to colour so when we took them out they looked really pale. 

Once the cakes have cooled the recipe calls for the cakes to be sliced in half, a little of the middle scooped out and filled with a teaspoon of marmalade.  This was way harder than it sounds.  I managed to break the first cake just trying to slice it.  I enlisted my Husband to cut the rest open as he is more patient than I am, and patience was definitely the key as they rest were halved relatively neatly. 

Scooping wasn't an option. Instead we just put a bit of marmalade on one half and sandwiched them together.  We substituted the marmalade too and used a shred-less variety. 

The last step was a little easier.  Melting chocolate and coating them.  Messy though.

This is what my finished Jaffas looked like:

They might not look as good as the picture on the original recipe, but they tasted amazing!  We will definitely be making them again, maybe after I have invested in a mini muffin tin.