Some April finishes

Hello everyone and how are we all doing ? Thanks for all the replies on my previous post, if you missed it I released my first podcast epsiode! Please do go watch and give me a comment or a thumbs up :)

Its Easter school holidays here so the days feel very lovely and relaxed with a slow pace. Spring is firmly here, in fact Summer is putting in an appearance, we were at a barbeque yesterday all day, and this afternoon I got a wee bit burnt in the sun - oops!

I have a few finishes to share with you. My local crochet group, the Barkham Hoookers, make post box toppers for all our local postboxes, so I decided to participate and made one for the post box down the road from me. I measured the post box, it was about 20" in diameter, with a sort of ridge which was a couple of inches deep. In my stash was this hideous (in my opinion!) Grass Green Stylecraft Special DK. I think someone must have given me it, I definitely didn't buy it, that's for sure! My plan was to crochet a plain green topper and decorate it round the edge with flowers. The post box is quite tall and the top wouldn't be very visible so I only really needed flowers for the edging. Using the Grass Green I crocheted a large flat circle. A couple of times I took it to the post box to try it on, feeling very silly and self-conscious! when my circle was around the size of the flat top of the post box I ran out of Grass Green and decided then to switch to some Cypress, also in Stylecraft Special DK, and of which I had a half ball in my stash. With the Cypress I carried on crocheting but did no further increases so it started to come down at the sides into a cylinder shape. 

Eventually I ran out of Cypress too, but by that point I reckoned the topper was big enough, so I whipped up a coupe of dozen little flowers and attached them onto the Cypress section as you can see in the photo above. And then it was time to put it on the post box - excitement was high let me tell you! And amazingly it fitted perfectly ...

Its fastened on by a long chain of chains which is then woven through the trebles of my last round, and then pulled taut gathering the edge in.  I am so chuffed with it, doesn't it look great! Honestly I wasn't sure it would fit, despite trying it out several times, but it's spot on.

The tag that's on it says something along the lines of "We hope this has brightened your day, if you'd like to brighten someone else's day please use the QR code below and donate to our Ukraine charities". The tag has a QR code on it which leads to a justgiving page or similar for Ukraine charities. So a worthwhile cause too.

Speaking of Ukraine I also crocheted up some blue and yellow hearts which were going to welcome packs being given to Ukrainian refugees in our area. More are arriving every day and so more hearts are needed too. I won't dwell on it, what's happening is awful, and I only wish there was more I could do.

Another Ukraine fundraiser is the Fields of Gold blanket by Jane Crowfoot. I bought the pattern purely as the profits go to Ukraine charities, I had no intention of making the blanket, and instead I decided to crochet one of the sunflowers into a mandala. I just used Stylecraft Special DK from my stash so the colours are slightly different to Jane's original colours. I used Gingerbread, Gold, Tomato, Dandelion, Claret, Parchment, Cypress, Meadow, Teal and Lapis.

I love the 70's vibe of the first few rounds ...

Whilst crocheting my mandala I happened to read Lucy of Attic 24's blog post about the very same mandala - Lucy had put her's into a hoop, and I loved the idea, so I ordered a 30cm hoop off amazon - hurrah for prime - it arrived the next day, just in time for me to finish my mandala. I think it was more luck than judgment but it fitted perfectly.

I've also been making some much bigger mandalas, another Barkham Hookers project, a secret one (the same one as my bunting in this post). This time the mandalas were made using Stylecraft Special Chunky, in Midnight, White and Lipstick. I used a couple of different patterns from this book...

... and I ordered some humungus hoops off ebay, the ones I chose are 92cm in diameter. As I was using chunky yarn the mandalas worked up pretty quickly, and then I used a long chain of chains to weave the mandalas into place ... I'm pretty pleased with them ... 

They look rather fabulous hanging up in the sun ...

I've been working like a mad woman on my lacy scarf. If you remember this was from a pattern from ThePoshCrochet, a Ukrainian etsy seller, which I bought as a digital download. Its crocheted along the length of the scarf - the starting chain was 450 - and so is only about 24 rows.  You can just about make out the pattern - its in need of some severe blocking I feel,,,

I finished my first skein at about row 20, and decided to start a second skein, so I've had to do a couple of pattern repeats on the fly. Its a bit tricky as the stitch count increases so I'm totally winging it, I've made sooooo many mistakes but either spotted them and reectified them, or fudged it, and it seems to be working so far! 

I seem to have been working on it forever though and it feels like I've not got very far, but when I lay it all out in folds you can see that I've actually done quite a lot. Hopefully just another couple of days should do it though, especially as its Easter and we have no plans, allowing lots of quality time with my hook!

Hope you all have a lovely Easter,

Til next time,

Jillxxx