I Heart Amazon

Yes, it's time I declared my feelings for online shopping Mecca, Amazon.

Amazon. I love you!

Until today I have been content with frivolously purchasing wool from my local department store at £4 or £5 a ball. I'm relatively new to knitting so it suited me to buy from a well known shop, benefit from their instore expertise and of course, be able to touch and see what I was about to buy. However, the cost quickly adds up so I thought to myself, as I just need some generic White DK wool, perhaps I should try to save a few bob and buy them online for a change.

It goes without saying that I will also consider increasing my stash by buying yarn from the blogosphere but I thought it was worth building up a small list of reasonably priced and reliable yarn Amazon sellers. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I know I should consider using EBay to source yarns but I'm still psychologically scarred from my first EBay experience. What happened? I was sold some fake Anchor embroidery floss, I consequently posted a bad review and was then hassled by the seller who tried to log a complaint against ME - the cheek! I took down my social media picture for fear of being stalked and breathed a sigh of relief that i chose to blog under my alias, Micro G.

I just don't want to go down that road again.

Anyway my new purchase will almost certainly be used to join my crocheted afghan blocks once they're completed. Let me know what Amazon sellers you favour and I'll pop your comments up on the blog.

Finished Object: Knitted iPhone Cover

As my marathon effort to make a crochet blanket continues in the background, I thought I'd reveal how my iphone cover ended up. And here it is! My iphone and earphones fit snugly inside and I've wrapped the knitted square around one side again to form a separate pocket for the earphones, preventing the handset from getting scratched.

It's my first finished object completed using an acrylic mix yarn - Patons Beehive soft blend four ply, colour 02 (jade green). I originally intended to button it closed but, not wishing to 'guild the lilly', I think I like it as it is. As you can see, I chose to stitch it with the wrong side facing out to give it a less predictable look. Ad-libbing, this is my own design, not even a design really; I just adapted a practise square I knitted last year, et voila, an iphone cosy!

Shape Shifters

More woolly adventures! Not much news today, so just a quicky. Here are the latest crochet granny squares I've made. I will eventually sew them all together and - hey presto - produce a blanket.

Evolution of the Granny Square

I was going to show you my first few granny squares with these but then thought better of it; they were so misshaped it's embarrassing! I changed my mind back again and decided to put squares together for a blanket rather than spiralling round after all. I'm not sure whether these two will get used yet as they're not perfect and I would imagine I will have produced some even better ones by the time I've finished.

By rough calculation I've estimated I'll need approximately 24 squares to make a very small blanket. At the moment it takes me an hour to make one square but I believe accomplished crocheters can make them in half the time. With this in mind, hopefully I'll have a blanket finished sometime next month.

My First Crocheted Granny Square

So here it is, my first crocheted granny square! I've completed the first three rounds and it's a little untidy, but the basic shape is there. Remember to check my previous post for the Crochet Geek free pattern YouTube clip if you would like to learn how to crochet one yourself. Hopefully one day, I'll be able to create something as nice as the finished objects featured on Meme Rose and Planet Penny's blog spots...

Gotta Love Croydon

For years, Croydon in south London has been the subject of much ridicule. Despite incubating the talent of two world famous supermodels in the '90s, and hosting an efficient transport interchange and an IKEA superstore; the densely populated metropolis is more widely associated with featureless concrete commercial buildings and teen mums. To its credit and to my surprise, I discovered today that Croydon has a crochet square named after it! And here it is, papped nonchalantly on its creator's fair laminate flooring. Gotta love Croydon.

Mustering all my patience and courage, I plan to have a stab at a similar afghan granny square soon. Will keep you posted.

Before I go, here's a snap of mum's hat. It turned out lovely, don't you think? She's more of an old skool knitter so I don't think her pattern came from cyberspace. However, I'm sure if readers were keen to replicate it, someone is bound to have added a similar pattern to Ravelry's patterns section.