My blanket for Crochet For Kidneys Part 4

21 Sunday Jun 2015

Posted by Natasja in Crochet For Kidneys, My crochet, My ramblings, Part 4

Tags

blanket, cfk4, charity blankets, crochet, crochet4kidneys, granny square, granny square afghan

We have one blanket for CFK4!

I just love granny squares! Just look at them!

I started the blanket on the weekend that I launched CFK4, and finished it yesterday. How super quick was that? Nothing beats a simple granny square for speedy blanket making or for a super fun time playing with colour combinations.

For the border, I used Border 138 from Around the Corner Crochet Borders book. It’s a striking border with a slightly raised ridge and very easy to do: just three rows of (UK) double trebles / (US) trebles, but on the second and the third rounds you work around the posts of the stitches in the previous round from the back. If each round is done in a different colour – in my case turquoise, grey and finally navy – it gives an really interesting effect.

I don’t know about you about I always place my darkest shade at the very edge of my border. I think a dark colour on the outermost edge pulls everything together.

The nitty gritty of my Blue Crochet For Kidneys Part 4 blanket:

Pattern: Traditional 6-round granny square, the last round of which is a different colour, arranged as 9 rows of 7 squares per row.
Yarn: Various DK acrylic yarns in shades of blue and a silver grey
Hook: 4 mm
Joining method: My Rose Valley’s Join-as-you-go method.
Border: Border #138 from Around The Corner Crochet Borders
Finished size with border: 135 cm x 97 cm

I am relieved that I’ve done my blankety bit for CFK4. Even if no-one else sends me a blanket for the kidney dialysis patients I know there’ll be at least one that I can hand over to the nurses at the Royal London Hospital.

I’m going to make one more blanket like this, but in shades of pink. Wouldn’t that look nice?

Before I start the pink blanket though I think I want to finish my Marie Wallin Rose top first – especially as it looks like Summer has finally arrived in the UK. Warm sunny days are not the best time to work on a blanket!

If you’re working on a CFK4 blanket, thanks! If you haven’t started yet, maybe you could consider making a blanket – it’s a great way to use up your stash and you’re make a comforting blanket for someone going through very unpleasant kidney dialysis.

All the detail on Crochet For Kidneys Part 4 can be found in this blog post.

Terrific Tuesday

06 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by Natasja in Terrific Tuesdays

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

crochet, granny square afghan

On a Monday I can still remember the fun I had over the weekend, Wednesday is the middle of the work week, on Thursday I start getting hopeful and on a Friday I can taste the weekend. But what about a Tuesday? It’s so…. just there. Weekend memories are too far away and the upcoming weekend might as well be a year away.

What we need is a bit of colourful inspiration to get us going on a Tuesday, don’t you think? A pretty picture, beautiful scenery or colourful imagery. Yup, that’ll liven up Tuesdays and turn it into a terrific day!

From now on I will go through my photos and Pinterest likes every Tuesday and find us a pretty picture to add colour and joy to the day.

xxxxxx

green granny square blanket from mygirlthursday

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/62065301089612844/

This true vintage granny square blanket lives in Lisa, from the lala fauxbois blog’s home. I love everything about this photo. If my grandmother and I were to collaborate to decorate a bedroom, this is what it would look like. Gran had a bedding set of orange flowers with green leaves in soft flannel very similar to the ones in the photo. Whenever we had sleepovers at her house, the spare bed would be made up with that set of flowery sheets and pillow cases. To match her sheets, she would definitely have gone for the orange and brown print above the bed and I, of course, would have added a granny square afghan.

Wishing you all a Terrific Tuesday.

Natasja

Crochet on TV (Taxi)

25 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by Natasja in As seen on TV

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

chunky yarn, granny square, granny square afghan, Taxi

Yesterday I received an email from Cade J. Campbell of Cleburne, Texas alerting me to another Roseanne style granny square afghan on a TV show: the crochet afghan on Zena’s parents couch in Season 2 of Taxi, episode 13 Louie Meets the Folks.

I’ve never seen the TV show Taxi, but luckily I could watch Episode 13 of Season two on this website. (A lot of website don’t want to play the clip as I am located outside of the US, but this one does.)

Most of this episode is set in the living room where the granny square afghan is thrown over the back of the couch. It really is a beautiful multi coloured granny square. It livens up the scenes with its bright mix of colours. I love it! I’m so glad Cade told me about it! Cade also very kindly sent me a couple of screenshot. Thanks Cade!

To recreate this granny square afghan you would need 4-round traditional granny squares in a mix of bright colours. I think the square are arranged in 9 rows of 14 squares each, so that would be a total of 126 granny squares.

The squares look quite big for 4-rounds granny squares, so I think they used a Chunky yarn.

What makes this afghan different to, for instance, the Roseanne crochet afghan is the way the squares are joined. In the Roseanne blanket the black yarn was used as the last round of each square. From what I can see the black yarn in the Taxi afghan was only used to join the squares. I think they did a slip stitch through the chain 1 space of both squares, then chained 3 and did a slip stitch through the chain 1 space of both squares again and so on. Where four squares connect, the centre looks quite dark. This would happen when there is a slip stitch in each corner shell of the four squares – the four slip stitches, seen together, will make a tiny black square. The border for the afghan looks like a row of shells, done in dark green.

You can have a look at the Photo Tutorials tab of this blog to download a pdf document that shows you step by step how to make a multicoloured granny square.

Don’t you think it’s amazing what a difference the way you join granny squares, can make to the overall look of an afghan or blanket? The Roseanne and Taxi couch afghans are both done in traditional granny squares, both in bright colours arranged in no particular order and in both blankets the squares are framed in black – it’s just the amount of black that differs and yet the two blankets look totally different. And this is why I love granny squares – the possibilities are endless!

Granny square blanket Ta-daaaah!

30 Thursday May 2013

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, Ta-daah!

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

crochet, crochet blanket, granny square, granny square afghan

All done! Nicole’s granny square blanket is ready to adorn the new couch in her new home. I had a great time making this granny square blanket and I’ll do it again in a heartbeat!

The border had to round off the blanket and be understated enough not to distract from the granny squares. I didn’t do anything fancy; just 4 rounds of shells and a SC row, but I included two colours. Picking only two colours out of 15 was tough! I changed my mind a hundred times. Even when I had settled on two colours, I still had to decide which one to use for the shell row and which for the SC row. So many choices! In the end John helped me settle on bright turquoise and bright purple. We worked out that the blanket looked best with the darkest colour for the absolute final row so that narrowed things down quickly.

Here you can see the blanket in its full glory. Do the rounds of each granny and the square arrangement look random? I planned it that way you know 😉

The nitty gritty of the blanket:

Yarn: Sirdar Hayfield Bonus DK colour pack from Deramores. I used all the colours in the pack, except Pink. The grey is Sirdar Hayfield Bonus DK in shade 814 – Light Grey Mix. The Deramores pack is a brilliant idea and the key to the success of this blanket I think.
Hook: 4 mm
Pattern: 70 traditional granny squares consisting of 6 rounds each, arranged 7 wide x 10 long. The 6th row of each granny is done in Light Grey.
Joining method: My Rose Valley’s Join-as-you-go method.
Border: Two rows of granny stripe shells in Light Grey, a row in Bright Turquoise, a row in Light Grey and then finally a row of SC in Bright Purple. To get the border to lie flat, I used Bunny Mummy’s technique that she explains here. I also followed Lucy’s tip on steam blocking acrylic yarn so that the final SC row wouldn’t curl up. It worked liked a charm!
Finished size: 140cm x 96 cm
Time spent: I started on the first Bank Holiday Monday in May, and finished on the second Bank Holiday Monday in May, so 22 days.

Liezel and I will be meeting Nicole on the 15th of June to hand over the blanket. Liezel came along because it was through Liezel’s Instagram feed that Nicole found me and asked me to crochet the granny square blanket for her. I’ve never met Nicole, and Liezel has only met her once. Can you believe it?! The power of Instagram, iPhones and mutual friends is a thing of beauty!

Nicole, I hope the love and joy in each crochet stitch will bring you years of snuggly happiness and blessings in your new home.

Happy granny squares

22 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by Natasja in My crochet

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

crochet, crochet blanket, granny square, granny square afghan

Don’t these colourful granny squares just make your heart sing? I certainly does mine! I was dancing, literally dancing, around these 70 squares on Sunday. They give me such a happy buzz!!!

I had to lay out the 70 squares on my striped carpet so that I could arrange them before doing their 6th and final, join-as-you-go round in grey. There’s that planning randomness again…. This time I didn’t have a structured plan like I had for making the granny squares, I just played with my squares until they felt right. John was sitting on the couch with me and my excitement even spilled over to him. By the end, he was also squinting to see if the red and yellow was spread out evenly, rearranging squares because “that corner looks a bit dull” or “I think you need more red over here”. Seems like no-one can resist the charms of the humble granny square.

At the bottom of the photo below you can see the first row of seven granny squares I joined together with the grey yarn. It’s absolutely amazing the difference that round of grey makes to my zingy granny squares. The colours calm down immediately; it’s like giving Ritalin to an ADHD child.

I really can’t wait to see how it will look when I’ve joined all the granny squares with the grey. I’m sooooo excited! Honestly I am. Just typing this post and look at the photos again makes me buzz with joy.

A good ending for this post would be for me to now say I need a Ritalin to calm me down, but I like feeling excited about my crochet – why would I want to change that? It’s a blessing when your craft gives you such fulfilment. I sincerely hope your craft has you bustling with merriment, the way crochet does me.

Jamie’s Nan

18 Saturday May 2013

Posted by Natasja in My ramblings

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

granny square, granny square afghan, Instagram, jamie oliver

I love this Instagram photo of Jamie Oliver with his Nan and her granny square lap blanket. Isn’t it just the cutest?

Terrific Tuesday

23 Tuesday Apr 2013

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, Terrific Tuesdays

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

crochet, crocheted granny squares, granny square, granny square afghan, Instagram, Spring

From now on I will go through my photos and Pinterest likes every Tuesday and find us a pretty picture to add colour and joy to the day.

xxxxxx

John and I spent the whole weekend outside. I picked these daffodils from our garden, John got out the patio furniture, I worked on granny squares for an afghan order (I got the order because of a photo I placed on Instagram!), and we had a BBQ with friends. All of this happened under a blue sky with the sun baking down on us. It was only about 15 degrees, but the sun was out and we cherished every moment.

Wishing you all a Terrific Tuesday.

Natasja

(If you want to follow me on Instagram, I’m natasjak)

Crochet on TV (The Roseanne Show)

12 Thursday Jul 2012

Posted by Natasja in As seen on TV

≈ 23 Comments

Tags

granny square, granny square afghan, The Roseanne Show

Yesterday I got an email from one of my lovely blog readers thanking me for doing these Spotted on TV posts. She mentioned the afghan / blanket that appeared on the couch in almost all the Roseanne show episodes. Initially I had no idea what she was talking about, but a quick Google search later I was in crochet-on-TV heaven!

I had actually forgotten about that beautiful granny square blanket – guess I watched Roseanne in the days when I was not eagerly searching for anything crocheted on TV. (I hear that’s the way most normal people watch TV. Normal has obviously gone out the window once the hooky bug bit me. )

Just like the afghan on Amy’s couch in Big Bang Theory which I blogged about here, this is also a traditional granny square blanket. Amy’s blanket is made up of 4 rounds (the 4th round being black), but Roseanne’s blanket has 120 squares of 5 rounds each (the 5th round being black). If you want to make one yourself, you can learn how to crochet a traditional granny square here.

I like the colour arrangements of the Roseanne blanket more than the Big Bang Theory blanket because the colours of the first 4 rounds, and the placement of the squares, are more random which makes it more interesting I think.

Diane, who emailed me about the blanket, said that she read somewhere that the blanket use to get stolen a lot off set. I just had to investigate (the rumour, not the theft).

Vintage Spinster says on her blog:

True story: that particular afghan was stolen off the set a couple times and eventually had to keep being remade and stitched to the couch. Version #3 now lives on the prop couch in the Smithsonian.

I tried to find references to the Roseanne show couch and/or blanket on the Smithsonian website but without success. I also emailed them to ask if this is true – haven’t heard back from them yet, but if I do, I’ll let you know.* I can however totally see why someone would steal the blanket twice – it’s such an iconic part of the show and let’s face it, it’s beautiful!

Episode 10 of the last season of the show is called Home is Where the Afghan is. Yes, that’s right! …where the afghan is!!! The writers of the show obviously also realised what an important part the afghan has played on The Roseanne Show. Considering the show started in 1988 and the last season was aired in 1996, that afghan must have been seen by millions of people and become just as iconic as Roseanne herself.

Imagine that: a crocheted afghan being the star of a TV show episode! And not only that, it proves what we hookers have known all along: a crocheted afghan will turn a house into a home.

*I got a reply from the Smithsonian:

We do not have the couch from the Roseanne tv show in the collections at the Museum of American History. Dwight Bowers Curator, Entertainment Collections, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution

**A comment by John Lamantia on 15 February 2014 on the Facebookpage Where is the “Roseanne Couch” sheds more light on the couch and the crochet blanket sewn onto it:

About 9 years ago, I almost bought the couch and afghan (now sewn on to it). Garvin Eddy, the shows set designer had ownership of the couch and some other pieces from the show. He posted it on Ebay for $10,000. I wanted to purchase, but really had no room. We talked and he was going to drop the price to $4,500, again having no room, I had to decline, but offered money for the afghan. He said that he didn’t want to separate the two and that it had been sewn on near the end of filming since he thought people were trying to take it. Its probably best they stay a pair since they are so recognizable together. No idea where it is today. Dan’s matching chair and dogs playing poker pictures were also up for auction at different times.

Tripping on granny squares

27 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by Natasja in My ramblings, Other people's crochet

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

crochet, granny square, granny square afghan

Granny squares as you’ve problably never seen them: tripping.

The Adelaide-born photographer, Diana Melfi took her grandmother’s granny square blankets and used them for a photoshoot called “Granny Takes a Trip”.

Genius, I say!

photography / Diana Melfi
makeup / Pia Lorena Bedregal
styling / Penelope Curtis
model / Tori Trigg @IMG models

Crochet on TV (Mad Men)

13 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by Natasja in As seen on TV, My ramblings

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

crochet, granny square, granny square afghan, Mad Men

Last night I was lying sprawled out on the couch under the Identity Crisis blanket getting my final fix of Mr. Don Draper in Mad Men.

Geez, I love Mad Men! The smoking in the office, the drinking in the office, the unashamedly sexist comments, the fashion, LSD trips, everything! I love it so much I didn’t even crochet in front of the TV, just so that I could give the season finale my undivided attention.

As a reward, the Gods of Crochet rewarded me with a granny square blanket right there on Beth’s hospital bed!

The blanket is a basic granny in the typical late 1960’s colours of brown, olive and orange. It’s done in big squares of orange or brown, the last round of each being olive green. I think the squares are about 10 rounds each with the olive as the last round. When you join up all the squares, the olive round of one will lie next to the olive of the square next to it, forming a grid of olive which sort of frames the orange and brown squares.

If I remember correctly, the edging was done as a row of brown with a scalloped edge in olive. Something like this.

If the Season 5 Finale was a let down for you, you can always count on your granny square afghan to bring you comfort. It may not be Don Draper, but it’s just as easy on the eye.