photos CAL Babydecke / baby blanket

Between October and December 2013 the pattern to this blanket was published in German on Jessica’s blog ≈ as a crochet along in 13 parts. My idea was to teach beginners how to improve their skills and to encourage them to accomplish a “bigger task” such as a (baby) blanket.

They were introduced to several (more or less) complicated stitches, “embedded” into crochet basics, such as sc, hdc, and dc rows. Each session consisted of 10 rows – including (at least) 1 special stitch.

Comments, feedback, and pictures were (and still are!) very welcome over at facebookCAL Babydecke Teil 2So sehen die ersten 20 Reihen der Babydecke aus. / This is how the first 20 rows of our babyblanket CAL look like.

Danke für die wunderbaren Bilder und Mails, die Ihr uns seither geschickt habt! / Thanks a million for all those wonderful pictures and mails that you’ve sent ever since!

Bilder der fertigen Decken sind in unserer Galerie / Pictures of all finished blankets can be found here.

Dank an Alle die mitgemacht haben! / Thanks a lot for joining!

17. World Pasta Day

World Pasta Day 2013

No, this is not about knitting or crochet – today is World Pasta Day. Fortunately, my son and I are very well prepared 🙂

For the reason given, we have colored pasta with felt pens and made necklaces by stringing them – nicely alternating – together with beads. No need to say: we’re prefectly happy with the outcome!

World Pasta Day 2013

And guess what we’re having for dinner tonight? (No, not the necklaces – Lasagne :)).

WorldPastaDay

Crochet for Kidney Research

“So how is this supposed to work? Will all of us be working on the very same blanket?” was one of the main questions when I started introducing German crocheters to the idea of a baby blanket CAL. Consequently, “who gets to have it in the end” was among those questions too.

Now, as the CAL is up and going, everyone knows that they are working on their very own blankets but somehow the idea of several people working on the same blanket stuck with me. And all of a sudden I realized that this is exactly what Natasja over at crochettime has been asking for since early September. I have been following Natasja and her blog for quite some time and still I failed to notice several of her posts on Crochet for Kidney Research …. Skimming over the wordpress reader I took all those pretty squares she has been posting lately for parts of a blanket she is working on herself. Mistake!

Fortunately, there are about 20 days left and I’ll do my best to make up for it!

Here’s the story behind, copied from Natasja’s blog:

Why Kidney Research UK: My husband, John, met someone who suffered from full kidney failure a year ago. Pieter had been on dialysis for 4 years and on the Organ Donor’s List. John was so moved by his suffering and story, that he decided he would donate one of his kidneys to him. Over the months of compatibility tests they became the best of friends, during which time we learnt that they were a very good match. The transplant operation was on 27. November 2012 and went extremely well. John’s donation also made history by being the first directed altruistic organ donation in the UK. It’s now 9 months later and they are both in very good health. Pieter wants to pay it forward and recently became a Board Member of the Kidney Research UK “Making EVERY Kidney Count” appeal. Pieter has committed to raise £150,000 over three years. I want to help him in the only way I know how: crochet.”

Natasja wants to make blankets for dialysis patients and needs our help. Those blankets shall be made from squares that are supposed to look like this:

“Any design of square, as long as it’s close to 15cm squared and you stick to shades of purple and white (as these are the official colors of Kidney Research UK). Please do not use wool as it may shrink or felt when the recipients wash their blankets on a too warm wash. Acrylics and cottons are best.” (See her ravelry group for even more information).

All had in my stash was two purple cotton balls that I would use to immediately start my first squares. So far it’s looking good and I think I’ll manage to make at least another three tonight.

purple aquares

Now, why don’t you join in too? Once you’re done you may want to register here to get Natasja’s address. There are so many crocheters out there – we should be able to provide Natasja with the squares for at least one blanket, don’t you think?

Have a great week!

A German CAL

Hooray! I finished both blankets last night! The acrylic blanket measures 42″ x 42″; the sock yarn blanket is almost twice as big: 44″ x 70″ and I am perfectly happy with both of them. Looks like the smaller one will be for a baby in Washington (as planned), whereas the sock yarn blanket gets to stay with us. At least for now :). I have been crocheting those blankets since June 1 and – believe it or not – I am still excited, hooked, and determined to start over and make another.

Hannah's blanket

This time it will be different though as I designed my own blanket together with Jessica (over at schoenstricken.de)! It is made of cotton yarn in rainbow colors and will have the size of a baby blanket (27″ x 35″) once it is done. And with Christmas approaching at an alarming rate (…) we decided to serialize the pattern as a German CAL.

The whole thing was triggered off in summer when I introduced the idea of a CAL to Jessica’s readers as a guest blogger. CALs are not very popular in Germany (yet!), but the feedback we received on that blog post was tremendous. Shortly after, we started to meet once the week. I would crochet while Jessica would take pictures and slowly but steadily a colorful “beginner blanket” would emerge.

Neither Jessica nor I have any intentions to reinvent the wheel. That is to say, the patterns I use have been used before. Some of them I learned with Hannah. Others are taken from books or the net. However, the composition is totally ours and we love it.

Tonight we posted the first 10 rows. I have not been that excited since waiting for a test to be returned in school. Fortunately, all comments are positive throughout!! And I am very much looking forward to next Friday and the next 10 rows … 🙂

Crocheted Daisy

Knitted Art presented Cherry Heart‘s lovely crocheted Daisies and I had to make one on the spot. Lazy (and impatient …) as I can be, I used yarn and hook that were closest to me.

Well, this first little flower didn’t turn out as “bumpy” and haptic as the ones Sandra made (plus, it looks like a fried egg) so I may have to give it some more thought. My guess would be that (1) the crochet hook I used is too thin or (2) cotton is not the best choice of yarn (too “stiff”). Still, it’s a pretty little flower. I will definitely make more and post better pictures within the next days.

crochet flower