Sew love to.......Crochet?

I can knit and I can sew but I've never learned to crochet so at the age of ahem 41, I decided it was time to learn.

I bought this book, a crochet hook and some yarn and set to work.

First of all I couldn't even work out how to do the slip knot to start off! My husband had to show me how. As a child I had at least learnt to crochet a chain and after much fiddling around I remembered how to get this far.

As well as using the book I used some films on u-tube to learn how to double (USA single) and treble (USA half treble) crochet. To be honest I needed the films as I couldn't work out what to do just from the book but that was probably down to me rather than the book's instructions as now I know what to do the book makes sense.

I won't show my first few efforts, they are very wonky and I have a tendancy to pull the yarn too tight. A friend showed me how to do a square which was a great help.

Here is flower I made from the book. I've used a thinner yarn and a different size hook but it's ok.

Finally, last night I did a square with changes of colour. Hurray! I'm not sure what to do next. I may do more squares and make a cushion from them.

All this made may think about how, as adults, most things we do come naturally. I felt so awkward trying to hold the yarn and hook and manipulate the hook through the yarn. I felt like a newborn lamb learning to walk or a child learning how to hold a pen and write.

Amanda has kindly sent me some Bushfire Quilt appeal Star blocks which I will send with mine during the first week in March. If any UK bloggers would like me to send their's with mine let me know.

Bye for now, Maria

Australian Bushfire quilt block appeal.

Tia has set up a flickrgroup asking for 12.5 inch star quilt blocks which she and her band of helpers will make up into quilts to be donated to the victims of the Australian bushfires. Hopefully these quilts can offer some comfort to people who may have lost everything in the fires.

This link will take you to a blog entry where a survivor of the 2003 Canberra firestorm explains how some of her family's most treasured items that were donated were those handmade, with love, by complete strangers.

Please click on the flickr link at the begining of this post and it will take you to the Bushfire Quilt Project flickr group where the appeal is explained in more detail. This includes details of the suggested quilt block.

I would like to volunteer to send blocks made by UK ladies to Tia. I think it would be good if a few blocks could be pooled and sent in one parcel rather than individual people sending one or two at time. Do you think that sounds like a good idea?

If anyone reading this would like me to send your blocks with mine please leave a comment and I will contact you with my postal address.

I better get going with making some blocks! I look forward to hopefully hearing from some of you.

Bye for now, Maria.

Quilts in progress.

Hi there, it's been a couple of weeks since my last post. All is well but I haven't had much to show until now.

I have a couple of projects in progress. The first is a quilt for project Linus. I have loads of fabric to use up and a great deal of it is children's fabric. I thought that charity quilts would be a great way of using it up. This one is bright and cheerful and I hope it will brighten up the world of an ill or under privelaged girl. I've now got to put the borders on. I have loads of the yellow flowery fabric left, enough for the backing and border.

About a year ago I started this quilt which is based on a design from a Kaffe Fassett book. It's a medallian quilt which means that you start with a central block and then build it up by adding borders. I'm not concerned that it's taking so long as this was my plan from the start. I wanted a long term project to keep going back to whilst working on other, smaller projects in between.

My next border is to be made of nine patch blocks made up of lots of different fabrics. Once they're sewn together you won't be able to see that they're nine patches. Hopefully they'll look like loads of small random squares. Luckily I have lots of scraps to use up for this as I needed lots of different designs.

So, here is my pile of sets of three squares ready to be sewn into nine patch blocks.

I hope you've enjoyed todays little look at what I've been upto.

Bye for now, Maria.