I got all 11 rows of 12 sunflower granny squares each, connected vertically. I also began connecting them horizontally.
It seems like I am so close, but so far away from finishing. I have many horizontal rows to single crochet together and then I need to do a border around the whole thing to “square” it/neaten it up.
Then I have all the ends I did not already weave/crochet in to weave in 😦
But I try to focus on far how I have come and how much closer I am to being able to snuggle under my sunflower blanket!
Weather is weird in my part of Colorado and it is at time trying to be Spring, then Summer and then switches back to Fall. To encourage Fall to come to us in full force (bring on 40 degree days!) I made a batch of yummy Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins:
I think I’ve posted about these muffins before but here is the link to the recipe by Sally’s Baking Addiction:
The recipe looks tedious because you have to make 1) the streusel topping, 2) the cream cheese filling, and 3) the pumpkin muffin BUT it is totally worth it. I put on some good music and before I knew it I had to components assembled and they were baking the oven.
John was naughty and have two once they cooled down but they were VERY tasty with our coffee/tea!
Update on the post 48 Granny Squares Now Connected – I now have 84 sunflower granny squares joined together vertically! I am plugging along 🙂
So 7 out of the 11 rows of 12 granny square each, are done and just 4 more rows (48 granny squares) to go.
Then I am of course going to single crochet them together horizontally and add a single crochet border all the way around to anchor everything. After that I will decide if I want to make a fancy border, etc.
Revisiting a Hat I Started Last Winter
I made 137 sunflower granny squares while riding in cars, planes, trains and sitting at events beginning May 2024. Now that the making of the individual sunflower granny squares is done (and the blanket is finally being assembled) I needed another portable project.
I used a variegated ball of yarn I found thrifting with little idea of what the different colors would be since it was already rolled into a ball and I could only see a little of the color changes!
It was my leap of faith hat!
So on Friday John’s son Z was visiting and we took him to the Denver Film Festival and saw the premiere of the film Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, starring Danile Craig, I brought my hat and worked on it in the car on the way to the event and at the event before the film showing began (we arrived early to get good seats and had a bit of a wait before the movie started).
Here’s some additional images from the festival including the lovely Chihuly chandelier that hangs in the Ellie Caulkins Opera House where the film was premiering.
The film was really fun and I recommend it when it premieres on Netflix in December.
I was so inspired by your awesome comments on my post 137 Sunflower Granny Squares Completed that I decided to make a big push yesterday to start getting the blanket assembled from a year’s+ of granny squares made while on the road (as a passenger of course, it’s difficult to crochet while driving, ha!).
“Fantastic! A truly graphic representation of the miles spent on the road”
“All those little squares of sunshine!”
“It will be so beautiful to sleep in a field of flowers!”
“Miles of travel and happy memories, a field of flowers to keep you warm.”
“A certain amount of serendipity seems to fit in with the carefree sunflower theme.”
I searched YouTube for the best method to put them together and decided to go with single crochet. I looked at a bunch of videos and went with this simple one:
So here are 48 of the blocks joined into 4 rows and laid upon the “Design Carpet”.
I have 137 as I mentioned in the previous post on this project, and I am thinking instead of using 120 for a 10 by 12 block layout, I should use 132 for a 11 by 12 block layout.
In case you are curious of what my plan is, first I am crocheting vertical rows and once all those are together, then I was connect the horizontal rows with single crochet. So it will be a bit unwieldy until that part but it will make less ends to weave in.
It was actually very relaxing once I got my rhythm to join the granny squares together. While joining them I fell into some sort of strange YouTube rabbit hole and ended up binge watching Barry Manilow performance videos.
Okay so I shared a little about this back in 2016 in this post Shameless “Thrifting” (wow I have been blogging so long) but when I was 12 or so I was OBSESSED with Barry Manilow.
While other kids of my demographic were obsessed with the Jackson 5/Michael Jackson, I was totally in love with Barry Manilow. I remember having a giant poster of him in my room (not sure where I got it) and my father walking into my room and being appalled (my parents were more traditional R&B and Jazz music people).
So I remember when I was around 12, Barry Manilow had his first TV special. It was like 1977 and there were no VCR, TiVo, etc. recording options and most things were not replayed from live telecasts. My parents made my sister (my brother wasn’t born yet) and I go to a party with them on the night on the Barry Manilow Special.
I had a complete meltdown and thought my world was ending because I had to miss the Barry Manilow Special. My parents were not understanding and I was made to go to the party.
(Note this is not me but image from web)
While working on the blanket last evening and falling into the “Barry Manilow Rabbit Hole”, I did search YouTube for any videos/clips from that special I missed back in 1977 (which Barry Manilow ended up winning at Grammy for so it must have been good!) and I found a couple but could not find the full special. That would have been fun to sit back all these years later and finally watch it.
My musical tastes have changed quite a bit over the years but whenever I hear Barry Manilow I get nostalgic for that innocence of a 12 year old girl who thought his songs were all that love and relationships were about.
Well I am sure that is more about me than you wanted to know but occasionally we overshare while blogging, ha!
During my Summer of Travel I’ve been working on my Sunflower Granny Square blanket as crocheting the individual granny squares is a perfect portable project:
Passenger in the car with my crochet project bag on my lap, crocheting through the road miles…
In that January post I reported 39 granny square blocks done. I now have 91 blocks done as of this photo which I took before heading out on another recent road trip (to Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico):
PLUS 10 more I finished on the recent New Mexico roadtrip (more in a future post on that roadtrip):
So in total I have 101 blocks done.
Here are a couple close up images of the different yarn combinations I used for the blocks (because I only wanted to use yarn from my stash); the ones with the green yarns represent sunflowers that are not fully open:
And I still need to make some more to make the blanket a little bigger. I might make 20 more, we’ll see. I am going to finish up all the remaining sections I’ve started which I think total 20.
Here’s my basket in the living room where I store my completed blocks (oh my will there be a lot of block ends to weave in someday!):
I’m going to do a different granny square block join than I did on the other three granny square blankets I’ve made. This time I am going to do a Single Crochet Join this time instead of the Join As You Go Method I’ve used in the past.
Single Crochet Join Example:
Image credit: Repeat Crafter Me
Join As You Go Example:
Image credit: Crochet 365 Knit Too
Oh something really cool I discovered – for the outside border of each sunflower granny square I used Lion Brand Wool Ease (an acrylic and wool blend) yarn in Wheat.
Image credit: Michael’s
Well when I was taking photos of the laid out granny squares on the “Design Carpet”, I was barefoot and ended up having to step on the laid out squares. I discovered THEY WERE SO SOFT under my feet and I think it is due to the border yarn I used for each square.
I think it will be a really cozy and snuggly blanket and now I really want to get it completed for the winter season!
I am fascinated by variegated yarn and how colors in the yarn flow into each other in a knitted or crocheted piece.
I needed a smaller project for a recent trip we went on to the Carolinas (Charlotte, NC and Greenville, SC), which I will blog about in a future post, and so I randomly selected a variegated ball of yarn I found in my stash to start a new knit hat.
The yarn was either gifted to me by a friend; or was a ball of yarn I that I thrifted. The yarn was already rolled into a ball so I do not know what the original skein of yarn looked like. I could see some of the different colors on the perimeter of the ball or yarn but the whole set of colors was going to be a surprise to be revealed as I was knitting the hat.
Here is the yarn in the new yarn holder bowl I recently bought:
Here I am starting the hat on the Carolinas roadtrip I went out with our Asheville, NC based friends (who needed a break from their post Hurricane Helene life in Asheville – we nicknamed our vacation “The Clean Shower Vacation” they only recently got running water and the water they have is very murky and gross to shower in):
Here is the variegation in the ball of yarn unfolding as I work on the hat (it’s been a fun surprise):
I am waiting to see when the dark purple which begins the hat will resurface.
For the past couple months I’ve slowly been working on knitting a hat with a ball of pretty turquoise yarn I found in my stash. Little did I know it was not enough to finish the hat to the size I wanted.
I got this far before I ran out of yarn to do the decrease to the crown of the hat:
I am on a plane during one my recent travel adventures that I will eventually blog about
I looked through my stash to see if I had any yarn that would work to finish the top of the hat. I found this interesting variegated hand spun yarn someone gave me which had turquoise in it:
And here is my progress on the hat after adding this yarn:
I like it because it sort of looks like I did colorwork, like in the yoke of an Icelandic sweater, though real Icelandic sweater level colorwork would be nearly impossible as my knitting skills are far away from that level of skill!
I am trying decide it I should add a couple rows of the variegated yarn to the brim/bottom of the hat too. I am also thinking about adding a pom-pom/bobble to the top of the hat with the remaining variegated yarn.
Just making it up as I go along (and using up some random yarn in my stash!)
So I finished knitting another hat (same pattern as I always make), even though I can’t wear it until it gets cold again.
Yummy purple and blue variegated yarn from who knows where…
I need to be distracted when I am a passenger in the front seat a car (or I get anxious) so I always have some handwork with me:
Riding in the car is better with a project!
If you’ve followed my blog for a while and seen the endless hats I’ve made in this same “Rolled Hat” pattern, then you know I had to take my photo with the double pointed needles in the hat as it nears completion (it’s tradition!) – ha!
Where is Tierney?
SUNFLOWER GS
I’ve been working through random balls of yarn I find in my stash, some of them left over from making other people gift hats.
With the hat complete and the weather getting warmer (into the 70s F and next week into the 80s F) I wasn’t in the mood to start knitting another hat. I have some crochet granny squares to work on using recycled yarn (see post Plastic Yarn?) but wasn’t in the mood for that standard pattern after already making 3 granny square blankets with it.
So I decided to challenge myself and learn a new granny square pattern – Sunburst Square. Here is the YouTub video I used to teach myself:
The YouTuber does a great job teaching you how to make this granny square
Here is my first Sunburst Square in progress:
In the center photo I am in the car as a passenger working on it!
I love Sunflowers and I just had to make my flowers look like Sunflowers! I will share more progress as I work on them while in the car. We have a couple road trips to explore Colorado coming up this summer so I hope to make lots of blocks then!
“AGRICULTURE REPORT”
What is an “Agriculture Report”? Well I was inspired by @quiteayarnblog‘s ongoing series of posts titled “Agriculture Report” (and this title always cracks me up) that are actually updates of what is going on in her garden.I just had to adopt this same title for updates on what is going on in my garden/my “garden report“…
Needle-arts crafters (knitting, crocheting, cross-stitch and other needlework) seem to be good people based on those I’ve met through blogging, so I thought I would try for the first time to join a Knit/Crochet Group instead of a quilting group.
One of the area libraries, Arapahoe Library, had a Knit/Crochet Group that met once a week.
I already belong to three Denver area library systems (have library cards), so why not add one more to my list (they are fairly laid back on who can get a library card and there are a lot of libraries systems in the Denver Metro Area), so I went to visit one of the Arapahoe Library branches for the first time – the Smoky Hill Branch.
I was so surprised on my first visit as this branch had a cafe, an awesome used bookstore, and a free seed library where you could take 3 packets of seeds a day!
Of course I had to browse through a stack of used books (that I didn’t buy) at their bookstore while enjoying a hot chocolate and a danish at the cafe:
Other cool things I discovered while doing a self-tour of this library was kits for book groups which included 10 copies of books, and an awesome Craft book section (where else would I have headed first, ha!):
So for the past three weeks I attended the weekly meetings of the Knit/Crochet Group and I met some nice people. Here I am at the group meeting working on another knitted hat; and checking out a wooden yarn holder bowl another attendee’s woodworker husband made her:
I decided not to continue with the group as the venue was too large (space for 17 people) and I wasn’t getting any work done on my project and I was getting a little overwhelmed by the crowd, all their energy and stories. I appeared to have fully transitions to an Introvert post-pandemic!
I might try another group someday in a smaller venue.
This is Mike, the Miniature Schnauzer that lives with Tierney and John. If you are new to this blog I guest blog post time to time.
Tierney has been doing something weird the past month or so and only posting to this blog once a week. I am trying to work with her to increase her frequency. She went from torturing you all to daily posts in the month of October, this blog’s 10th anniversary, to BOOM once a week posts.
So I had to step in and blog about the progress on “my blanket”.
Look at all the progress I’ve encouraged her to make!
In case you are wondering why I refer to it as “my blanket” – isn’t it obvious she is making it for me when it coordinates with my fur so wonderfully?
Try not to become overwhelmed with my cuteness
She has 5 more rows of 8 blocks to join to it to make it an 8 by 10, 80 block blanket. But at this point it is sufficient enough for me to snuggle under. For some reason she wants to keep working on it.
I’ve caught her cuddling under it while working on it and she even wrangled it into the car when John is driving to work on.
Here she is working on it while in the back seat when we had a holiday visitor; and I am trying to snuggle in it too:
It should be covering me but she said that won’t work while she is crocheting
Well hopefully it will be done soon.
That’s the end of my guest post and I am going to return to guarding the house from my sunny guard post on the upstairs guest bed surrounded by my natural habitats: blankets (fleece!) and quilts.
Or should the post title be: “For Lovers of Yarn”? Either way, here is a post for people who love yarn and/or knit, crochet, spin, weave or other fiber arts involving yarn.
Last Thursday I was at the Stitchin’ Post in Sisters Oregon for our monthly art quilter group meeting. Before the meeting, I wandered around the shop “ooh-ing and ahh-ing” at all the treats for purchases (fabric, yarn, notions, art, books, etc.). The yarn department/section seemed exceptionally lovely this visit (I think they re-organized the shop), so I took photos to share with my yarn-loving readers!
Yarn Department, Stitchin’ Post
My friend Pat was kind enough to be the hand model in several of the photos.
If you are every in Central Oregon and you are a quilter, knitter, crocheter, or any type of fiber arts crafter I highly recommended a visit to this shop!
tierneycreates 