May's colourful projects...

Despite being on holiday last week, I did actually take my trusty hook with me. I've not taken my craft on holiday before, so whether this means i've become more of an addict, or because I knew with the unreliable weather, and hubby's dodgy knee, there may be more opportunity. So I wound some tiny balls of different colours, with the intention of doing some extra mood squares and trying a new pattern.

I did my first mood square in a mix of blues / greens to celebrate being by the sea.

I decided to try to do some extra squares for my mood blanket, to extend it from 52 up to 60.

As we'd had a warm sunny day, and I was feeling relaxed I chose warm pastel colours, with a basic circle in a square pattern.

My next square is bright and happy, warm and relaxed

My last square was also a learning curve. I wanted to give a spiral a go, so I searched for a pattern. I found on Snovej's blog some lovely precise instructions, with easy to follow pictures... I had looked at the spiral in the past and thought it looked quite tricky, but with focus and a great step-by-step guide I managed it.

Something else that I wanted to try was a Mandala cushion that I had seen on Instagram. The pattern is by poppyandbliss, an Australian who produces beautiful, bright creations, which was made into a crochet-a-long project on mypoppet.com. Remember these lovely heather tones, that I didn't have enough to make a big granny cushion, well this was my chance to use these pretty colours together...

On my first attempt i struggled, got frustrated, and gave up, a bit disappointed.

But, on the way home, with facing a 5 hour train journey, I took another look. With a determined mind, I focussed firstly on trying to get the magic circle correct. After that hurdle I needed to figure the invisible join. I'm sure these are basic moves for the average crocheter, but I am well aware that I hold my yarn and hook in a very cack-handed way which made these fiddly for me.

Once I'd conquered those, the rest of it followed nice and easily. I'm not used to following a pattern, as I tend to make things up as I go, but I enjoyed this, and was a great task to make the journey go quicker. I have now completed the front, and I love it!! I'm looking forward to the next set of instructions, for the back of the cushion...

Going back to my Granny cushion that I started before going away, which was based on the heather tones above, I can say that i've now completed the main bulk of the crochet. The next step is to block it before starting the joining process...

I cant believe that May has disappeared already, and we are heading into half a year! Where oh where does the time go!!!

This is a look back at my May projects...