Mint and Chocolate

Sometimes you come across a pattern and you are overcome by the urge to make it, regardless of its utility. One such pattern is the Apple cozy/jacket. After seeing lots of lovely photos on the internet I managed to locate the pattern here, and immediately decided that I HAD to make it.

I chose a mint green yarn, which would look nice against the red colour of the apple. To break the monotony of the green, I made three stripes of chocolate brown. I stayed up late in the night to finish it.

Hubby dear likes apples and usually takes one to office for lunch. I wanted to show off my cozy in the morning.
What follows below is the scene in my house the next morning:

Me: Shoved an apple into the cozy, buttoned it up and proudly extended it towards my hubby.

HD: Looks at it suspiciously but makes no attempt to touch it and asks "What is this?"

Me: Proudly of course, "It's a cozy, a cover for your lunch apple. Somewhat like a sweater."

HD: "Why does my lunch apple need a sweater? It is not even cold outside."

Me: "To protect your apple when you put it in your bag."

HD: "I have been putting apples in my bag and they have always survived the ordeal."

Me: "Well, this will prevent it getting poked by pens, flash drives, chargers, keys and things you have in the bag."

HD: "You really want me to take this to office, you are aware that I have lunch with my colleagues and ....

Me: "Well, I have made it and now you HAVE to take it to office."

Hubby dear takes the apple from me (cozy and all) and shoves it into the deepest corner of his bag, hoping I suppose that nobody in his office will notice it.

So much for appreciation!!......(ha ha) ;)

PS: Recently I came across a pattern for a banana cozy, haven't made it yet but ... banana for lunch......anybody?

State of Hexcitement

Hello, today let me introduce you to my new love, the Hexagon Blanket. In one of my earlier posts I mentioned being inspired by Lucy of Attic24 to make the Hexie. So off I went to my LYS to get my yarn. I left my home with visions of the beautiful colours that Lucy used and wanted to get similar colours.

But when I reached the store the colours available were not as lovely and the quality of the yarn was not too great either. So after turning the whole store inside out, these are the colours I bought.

There are 21 colours in all. Yarn in India is almost always available in skeins. They are then wound into balls by hand using the age-old custom of wrapping the skeins across your knees or a chair back.

Here is my yarn, duly wound.

Hmm... these balls of yarn don't look hand wound, do they? So how did I do it? Well, that is a secret I will reveal in a later post (and no, it is not what you are thinking).

Now on to the actual making of the blanket. I wanted each hexagon to be unique and that the colour combinations should not get repeated. So I sat down with my two bags of yarn and a 4mm crochet hook.

Firstly I chose a colour for the centre at random, then I went about in an eeny-meeny-miny-moe fashion to choose the next colour and so on. You see, I wanted "unique" hexagons.

After hours of painstaking labour, this is what I achieved.

Then I chanced upon this brilliant tip by Angie who has a lovely blog called "Le monde de Sucrette". She starts out by making the centres in each of the colours, which are 21 in my case. Then she moves on to the next round using a different colour every time. Absolutely brilliant. This gives you unique motifs each time and all the colours are used equally and your work progresses much faster. To see this tip in detail go here. On the same page she has a different pattern for the hexagon, which you may like to use.

This is how I started off. I was now making good progress.

The next pic shows how far I have reached now.

Here is close up of the blanket. Looks rustic, doesn't it?

And a couple of more photos, with and without the flash.

Mwah.. I just love this blanket. I will keep you posted about my progress with my blanket.

A big thank you to Lucy and Angie for the pattern and the tip.

Check out my latest hexagon blanket and get my free pattern HERE.
Happy crocheting!