Harry Potter CAL, Red Hats and a Baby Blanket

Good Morning Everyone!  So far this week, I have been slowly producing.  It was a pretty busy week over all.  I had dentist appointments, coffee dates and house appointments.  So, the first half of the days have been packed with "Adult Life", my nights have been a little more flexible.

Many moons ago I made this blanket from Two Hearts Crochet. 

I was so over the moon with how it turned out, other than weighting about 25 pounds.  Her graphs are beautiful and worked really well in my SC format versus the original C2C.  Alexandra's generosity in making other graphs available was amazing!  While I was working away on that she announced that she would be doing a Harry Potter one next.  Can I just tell you that I almost lost it?!  Does that make me sound crazy?  I am pretty sure it does.

My C2C Crest

The 31 tote of shame

As I was finishing the Dr. Who blanket I went ahead and ordered all of the Vanna's Choice I was going to need to do the Harry Potter blanket.  This time I was going to do it C2C; I was going to stick to the original layout and I was going to gift it to someone.  Well...  obviously that didn't happen.  I did make the center block right away in C2C and after 6 months of weaving in ends, it went into time out.  It has languished in my beautiful 31 tote now for 2 years.


I figured, this was the most appropriate time to pull it out.  After all, isn't that what the Great Craftdown of 2018 is about?!  Using what I have...  Well, Tuesday night I worked hard to finish the Platform 9 3/4 block in C2C.  I think knitting has made me an overly picky crocheter....  My color work was horrible!  I could have ignored blurring of the image on the back, but I couldn't stand what I had on the front!  So a frogging I went...  I decided that my annoyance and lack of working on it for the last 2 years meant, SC, smaller and maybe gift it as a baby blanket.  The down side is, I still have this beautiful huge square...  The one piece I finished, the piece that took me 6 months to weave in the ends on... It also means, I have to redo that square...

My first three blocks

Well, this week I finished 3 of the blocks.  I am not perfectly happy with my Dark Mark square, but I am happy that I am making progress.  If I can keep up the pace of 3 blocks a week, I will have this done before Spring!  I will most likely enter it in the SC State Fair and gift it by Christmas, I think I have an idea of who will be getting this blanket already. 

If you are at all interested in the Harry Potter, Dr. Who graphs, please go and visit  Alexandra's blog or Face Book group.  There are so many options for CALs.  Right now the group is working on a Solar System CAL.  I think this might be a project for 2019 for my grandson.  Two Hearts Crochet  really is a wonderful blog and the FB group is made up of a wonderful group of people who are very supportive and happy to help you out!

As I mentioned last week, I am a member of a Prayer Shawl Ministry at my church.  Almost 6 years ago my priest gave me permission to start this group.  We are still going and some how we already have a surplus of shawls and lapghans.  I am astounded at how our small group has been so generous with their time and donations.  So I reached out to a few other groups with our church and our diocese to see if we could turn our hooks and needles to help them as well.    One was asking for baby booties and blankets, another is in need of hats for men and the last asked if we would be willing to make plarn sleeping mats for the homeless.

Curzon is inspecting my joins

I have a lot of yarn right now that is set aside from projects like shawls, so I easily could make baby blankets from those balls.  Right now this is my progress on my first baby blanket of the year.  It isn't fancy, but it is squishy and comforting!  I love working in C2C for things like this.  I am using Premier Sweet Rolls again.  I am really digging these cake style self striping yarns.  This colorway is Ice Pop.  In the next day or two I will turn the corner and start my decreases so I am about half way finished now.

Once I have finished this blanket, I will start in on a mat for the homeless.  One of the ladies at the church is supplying the plarn because I LOATHE making my own.  I have 4 balls, so hopefully I can go through that next week some time.

Curzon wants you to see the hats

Finally, I am still working on baby hats for Little Hats, Big Hearts.  I found a ball of Red Heart  With Love in Berry Red in my stash.  This is what I got done this week.  They won't need them for 2018 as so many were already donated, but I figure 2019 can get off the a good start with what ever I make this year.  I got 8 done last week, this week I have added another 8.  These are so easy and fun to make.  I have been taking my red yarn with me everywhere the last two weeks.

I still can't see a difference in my craft room, but I do have a pile of things to weave in ends on still sitting up there.  Maybe this coming week I can do that and finally share pictures of those as well.

Thank you guys for your support and please share your own projects, or plans for projects.  I want to encourage you all to work from your stashes this year and hopefully something I make will inspire you to do work or maybe even consider a new technique...

Love and blessings!