Tips for completing a crochet Sky Blanket

You can see my completed Sky Blanket here - My crochet Sky Blanket

As a new year starts, my Sky Blanket 2016 project draws to a close. This crochet blanket has kept me busy for the entire year, and even though it's up to date in terms of rows there is still plenty to get done, with a large border to complete. If you are starting a similar project this year, I thought I'd share a few tips to help with the planning and to keep you on track.

* When making a start on the blanket, you need to remember that it could end up being very large when it is completed. If you are planning to knit or crochet a row a day it will be huge. Working smaller squares and sewing them together will make a more manageable blanket.

* The blanket will also use a lot of yarn. I estimated that a 100g ball of yarn would crochet approximately 17 rows of half trebles on my 200 chain blanket. So for 366 (leap year) rows that's more than 21 big 100g balls, and of course it's unlikely to be an even spread across the colours so you'll need to allow more for some colours (here in the UK that's realistically going to be extra grey). Try to choose a yarn that will still be available if you need to purchase more as you go along.

* It's a long project and you can always make changes as you go along - I intended to just keep to the same stitch throughout the blanket but a couple of months in I decided to mix it up a bit with a few different stitches to keep it interesting and I'm so glad that I did.

* Don't be too ambitious and give yourself too much to do each day, it's better to have a completed smaller blanket than an unfinished one lying around. This is especially important if you are going to be away for a while or there will be periods of time when you won't be able to work on it and you'll have to catch up.

* If you are planning on travelling or being away from home a lot, think about keeping the project portable my making squares etc. - by around April I found that the blanket was becoming far too big to be packing to take away with me and so I had to catch up when I got back.

* Sew in all the ends as you go along, otherwise it will be a daunting task!

* Keep a record of the sky colour each day, whether written or photographic. Even if you are completing a row each day, it's amazing how quickly you forget! Also, don't get too hung up about it. Especially here in the UK, most days most colours will appear in the sky at some point during an average day!

* Don't get hung up on finishing the blanket on December 31st. Especially if you are planning to add a border, with the size that the blanket will be that's quite a time consuming process!

* Try and find others that are doing the same challenge, there are bound to be plenty sharing their progress across social media. Join in with hashtags so that you are inspired to keep going (and inspired by how others are working on their blankets). We used the hashtag #skyblanket2016 and you can find lots of inspiration on Instagram.

* As the year draws to a close, it's time to start planning the next project! Why not have a look at my list of ideas for a year long craft project! I'm not going to be working on anything like this for a little while I don't think, I'm looking forward to trying something new, but in a couple of years time I may well be back!

Update on my 2016 crafting, and crafty plans for 2017

At the beginning of 2016 I wrote all about my crafting plans for the year ahead, so I thought that I'd post a little bit of an update and have a think about what I want to achieve this year.

My big craft project for this year was my Sky Blanket, and I'm pleased to say that I kept pretty well on top of it, completing each month up to date if not each day. We were away over New Year and so I didn't have a triumphant New Year's Eve final row crochet session, but the daily rows at least will be finished within a few days of the new year beginning. It's a project that will continue well into 2017 though, as it's going to need a large, wide border to even it out. Look out for the final update blog post, but in the meantime here's how it looked at the end of November!

My other large project this year was my crochet granny square blanket, which I finished quite early on. It was hard work sewing all the squares together and making the wide border, but I'm really pleased with it, especially the scalloped edging.

I'm afraid to say that the other projects I was planning to complete didn't get done. My Sky Blanket ended up taking up most a lot of my available crafting time, and along with the other projects that cropped up along the way I didn't manage to get to them!

So I'm starting the year with the main focus on the Sky Blanket before I lose momentum. When it's finished I'll be picking up my sadly neglected crochet project - the Attic24 Pink Bunting. Once I get going with it I don't think it will take me very long to complete as the pattern is quite quick and easy. I'm not sure yet where it will go, I'm hoping that Mia might like it for her room as it's very pink and girly.

I'm not sure that I'm ready for another big project just yet, but I would love to have a go at another one of the Attic24 kits, especially one of the blankets, as I think that they are very reasonably priced (you can see the shop here at Wool Warehouse). But I've made three blankets now, so perhaps it's time to move onto something else!

On a whim in Ikea the other week I picked up a white Ikea Ribba frame. I initally bought it with the intention of using it for my mini Hama bead Russian Doll picture. But I'd also quite like to make some kind of framed beach themed picture using shells or sea glass so I might gather some inspiration for making one. I've already pinned a few ideas on my By The Sea Pinterest board!

I've also neglected the mini Hama beads lately and I'd love to get back into using them for something, perhaps another little mosaic picture. I spent ages sorting them all by colour so it's a shame not to be using them!

What are your crafty plans for the year ahead?

Sky Blanket - What I would do differently next time

You can see my completed Sky Blanket here - My crochet Sky Blanket

As the end of the year approaches, my Sky Blanket project draws to a close. Although I'll finish my daily rows at the end of December, I'm planning a big border so I've a way to go yet before I share a picture of the finished blanket. I love my blanket, but working on this project over the last year has given me a few ideas about what I would do differently next time, and so I thought I'd share them.

Firstly, I would use a wider range of colours. I was adamant that I wanted to stick to the basic sky colours of blues and greys, but with hindsight I could have made a much more colourful blanket if I'd chosen some pinks and oranges for the sunsets, or a rainbow yarn. Having said that I do quite like the simple palette of my blanket so perhaps too many colours would have been a bit much.

Next time I'd definitely use a wider variety of greys though, and I'd also look for some sparkly grey yarn to make all those grey rainy days a bit more interesting!

I could have also varied my stitches a bit. I did this to a certain extent, and I do like the uniform quality of my blanket, but I've seen some fantastic examples of blankets that are almost like samplers with all sorts of different stitches.

Next time I wouldn't get too hung up on which exact colour to use. In a country like the UK with such a variety of weather, to be honest on most days I could have chosen any colour to represent the sky. As I went through the project I tended to lean towards a colour which represented the colour of the sky for most of the day, rather than looking at the sky at a strict time that day. If I'd spent a reasonable amount of the day outside, for example if we'd had a day out or I'd been for a run, then I chose a colour that represented the sky at that time.

It was a very rare day when the sky stayed the same colour for the majority of the day. I've seen some blankets where the knitter or crocheter has used a couple of different yarn colours for each row or square, and I think that works really well, I was just worried about how much yarn the blanket would end up using!

My blanket did end up very long and skinny. This meant that it was very easy to keep on top of, as each row only took me about 10-15 minutes to crochet. Perhaps next time I'd add in a few extra stitches. My blanket had a starting chain of 200, perhaps I'd up that to 250 or 300.

I could have got around this by making a blanket with different squares instead of rows. Then I could have planned the blanket right from the beginning and I would have been able to work out the rough size of the finished blanket. It would also have been more portable to take away with me. I would have to sew them up as I went along though, I can't imagine trying to sew together 365/6 squares all in one go!

In order to show the year more clearly, I would have liked to include a plain coloured row in between the rows for each month. This would have divided the blanket up nicely and perhaps made it more obvious how it related to the year as a whole. Similarly I could have done a plain row at the beginning and end, and perhaps tried to find a way to make it obvious which wintery end was which.

Finally, I would have kept a close eye on my stitch count as I went along. Being relatively new to crochet I'm still learning, and discovered at the beginning of November that I'd lost almost 40 stitches from the row. Having only started with 200, there was a significant difference between the two ends of the blanket. I was able to catch up and add them back in, but it would have been better if I'd checked every month or so and sorted it out as I went along!

I hope that these tips were helpful! I posted about the progress of my Sky Blanket monthly throughout 2016, and you can links to each monthly post here - My completed Sky Blanket.

If you are looking for a long term craft project to keep you busy for a year but aren't sure whether a Sky Blanket is the one for you, you might like the different projects that I rounded up in my blog post Ideas for a Long Term Craft Project. 

Taking part in Vlogmas 2016

On the 30th November this year, in the early evening, I first learned about Vlogmas. I must have been living under a rock, because since then I've seen references everywhere! But if you're like me and it's a new thing to you, basically it means that for every day in the run up to Christmas, or even every day during December, you upload a video to your YouTube channel. It doesn't need to be a Christmas themed video, although most seem to be, and there are no rules - it can be long, short, a straight vlog to camera, a day in the life, craft or recipe tutorial - anything goes!

Because I was coming in at the last minute, some of our Christmas preparations were already underway. The tree and decorations were up, present shopping was mainly done, and cards were written. But I decided that I wanted to give it a go, and once I set myself to a challenge I generally see it through.

I kept my videos quite short, often only 2-3 minutes, and many of them are done by theme rather than specific event, for example my Elf on the Shelf and Gingerbread House videos were filmed over several days. Some were very quick to put together and some took a little longer. I always aimed to have the next day's video finished and scheduled before I went to bed, and if I knew that I was going to be away or busy I set up a few general videos in advance.

I'm not very confident in front of the camera so you won't see very much of me, and I'm also a bit shy about filming when out and about, I'm always trying to make sure that I'm not filming too much of other people. I don't tend to take much video day to day. So I did feel self-conscious when taking some of the footage, and it was a real effort to make myself film things.

But I'm so glad that I did! I captured many moments that I wouldn't have otherwise - like my son in his costume talking about his carol service, the children getting excited before the pantomime started, the opening of the boxes that our Elf on the Shelf arrived in, as well as a few glimpses around our house which I'm sure will be fun to look back on in years to come. I also made an effort to do more festive things so that I would have something to video and include, like a trip to the garden centre and going to visit Christmas lights and decorations.

Below is my first video - Advent Calendars - and you can find all my videos in my Vlogmas 16 playlist - Jennifer's Little World Vlogmas 16 Playlist. I'm going to edit all the videos together into one long one which we can keep to look back on in years to come!

I'm already planning for next year!

Gingerbread House crafts

Every year I make a gingerbread house with the children, a tradition that started back in 2012 - My First Gingerbread House for Christmas - and with this year's house currently in progress I thought I'd share some of the lovely gingerbread house crafts that I've spotted while browsing around online.

I have shared some of the different Hama bead houses that we've made using the house pegboard, and one of my favourites was the Gingerbread House below. It's quite simple and there is a lot of scope there for adding extra sweets and so on, it's definitely something that I need to revisit!

The next year I stepped it up a bit and made a 3D Gingerbread House from Hama beads. My first attempt at a 3D Hama bead project and I think it worked really well, it's quite small so it fits nicely on the mantle piece and you could also pop a battery powered tea light inside so that it glows.

If you are looking for something much larger, I've seen some amazing child size gingerbread houses made from large cardboard boxes. I'm a little bit  reluctant to give this a go (we did end up with a cardboard box rocket in our dining room for four years) but they do look amazing and I know that the children would have so much fun making one. You can see a fantastic example here - Life Size Gingerbread House.

I love the idea of making a permanent gingerbread house decoration, like a felt gingerbread house with velcro embellisments that could be re-designed each year. 

Finally this year we used a Baker Ross kit to make some Gingerbread House frames. Using a kit meant that they were really simple to make, but you could easily make your own using coloured paper and cardboard, and they would be great with a magnet attached to the back so that the photograph can be displayed on the fridge.

I hope that you enjoyed my round up of Gingerbread House crafts, are you inspired to try any?

My homemade Christmas decorations

I love it when the house is decorated for Christmas, and being a crafter over the years quite a number of our decorations are things that I've made myself. I love these homemade touches, and I enjoy bringing things that I've made out again year after year, as well as adding to them each year. So I thought I'd share some of my favourite homemade decorations that we display around the house.

The first Christmassy thing that comes out is my Wooden Advent Calendar. I made it a couple of years ago when I was working with Hobbycraft, decorating one of the plain wooden Advent Calendars with boxes, using acrylic paints, washi tape, and some number stickers. I was really pleased with it and we love using it each year. The boxes are nice and big so you can fit plenty inside (this year it's tiny Pokemon figures).

When you enter our hallway you are greeted with my Crochet Wreath, which I think looks a lot more impressive than it is! It was so easy to make, just a strip of crochet wrapped around a wire frame, and as it was one of my first crochet makes it's full of mistakes, but it looks cosy and the little robin is very sweet.

Another wreath which I made this year was my Fabric Strip Wreath, another craft that looks impressive considering how easy it was to make. All you need is a wire wreath frame and lots of strips of fabric which are tied around the frame so that it is completely covered. Both my wreaths are hung indoors though, I'm not sure that I trust them to the elements!

Around our fireplace I hang our two Tapestry Stockings. They were made using a kit from Jolly Red - I bought one kit for Harry then I purchased some extra wool and canvas to make a second one for Mia. There are even more designs available now than there were when I made them, I'm very tempted to make a couple more!

We have quite a lot of Hama bead Christmas crafts around the house (you can find many of them rounded up here - Hama bead Christmas crafts for children) - and I particularly love my Scandi Inspired Battery Tea Light Holders. I also have my Mini Hama Bead Christmas Decorations stuck up above my desk which are very sweet.

Finally I have a few little decorations on the tree which make me smile when I see them. I was very proud of my Fimo Owl Decoration, although Mia has taken him for the tree in her room this year! I was also very pleased with my Wooden Decorations which were decorated with acrylic paint and detail added with pen.

You can see these homemade decorations and more in this little video that I made for Vlogmas 2016:

Our yearly Gingerbread House

It's that time of year again - time to make the Gingerbread House! This is a tradition that I started back in 2012, and after the first year I used the same recipe to make two smaller gingerbread houses so that the children could decorate one each. I always use the Tesco Gingerbread House recipe which is fab, it comes with a template to print out (print it out at 75% if you want to make two houses) and a video demonstrating each step, perfect if you are attempting to make one for the first time.

Here is this year's effort!

Making the house takes a couple of days. I make the gingerbread pieces in advance and leave them to harden overnight, as if you try and put the house together straightaway the sides are too soft. I usually assemble the house myself, I'm quite good at it but I do need to concentrate. I find that if I make the icing nice and thick the pieces stick together well, and when the icing has set the house is nice and sturdy.

Then I lay out a variety of different sweets and let the children decorate.

For Mia I squeeze the icing where she would like it, but Harry can now use the icing nozzle himself. They are always so proud of their houses!

I captured our efforts on video as part of Vlogmas 2016, see below:

And here are our efforts from previous years!

Top left - Christmas 2012
Top right - Christmas 2015
Bottom left - Christmas 2014
Bottom right - Christmas 2013

Do you make a Gingerbread House at Christmas?