Hexie love

Oh how wonderful summer holidays are for us teachers!

It is fantastic to have time to play

 to be me

 to indulge in yarny hooky pleasures!

I as you know am a Mathematician and get so much pleasure from crochet.

The shapes tessellate so perfectly and this gives me an immense sense of satisfaction!

Now the regular hexagon is a 6 sided polygon with equal sides and angles.

It is perfect for hooky creations yet is one I haven't used much at all.

So time to experiment ...

What better on a lazy sunny afternoon than sitting in the sun hooking daisies!

So my hexie making began.

 I didn't have a pattern so set about playing and came up with this!

As a small project a few of these hexies can be hooked up in no time

 and will make a lovely little table mat or runner.

I do love to fill my home with pretties!

I like to use Stylecraft Classique Cotton

 which has fabulous stitch definition

 and is

available in lovely bright summery colours.

 Its is a DK yarn but

 for mats I work with a 3mm hook to give a firmer texture

I must admit that I wasn't sure if I liked my table mat at this point

but it's amazing what a difference a good edging makes!

So yes the table mat stays

 and now has pride of place in Patchwork House!

As I know you will all be asking for the pattern

I have dug out a suitable suggestion from

Simply Crochet

magazine issue 5 on page 63

I am loving having time to peruse my stash of Simply Crochet magazines. Each time I look I find new patterns that tempt me. I would highly recommend it at £4.99 it is packed with patterns and lovely articles, features inspiration from our favourite hooky writers and bloggers and is always a total joy.

If you are not already hooked on the mag why not take advantage of this special offer which is open to my readers for the month of July, but

 HURRY HURRY HURRY

 it ends tomorrow!

You can take a trial offer of 3 issues for £5

WOW

isn't that fab!!!

Follow the link

HERE

and I'm sure you will not be disappointed!

In future I plan to write more patterns and tutorials and provide links for you all to find these easily on my blog. Thank you all so much for your encouraging comments and emails that help inspire me to continue with my work. The Patchwork Heart is moving forward in a new direction this new academic year. As I work full time it does not leave me as much time as I would like for making orders. I will be blogging more to share my work with the aim of encouraging and inspiring. Rather than taking orders I am now moving onto creating for my own pleasure, trying new ideas and patterns and writing and I will be reopening my Etsy shop in 2015.

Have a wonderful hooky summer

Heather

 XXX

Emily's Garden ~ a blanket of flowers

 This blanket has caused quite a stir

 amongst my followers on Instagram and Facebook, 

so here as promised are some details of how I made 

Emily's Garden.

The blanket is a gift for my mother's 80th birthday.

She loves flowers and is also a crocheter

 so I wanted to create something really special for her.

I used my favourite Stylecraft Special DK

this is so beautiful for blankets.

 It is soft warm and snugly,

 can be machine washed and tumble dried

 and is excellent value

It comes in a wonderful choice of over 80 shades

and you can buy it

HERE

I used

 soft peach, candy floss and pale rose

 lavender, wisteria and clematis

aspen, sherbet and spring green

cloud blue and parchment.

To create a garden

 I decided to use many different types of flowers

the first type was my frequent favourite

the starburst or sunburst flower

I use the starburst pattern by Jane Brocket

 which was in Mollie Makes issue 2

but there are many patterns for the sunburst available on the Internet 

try this one here

  

next I wanted to add depth to give the blanket a 3D texture

so  I chose these popcorn flowers

you can find the pattern 

HERE

there had to be roses in the garden

and these were such fun to make

this pattern is by Nicki Trench in the book

cute & easy crochet

for more texture I wanted petals

and these little pretties came from

a pattern by Nicki Trench in

Simply Crochet magazine issue 5

so with 80 flowers made for 10 rows of 8

 I was all set to join them into a rectangular throw

and I decided on a random arrangement 

as would be found in a cottage garden.

My favourite method for joining is using the

join as you go technique.

I originally learnt this using the fantastic tutorial from

  Attic 24

and developed my own method

 for continuous join as you go

joining the whole blanket without cutting the yarn.

You will notice

 that some are of my flowers are circles and others are squares,

 so to cope with this just make double trebles instead of trebles

 in the corners when joining the circles.

The continuous join method is so fast and easy 

and has the fantastic bonus of no ends to sew in!

I am really pleased with the 3D flowers

and the continuous join as you go

adds another lovely texture to the squares.

Finally a deep border to set off the flowers

 made using block stitch to incorporate some seeds of colour

you can find some instructions

HERE

Tadaa!

Emily's Garden is complete

 and I cannot wait to gift it to my mother Emily

on her 80th birthday

I'm sorry this is not a complete pattern

 but I am not yet a pattern writer and do not pretend to be!

 However I am happy to share

 my inspiration and the links to the patterns I chose

 so that you too

 may have a go at creating a garden of love.

Happy hookin!

Heather

 X X X

The amazing V Stitch

This week I have made a new discovery

 and am delighted to share it with you!

V Stitch

surprisingly simple

extremely fast growing

addictive pleasure

over on Instagram there is a wave sweeping the nation

and one by one all my hooky friends have been making v stitch blankets

so eventually I caught the bug

and dived into my Stylecraft Special DK stash

coming out with this gorgeous range of autumn colours

It is an amazingly fast growing blanket

so simple to hook

and totally addictive

at the end

 I sew each end into its own coloured stripe using a darning needle

 thinking of it as embroidery

to obtain a neat professional finish

Simple Edging

in UK terms

To complete the blanket make a simple edging.

1 rounds of dc (UK)

followed by a 2nd round of

dc 3 chain dc in the same stitch miss a stitch repeat

these baby blankets are such quick fun 

 I have made 2 and started a 3rd in 1 week!

If you Google Vstitch you will find many free patterns

and there is plenty available on Pinterest Ravelry and You Tube

but basically you need a starting chain in muliples of 3 +2 +2

you start with a treble (UK) in the 5th chain stitch from the hook

and make 1 treble 1 chain 1 treble for the first v all in the same stitch

miss 2 chain and repeat

at the end miss 1 chain and end with 1 treble

the rest is easy

just make 1 v stitch in each previous v

and a single treble at the start and end of each row

go on you know you want to ...

join the v stitch party!

If you have enjoyed this post and my pattern advice

please consider supporting my crochet business

support my crochet business

have a wonderful relaxing Sunday my hooky friends

Happy Hookin!

Heather

xxx