Crochet Roses

Happy New Year, Woollies!

I've been away for a long time, but not wasting time :D I have discovered a new obsession on my crocheting journey - roses! 

I found and fell in love with the beautiful Babushka Rose blanket by Sewing Daisies about four months ago, and I knew immediately that I wanted to have a go. Now, I'm one of those crafters who, when I see a colour combination that I really like, wants to copy it exactly, down to the last detail, to satisfy my inner control freak. But naturally, I would't be happy with a baby-sized project. Of course, I thought to myself - wow! imagine how beautiful that would be as a grown-up size blanket! (I seem to suffer from perennial eyes-bigger-than-my-hook syndrome). 

Well, I loved her use of colours in this blanket, but I didn't love the idea of making a big blanket on a 3.5mm hook (because who has time for that?!) and so my first attempt was to try to recreate her colours using my go-to bargain favourite, with Stylecraft special DK. I used Matador, Lipstick, Fiesta, Spring Green, Sunshine and as well as a few other balls of similar-weight yarn I picked up in the markets. I did like it (sorta), but something was niggling at me inside. It wasn't exactly right. 

Do you see what I mean? 

And, of course, copying someone else's colours is only so interesting for about the first few squares, when you start to wonder what this other colour you have stashed away might look like as a rose. Or that one. Oooh, and the purple? And before you know it, you have a mish-mash. Which I still kind of liked. But the colours just weren't sitting together, and it was really bothering me in a big way. 

*Sigh* This is what always happens to me. I get so much of the way through a project and then because I start thinking about the things I don't like, my interest falls off and it stays there, languishing like the rest of my projects in my WIP bin. (Just for the record - when I say WIP what I really mean, is NLL WNF, or 'no longer like, will never finish' (!) I know, I know it's terrible. But I have begun recycling yarn from those projects for newer projects, so I don't feel so guilty.) 

Well, I told myself that I could either stop and try it again with the same yarn as the original project, or I could try to salvage my roses. I didn't want to waste the ones I had made (they're still super pretty!) and I still liked the colours, but I started thinking that maybe I could simplify the palette a little bit. And so I made the momentous decision to frog the edges, taking off all of the red and mint frames until I was just left with the roses and their leaves. And then I began thinking that maybe, since they're roses, I could do different shades of my favourite colour - pink!

So I put my yellow and blue roses to the side for a moment (sorry, guys!) and started edging my pink and red and purple roses with 1 row of DC followed by a second row of HDC in candyfloss pink (Stylecraft Special DK)to firm them up around the edges. The light isn't so great inside my studio (it is a lovely studio though, so we'll forgive it!), but this is a somewhat accurate presentation of what the colours currently look like: 

Pink Roses! 

I'll confess, I wasn't sure about having so much pink (- this, coming from me, the girl who would live in a pink world, if she could). My lovely cousin Trish suggested a duck-egg blue instead, which I agree would be very nice. But (partly because I didn't want to frog a load of squares again) I've decided to persevere with my pink. The more I look at it, the more I realised that I do actually like it. Perhaps I can tone it down at the end with a darker border in purple or grape, or add a third row of HDC to separate the roses a little bit more from one another. 

The beauty of these squares is that they are actually pretty fast to make. A rose without any border takes about 20 mins to complete, so I would estimate that a finished square takes me around 45mins-1 hour to make (I crochet on the ferry, so cold fingers don't make for the most nimble movement!) Each square with the pink border is around 4.5 inches square, and I estimate for the size that I want to make (a bedspread), I'll need around 16 x 16 squares (or 72" square) with a nice lacy kind of border to drape down the sides. You can't really have a rose garden blanket without the proper royal frame! 

I've already made about 16 or 17 (not including the ones I had to put aside or frog completely), so I think it will be a project that lasts for at least another couple of months. 

I cannot find my Canon Camera charger anywhere, so until I replace it, I'll have to just make do with my phone instead. Sorry for the lower-quality and over-saturated photos (I don't know why my phone insists on blowing the colours out so much), but I really wanted to blog while I had a chance!

Happy Chinese New Year!