A Simple Granny Square How To.

This post is for the Get Knitting Northampton Beginners Crochet Queens. It is the simplest way I know to make a Granny Square, it is not the only way and as you become more proficient you might decide to do it differently. That is cool and that is the beauty of crochet.

Firstly here is the link to the crochet abbreviations and conversion chart etc which I promised you all.

 

Right let's get started....

 

Granny Square Round One

 

1. Make a slip knot, chain 5

2. Slip stitch into first chain from the hook to form a circle.

3. Chain 3

4. x2 treble crochet stitches into the circle (cluster one) then chain 2

5. *X3 treble crochet stiches into circle, then chain two* (cluster 2)

Repeat from * to * twice more (clusters 3 and 4)

 

 

6. Slip stitch into the third chain of the first stitch (in cluster one) to complete the first round of the Granny square.

7. Cut yarn (leave a tail of approx 10cm) fasten off by pulling yarn through loop on hook and then pulling tightly.

 

 

 

Granny Square Round Two (new colour)

8. Slip stich into a corner on round one, secure at the back and chain 3

 

9. X2 treble crochet stitches into the same corner, chain 2

10.** x3 treble crotchets, chain 2 x3 trebles crotchets chain 2**into the next corner.

Repeat from ** to ** in the next two corners.

 

 

 

11. X3 treble crotchets into the first corner, chain 2. Slip stitch into 3rd chain of first stich as in round one. Break yarn and fasten as in round one to complete the second round.

Granny Square Round Three and each round you chose to add after will begin in the exact same way as the above, however there will be edge spaces as well as corners.

In each edge space x3 treble crochet stitches then chain two.

 

You can keep going round as many times as you like to make a huge blanket or you can make lots of blocks and then join them. You can crochet over the tail ends of yarn as you go or you can darn them in at the end.

Any questions email me or comment below and I will see what I can do to help. Also if you can think of other things you would like to learn in future classes please let me or Rachel know.

Happy Grannying!

Jane

 

 

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A New Knitting Shop & A New Opportunity!

A few months back, I heard a rumour that a new knitting shop was to be opening in Northampton and in Kingsley, one of my favourite parts of town. Indeed the rumours were true and a few weeks later I popped in to take a look. I was greeted by the sweetest border terrier named Cora at the door. When I'd finished petting her, I looked up to see that the lady behind the till was Rachel, a lovely lady who I had crossed pleasurable paths with before. She had taken a great leap into a new career and had opened Get Knitting! (https://www.facebook.com/Getknitting). It's a nifty shop with a friendly atmosphere and the range of yarn is really extensive.

A few weeks later and after a brief chat, Rachel offered me the opportunity to teach a beginners crochet class. Now I have taught all sorts of crafts before and I have taught crochet on a one to one basis, but never in a group and I was keen to give it a go!

The plan was two offer two, two hour sessions and in my head I had the idea that I would like all the participants to learn to slip knot, chain, double, half treble and treble crochet stitches in a line as well as make a granny square. I though that would be the basics covered.

The ladies who came to the class were great! They were my guinea pigs so to speak and they were very kind to me. One thing I should have shown them sooner was ways of holding the hook and yarn and we had to go back to that. Even so in the second week everyone completed a simple Granny square!

 

 

I promised I would write up the simple Granny square I showed them and it has been a few weeks. Sorry ladies it's on its way....

 

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Baby Tortoise Hatching Photos

This post is simply a picture special of my little Hermanns tortoise hatching. She weighed 7.8g and I have named her Vida. The hatching process took three days. Enjoy....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Animal Magic

I have blogged about my tortoises before, particularly my adult spur thigh couple and their offspring. I find the trickiest part of breeding tortoises is catching the female laying, because if I miss it, so far I have never found the nest as they bury their eggs extremely well. I am unsure if I have missed Persephone laying her eggs last year and this year, or if perhaps she hasn't laid at all.

Persephone mowing the long grass!

This year there has been other exciting tortoise news. Talullah, my first tortoise laid her first eggs ever! She is a Hermanns tortoise and I think about 14 years. She was originally imported from Slovenia and sold over the Internet. There are many many tortoise imported into this country supposedly legally. They are supposed to be captive bred on farms in countries such as Slovenia, Bosnia and Hungary. As they are captive bred they can be imported legally under the CITES agreement. However there is a great deal of research that suggests that there are thousand more tortoises coming into Britain than the farms are able to produce. To me this suggests that the farms are a smoke screen for an illegal operation smuggling wild caught tortoises.

I suspect my poor Talullah was originally wild caught. She was too big to be the age suggested on the paper work and her shell had tell tale signs that suggested to me she had once been a wild tortoise. In the first few years that I had her she had several health concerns the most serious being Anorexia! Yes you read that right, she refused to eat and her weight became so dangerously low that she had a tube fitted and I had to feed her four times a day! When she recovered I though she would always be a more sensitive tortoise, needing extra care. I was wrong, over the past four years she has thrived and then on mid summers day, she laid her fist two eggs!

I was amazed when I candled the eggs to discover they were both fertile, however, only one continued to develop. I have not incubated Hermanns tortoise eggs before, they are much smaller than spur thigh eggs and apparently the development time is shorter, only around 56 days. That means the egg is due to hatch this week!

My Hens have also had an exciting couple over weeks, they got a henhouse upgrade! This was because next door got a dog. He is a young German Shepherd who is left in the garden during the day. Sadly I couldn't risk him jumping the fence and dining out on my free ranging ladies, so they got a bigger house with a run that they have to stay in when I go out.

The old house, when the run only closed for bed time.

The Calm after and before the next storm,

Persephone munched a mallow

Flo flaunted her spiky new do.

Poor Phoebe just felt rather filthy!

 

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