Crochet Freeform CAL

The Freeform CAL is great fun and I'm actually managing to keep up.

Treestump who is now the grand old age of three has decided it is a treasure map and that was before we were told to crochet a volcano for it !

I missed off that the grey pearls are coins !

Here it is from a worms eye view !

Table flowers and freeform CAL

Firstly the table-mat flowers. 

So far I have made two!  Both with blue petals and yellow middles though the other rows differ slightly. So I know I want 8 as we have an 8 sided table but do I do them all blue petals or do I ring the changes? I was thinking yellow could be primrose like and perhaps even green petals as I love ariculas to !  I also want to work out a mat for the middle of the table and perhaps some leaves as coasters.

I'm going to put the pattern at the bottom of this post as much for me as anything.

In other news I realised the free-form CAL on Ravelry has started again. As some may remember I did this back when I had only recently started crochet and was housebound waiting on Treestump to arrive.. he did halfway through and I still manage to finish the CAL as I was enjoying it so much, so as we come rapidly to his third birthday I'm doing it again. I'm a little behind having only found it last night but here is days one to three.

The other thing I realised is this red yarn *really* doesn't photograph well !

Table Flowers

(using British terminology)
6mm hook and two strands of double knit.

I used a magic loop to start but a short chain would work too.
Row 1 - 12 tr, slip st to first tr  (12tr)
Row 2 - ch 3 (counts as first tr), (ch 1, tr into next tr) repeat 11 times), ch1 slip st into chain. (12tr, 12ch)
Row 3 - Change to second colour. Ch 3 (first tr), tr into each stitch round circle, slip stitch into chain at the end (24 tr)
Row 4 - Change colour. Ch 3(first tr), tr into same stitch chain comes from, 2tr into each st round circle, slip stitch into chain at the end (48 tr)
Row 5 - Change colour. Ch 3 (first tr), tr into same stitch as chain, (ch 6, miss two stitches, 2tr into next stitch, 2tr into next st) repeat 11 times, ch 6, miss two stitches, 2tr into next stitch, slip st into chain. (12 sets of four tr and 12 6ch)
Row 6 - change colour, dc into middle of a set of four tr, (12 tr round the next ch6, dc into middle of next set of 4 tr) repeat 12 times. fasten off. (12 petals)

Freeform crochet and ATC making

Well still waiting on the baby but I did find a freeform CAL (crochet along) on Ravelry which sounded fun and do able. It goes all month and each day the lass running it posts up a stitch to be used, a change like change hook size or yarn or something and a way of generating a random number (so far things like roll a die (D6), the number of posts done on ravelry adding digits together, the hour at the time you do the crochet etc.)

Nine days in (today's hasn't gone up yet) and already they all look extremely different, some like mine are still basically flat but some are defiantly not, one looks like a pointed hat for instance. It partly depends if you worked in the round or not and things like that are up to the person doing it. Also the amount of each stitch can vary a lot. Probably the biggest so far being the filet stitch which was do the number of stitchs equal to the page you are on in your current book, magazine etc.

The weird looking thing at the top of this post is my attempt. It is fun, doesn't take much time each day and I have already done several stitches I haven't tried yet. I could do with getting a stitch library type book though of course the internet will supply most things when kicked enough ! I hope it's small enough I can keep it up all month.

If you want to see more you can look it up on Ravelry on the party for crochet month group if you are a member. If not it is also on Kaet's weblog so you can follow along there, however if you do knitting or crochet I suggest joining Ravelry there is loads of useful stuff there.

As to ATCs I finally got round to making one. It's done in 3d Decorparge which I've done before, the first time as a kid with bits of card as spacers. I've now got foam pads and recently got some 1mm ones so I could do small versions.. I have pre-printed ones designed for cards but this one was an image I printed from the web. If am going to try and do a couple more in which case I might see if there is a space on a swap on ATC's for all. However I have given myself a rule not to join any more swaps unless I have already made the items for the swaps on the principle then I can't let people down and if I like the subject enough to want to do the swap I will not mind keeping what I've made if the swap fills before I get on it.

These two may only be little projects but it's more than I've managed for a while so I'm chuffed.