A Fabulous Little Crochet Book & What I Made From It.

I love this crochet book, I bought it a couple of months ago ....

                                                 500 Crochet Blocks

I have A LOT of crochet block books from over the years, but this one has taken my fancy.
It's very new and modern, with 283 pages of different squares, rounds, hexagons, triangles ...

As well as blocks, there's hearts and leaves, spirals and flowers, pot holders, ripples, stars.
All the new stitches like crocodile stitch (above), the very popular African Flower Hexagon, Spinning Wheels plus lots of old favourites.
And not to mention,  a lot of the block patterns can be increased and repeated to make some very yummy scarves and fingerless glove, like the pink flower block above.

Even though I should be concentrating on getting 3 projects finished at the moment, I couldn't go past this snowflake block, especially this time of year!

          So...what did I make?

Can you guess?

 I bet you can lol.

Here's the block below finished and ready to go. 

The pattern for the block itself can be found in the book   500 Crochet Blocks  

My directions are only to show you how to use the block to create a Tea Cosy. 

Naturally due to copyright the pattern for the block can't be printed here - sorry :-).

Fits approx a 4 cup Teapot. English Crochet Terms are used throughout.

I used 8ply/Dk yarn and a 3.50mm crochet hook. The smaller hook makes the snowflake design tighter and more prominent I think. (Make 2 blocks).

I didn't fasten off from the last round of the block so my directions continue from there.
Starting with 3ch (counts as a tr) tr in every st, do the corners the same as previous rounds in the pattern, and join to the 3rd ch at the beginning. Fasten off.

Don't work across the bottom from here on. Make sure you place the fastened off edge to one side, not at the bottom, so you have a nice neat finished bottom edge for the cosy (see where it is in the previous pic?).
Fasten yarn to the right hand bottom edge, work facing you. 3ch and 1 tr in the corner space. Tr up the side and work the corner as before.
Across the top -  tr2tog until you get to the next corner, work the corner as in the pattern.
Tr down the other side and finish with 2 tr in the bottom corner space. Fasten off.

Finish the other block to this stage as well. 

Now you can join both pieces and finish the rest of the cosy in the round. 

Fasten yarn to the top right hand corner space of the front piece (work facing you).  

3ch, (counts as a tr), tr in every st across top to the other top corner, 1 tr in the corner space. 

Take the back piece, making sure it's also facing right side out, and tr in it's corner space, tr in each st across the top, then 1tr in the other top corner. 

You're back to the beginning now so slst into the 3rd of the 3ch at the start to join both pieces.

Sorry this one looks a little lopsided, I hadn't straightened it into position before the photo - I know, it's bugging me too :-)

Tr 5 more rounds in red and 1 round in white. fasten off.

Sew both sides up a little from the bottom, and down from the top to fit your Teapot's spout and handle. Sometimes when I'm making tea cosies for sale or a gift, I'll use a crochet tie at the bottom instead of joining both sides. Teapots are all different sizes. 

At the top end, make a chain stitch drawstring to run through either the decrease row, or the next tr round of the pattern, depending on what fit's your Teapot better. It's easy enough to thread it in between the stitches. 

Don't pull it in really tight, just enough to fit it to your teapot (see photo below). The Tea Cosy is designed to be a little open at the top to mimic a sweater :-).

Fold the top down to form the top like a Turtle Neck Sweater. Sew on a button or decoration to finish. 

                                             

                         © Jennifer Stacey 2013 - for personal use, not for profit

Christmas Cheers - Jen xx.