Janie Crowfoot's Crochet Club 2014 - February

At last I have time on a Sunday to sit down and show you the first part of Janie Crowfoot's 2014 Crochet Club.  Unfortunately, the reason I have time on my hands is because I am sitting at my mum's hospital bedside, occupying myself whilst she sleeps, so there may well be a few mistakes littering this post, as my mind becomes preoccupied by other things.  

The observant of you will note that these are photos from the February pattern, which I've got round to writing up on 30th March, so I'm sure you can imagine how far I am along with the March parts of the pattern - hardly at all!  However, this in no way reflects my enjoyment of the club; whilst initially I was a bit worried about the whole tension thing (amigurumi allows me to have the free reign to use whatever hook I like with no consequence other than  larger or smaller toys at the end of it!) it was nice to actually push myself to use the right hook at the correct tension to go forward for an end purpose.  

I was surprised by how many pattern pieces there were to make.  I've done a few kits and CALs and am usually underwhelmed by what you are given to do, but not this time.  Oh no, this club could easily fill a good few weekends if you want to do a nice job of it all.  Here are the first few (sorry about the colour overload):

This presented another challenge - blocking.  I don't think I've ever really blocked anything, I perhaps have half-heartedly attempted it on a couple of things but this was the real deal; making sure things were the necessary size and shape for when they finally come together as one big piece.  I scoured the Ravelry Group looking for advice and decided to try a hot steam iron hovered about 1 inch above the pieces and luckily it worked out very well.  

There was one part of the pattern that I was particularly hesitant to make a start on, the Quant Flower.  Partly because I hate working up and down the stems of flowers (chains, how I hate you) and partly because it looked almost lacy (slip stitches, I hate you too).  Eventually though I made a start and eventually ended up with a curled up, scrumpled looking colour ball.  But, with a little bit of blocking...

It looked just like the pattern picture! 

March's patterns involve bead work which I am very much looking forward to.  Now just to find the time to make a start...