Crochet granny ripple blanket

After some careful consideration I decided that I have to put all of my non jewelry crafts in a separate shop on Etsy. So now I have "Pretty Dots Art" and I can finally do some more crocheting! This is so exiting, I have like a million new ideas and my Pinterest crochet board is getting bigger by the minute! But I have to calm myself down so I wouldn't start a bunch of new project at the same time (as I do so often). First of all I decided to make something that's been in my mind for quite some time, something fun and sweet for a truly special occasion - new baby. I love those gift sets/baskets so why not make something like that for a newborn girl/boy. No doubt one of the most important things for a baby is his own sweet blanket and a hand crochet blanket is always so much nicer than any of these store bought mass production ones. I've been making this big blanket for myself from some old yarn I never use, and the pattern (video tutorial here) I chose looks really nice. It's a simple dc ripple, but it looks really good, even with those random colors.

So I thought I'll do that for the baby blanket as well. But then I saw this cute granny ripple pattern and went for it instead. 

You can find the pattern tutorial here. It really is a simple pattern, basically you only need to know the chain and double crochet stitches in order to do it. I decided to go with a small lovey type blanket (about 10'x10') since it's just a part of a gift set, not the whole gift. So far I'm only on the 10th row but it looks nice and I'm quite happy with it. Hope to be finished with this blanket soon so I could move on to the next item on the new baby gift set list - crochet toy! 

For those who love colors

And who doesn‘t, right? Personally I LOVE colors. They are my main inspiration and "creation fuel" :)

So this all started while browsing in Pinterest (like most of the times lately). I was looking for information about some polymer clay technique for the polymer clay class I‘m teaching now. And I stumbled upon an interesting post about some miracle template witch let‘s you to pick colors for extruded canes (the Retro cane to be exact). "Well this is extremely helpful!"– I thought. Tried it and loved it. It lets you pick 5 colors and gives you the final look, the result will even change if you rearrange the color order. It‘s so great, no more wondering "will this look good in the cane?", and let me tell you it‘s FUN. I made three color combinations, though it was really late and I was barely keeping my eyes open. I think anybody who makes these extruded canes will appreciate this template.

But this was just the beginning. Yesterday I looked around the page witch had this template. Jackpot! It's called "COLORlovers" and this actually appeared to be a whole, kind of social page, dedicated to colors and patterns. There you can make your own color palette, patterns, color the patterns others made and much more. There also is a store where you can order multiple things with your colors or patterns. I immediately singed up. This is just a page for such a color freak like me :D

It was a good day for discovering ;) 

And here are few of my first creations.