Hello and happy Sunday everyone! I hope everyone had a lovely week. I am here today with a blog to share what crochet projects I have in the works at the moment.

In a recent blog I shared that I was taking some of my thicker yarn scraps and making my own variegated balls of yarn like so:

I also ended making one with some blue/green scraps:

Now that I had these balls of yarn ready to go, I had to decide what I wanted to crochet. Without a real plan in mind, I started making some small squares using just a single crochet stitch and border like this:

I went to town on both the blue/green and pink/purple yarn and ended up making a whole bunch of squares like the one above.

Because these balls of yarn were made by tying together separate strands there were quite a few loose ends and knots that I made sure to pull through to one side of each square. I then used fabric glue to secure down the loose strands and ensure the knots would not come undone.

Once I had my many squares, it was time to decide what to do with them. I wanted to try my hand at lining one side of the crocheted square with fabric. I thought this would be a good idea as it would hide the knots and strands that were glued down on one side and would also add some stability to the piece. I did have some spare thin cotton fabric pieces and I prewashed, dried and ironed them.

I then followed this really amazing tutorial that I found on YouTube which explained how to sew a fabric square, create loops around the edges of the square and then crochet into those loops to attach the pieces together. This video explains this process far better than I ever could so I would highly recommend giving it a watch!

This is what my first attempt at this process looked like:

It's not perfect but I'm proud of my first attempt at this process! I did learn that I had made my square of fabric a little too big so it bunched up a little more than it should have.

​I am going to work on perfecting this process and am even thinking of purchasing myself a small sewing machine to make projects like this easier in the future. Once I get the process perfected, I think with an added hanging loop these would work really well as potholders!

As I mentioned, the variegated yarn balls I had made for these potholders in progress were using my chunkier yarn scraps. However, I also had quite a variety of thinner yarn scraps in all sorts of colors. Instead of putting these together into one ball, I decided to start crocheting them into larger squares that I plan on making into a chaotic and colorful blanket just for myself. 

I wanted to learn a new stitch for this project and taught myself the flat granny stitch using a few tutorials. I have tried and failed a few times at granny squares, so this stitch was a nice homage to the look of the granny square but with an easier process. I am still in the process of using up all of my thinner yarn but have quite a few squares ready to go already. 

Once I have used up all the yarn of this weight, I will work on attaching them all into a blanket. I have actually only made blankets before that are continuous stitches back and forth so this will be my first time connecting smaller squares together in this way. I know that some people crochet the pieces together and others prefer to sew them so I will see what ends up working well for me!

And finally, I have another amigurumi project that I need to get started on. My father is a lover of Sasquatch/Bigfoot lore, so I found this adorable pattern for a Bigfoot plushie on Etsy.

www.etsy.com/listing/1557551244/bigfoot-cryptid-amigurumi-pattern

I have the brown yarn ready to go so I think I will tackle that next once I'm done making all these squares! I'll be sure to do another blog once all these projects are completed so you can see how they all turned out. Thanks for catching up on my crochet journey with me and I hope that you all have a wonderful week!

 - Rebecca

P.S. Today's photo on the homepage is from Pexels user Anete Lusina:
www.pexels.com/photo/knitted-piece-and-yarn-with-hook-4792079/

Hi friends!  It's Suzanne, happy to be back on the Patterned Paper Plate.  The Patterned Paper Dad and I are part of a committee at our church that plans a fundraising Christmas Fair.  One of the stations at that fair is a Christmas tree filled with handmade ornaments that people can purchase for a small donation.  I started crafting some ornaments for that tree so I thought I would share with you what I'm making to celebrate Christmas in July and add a little chill to these dog days of summer.

​For the first one, I use a small piece of wood, three white buttons and the tiniest scraps of fleece material.  A little bit of paint and my trusty glue gun are also needed.  I'm starting with a piece of wood that is 3 inches long and about 1.5 inches wide.  This is a piece of a wooden mini blind slat that was salvaged when my brother and sister-in-law changed out the blinds in their house.  To start, I paint the wood with a light wash of red paint. ​

I hope you enjoyed taking a little detour into the Christmas season for our blog post today.  It's never too early to think about Christmas and while we're sweltering today, cooler weather will be here before we know it.

Rebecca here: Thank you to my mother for the fun Christmas in July blog! The puzzle wreaths are very nostalgic to me as I remember making some of those when I was little! Is everyone enjoying the heat or ready for winter? Let me know in the comments below!

P.S. Today's photo on the homepage is from Pexels user Gary Spears:
www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-of-christmas-decoration-hanging-on-tree-250177/