Preparing for Impulse Buys!

There is a slight juxtaposition in my title but read on and all will become clear. My girls and I are on the countdown to the Wonderwool yarn festival on the 24th April, 18 days to go!! Leading up the the festival, for me, means using up any scrap yarn or unfinished balls already in the basket so that I can enjoy guilt free shopping and browsing. 

I started a blanket in 4ply cotton but the yarn was too fine and the blanket was too lacy. I decided a baby would inevitably get snared up in it and it would be a thing of beauty but not cherished. 

The crochet morphed into a summer weight cowl/neck thingy instead.

I had couple of balls of macrame yarn and a pattern from 2019 when we last went to Wonderwool so I made my bestie a macrame pot hanger. I  grew on some spider plant cuttings;she absolutely loved it. It was impressive that I could find one A4 piece of paper after moving house and reshuffling my studio a couple of times since last using it. It was in a magazine folder called 'Crochet'. Just saying.

If I see this company again at Wondewool this year I will buy more of their kits because they were great. The Hobbycraft yarn was given to me later and I carried on making hangers after the kits had ran out.

My sample piece of double sided knitting was a success. At first I found it slow going having two balls of yarn on the go but I got into the rhythm of it. One side is variegated and the other is plain. I am building up to a colourwork/reversible headband as a Christmas gift for my flower grower pal.

I am also making some progress on my huge chunky throw. I still have an aching arm but I manage a couple of rows a night then put it down. This is particularly useful to get finished because both the yarn for it and the blanket itself is really bulky and takes up a lot of space. 

My mum is also beating the same drum. She has finished this moon phase cardigan and is knitting up a few baby cardigans to empty her basket for the big day. (She didn't want her face on the photo!) Simply admire her cardigan and her will to learn a new technique. She wanted a better finish on the button band and learnt to make an I-cord. It really makes it look professional.

Anyway, I haven't caught up with much blogging of late because we are lambing and time just runs away. But today, I am going to visit you all for a catch up. 

Thanks for dropping by. Jo x

Happy New Year! I like to make three crafting resolutions each year to keep my hobby interesting and challenging. Last year I decided to:

1) Learn to use the ruffler foot for my sewing machine... and do you know what? I still didn't use it so I guess in a whole year of sewing clothes for all of us, I just don't need it. I think maybe I have had it for so long that now my girls are in their teens, I have possibly missed that gathered-pretty-phase of their clothing choices. I can put this one to bed I reckon and never speak of such a thing again.

No regrets.

2)Make a dent in my fabric scraps especially the thin strips... this is actually going very well in the background although not to completion. I have made a strip quilt topper but it is a shade off a single bed size and now that I like the concept of it so much I want to make it into a double bed topper to store as a future wedding present. 

3)To sew a raincoat... Total success here, I made three. One for me, my mum and my youngest. It is the Eden raincoat by Tilly and the Buttons and Meg's was from a vintage pattern.

For 2022, I would like to improve some of my making.

1) To work with different fabrics. I have never used silk before because I am frightened of cutting it out so I would like to overcome this fear and of course have something beautiful to wear.

2) To stop knitting on when I know that something has gone wrong. I am an absolute sucker for it. Fudging each row until it gets right never happens but then I am always a little disappointed when I know there is a mistake. I am going to become a frogger starting with this yoked sweater. The black dots are all the mistakes. The one massive mistake is that the coloured yarn is too thin against the brown so I started making mistakes and not loving it enough to unpick them. 

3)To Crochet a chunky throw that has straight sides. I have been gifted some lovely yarn and I would like to use it well and keep my stitch count correct for each row. Sometimes I do slapdash crochet too!

Generally this year my sewing has improved in quality massively because I have been recording my makes for Minerva for freelance media content which will be released later this year. There is nothing better than videoing yourself sewing for others to learn from for making you sew properly! It has been my dream job and I am so looking forward to sewing more. 

Has it made you think of something you would like to finish, start or improve?

Happy New Year! Jo xxxx

I was as intrigued as you...

Thank you for all the lovely comments about my new granny square blanket. There was a lot of interest piqued by the photo at the end showing some jester DK yarn with pom poms attached. I was as intrigued as you about what these two 50p skeins would turn out to be. 

I knew they would be some kind of neck attire and thought that crochet would enable me to manipulate the pom poms more easily than knitting so I just sat down and started crocheting.

I made a chain length long enough to go over my head and joined it in a ring. Then I chained three stitches, missed two chains from the previous row and did a double crochet to hold it in the next stitch. By repeating this, I got a kind of super fast chain mail and the pom poms appeared randomly. To make sure that they did not get bunched up, I then joined the second skein to the bottom and crocheted in the other direction hence the join you can see in the middle.

The stretch of the fabric is good because when the...(let's call it a snood) snood gets worn it compresses down and then you can stretch it back out into shape again.

The only disappointing element to the yarn is that it is acrylic and in being so the hue of red is very acrylic too. You know, the kind of 1970's boys jumper red that you see in photo albums while all the adults wear various shades of brown.

Luckily, it goes fabulously well with my £10 Boden charity shop coat find so I am super pleased.

So there you are, that is what it became: a £1 snood to wear with a £10 coat and I feel a million dollars about it!

Thanks for reading. Jo x

Woolen Blanket

Ta Dah! A gorgeous wool blanket. As soon as I laid it on the grass for a photo, Beano hopped on for a lie down.

As previously mentioned Christina from A colourful life sent my daughter some yarn which she decided she no longer had the time to crochet up. In the bag was a little stack of granny squares. Both Heidi and I made up the rest of the yarn into squares. It turns out for all three of us to get the same sized gauge, we all needed to use different sized hooks!

I blocked the squares in batches moving them around on the pencils so that the top ones had some time on the bottom. They were all the same size by the time I crocheted them together.

The two balls of pale grey were not quite enough for me to add another row on each one while I used the join-as-you-go method to join it all together but not to worry. I can always use the third ball to make a baby cardy or something.

It has made the most beautiful lap blanket with a substantial wool weight to it which makes it very comforting. Talking of wool, can you spot the sheep in the grass? It is so long at the moment that we can hardly see them and they look so funny hiding in the long stalks.

The mix of colours are just perfect. I used two rows of double crochet, then two rows of trebles to make a border finally finishing it off with my favourite crab stitch edging.

It now lives on my chair and in the evening I love the look and style of it on the arts and crafts chair.

At the end of a project I always star to think about the next one. Last week I picked up two skeins of jester yarn for 50p each in a charity shop. I am not sure what to make with it but it will certainly be some kind of neck attire. The initial problem is how do you make yarn cakes from yarn with pom poms hanging off it? with difficulty it turns out. I had to sort of gather them all on one side to continue rolling the ball.

Anyway, thanks for popping in. I am off to catch up with you folks....

Jo xx

Getting hooked all over again

 I haven't crocheted for a while, I have been knitting a lot but as summer comes, it is nice to have a portable project for the evenings that I can take and sit outside with, well if only it would warm up a bit!

Christina sent my daughter some yarn she was not using, a selection of groovy granny squares and a lovely card to inspire her. I copied Christina's design. My crochet is on the loose side so to get squares that matched I had to use a size 3mm hook. Heidi copied me doing one stitch for stitch and then she was off.

She loves making them and by having a head start with some ready made ones from Christina she is really motivated. Meg has a cross stitch on the go in the evenings, Heidi is crocheting and I am battling on with a knitting modification that, if I am honest, is close to the compost bins stage but I am too tenacious to give up.

I bought a pale grey to hold them altogether which is working out well. It was an exciting purchase because I actually went to a wool shop and made a purchase after perusing - such a novelty. I needed to buy a wool yarn which did not detract from the bright colours.

I know as soon as the blanket starts to hang down onto the floor, Beano will start lying on it. He does this when I am hand quilting!

If the weather was warmer we would be outside in the light evenings but it is just so cold that we have reverted to winter pastimes for a while. Hopefully some sunshine to come over the next week while the children are their half term break.

Thanks for dropping in. Jo xxxx

Happiness is Easy Crochet

Sometimes happiness comes from the most simple things. Reaching the end of a few complex knits and garments, my brain wanted something simple to truck along with - something more inline with cruise control rather than a four stage rally.

One evening, I reached into the yarn basket and started to make a granny square, then I simply kept on going.

The yarn is Araucania Luxury Merino blend 4ply which I made an Ankers sweater from but I still had loads left. I can't find a link for it unfortunately. My old neighbour gave it to me after she got a bad wrist and couldn't knit anymore.

I made a little car seat/pram blanket for my friend who is having a baby in January. This one is all tied up ready for the gift box.

Other things that are making me happy at the moment are: progress in the new garden; a jug of flowers I knocked off while gardening and everyday sunsets.

Hope you find some happiness this week even if Covid19 news is sounding bleak? 

Jo xx

Aster Crochet

Aster is a crochet pattern I purchased from Ravelry after receiving some beautiful matt cotton yarn from a friend as a gift. The yarn was hand wound and there were no labels so it was all a bit risky...as usual. 

It was a quick make made over about two weeks of evenings. The pieces are made individually: front, back and sleeves.

The border, after reading the pattern, turned out to be worked as a narrow band and sewn on separately. This was a problem because I couldn't incorporate the grey and blue yarn I had as the balls diminished. I would have been in danger of running out of a single colour to make the hemband.

I did what I always do when I am faced with this type of scenario - I made it up!

I just kept adding more rows in familiar patterns to the hem, switching between grey and blue to use the cotton as economically as possible until it ran out. The satisfaction is immense.

Of course you get a little rippling because it is hard to get the stitch count completely accurate when you are making it up but I am happy to wear it...

...this happy to wear it in fact. 

This top is working well over a long sleeved T-shirt at the moment but I am hoping it will be a year round top depending on the under garment. Thank you to my fabulous friend Mary for the yarn.

Jo xxxx