They’re finished - and it’s not quite the end of June! In Bendigo Woollen Mills 8 ply Cotton in Fennel:
and in Heather:
The pattern is Lacy Granny. Simple and effective - although don’t look too closely at the Fennel one; it’s not quite perfect.
Now just to do that last multicoloured one and sew together the little doll blanket, so I can get rid of that awful acrylic yarn and never have to crochet with it again.
When in need of some instant satisfaction, try crocheting a scarf! I started the Mossy Cowl on Friday, finished it on Saturday. Apologies in advance for the dodgy photos; the best that I could manage today unfortunately!
This is a great alternative to a scarf - it doesn’t fall off, yet provides that nice warmth around the neck. It’s crocheted in Yarn Barn kid mohair (two strands held together), using a No.8 bamboo hook.
It’s quite difficult to describe the colour of this yarn accurately - none of the photos have it right. It is mostly brown, with flecks of teal, red, and other colours throughout. The stitches are super-easy and effective, with combinations of front post stitches. I hadn’t done any of them before, so it was good to add another type of stitch to my repetoire!
I’m running a little behind with this week’s “this is”, but will get there eventually! Too much to do this evening and too little time. Must dash - goodnight all!
This time it took me until June to finish the May Ravelry 2008 block a month CAL blocks, but finally they are done! The pattern is Flower Burst. As usual, the yarn is Bendigo Woollen Mills Cotton 8 ply, crocheted with a 4.5 mm hook. Although the patterns are for 12 inch blocks, because of the yarn weight and hook size I am using mine end up as 9 inches. In Lime:
and in Fennel (which was yarn meant for a different project, but now it’s made it’s way into this one):
This is how the squares are coming along so far (including a sneak peek at one of the June squares done in Fennel):
I’m about to introduce another colour - Heather, a lovely purple - since it was also in the stash (also originally intended for a different project). Hopefully it will tone nicely and balance out the intensity of the blue.
And the Multicoloured square?
I’m only going to do one more block in this yarn which will be six, enough for a small doll blanket. Then I’ll deliver the rest of the yarn to the op shop. It hurts my eyes, and isn’t worth the effort. Lesson learned - I prefer to crochet in quality yarns, preferably not acrylic, no matter how little it costs.
Somewhere over the past few weeks I slipped in a little bit of stitching time. My Brown Owls tote bag embroidery is now complete!
It was lots of fun, and quite relaxing. Embroidery takes a really long time though to cover a small area, doesn’t it! I don’t think that I will become addicted - I’ll just do a little every now and then, when deemed necessary. The tote bag will eventually get some fabric trim to match the rest of my “uniform” (an apron - still existing only in my head).
Nicole Mallalieu finally has a blog! Yay Nikki! Go over and have a look - it’s a great way to see what she is up to and she’d also love feedback. I have SO MANY of her bags all planned in my head waiting patiently to come to fruition.
We were away in the country visiting my parents for the long weekend, and you know what that means - car crochet! I’ve finished a few more 9 inch blocks, and a school beanie for Clare. I’ll hopefully photograph them and blog them over the next couple of days. Thanks also for the lovely comments about the cardigan - Clare wore it all weekend.
Do you remember me whinging about my learning curve when I started crocheting Clare’s Sweetpea Cardigan? Unbelievably enough, it is actually finished!
I’m not going to worry about doing the silk ribbon embroidery on it as per the pattern instructions, as I think that it looks rather lovely as it is (and I’m over it).
The buttons really set it all off nicely - they’re from Spotlight - and the lacy edging was incredibly easy to do but quite effective.
And see those sleeves? I crocheted FIVE sleeves for this cardigan - that is how many goes it took for me to get it right! Lots of frogging going on there, I tell you! But in the end I learned a considerable amount about gauge, drape, yarn substitution, reading schematics, and measuring as you go. If I made it again I could do it in half the time.
The main thing? It fits, she likes it and she’ll wear it! Yay! Oh, for those who like project details - the yarn is Harmony, by Bendigo Woollen Mills which is a wool/cotton/lycra mix (and has unfortunately now been discontinued); the pattern is Sweetpea Cardigan by Candi Jensen, from Interweave Crochet Spring 2006.
When there isn’t enough time to craft, there still seems to be enough time to grow the stash. Maybe it is my way of crafting by default - making plans, getting the supplies, and maybe then I’ll fool myself into actually getting things done. In the past week these fabrics arrived:
The two on the bottom right are japanese prints from the lovely Retro Mummy; most of the rest are from the Flutterby line by Tula Pink for Moda. Other than the three prints on the right hand side, I plan on using these in a quilt. I have half a yard of each, but haven’t decided yet what pattern to use.
And what would stash building be without yarn? At least I have definite plans for these. This kid mohair will become a “mossy cowl”, from one of my Interweave Crochet mags (I think the pattern is available free online as well though).
This divine 12-ply 100% merino yarn comes from Pear Tree Yarns. They had beautiful lacy shell-stitch scarves crocheted out of these yarns in a variety of highly covetable colours. I can’t wait to crochet this one into a scarf for myself! I’m going to try to do it without a pattern; I took a good look at the ones on display and I reckon that I can figure it out for myself.
The yarn came from the Victorian Handknitters Guild wool expo which was on yesterday. There were loads of beautiful (and expensive) yarns to ogle. I really, really like the Pear Tree Farm ones though - solids in beautiful colours, and incredibly soft.
Rather than go to Magnolia Square on Thursday and look at things that I couldn’t afford to buy, I decided to go op-shopping. And the op shop gods were smiling on me!
A vintage sheet to add to the fat quarters I’m sending off to the vintage sheet patchwork swap; some buttons; vintage hand-embroidered linens that will become part of clothing or a bag; a pillowcase that will become yet another pillowcase dress; extremely old knitting/crochet books; and a girls dress pattern that I’m sure I remember from my childhood. Mum, did you make me a dress from this pattern? The one with the short sleeves? But the most exciting find of the day was this:
A complete set of Golden Hands craft magazines! Oh joy oh rapture. They are from the early seventies - Mum had a set when I was a child, and it went off to an op shop somewhere about ten years ago after I reassured Mum that “no, I won’t want these”. Well, fast-forward ten years and yes, I do want these! I had a look through a set at Brown Owls last week and realised what a fantastic resource they are. I was absurdly excited to find them in op shop number three (of six for the morning) for the grand total of $12.
Clare was most excited with my other (unphotographed) op shop find - a pair of Barbie roller-skates for $5. She has barely had them off her feet since. I am also very proud of her - she wore her patch at school for two hours on Friday. It is proving difficult to get enough hours of patch wearing done with only before and after school, so I suggested that she could take her patches to school and wear them there too if she wanted to - and she did. What maturity for a five year old. Thank you also for the lovely comments about Clare’s glasses and eye patch - they are all very touching and much appreciated.
About six weeks ago Miss Clare had to start wearing glasses. We’ve been having regular eye checks since she was around three and a half years old, and they’d always been a little indecisive about whether she should wear them or not. This time I took her to a different optometrist, who was fairly quick to prescribe them. Clare has been incredibly cooperative in wearing her glasses, despite wishing that she didn’t have to. Today, we had another checkup, and now she not only has to continue with glasses, but she also needs to have her good eye patched for an average of four hours per day in order to strengthen the weaker one. So what does a crafty mum do?
I came across this wonderful eye patch tutorial at about the same time as Clare started wearing her glasses, and filed it away knowing that patching would be a possibility. So today we made three different eye patches that slip over her glasses, eliminating the issues associated with stick-on eye patches and with the traditional elasticised “pirate” type of patch. Clare chose the materials and decorations - there is another with a heart on the front, and another out of pink fairy fabric. I am so proud of her - she wore her patch for around four hours today. Well done my pirate princess!
Remember the crocheted dress I made for Stella months ago that I was unhappy with? Now that she’s wearing it as a pinafore, I think it looks rather cute! It’s definitely nice and snuggly in this chilly Melbourne weather.
This necklace was finished about a week ago - whoops, with everything else that has been going on I forgot to post it! It’s made following the same patterns as crochet necklace #1, but this time I’ve used some Lincraft Bamboozle yarn (left over from crocheting Ric-Rac’s red boteh scarf) which has given a much nicer result in my opinion.
The navy and white buttons come from one of my local op-shops.
Originally I had sewed the flower onto the necklace, but then unpicked it (my favourite sewing tool is my unpicker - well, maybe it’s not my favourite, but it’s the most used of my sewing tools) and sewed a brooch back on instead. This way it can be moved around or just worn as a brooch. I can make one of these necklace/brooch combinations in under an hour. Shall I do a few more?
This is necklace #1 because I can tell that I’m going to make many more of these! It’s a quick project with instant gratification. This is my first effort, so I’m sure that I’ll be able to refine things a little as I go along.
The pattern for the necklace is here, and the pattern for the flower here. I used some Cleckheaton Bamboo that was left over from another project, with a bamboo hook. I don’t think that I’ll use bamboo hooks with bamboo yarn in the future - it seemed to grab a little.
The back has a very simple button closure. Well, now I’m off to crochet some more of these (although I should be sewing up that top from a few posts ago - it’s finally cut out and ready to assemble).
