New Shawl - Maya

I am making a shawl from Kristin Omdahl's Wrapped in Crochet for my sister in law.

I am making this using Sublime Tussah silk yarn in Mulberry - I have no idea why it is called mulberry, its not purple at all, at a push it has a slightly blueish tint.

The yarn is a 50% Tussah silk/50% viscose blend.  I hope you can see from this photograph how wonderfully shiny the tussah is.

I'm not that far through making it, I've got the medallion band at the bottom done so far.

Its difficult to see the effect of the yarn in the wider shot, so I took a close-up as well.  I think it was a good yarn choice.

Crochet Instruction Guide 1

This will hopefully be the first in a sequence of instruction guides for some basic, and some not so basic, crochet stitches.

Firstly the apologies .... I'm not that proficient with my videoing yet, so sorry for disappearing out of frame occasionally, hopefully that doesn't detract too much.  Also, I'm still working up to narration - so I have subtitled :)

I use US terms for stitches, since I think they make more sense - even though I am from the UK!!

I start off with single crochet (known as double crochet in the UK), then half-double & double stitches.  I also show front post and back post crochet stitches - in this video they are double stitches.  Then to finish I have shown a popcorn stitch.

I hope this video is useful, feel free to comment on this video or request further stitch instruction.

New pattern - will need a stitch guide

I am finally getting round to putting together the pattern for my kindle cover ..

I have used some "aran" style crochet to make this. When I started to crochet I never knew that you could do this sort of thing with  hook - I thought aran was the preserve of knitters.

For my cover I use  a sort of roaming cable, that drifts back and to across the front ....

And a sort of vines & berries pattern on the back

I've started writing out the pattern, but without photographs of what I mean by a "front post double crochet worked in front of the previously  missed stitch" its going to be almost unintelligible !

I think that this is providing me with the perfect opportunity to create a proper stitch guide that I can add to all my patterns & also include here.

Hopefully next update will be to say the pattern is finished & I have a full (or at least the start of) my stitch guide.

Finished the Crocodile shawl

I finally finished it !  It has taken more than 1300m (1.3 km) of yarn to finish the main body of the shawl and 130m of yarn for the tassels.  It measures 160cm across the top and 100cm along the sides.

I hand spun all of the yarn for this.  It has been made with 3ply Blueface Leicester for the shawl and 2ply kid mohair for the tassels.

Crocodile stitch

I ran out of yarn again, so I thought I'd make myself useful and show you how I am making the shawl and update progress.

I've captured a few stills from my video below to explain what I am doing - I'm not confident enough to speak on my videos yet ... I'm working up to that, you can just enjoy the birdsong and not have to listen to me droning on.

A crocodile stitch is created over two rows, a row of triangles (created by  DC, CH, DC in a single chain space) and then the second row creates the crocodile scales by working into these triangles.  The image below shows the triangles row.  To get to the overlapping scales look you skip one triangle and work into the next.

The stitches are worked around the posts of the DC stitches of the triangle.  Each half of the scale is 6 DC stitches.

Once the 6 DC are worked, then you need to work 6 more DC round the second DC of the triangle. 

I find that if I fold the rest of the work under so that I am just holding the stitch I am working around it is easier.

When you have done the second 6 DC you have created your crocodile stitch scale - ta da!

And here it is as a video, you get a great view of my chubby hands .... enjoy (I don't think Stephen Spielberg has anything to worry about)

This is how far I have got with my shawl so far ... I think another 10 or so rows should do it once I have spun up enough yarn.

Crocodile Stitch Shawl

Since spring has failed to arrive in the UK, and I hold out very little hope of having a summer I decided that I would crochet myself a warm shawl.  This is the one I decided on, its a crocodile stitch shawl from Annies Attic 

Its lovely, isn't it?  The pattern calls for fingering weight yarn and a large hook to get the drape.  So I, in my wisdom, have ignored that :)

I decided I would spin my own yarn for this one.  I am using blueface Leicester and making my usual 3 ply yarn - so definitely not fingering weight! It is turning into a labour of love.  So far I've had to spin up 8 batches of yarn !! and I'm not done yet. 

I think mainly because I am using much thicker yarn the shawl is crocheting up smaller than the picture.  I so far have 5 additional crocodile rows compared with the pattern and I am thinking I will need another 5 extra on top to get to the length I want.

Once I finish I'm going to have to weigh the shawl, it is already quite weighty.  I think perhaps this will end up being a winter shawl rather than a spring/autumn one ....

Handspun baby socks

I wanted to make a pair of socks for my husbands cousins (relatively) new baby.

Both of these yarns are spun from merino tops.  I created the first by plying together one black and one white single yarn.  The second was  made by spinning a sea green and light blue top together to create the singles & then plying those together.



And here are my little socks.  They are sized for 6 to 12 months.


T
There is a slight gauge difference between the yarns - my consistency is getting better, but its not there yet.  Even with the difference I think that they look OK.



They are pretty cosy.  Hopefully the little fella will like them.



Next batch of yarn

I've been spinning again.  I liked how the two colour pink yarn came out so much I made a two coloured green one.

I think I am starting to get more consistent with my spinning - not perfect yet, but getting better.  I think that getting near perfect will take many years :)

I made this two coloured yarn the same way as the pink, by spinning the singles in  each in a colour and then combining them by plying.  I've not settled on a project for this little ball of yarn yet, perhaps another set of booties - ideas are welcome.

Completed booties

I have completed my booties now. 

My first finished project with my own, handspun yarn.  I confess I am quite pleased with myself.

Now I just need to package these up and send them to my friend.

In the mean time I am spinning like fury to create more yarn for more projects.

My handspun booties

As promised .... here are the booties I am making for my friend.

So far I have just finished the body of the booties.



I still need to sew up the fronts so that they sit in the correct position, add the piping, flower and fastening.



You can see in the background my little ball of handspun yarn.  In the end I did have enough to finish my project - and even a little to spare :)



I think that, although I actually spun this in the wrong way - clockwise for the singles and anti-clockwise for the ply.  I think it turned out pretty well. 

The consistency is not bad, and it worked up quite nicely into the booties.

Finally making something with my yarn

I finally got round to starting a project with some of my hand spun yarn.

My friend as recently had a new baby daughter so I thought I'd have a go at crocheting these from a pattern selection I got from Annies Attic called Beautiful Baby shoes

I got a selection of merino fibres from forestfibres

I have plyed the pink and pinky-grey colours together to make a 2 ply yarn and have started my little project.  I'm not sure I'll have enough yarn to finish so I have another one of these selection packs on order in case I need to spin up another batch.

I'll post the results of my endeavour when I get a chance to take some photos.

Second frame coin purse

As promised, here is my second frame coin purse.  Using the same Sirdar Baby bamboo yarn, but this time using  both strands together rather than in stripes.



I kept the base the same, as a circle



But I altered the shaping of the purse a little so it came out more squat and puffy.



I think I prefer the shape and colour of this one.

Crochet Frame Coin Purse

I've had a few coin purse frames for a while and just hadn't got round to using them.  So in between learning to use my new spinning wheel (still a work in progress!) and finishing off my shawl for my mum I decided to get them out and make a little purse or two.

These little frames are abut 3.5" wide and have pretty little olive shaped heads.

I Sirdar Baby Bamboo DK yarn in my two favorite colours, purple and green, alternating in single row stripes.

I think its quite a cute little coin purse and not bad for a first attempt with this frame.

I'll blog again soon with my next attempt with this frame size .... its still a work in progress.

Finished my Shawl

I have managed to finally finish my Midsummer's night shawl.  Woo and indeed Hoo.

After my wopping mistake and the painfulness of having to rip back 17 rows when I had almost finished, I finally got there !!

In the end I really like how it turned out.  Even if it tested my patients enormously during the creation.

 I packed it up to day and posted it off to my mum.  I really hope my she likes it, fingers crossed.

Midsummer's night Shawl

After returning from my holidays again and having put my shawl to good use again I have decided to make another one.  This time for my mum.

I had a good look through my existing patterns but I found that a lot of shawl patterns are too light weight for what I had in mind.  I wanted to create something that had a little warmth but not heavy weight.

I found this pattern for a Midsummer's Night Shawl on Interweave Store.  It's just what I was looking for. 

It is substantial enough to have some warmth but also not too heavy.  The pattern is pretty easy to follow and has a really useful stitch diagram - actually after the first couple of rows I put the rest of the pattern to one side and just followed the diagram.

I am creating this using Adrafil Azzura 3 ply yarn, this is a 70% Wool and 30% acrylic mix.  It is lovely and soft, east to work with and comes in a pretty good range of colours.

Shade Card

I've chosen to use shade 33 Turquoise.  I've really only just stared with this project, but so far so good - I think its going to work out quite nicely, fingers crossed anyway.

Finished my shawls

I can't believe how long its been since I posted here, the fact that I have completed both the shawls I blogged about before says it all !!

These are the two shawls that I planned to create, the patterns are by Kristin Omdahl from her Crochet So Fine book



Here are the images of what I was attempting from Kristin's website

I made the first shawl for myself.  For this one I used Louisa Harding Willow Tweed in Heather.  Its a wonderful luxury yarn of 40%Merino Wool 40%Alpaca 20%Silk

My shawl has already been put to good use on holiday :) 

Having finished this one I was inspired to start the second shawl, I started making it using Anchor Aida #10 crochet thread but no matter how I tried I just couldn't get it right.  I had to use a large hook to get the right gauge and it was working up very loopy, even when blocked.  So I took an executive decision and went for a completely different yarn, I used Rowan Panama in Daisy. 

Rowan Panama is 33% cotton, 12% linen, 55% viscose, it has a sheen to the yarn and is lovely to work with.  I found that using this heavier weight yarn I could work with a smaller hook and get a less loopy outcome.


I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, and thankfully so is my mother-in-law who I made it for (or maybe she's just being polite!)  :)