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Super Stripy Snood ta-daah

28 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by in Knitting, My knitting, Ta-daah!

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Well what have we here? A ta-daah post for a completed yarny item? Yes indeed!  I knitted a Super Stripy Snood to match my grey winter coat, and I love it!

Close up of knitted scarf

It all began on the 9th of August when John and I took iVan (which is for sale by the way in case you are interested in purchasing a super awesome campervan) to Brighton for the day. Before we left the house, I Googled “yarn shops in Brighton” (as you do) and came across Yak a lovely little yarn shop in Gloucestershire road. We wore our flip-flops thin to find Yak so when we got there John was adamant I should at least buy something to make it worth the effort. And yes, I did make a mental note of husband’s fortuitous statement and will in future always select the yarn shop furthest from where we parked the car.

Seeing as I was now forced to buy something at this great little shop – joy oh joy – I went for 8 balls of MillaMia Naturally Soft Merino in shades to match my grey coat – blues and soft greyish shades. They are:

Shade 121 – Putty

Shade 102 – Storm

Shade 120 – Forget me not

Shade 161 – Seaside (I mean really. How perfect?)

I don’t usually go for these muted tones but that’s what was needed to match my grey coat. Yak had many other gorgeous bright shades of MillaMia which were so tempting, but I had to stick to my plan of finding something to match the coat. Of course blue matches grey and it would remind me of our day in Brighton so adding the Seaside shade was a no-brainer.

I didn’t start knitting until October, but when I did boy it was gooood! I chose the very simple and soothing knit stitch for 90% of the snood. The other 10% was stockinette stitch for when I was using Adriafil Knitcol shade 55. Like I said, I don’t usually go for muted shades and felt the need for something in a darker blue to break up all the muted-ness. I had long ago fallen in love with the crazy beautiful things people were knitting with Knitcol so here was my chance – their “Renoir” shade matched my MillaMia shades perfectly!

MillaMia yarn knitting

Throughout October and November I knitted and knitted. The sweet receptiveness of knit stitch, mindlessly changing colour whenever I felt like it, mixing solid bands of colours, 2-colour stripe combinations and sections of the self striping Knitcol to make a super stripy snood.

I love stripes knitted scarf

I finished the snood just in time for the cold English Winter and wore it for the first time last Monday.

You probably want to see more of the stripes of this Super Striped Snood. Here it is. (John took the photos on our way to work. Can you spot the heron in the background?)

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First Half

I repeated three of the sections of colour twice, but apart from those repeating bands there isn’t really a pattern. It’s just randomly knitting stripes.

Second Half

With so many stripes and different colour combinations the snood can look different every time I twist it around my neck.  I love it!

Knitted stripe snood

I can highly recommend knitting a Super Striped Snood or Scarf. It’s the ultimate easy project for playing with colour and it looks great! It’s also a great stash busting project. Or you can do what I did and go on day trip and park the car as far as possible from the best yarn shop in town.

 

Rose ta-daaah!

09 Sunday Aug 2015

Posted by in My crochet, My ramblings, Ta-daah!

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The Rose top is finished!

I love it! Despite a rocky start where I got a bit bored but then eventually turned the corner into sheer joy, this top is destined to become a firm favourite.

The King Cole Bamboo 4 ply was the perfect choice. It drapes beautifully, it’s soft, it’s cheap and I only needed 3 balls of yarn. I will definitely use this yarn again.

All credit should go to Marie Wallin for designing such a beautiful piece of wearable crochet. The neckline really sets it apart from other motif-based crochet tops.

I just couldn’t resist making the bottom rows of the body and the sleeves in a second colour. I’m really glad I did – I love the contrast and extra bit of detail. The greenish grey Glazier shade is so pretty!

The nitty gritty of my Rose Top:

  • Pattern: Rose from Filigree: Collection Three by Marie Wallin
  • Yarn: King Cole Bamboo 4 ply in Denim and Glazier
  • Amount of yarn used: 2.5 balls of Denim and 0.5 of Glazier
  • Size made: M for the body, L for the sleeves
  • Crochet hook: 2.5 mm
  • Modification: It isn’t really a modification, but I did mix two sizes for this top. The body is size Medium, but the armholes for size Medium were to tight for me. In size Medium the sleeves, and therefor the armholes as well, are 4 motifs. I increased this to 5 motifs as for size Large. This worked out beautifully because now I have a roomy sleeve, but a fitted body.

I can highly recommend Rose and also the King Cole Bamboo 4 ply.

Now that Rose is finished I’m on to my next crochet top. At the moment I’m still busy with the gauge swatch. Unlike other gauge swatches, the stitch count isn’t as important as the row count with this one, because you crochet the pieces from from side seam to side seam. The crochet rows therefore lie vertically in stead of horizontally. I’m hoping it’s going to be a very slimming top.

Wanna see what I’m making? Have a look at the Ravelry page here. I know you’re just going to love it!!!

Serina crochet top ta-daaah

07 Saturday Feb 2015

Posted by in My crochet, Ta-daah!

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Long time no bloggy! Sorry I’ve been so quiet dear readers, but I was on holiday with my family in Cape Town. I met up with dear friends, met Instagram friends in person (that’s you @redheadmom23 and @Liezelvs) and made amazingly creative and lovely new friends (that’s you Ella and Ananda). Huge shout-out to the girls of the Hekel Innie Kaap Facebook group. (“Hekel Innie Kaap” means “Crochet In Cape Town”). Have a peek at their January meet-up photo album to see what I experienced – 50 crocheting Afrikaans-speaking ladies all in one restaurant! Cape Town is filled with extremely creative crocheters who love sharing their inspiration and knowledge, and enjoying coming together to crochet. People after my own heart. (I say “come together to crochet” but I only managed to crochet one row of DC in the four hours I was at the meet-up. Talking about crochet is just as good as crocheting right?)

While I was in Cape Town I of course did a bit of crochet. I worked on the Convergence top (it’s half way done!) and finished one sleeve of this crochet top. I ran out of Vinnis Serina Bamboo yarn just before I left for Cape Town. I left the front piece, back piece and one sleeve in the UK, bought the extra yarn and finished the second sleeve while I was there. Yesterday I sewed all the pieces together and today I wore my top. I was positively glowing with pride. I just love it!

Drops Design crochet top

I am over the moon with this pattern and the Vinnis Serina yarn!

Drops Design crochet top

As I mentioned in this blog post, Drops Design Collection 136 contains the most beautiful collection of crochet pieces for me. I already made Whispers and Country Dreams, and now pattern 136-23 “Blues” Jumper is my third and I have to say, it’s my favourite. The pattern was easy to follow and it works up really quickly. The square motifs are done quickly “join as you go” and they make up almost half of the top. For me it went even quicker because I didn’t have any colour changes. Not that I needed colour changes to make my top interesting – look at the subtle marbling from the hand dyed yarn. Isn’t it amazing?!

Drops Design crochet top

As for the Vinnis Serina bamboo yarn – oh my word. So super soft! I am aware though that the yarn has a tendency to sag a bit after a few hours of wear. There is no cotton in this yarn that will help it keep its shape; it’s just 100% bamboo. That makes for a super lustre and lovely drape, but it can become “floppy”. To compensate for this, I made my top in Size M, even though my measurements are for a size L. It worked like a charm. The top fits beautifully and even if it does stretch a bit during the day, I’m not going to look like a bag lady by the end of the day.

Drops Design crochet top

Drops Design crochet top

The nitty gritty of my Serina Top:

  • Pattern: Drops Design pattern 136-23 “Blues” Jumper
  • Yarn: Vinnis Serina 4-ply bamboo in shade 631 Turquoise Green
  • Amount of yarn used: 12 x 50g balls
  • Size made: M
  • Crochet hook: 3.5 mm for the sleeves & squares and 3 mm for the body
  • Modifications: An extra row of SC around the neck before doing the edging. Also using a larger size crochet hook for the sleeves as I know from previous experience that Drops Design sleeves tend to be a bit tight for me.

Drops Design crochet top

I have a few crochet wearables that I don’t really want to wear outside the house, but this one is definitely not one of those. If you’ve never tried crocheting a wearable piece, give this pattern a try. It’s a winner!

Crochet Mood Blanket 2014 ta-daaah!

31 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by in My crochet, My ramblings, Ta-daah!

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Behold my Crochet Mood Blanket 2014!!! All 357 squares of it in its colourful glory! I started it on 1 January 2014 and completed it 31 December 2014 – precisely one year in the making.

crochet mood blanket 2014

The Crochet Mood Blanket is the brainchild of Stacey Wentworth-Hall (@frofunky on Instagram). You basically just crochet or knit a block or stripe everyday (or once a week if that suits you better)  using a colour that you feel reflects your mood.

If you would like to get on board for 2015, have a look and join the Facebook Group here.

Our blanket will be moving between the living room and the bedroom. I just love how colourful it is! It cheers up any space!

Crochet mood blanket 2014IMG_1251

The Mood Blanket has taught me a lot about myself and how my moods change. John said the blanket is a testament of his patience 🙂  I love that for years and years to come I will always be able to look back at my blanket, and therefore on my emotions during 2014. It’s been a good year and for that I am very, very grateful.

lacy cross crochet squares
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The border I chose for my Mood Blanket is a variation on Border #39 that I used for my Dad’s Atlantic Waves Ripple blanket. The border is made up of  three rows of single crochet, a row of double crochet (which in the original Border #39 is a treble) and a final three rows of single crochet. I used all seven of my colours for the border.

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Seeing as the Crochet Mood Blanket is based on the days of the year, I wanted to be able to remember where it all started. In other words which square represents  1 January 2014? I did this by switching around the colours of the first two rows of the borders. See?

mood blanket corner border

Around the square for 1 January, I used purple as the first row, whereas for the rest of the blanket I used yellow for the first row of the border.  I don’t think anyone else would even notice this small switcharoo, but it’s the perfect reminder of my very first mood of 2014 – in this case a happy lime green.

The nitty gritty of the Crochet Mood Blanket 2014:

  • Pattern: Lacy Cross from 200 Crochet Blocks by Jan Eaton
  • Yarn: Hayfield Bonus and Hayfield Baby Bonus
  • Crochet hook: 3.5 mm
  • Joining method: Join as you go
  • Border: No. 39 from Around The Corner Crochet Borders by Edie Eckman.
  • Size: 21 rows of 17 squares, which makes 357 squares. Completed size with border is 165cm x 135cm.
  • Colours: The colours of the Mood Blanket were chosen to represent my seven moods. This is how may of each colour I used for the blanket:

Crochet Mood Blanket 2014

I did some number crunching and at the end of 2014 I can reveal that I had 6% sad, 7 % irritable, 7% ditsy, 4 % stressed, 30% not great but not bad either, 29% happy and 17% grateful days.  I know this because of a crochet blanket! How crazy and amazing is that?!

Making the Mood Blanket was a great eye opener. I had to be honest with myself about my moods. If that meant that there were three days of being depressed, then so be it. Three grey squares it shall be. I also had to reflect on my day at the end of every day. Some days may have started as green (happy) days, but then something would happen at work which upset me and the day turned into a stressed day. At the end of the day I had to look back and decide what was the prevailing mood for the day: the happiness of the morning, or the stress? Did I allow the stress to get to me or did I look on the bright side and manage to keep my day happy. If I allowed the stress to get to me, then it had to be honest with myself and make the day a red day.

At one point during 2014 I also realised that although I had lots of green (happy) days, I didn’t have that many grateful (turquoise) days. That’s not good and that’s something I had to, and still have to, work on.

If you are ready to be honest with yourself and stick with it, you can use a crochet project to analyse your moods, attitude and emotions for a whole year. As a bonus you’ll have a blanket at the end of the year. I highly recommend it.

V-neck knitted sweater ta-daaaah

09 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by in Knitting, My knitting, Ta-daah!

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On 6 April 2014 I picked up a pair of knitting needles and took up knitting again after 10 years. Almost exactly two months later, my first knitted sweater is done!

Stylecraft ladies sweater 8948

The last thing I had knitted, was a cream, pink and grey scarf back in 2004. I was bored out of my mind and didn’t do any crafting after that. That was until August 2009 of course when the crochet bug bit me. I guess the confidence I have after years of crochet, seeing pretty knitting on Ravelry, starting the craft group at work where I am surrounded by knitters and reading every now and then on a crochet blog that a crocheter has taken up knitting, wore me down. I wanted to knit something. Not a scarf mind you! I wanted something to wear but the pattern had to be easy, not too fussy yet with a something special, v-neck and something I would want to wear. I found the perfect pattern on Loveknitting.com – Stylecraft Stars 8948.

When I bought the pattern pamphlet I also bought 4.5 mm Pony aluminium needles. I didn’t need any yarn, as the Vinnis Nikkim that I wanted to use, is the exact gauge and yardage as Stylecraft Stars. What a great stroke of luck! When I saw that, I knew this was going to be a goooood pattern for my first knitted sweater attempt!

When my needles and pattern arrived, I decanted myself onto my spot on the couch, ready to do some knitting. Only problem was I didn’t know how to do the very first instruction of the pattern: Cast on with the thumb method. The what?! Thank goodness for my laptop and Youtube. I found the perfect  instructional video on the Deramores website. The thumb method turned out to be very easy. Hurdle 1 overcome.

As I was knitting the ribbing I soon realised that I made a mistake. Not with the knitting, but with the knitting needles. My cotton yarn was slipping all over the place and I was gripping my knitting needles so tightly to try and keep the stitches from dropping, that I developed knitters-cramp very quickly. Back to the Loveknitting.com website for bamboo needles, (and stitch holder and row counters – in for a penny in for pound).

Those bamboo needles were a godsend! Everything was so much easier once I switched to bamboo.

Everything went swimmingly from there. Bearing in mind that the fancy bit of my sweater happened right after the ribbing, I kinda had thrown myself into the deep end right from the beginning, but I loved it. I got a thrill when I did a stitch count and was spot on!

I have to say that the finishing of the sweater was my biggest fear. To me there’s nothing worse than a handmade piece of clothing that looks…well, handmade. No matter how hard you worked on knitting, crocheting or sewing your pieces, it can all so easily look “cheap” if the finishing isn’t spot on. Thank goodness for another Deramores video where I learned to do the mattress stitch. I couldn’t believe how neat the join (or lack thereof) looked! I also found the Vogue Knitting website helpful when it came to inserting the sleeves into the body.

I did have a little flurry of upset when the sleeve opening on the front of the sweater seemed to be much larger than the sleeve. Thankfully, after a bit of Google-ing, I realised that that’s normal. I just had to ease the sleeve into the opening. Easier said than done. Then I had a brainwave: if the knitting was designed this way, it means they probably did it because a lady’s bust will fill out the front so I had to replicate this “filling out” when I sewed my sleeve into the opening. That means I shouldn’t try to sew it together with the pieces lying on a flat surface, I need something curved. My knee!! And it worked!

Sewing the sleeve into body of knitting

This is how the two sleeves of my sweater was inserted using a mattress stitch. I didn’t even notice the extra fabric at the body when I did it this way. For a first attempt, I am very happy with the way my sleeve sits in the opening. (Please excuse my penguin pajamas…)

After sewing everything together I just had the ends to weave away. For this I found this blog post on The Purl Bee very helpful. I used the diagonal on the wrong side method.

The very last thing to do was to block my sweater. This is the only part that I would do differently next time. The pattern says to block the sweater right at the very end, whereas I think I would have had an easier time sewing all the pieces together, had I blocked the pieces beforehand. What do you knitters think? Do you block your knitting when it’s all sewn up, or do you block the pieces before sewing?

The nitty-gritty of my first knitted sweater:

Pattern: Ladies Sweater in Stylecraft Stars 8948

Yarn: 8 balls of Vinnis Nikkim DK cotton in Avocado

Needles: Pony bamboo 4.5mm and Pony aluminium 3.5mm for the rib

All in all, I’m very happy with my first sweater and kinda proud of myself. I mastered a fancy pattern, managed to do a v-neck (which included a very intimidating s1 knit2tog psso combo) and learned to do mattress stitch to join all the pieces together. Credit should go to Stylecraft Yarns for writing a pattern this pretty, yet easy enough that a newbie knitter can master it.

 

Close-up of the pattern
Close-up of the neckline
Shoulder
V-neck

Being so happy with the outcome of my first foray into wearable knitting, I already bought the pattern for sweater number 2!

I may have to think about changing my blog name to crochetandabitofknittingTime…. it doesn’t have the same ring to it, but it’s accurate 🙂

 

 

Ta-daaaah my tapestry crochet laptop sleeve

22 Tuesday Apr 2014

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Have you ever tried tapestry crochet? I read about it for the first time in issue six of Simply Crochet magazine. Tapestry crochet is similar to regular crochet, except that one or more yarns are carried while another is crocheted. The finished pieces look woven instead of crocheted. I immediately fell in love with the graphic patterns you can create with only the use of only double crochet stitches and lots of colour. As much as I like lacy, feminine crochet patterns (see my lacy coasters) I’m even more drawn to strong, sharp, repetitive designs like stripes, chevrons, diamonds and simple polka dots. Tapestry crochet lends itself to exactly that type of design.

There are some amazing things made with tapestry crochet. I love the shoulder bag, but I was blown away by the tapestry crochet vase by the tapestry crochet artist Caroline Routh!

For a first time project, the Cozy Up tablet cover by Vicky Brown published in Simply Crochet issue six was ideal for me. There are only three colours and you just need to make a rectangle shape for the front, a simple back and then work the edges together.  I struggled a bit with carrying the yarn and when to change colour, but luckily the American website www.tapestrycrochet.com has an excellent tutorial. The trick with changing colour in tapestry crochet is to think ahead, because you need to change to the new yarn colour while you still have two loops of the incomplete double crochet stitch on your hook. It doesn’t take very long to get used to working this way but at the beginning the brain juices were almost boiling – tapestry crochet made a nice challenging change from crocheting granny squares.

The nitty-gritty of my laptop sleeve:

Pattern: Cozy Up table cover by Vicky Brown published in Simply Crochet magazine issue 6 (May 2013)

Yarn: Vinnis Nikkim cotton DK in Avocado, Lilac and Stone

Crochet hook: 3.5 mm

Modifications: I adjusted the size to fit my Macbook Pro and also added an envelope style flap to the back panel that folds over to the front. In stead of a solid colour back, I added stripes in Avocado and Lilac. I also didn’t use double crochet to join the two sides, but rather used overhand stitches to sew it together.

Front
Back

 

tapestry crochet laptop cover

The envelope style flap was easy to make. I just decreased a stitch on both sides of 10 rows. Now biscuit crumbs dust can’t get into the ports at the side.

tapestry crochet laptop cover

Isn’t this apple button absolutely the best? I mean really? An apple button for an Apple Macbook! And it’s green! I can’t even remember where or when I got it, but I thank the gods of crochet for sending it to me.

tapestry crochet apple button

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I use my laptop sleeve every day to keep the Macbook snug & protected and to keep the laptop from scratching my Office Behind The Door table. No, I lie. The table doesn’t need protection from scratches – I just like looking at the apple button and I want to use my laptop sleeve as much as possible. It’s so pretty and I concentrated so hard to make those diamonds!

If you haven’t guessed, I worked on this blog post over the Easter weekend. Wonder what gave it away? 🙂

Sunset Shades chevron scarf ta-daaaah

17 Friday Jan 2014

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Ta-daaah!! My Sunset Shades chevron scarf is done!!

sunset shades chevron scarf

I love the chevron design, the way the colours go together, the way one colour flows into the next. The scarf changes from pastel yellow to light pink, to peach, to light purple-pink, and also from lilac, to violet, to plum, to wine. These two groups of colours are separated by off-white and very light grey. I really like how it turned out and I’m quite proud of my Missoni-ish chevron scarf.

I made the scarf very wide so that even though its not extremely long, it covers my neck right up to my chin. No need to wind it around and around – once is enough to keep me snug and warm.

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It was a joy to crochet because although it’s only a plain and simple scarf, the colour changes kept it interesting and fun.

chevron scarf

I think the best thing about it, are the beautiful colours. I have really never seen anything like it, and even for a person who “doesn’t do pink” I really love it. I’ve blogged about this before, but I’ll just mention it again: my Mom gave me the yarn for this scarf. She chose the colours, and I just put them together in this sequence and thought up the chevron pattern. All credit should go to Mom.

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I think this is a great scarf. Because it’s cotton, it’s soft against my skin without being scratchy and the more I use it, the softer it becomes. I was a bit worried that a cotton scarf wouldn’t keep me warm, but it does! Because it’s so wide and crocheted in dense stitches, it keeps the cold out just like a woollen scarf would – but without the scratchiness.

The nitty-gritty for my Sunset Shades chevron scarf:

Pattern: My own pattern. I am in the process of writing it up. It will be on sale in my Etsy shop soon.

Crochet hook: 3.5 mm

Yarn: Vinni’s colours Nikkim (a 100% cotton hand-dyed cotton yarn) in Natural, Stone, Ballet Pink, Baby Yellow, Pink, Purple Pink, Lilac, Violet, Red Violet and Wine. All these shades, apart from Purple Pink and Wine are for sale in my Etsy shop.

Don’t forget the 10% discount code on Winkieflash blog for the first 10 people to buy Vinni’s Colours from my shop.  Seven people have already used the code , so only three more can get 10% off. 

Read Wink’s review, and find the code, here.

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Bring on the cold weather, I’m ready! In fact, I’m looking for excuses to wear the scarf indoors!

What do you think? Do you like it as much as I do?

Crochet mandalas ta-daaaah

28 Monday Oct 2013

Posted by in Crochet For Kidneys, My crochet, Ta-daah!

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Mandalas, modern doilies, large coasters, call them what you like. They are all the rage right now and I’ve hopped onto that bandwagon. I’ve actually been on the wagon since September when I made the “vintage-style vase coaster” from Nicki Trench’s book which I reviewed here. I really enjoyed working in the round, making each round a different stitch and different colour. I love mixing things up, so these kind of patterns are right up my street. When I made that purple and white vase coaster I knew it was going to be used as a centrepiece on the tables at the Crochet for Kidney Research UK day on the 9th of November. Now I just needed to make five more so that I had one for each of the six tables.

Out of the blue I remembered seeing mandalas in Simply Crochet magazines. They were designed by Marinke a.k.a. Winkieflash, which I follow on Twitter and Instagram. Her mandalas would be perfect for my tables! I had to flick through all my copies of Simply Crochet magazine to find the two patterns. It was a task I thoroughly enjoyed – there are so many things I still want to crochet! *Note to self: page through your crochet books and magazines more often* Lots of post-it notes and folded page corners later, I eventually found Marinke’s mandala patterns in issues 5 and 7. I made copies of the patterns and took it, my purple and white yarn and 4 mm crochet hook with me on holiday.

Aaah, what bliss to be crocheting on holiday. Between going to the beach, afternoon naps, discovering narrow streets and feasting at seaside cafes, it took me two days to crochet the mandalas. You’ve already seen the video of me sitting on the balcony, weaving in the ends. If you missed it, click here to go to the YouTube video.

I couldn’t resist hanging my mandalas on the washing line in front of our holiday flat.  I don’t think anyone from the street noticed them, but I certainly couldn’t stop looking.

20131019-211345.jpgNow for the nitty-gritty of the mandalas.

Yarn: A mix of mostly Vinni’s Colours Nikkim and some Stylecraft Cotton Classique and  Rowan Handknit cotton

Hook: 4 mm

Pattern: Summer Hearts from issue 5 and Picots and Petals from issue 7 of Simply Crochet magazine. Marinke blogged about her patterns here. She designed six mandalas for Simply Crochet magazine, so there are more to come. Yeah!

Modifications made: I had to modify them all. Not because I didn’t like the pattern, but because I had to make the mandalas bigger so that they would be roughly the same size as the vintage-style vase coaster and in proportion with a 6 to 8 seat table.

Summer Hearts 1 – I followed the pattern exactely to the end, and then repeated rows 5 and 6 and did a final row of (UK) DC with a long DC between the fans:

20131019-212058.jpg

Summer Hearts 2 – I did rows 5 and 6 twice, left out row 11 (which is worked at the back of row 10) and then did the shells from row 6 again, finishing off with a final (UK) DC row:

20131019-212138.jpg

Picots and Petals 1 – In stead of making (UK) trebles in the second-to-last row, I made (UK) double trebles:

20131019-212106.jpg

Pictots and Petals 2 – In stead of making (UK) trebles in the second-to-last row, I made (UK) double trebles:

20131019-212117.jpg

Pictors and Petals 3 – In stead of making (UK) trebles in the second-to-last row, I made (UK) double trebles@

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And here they all are for the group shot. Pretty aren’t they?

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When you see these babies again, they will be in the centre of the tables in the Vera Fletcher Hall underneath a glass vase with purple flower.

Japanese V-neck ta-daaaah

29 Monday Jul 2013

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The V-neck top from a Japanese crochet pattern is finished! I’m wearing it today and I like it more and more with every hour that goes by. For it’s debut, I’m wearing it over a black vest, but I know it will look great over a longsleeved t-shirt as well.

Japanese crochet v-neck top

You probably notice the draping around the V of the neckline. Those folds are changing the whole time. It’s 14:30 now so I’ve been wearing the top for a couple of hours and it already looks softer. I used 100% cotton, so just like a denim jean, the longer I wear it and move around in it, the softer it becomes. This top is only going to get better!

I don’t always walk around like this, but I had to do it to show you the design more fully:

Japanese crochet v-neck top from back

I really, really, really, like my Japanese V-neck.  The only thing I don’t like, and feel I have to share with you in the spirit of full disclosure, is that the sleeves drop off my shoulders the moment I move my arms, and not in a sexy shoulder revealing way. Oh no. I completely lose a sleeve. Totally impractical, irritating and not pretty. My solution? Safety pins on each shoulder to pin the top to my vest.  As easy as that. (No way am I going to let hours of hard crocheting go to waste because of a minor wardrobe malfunction!)

Japanese crochet v-neck top

Nitty gritty of the V-neck:

  • Pattern: In Ravelry, the pattern is called #5 V-neck pullover. It’s designed by Eiko Matsumoto and published in Knit/Crochet With Ease – Seasonal Knits, also known as Easy Popular Knit and Crochet Wear. I bought the book on Etsy from Pomadour24. You can find the listing here.
  • Yarn: Patons 100% Cotton 4 Ply in Garnet, shade 1738. I used 4 and a quarter balls.
  • Crochet hook: 2.25mm
  • Modification: I made one modification: in stead of slipstitching the bottom 9 picots together to make the sides, I added another pattern repeat (but without the picots) to the bottom 12 picots on each side, thereby forming a very large armhole and widening the bottom of the top.  In the photo below you can see this modification. The side inserts don’t have picots on the bottom edge, and it also means that I don’t have a cute 3-picot grouping in the corners of my top because I used one of the three picots to kick off the rows of the side insert. No-one is going to notice the lack of picots in my sides, and it was more important to me to make the top fit around my hips, than sticking to the pattern.  A lot of ladies on Ravelry also had trouble with getting the top to fit around the hips. I could have added a third pattern repeat all around like they did, but that would have 1) made the top longer and 2) made the sleeves longer which would have added weight and pulled them down my shoulders even quicker than it does now. My solution was to do these side inserts – it fixed my problem, but without creating more problems.

Japanese crochet v-neck top side inserts

Wet blocking is highly recommended for this pattern. As with anything lacy it opens up the crochet stitches and gives the top shape. I can’t believe I’m saying this, or that I did it, but I pinned each picot seperately. There were hundreds! Looking at the top now, I’m very glad I did. Those picots on the arms and the bottom add the detail you need to round it all off.

Japanese crochet v-neck top

The Easy Popular Knit and Crochet Wear book is full of the most beautiful Japanese crochet patterns. This is my second top from the book. Out of the two, I like this one the most. I already have my eye on a waterfall cardigan. I’ll even use the same Patons 4 ply cotton yarn.

I think as a rule Japanese patterns are quite boxy and straight up-and-down. This means they are easy to make because they consist of repeating motifs or they’re basically just one big rectangle (like this one), so us ladies with a more womanly shape, need to make modifications. That, or just embrace the floaty, square shapes. Floaty tops can work well when paired with a tight-fitting top underneath and balanced out with a straight / slim leg trouser. (Oooh, check me out – giving fashion advice! Hahahaha.)

One last thought: I love this V-neck top, I loved being challenged by the crochet diagram, I loved using Patons cotton 4-ply and most of all, I love that wearing this V-neck top makes me feel unique and a tiny bit special.

Granny square blanket Ta-daaaah!

30 Thursday May 2013

Posted by in My crochet, Ta-daah!

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granny square blanket with birds

All done! Nicole’s granny square blanket is ready to adorn the new couch in her new home. I had a great time making this granny square blanket and I’ll do it again in a heartbeat!

granny square blanket

The border had to round off the blanket and be understated enough not to distract from the granny squares. I didn’t do anything fancy; just 4 rounds of shells and a SC row, but I included two colours. Picking only two colours out of 15 was tough! I changed my mind a hundred times. Even when I had settled on two colours, I still had to decide which one to use for the shell row and which for the SC row. So many choices! In the end John helped me settle on bright turquoise and bright purple. We worked out that the blanket looked best with the darkest colour for the absolute final row so that narrowed things down quickly.

granny square blanket border

Here you can see the blanket in its full glory. Do the rounds of each granny and the square arrangement look random? I planned it that way you know 😉

granny square blanket

The nitty gritty of the blanket:

  • Yarn: Sirdar Hayfield Bonus DK colour pack from Deramores. I used all the colours in the pack, except Pink. The grey is Sirdar Hayfield Bonus DK in shade 814 – Light Grey Mix. The Deramores pack is a brilliant idea and the key to the success of this blanket I think.
  • Hook: 4 mm
  • Pattern: 70 traditional granny squares consisting of 6 rounds each, arranged 7 wide x 10 long. The 6th row of each granny is done in Light Grey.
  • Joining method: My Rose Valley’s Join-as-you-go method.
  • Border: Two rows of granny stripe shells in Light Grey, a row in Bright Turquoise, a row in Light Grey and then finally a row of SC in Bright Purple. To get the border to lie flat, I used Bunny Mummy’s technique that she explains here.  I also followed Lucy’s tip on steam blocking acrylic yarn so that the final SC row wouldn’t curl up. It worked liked a charm!
  • Finished size: 140cm x 96 cm
  • Time spent: I started on the first Bank Holiday Monday in May, and finished on the second Bank Holiday Monday in May, so 22 days.

Liezel and I will be meeting Nicole on the 15th of June to hand over the blanket. Liezel came along because it was through Liezel’s Instagram feed that Nicole found me and asked me to crochet the granny square blanket for her. I’ve never met Nicole, and Liezel has only met her once. Can you believe it?! The power of Instagram, iPhones and mutual friends is a thing of beauty!

Nicole, I hope the love and joy in each crochet stitch will bring you years of snuggly happiness and blessings in your new home.