Terrific Tuesday

04 Tuesday Sep 2012

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, Terrific Tuesdays

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On a Monday I can still remember the fun I had over the weekend, Wednesday is the middle of the work week, on Thursday I start getting hopeful and on a Friday I can taste the weekend. But what about a Tuesday? It’s so…. just there. Weekend memories are too far away and the upcoming weekend might as well be a year away.

What we need is a bit of colourful inspiration to get us going on a Tuesday, don’t you think? A pretty picture, beautiful scenery or colourful imagery. Yup, that’ll liven up Tuesdays and turn it into a terrific day!

From now on I will go through my photos and Pinterest likes every Tuesday and find us a pretty picture to add colour and joy to the day.

xxxxxx

Today’s photo is sneak peak of the finished Japanese scarf.

Today is also my amazing husband John’s birthday (I’m not just saying he’s amazing, he really is. Have a read on this blog and you’ll see why) so it really is a terrific Tuesday.

I hope you have a super duper Tuesday!

Hooky regards

Natasja
(P.S. The full ta-daah post for the Japanese scarf will follow soon.)

The Making Spot crochet along

27 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by Natasja in CAL, My crochet, Ta-daah!

≈ 16 Comments

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crochet, crochet along, crochet jewellery, Instagram, The Making Spot

Are you taking part in The Making Spot crochet along? I’m so taking part, I’m done! Over the Bank Holiday weekend I finished the bracelet and I really, really, really like it. Thank you to The Making Spot for introducing me to tiny crochet hooks and crochet thread!

The nitty gritty of my bracelet:

The bracelet design I chose from the four given in the pattern, is Bracelet with Crocheted Balls. You can find the pattern on the Coats Crafts UK website here.
I used Aida 10 crochet thread in silver grey and a 1.5 mm crochet hook
In the end I didn’t use the monofilament thread and diamante clasp you can see in this post, but went for my first choice of 3 mm silver ribbon to thread the balls and glass beads.

Not only is The Making Spot hosting the crochet along, you can also take part in The Big Flower Swap:

If you’re not content with sharing a photo of your finished crochet online, why not send it into us here at Crochet Along HQ? We’ll send you someone else’s flower so you will receive some pretty petals in the post! Before the swap ends and we post back your blooms, we’ll photograph everyone’s flowers in a DIY Crochet Flower garden.

To join in the Big Flower Swap: crochet one or several flowers from the free pattern, and post them (along with a stamped, self-addressed envelope) to: Crochet Along, The Making Spot, Future Publishing, Bath BA1 2BW, England.

I made the big flower from the necklace pattern and posted it this morning. It would be great if one of my blog readers receive my flower, and even greater if I receive one of your flowers!

So here is my bracelet for the crochet along, and flower for The Big Flower Swap. It’s been an education working with crochet thread and a small hook, and I love it! (I loved it so much I already have a plan to crochet rosebud earrings to match my bracelet. )

The crochet along runs until the 28th of September, so you still have loads of time to crochet a bracelet and/or necklace and flower(s) for the swap.

One CAL done, another one to start: The theme for Rachell’s crochet along (working our way through Jan Eaton’s 200 Crochet Blocks book) has been decided on: Cottage Garden. I’m so happy! My stash is filled with cottage garden shades! Starting 1 September we are making block no. 1 and no. 2 from the book. All the information about this CAL is on Rachell’s blog.

So many things to get my hooks into! Love it!

A crochet bracelet in the making

24 Friday Aug 2012

Posted by Natasja in CAL, My crochet

≈ 9 Comments

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crochet along, The Making Spot

I’m taking part in The Making Spot’s crochet along. Have you heard about it? It sounds like so much fun. Read all about it on their blog, here.

I’m making the crochet ball bracelet. As you can see, I have everything I need, plus a bit more (more beads than I will need and a ribbon + monofilament option for stringing the balls & beads). For creative juices to flow I need to give myself options. Too much of a good thing is, on my blog at least, a very good thing.

Did you see how tiny that 1.5 mm hook is?!!! A bit daunting but hey-ho, it’s good to hook outside your comfort zone now and then. I can’t hook everything with my favourite 4 mm hook. Or can I….. if I like the bracelet I may just make another one in DK and my 4 mm hook.

Geez I haven’t even put hook to thread yet on this one and already I’m planning the next! Steady now *said in a Churchill dog voice*

Halfway mark for the Japanese scarf

20 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by Natasja in My crochet

≈ 13 Comments

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Japanese crochet

54 Circle motifs done, 54 to go.

Venturing into Japanese crochet

16 Thursday Aug 2012

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, My ramblings

≈ 21 Comments

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Japanese crochet

Yesterday I posted a picture of a scarf I’m working on for friend. I’m really loving this scarf and it’s my first project from a Japanese pattern. Japanese, people! A language I don’t speak, can’t read or understand. It’s pure magic that I can create a scarf from an unreadable pattern!

It all started when I fell in love with a crochet e-book that Cornel of Craftshare shared on her Facebook page. The Facebook page she shared, had an album of all the beautiful patterns available in the e-book, but no charts, and only a link to a dodgy download website. This is the cover, and two of the projects in the book. Can you see why I fell in love with it?!

Source: etsy.com via Natasja on Pinterest

Stunning isn’t it?

Thanks to Google I found Craftebook on Etsy which sells this pattern e-book for only $5 (Zycee emails you the whole book in PDF)!!!! Zycee calls the book Ondori crochet motif: Japanese cloth. I also found the hardcover book available on Amazon here in case you prefer real pages and something to put on the shelf.

I have my eye on a beautiful pullover that I just HAVE to make, but for now I’m doing Scarf #17.

The scarf consists of 6 rows of 18 motifs per row – you can see the motif at the top left corner of the picture – that you join as you go. It’s a nice and easy way to ease myself in to Japanese crochet patterns and reading crochet diagrams. The yarn I’m using is a 4-ply variegated sock yarn by Garnstudio, called Fabel in shade 911, with a 4mm crochet hook.

So far so good and I’m enjoying my venture into Japanese crochet. It’s not as difficult as I thought it would be. If you can read crochet diagrams, you’re good to go for Japanese crochet patterns. The iPhone app I blogged about here, was a great help. Alternatively you can use this very handy guide on how to read crochet diagrams from MyPicot and this for a list of all the crochet diagram terms for UK and US.

Have you ever crocheted something from a Japanese pattern? I’d love to hear from you if you have.

Hand towels for my Dad

13 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, Ta-daah!

≈ 11 Comments

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crochet, crochet applique

My Dad turned 60 in March this year. As a birthday present Hubby and I bought him a ticket to come and visit us here in England for 10 days in September. We started to plan the holiday in February, applied for his Visa in July and in last week he collected the visa and currency. All that’s left to do is for him to get on the aeroplane on the 7th September! (To put my excitement about this visit into context, this is the first time one of my parents will see the country I’ve been living in for 8 years, and the house I’ve been living in for 6 years. His visit is a BIG DEAL to me!)

As a welcome gift, I made my dad these crochet applique hand towels:

To understand the farm scene, you have to know that my Dad has been working as a Scientific Technician at the Department of Agriculture farm in Elsenburg, South Africa since 1974. Yes, 1974! His main field of expertise are milk cows. Two years ago he did his Masters Degree on the subject. It’s such a big part of my Dad, that I just had to do something cow and farm inspired for him.

I went for hand towels, as it’s something that he uses daily on the farm. His “office” (I’m using the term loosely as it’s actually a room with desk and chair in a farm outbuilding) also has a basin which he uses to wash his hands after a few hours in the dairy or the stables, so hand towels were the obvious choice.

The crochet appliques are a mixture of two oneandtwocompany patterns: the cow and shed from Cow Pig and Farm, and the tree from The Tree The Houses and The Cloud (I blogged about these cute crochet applique patterns here way back in February). It was so much fun making these, even more so since I knew it was for my Dad and he wasn’t expecting it. The patterns are easy to understand and work up really quickly.

It was essential that I use the cow for both towels, but to make each one special, I did one as a Jersey cow (the brownish) and one as a Friesian (the black and white). The yarn is Rowan Handknit Cotton and Stylecraft Cotton Classiqe with a 5 mm crochet hook.

I sewed the applique onto the towels with invisible thread. I got the idea of using invisible thread from Sarah London’s Crochet Love book (she calls it monofilament thread). It worked really well. You can’t see the stitches at all! I didn’t sew the ears of the cows onto the towel – I think it’s cute that they stand out and can be played with as you dry your hands…. not that my Dad would want to play with cow ears, but I like to give him the option.

Hubby came up with the idea of blanket stitching along the bottom in green yarn so that it would look like grass. I think it looks great and really “pulls everything together” – that’s a direct quote from Hubby. Such a clever husband!!

I really like how the towels turned out. I just hope my Dad feels the same.

(P.S. If you read this post and you know my Dad please don’t spoil the surprise.)

Childhood Memories shawl Ta-daaaah!

06 Monday Aug 2012

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, Ta-daah!

≈ 20 Comments

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crochet

Three balls of Schoppen-Wolle yarn + one 4 mm crochet hook + one London Olympics = crocheted shawl in a record breaking three days! Ta-daaaaah!

I soooo loved making this shawl. I honestly couldn’t stop hooking! The pattern is really easy to get your head around & remember, and of course the yarn… the gloriously colourful variegated 4-ply yarn which I bought at the Schoppen-Wolle factory!!!

It was a constant struggle to get me to put down the crochet hook.

Conversations in my head went something like this:
“I’ll just hook until the end of the red.” Reach the end of red.
“Maybe just keep going until the end of pink.” Reached the end of pink.
“Oooh, it’s going white!” Reached the end of white.
“I’m halfway through the row so I might as well keep going to the end of the row”. In the last shell of the row, white starts turning blue.
“Oooh, blue! So pretty! The blue will probably zing against the red of the previous row. I’ve just have to see this!”

You get the idea.

I also didn’t have just one shade of variegated yarn, I had two! I took my queues from the yarn as to where to stop using shade Parrot and join shade Spring Has Come. Some sections of Parrot was too orange and/or mustard for me, so I just cut those out. (I have no hang-ups when it comes to customizing a pattern, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I will customize my yarn to suit either).

The five hdc rows I did in the solid turquoise. This was a 6-ply yarn, so I upped to a 4.5mm hook for these rows.

I used more of Parrot than of Spring Has Come, as Parrot has the shades of blue and green that I love, although slightly different hues to Spring Has Come. The very last row, done as two groups of two trebles joined by a picot, of the shawl I did in Spring Has Come.

Speaking of the edging row. I just have to show you the amazing difference wet blocking makes. In this photo everything on the blue blocking board is still unpinned. The edge doesn’t look nearly as nice pre-blocking and even the shell rows open up once blocked.

Isn’t it amazing? Blocking really opens up the patterns and shows off your hard work so much better. It also made my shawl almost double in size. Never under-estimate the importance of blocking!

The nitty gritty of my Childhood Memories shawl:

The pattern is designed by Gabriele Ordenes and it’s called Recuerdos de infancia (which translated to Childhood Memories). You can buy the pattern here or here.
The yarn I used was Crazy Zauberball in shades 1701 (Parrot) & 2136 (Spring Has Come) and Admiral Starck 6 in shade 4780 (Turquoise).
4 mm crochet hook for the Zauberball rows and 4.5mm for the Admiral Starck rows.

This shawl is not end of variegated sock yarn obsession. No sirree. I have enough left over to crochet….. wait for it ……socks! You would think this is the logical use for sock yarn, but us crocheters don’t do socks much – I’m going to change that. Knitters make the most beautiful stripey socks and I want a piece of that action.

I don’t think I’ll wear my socks and shawl together though. That may be a bit much. Then again….. what’s wrong with having too much?!

Country Dreams Ta-daaaah!

01 Wednesday Aug 2012

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, Pattern, Ta-daah!

≈ 20 Comments

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crochet

I finished my second Garnstudio pattern, using Garnstudio Drops yarn and just like Whispers, it’s a huge success!

Behold “Country Dreams”:

I’m really happy with my teal blue creation!

If you look up the pattern here, you’ll see that it’s meant to be a tunic with two bands of open lace prettiness at the bottom. By now you know that I don’t wear anything that can draw attention to the widest part of my pear-shaped body, so I shortened the tunic by 10cm and turned it into a sweater.

I really enjoyed doing the lace bands from the diagram. It was an excellent way of teaching myself how to read the diagrams, as the pattern also provides written instructions for the lace band. I could look at the diagram, do what I think I had to do, and then check whether I was right by going back to the written instructions.

If you’re nervous about crochet diagrams, I suggest finding a pattern with diagrams and written instructions and doing the same.

The neck, bottom and sleeve edgings really finishes the tunic off nicely. If you wanted to, you could even leave out the lace bands and just add the edging and it would still be a beautiful.

The nitty gritty of my Country Dreams sweater/pullover/jumper/jersey (what’s the difference between these anyway?!) is as follows:

7 balls of Drops Safran in Petrol
3.5mm crochet hook
Modifications made: I left out the first band of lace plus three dc rows, which made the tunic 10cm shorter.
The pattern is available for free here

Just a note on the sleeves. They’re tight! I have thin forearms and I’d say average upper arms, yet the size M sleeves is a tight squeeze even around my wrists. As Safran is cotton, it will probably stretch with time, but I just had to point this out to anyone who wants to crochet this tunic, especially if you’re not going to use a cotton yarn.

I’ve been wearing Country Dreams today and it really is a pleasure to wear. Already it feels a bit softer and more drapey than it did last night when I tried it on for the first time. A few hours of body heat is obviously doing it’s thing on the cotton.

My verdict on Drops Safran and the Country Dreams pattern: Lovely!

With Country Dreams completed, I got out my Schoppen-Wolle Crazy Zauberball and started working on the Childhood Memories shawl! I’m only a few rows in, and already I’m loving it. Oooo, you know what, Country Dreams will look B E A U T I F U L worn with this shawl!

I don’t think you’ll have to wait long to see the finished shawl though. I’m addicted to seeing the colour changes (sat up until midnight last night because I just couldn’t put it down) and the pattern is much easier than it looks. Watch this space!

Fleur Ta-daaaah!

07 Saturday Jul 2012

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, Pattern, Ta-daah!

≈ 7 Comments

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crochet

Fleur, also know as the Summer Vest Take Two is finished! Finally.

As I said in an earlier post, I haven’t been so excited or inspired to finish this one as my other pieces of wearable crochet. I do love the Hot Cross Bun stitch though (I even made a video about it) and I think I will use it again some day in a scarf or maybe even for a cushion cover, so the problem is not the pattern, it’s me. (Sounds like I’m doing a break-up speech.)

There are a variety of reasons why I had such a hard time finishing Fleur:

I had to frog and unravel a whole other crochet project which sort of took away the “newness” and fun out of the project;
Once the yarn was unravelled it looked like 2 minute noodles which made it very prone to knots;
I had a lot of trouble getting the armhole shaping correct – more on that later;
I became a bit bored with the green yarn;
There’s doesn’t seem to be any incentive to finish this sleeveless top as Summer seems to have skipped the UK.

Due to the 2 minute noodle factor, there’s a big chunk of yarn that I couldn’t recycle for Fleur which means I had to be very thrifty with what I had. I mentioned this in passing to Hubby and he replied “How about a different colour for the neck? Just putting it out there.” Genius husband of mine! So that’s where the dark green edging (Patons 100% Cotton DK in shade 2727) around the neck and armholes idea came from.

Now for no. 3 on my list. I think there’s a mistake in the pattern. Honestly I do. It’s not just me that couldn’t figure it out. I contacted the only other person on Ravelry who had finished Fleur in size M, and she confirmed that she also had to fudge the armhole shaping. The stitch maths work out perfectly, but the instructions of where to make the decreases at the beginning & end of each row, seemed wrong.

I even contacted Rowan with my problem but to date they haven’t replied to my email. They also don’t have an errata, or as they call it, addendum, on their website for this pattern, so I had to figure it out myself. Just had to “make it work”, Tim Gunn style.

Here is my adaptation of rows 33 to 36 of the armhole shaping in Fleur for size M. I hope it can be of help to anyone else making this top. (The link will open up a PDF document. )

Changes made to Fleur

I’m done with green yarn now. Phew! Next on my list, is Country Deam in the lovely petrol blue Drops Safran yarn. Don’t you just love the start of new crochet projects? Getting your head around the new pattern, getting used to the feel of the new yarn, holding it up every 5 rows just to see how far you’ve crocheted. Oooh, I love it!

The hot cross bun stitch – a video

20 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, Video

≈ 2 Comments

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crochet, video

I’m still busy with Fleur, aka the Summer Vest Take Two.

I’m not going to lie to you: I’ve been less enthusiastic about this piece of wearable crochet. I know it’s because I’ve lost momentum after having to frog the orignal Summer Vest, but I’m ~~pushing~~ hooking through. I won’t allow myself to start another piece of wearable crochet until this one is finished (wish I had this kind of self control when it comes to a tube of Pringles!)

I’m not saying Fleur isn’t pretty or that the yarn isn’t pretty or that I don’t like the pattern, not at all! It just feels a bit “this has been done before”. Well, technically it has. Thankfully Fleur is going to be so much more flattering than the first Summer Vest. I have to start with the armhole shaping of the back panel this evening, and already I can tell that Summer Vest Take Two is going to be a hit and worn a lot (British Summer permitting).

As you can see I’m hard at work.