More yarn

07 Tuesday Jan 2014

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“More yarn.” Music to our ears, right?! Today that’s exactly the song I’m singing for you: my Etsy shop has been stocked with more beautiful shades of Vinni’s Colours Nikkim hand dyed cotton yarn.

I added more neutral colours: dark slate grey and light stone grey, and an off-white Natural. I also added two shades of yellow (I adore the bright Sunshine Yellow!), a pastel orange peachy colour and beautiful Turquoise. I also added Lavender blue that’s between the light Cloud Blue and dark Deep Blue. I did the same thing with the brown shades – I now have a medium brown called Camel that’s between Dunes and Mahogany, and a proper Barbie pink that’s between the light Ballet Pink and dark Raspberry pink.

You can click on the photo which will take you to the yarn section of my Etsy shop. Go on. Resistance is futile…. 🙂

I really do love my Nikkim hand dyed cotton yarn. It’s a crazy fantastic treat for me to walk into the garage and see all these beautiful shades, just waiting to be turned into something beautiful.

I’m currently ~~working on~~ playing with two versions of my chevron scarf (which I finished on 4 January but haven’t been able to photograph due to lack of sunlight) that you are going to love. I’m having a fantastic time choosing the colour combinations. I really have to restrain myself, but as it is, one of the colour combinations already consist of 10 shades!!! Do you blame me? How can I not use as many colours as possible? Look at it! You can close your eyes and point randomly at your PC screen to pick your yarn colours and they will all Just Work.

Visit my Etsy shop at your own peril. Mwa-ha-ha-ha. 😉

2013 in review

02 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by Natasja in My ramblings

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annual report

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

My blog really is growing and growing, and I love it! In 2010 I had 9,800 views, 83,000 in 2012 and in 2013 an astounding 150,000!!!! I can’t thank you guys enough for reading my blog, sharing in my interests and taking part in the crochet along charity blanket projects. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 150,000 times in 2013. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 6 days for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Crochet Mood Blanket 2014

30 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by Natasja in My ramblings

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#crochetmoodblanket2014, crochet along

Tomorrow is the last day of 2013. Can you believe it? We still have leftovers from Christmas dinner and it’s almost 2014! One good thing about the new year being here on Wednesday is that it’s the first day of the Mood Blanket 2014 crochet along. I’m making one square a day. Others are making one a week. Some people are making striped blankets so they do a row a day. Anything goes, as long as the colour is inspired by your mood. (Have a look at the Facebook group for Crochet Mood Blanket 2014 for all the info. You will have to ask to join the group, but get accepted really quickly. It’s lovely to see what others are doing – “others” being more than 2,200 people so far!)

I’m going to use leftover Hayfield Bonus from the Granny Square blanket I made for Nicole. Here are my colour choices to represent my moods.

The pattern I’ll be using for my squares is Lacy Cross from Jan Eaton’s 200 Crochet Blocks.

Here’s hoping for a predominantly green, turquoise and white blanket for 2014!

Size of the hexagons

29 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by Natasja in Crochet For Kidneys, My ramblings

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crochet4kidneys

Just a quick post to show you what I mean when I say the hexagons for Crochet For Kidneys Part II has to be 15 cm side to side. It means measured from the straight edge to the opposite side’s straight edge.

How are you guys getting on with your hexagons? As soon as I have time and there is enough sunlight in the living room, I will take photos to show you my hexies. They are crazy colourful!!

A visit to Greenwich and a mood blanket

28 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by Natasja in My ramblings

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#crochetmoodblanket2014, crochet blanket, crochetalong, Greenwich

Are you enjoying the Festive Season? Recovered from all the turkey and ready for the New Year’s party? I’m not. Except if you by “New Year’s party” you mean crocheting in front of the TV when the fireworks start on BBC 1. For that, I’m ready!

I’m not at work for the days between Christmas and New Year as my Dad is visiting us. He arrived on Christmas day. He’s only been here three days but it feels like he’s been here forever. He’s the perfect house guest and a real joy to have around.

Today was the most amazing Winters day here in London. Clear blue skies and not too cold. It really was something special. Dad and I used the day to visit the Greenwich Observatory and Planetarium and also popped in at the National Maritime Museum.

Ship heads at the National Maritime Museum

Me and Dad taking a break in Greenwich Park

“He’s my jolly sailor dear”

The Peter Harrison Planetarium

Greenwich Park

Trekking up the hill to the Royal Observatory

View from the Royal Observatory

On a different note, are any of you taking part in mummy_stacey’s the Crochet Mood Blanket 2014 crochet along? I am! Have a look at mummy_stacey’s Instagram feed here for all the info. She explains it all on there, but it basically boils down to you allocating a mood to a colour and crocheting a square a day to reflect your mood, or you can do a square a week. I’m making 9 cm squares and so far I have allocated 5 colours (I’m not very complex so I don’t need many colours :-))

I’m thinking of red = stressed, lime green = happy/positive, grey = depressed/sad, white = okay, bright blue = grateful/blessed, purple or yellow (I can’t decide which) = irritated.

I think it’s great that at the end of the year I can look back on my blanket and see what my mood was every day. It might be a shock if the overall colour is grey or red, but that’s the chance I’m going to take. At least I’ll have a blanket at the end of it.

If you take part you can use #crochetmoodblanket2014 whenever you take a photo on of your mood blanket on Instagram or Twitter. It will be great to have you on board too!

Merry Christmas everyone

24 Tuesday Dec 2013

Posted by Natasja in My ramblings

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Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you will have a great Christmas day filled with friends, family, loved ones, yummy food, great gifts (hopefully a ball of yarn or two) and of course that you will have time to do some crocheting in front of the telly/roaring fire/CD player.

If you click on the picture below it should take you to a website where you can get down for a bit of ♫ Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree ♫♪ with me. It’s a catchy tune so it may stick in our head for a while 🙂

The National UK Blog Awards 2014

18 Wednesday Dec 2013

Posted by Natasja in My ramblings

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#ukba14, Blogging

Have you ever heard of the National UK Blog Awards? It’s the only Blog Awards recognising “a multitude of industry professional talent across the UK”. It’s a biggy and this blog is nominated in the Arts and Culture category!!!!!

The category includes blogs about photography, music, books, reading, art reviews, film, architecture and crafts. That’s a huge range of topics for one category so competition is stiff. If I counted correctly, it looks like there are 71 blogs entered for this category, but my blog is the only 100% crochet related blog. I’m proudly flying the ~~flag~~ bunting for yarn and crochet hooks.

Wouldn’t it be great if a crochet blog could make it to the finals? The only way for it to do so, is if the public vote for it, so I’m asking very nicely that you please vote for crocheTime. If not for me, do it for your love of crochet.

To vote, go to this link: http://www.blogawardsuk.co.uk/blog-entries/crochetime/, register with your email address and you’ll then be emailed confirmation of registration (check your spam folder if you don’t receive the email immediately) and then you can vote. In return, you will receive a free Blogging eBook – and I’ll have one more vote. You can also click on the picture below, or to the right of my blog.

I’ve made it really easy for you to vote, and the lovely people at the National UK Blog Awards even give you something for free!

I will be very, very, very grateful if would vote for crocheTime. Pretty please.

Crochet for Kidneys Part II

01 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by Natasja in Crochet For Kidneys, My ramblings, Part 2

≈ 3 Comments

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charity, crochet along, hexagon

That’s right peoples, this blogpost heralds the start of Crochet For Kidneys Part II.

Our purple and white blankets were such a huge success – in terms of the numbers of crocheters who took part and the number of squares I received from you all, but most of all it was a huge success because it lifted the spirits of seven dialysis patients at the Royal London Hospital. Our blankets meant such a lot to them, doing it all again is a no-brainer. We have to keep going. Agreed?

This time however we’re doing it a bit differently. There won’t be a fund raising aspect – this time it’s all about making blankets. I think we should still get together one day to join up the crochet pieces to form the blankets, but there won’t be a crochet quiz or raffles or talks by John and Pieter – just a bunch of charitable hookers making blankets. The date and the venue of our get together is yet to be decided. For now, I just want to ge the (yarn)ball rolling to get us all crocheting.

So what are we making?

Not squares, we’re making hexagons!!! As with the squares, they should measure 15 cm across and be in acrylic or cotton double knit yarn.

What hexagon pattern should you use? Well, I found a list of the top 10 free crochet hexagon patterns over on the Moogly blog. All we need is right there in one place! Just click here to go straight to the list of hexagon patterns. You may just have to add a few rows of (UK) treble / (US) double crochet to some of the patterns in order to reach 15 cm across. On this page there’s a step by step photo tutorial to make a basic hexagon which would be perfect for our blankets. Then there’s this Lionbrand hexagon pattern which is 15 cm across, so it’s perfect. Of course you can use any hexagon pattern – the pattern you choose is totally up to you – as long as your hexagon is 15 cm across.

As for the colour, we’re not sticking to purple and white like we did for the squares – you can make your hexagons any colour, or combination of colours, except for the very last round of your hexagon. If everyone uses the same colour for their last round, we will use that colour to join the hexagons and the overall effect will be uniform and very, very, pretty.

I can’t decide what that last round of colour should be, so I’m putting it to a vote. YOU decide.

Voting will close midnight Tuesday 5 December.

I will recap everything in a follow-up blogpost and also create a new Ravelry group.

If you’re on Twitter or Instagram you can keep on using #crochetforkidneys to share your hexagons with us.

I can’t wait to get started! I can already “see” our brightly coloured hexagon blankets cheering up the dialysis patients!

See you at the fair

29 Friday Nov 2013

Posted by Natasja in Markets, My ramblings

≈ 1 Comment

‘Tis the season of christmas crafts and fairs, and I’m on board. I’m selling my fantastic cotton DK yarn at two Christmas fairs in Thames Ditton, less than a week apart!

Come on over to the Thames Ditton Crafters stalls at the Thames Ditton High Street Fair, and to our Christmas Fair in the library to ooh and aaah at the beautiful colours of my cotton yarn, to stroke it, to squeeze it, to hold it up to your cheek, imagine what you can create with it, play with the colour combination or just come and say hi.

Might I just add that I have no white yarn to sell since *cough cough* a lady from Texas bought 33 balls of yarn, including all the white! I am officially out of stock of white. It’s not good to be out of stock, but it’s great to say that someone bought so much of what you sell, that you are. Whoo-hoo!!!

The sale happened on Wednesday evening while John, Pieter, Lizelle and I were celebrating the one year anniversary of the kidney transplant, which was of course also the day John handed out the crocheted blankets. Coincidence? I think not! What goes around, comes around.

I’m sure that everyone who took part in our charity project would have noticed something good happening to them around the time of crocheting the squares or when you were reading about it on the blog and felt happy for those who received the blankets. Did you experience this? Did something good happen to you? I’m sure it did. What you give, is what you get, so if you give good things and good thoughts, you receive good things and blessings. Easy 🙂

Scrummy hand dyed yarn just for you

24 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by Natasja in My ramblings

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cotton yarn, Etsy, hand dyed yarn

Do you remember the Vinnis’ Colours yarn giveaway I had in September? The one where I asked you all to tell me the three shades you would most like to use for a crochet project? Well, being the eager-to-please-wannabe-business-woman that I am, I ordered the fourteen shades my dear blog readers like the most. Yes, I’m that nice.

My Etsy shop is now stocked with seventeen beautiful shades of hand dyed cotton yarn. Just pop over to www.crochetime.etsy.com and they can be yours. You don’t even need to have a PayPal account, I accept credit cards too. And I ship worldwide.