You can be part of a yarnbomb!

11 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, Pattern, Yarnbombing

Tags

crochet, crochet applique, Surbiton Food Festival, Yarnbomb, yarnstorm

You know you want to!

All you have to do is crochet a piece of fruit and post it to me. No measurements to take, no getting onto ladders, no braving the elements to put up the yarnbomb. You dont even have to find a pattern, I’ll supply you with one. Just raid your stash, hook and go to the post office. Are you in? Want to know more?

The yarnbomb is for Surbiton’s first annual Food Festival from 4 to 19 May 2013. The organisers contacted Bobi of The Craft Inn to do the marketing for the festival and being a crafter extrodinaire she immediately thought of a craftbomb. My Thames Ditton yarnbombs (here, here and here) caught her attention so she asked me if I wanted to be part of this great crafty endeavour. Of course I said yes!

I don’t want to tell you exactly what I’m planning or how I’m going to use your fruit, but I can tell you that I need to cover a lot of space. I need a lot, or big pieces, of crochet. All before 29 March.

This is where you come in. It would be great if my blog buddies from all over the world could be part of the yarnbomb. A multi-national fruit salad for Surbiton!

As I receive your pieces I’ll give you credit on this blog ~~and if you include a business card, I will attach it to one of your fruit as well~~ . Due to a change of venue I will no longer be able to attach business cards to the crochet.

As for the pattern, you can find it here: Fruit crochet for Surbiton Food Festival (the link will open a PDF document). The pattern is in fact four crochet fruit coaster patterns, all courtesy of Louise Howe of the Lally Lou Lou blog, that I just put together in one document. Louise’s original patterns can be found here and here. Thank you so, so, so much Louise for agreeing to me using your fruit coasters for the yarnbomb. Dear readers, Louise has also promised to send me a couple of apples, pears and strawberries to use in the yarnbomb. It’s only right that the designer should have her handiwork included in the yarnbomb, don’t you think?

These are the fruit that I’ve made so far. I used Double Knit, Aran and Chunky yarn. I think towards the deadline of 29 March I’ll probably be sticking to only Chunky yarn as it works up so quickly.

The orange was made using Double Knit cotton and a 4 mm crochet hook:

Sliced in half apple in Chunky with a 7 mm crochet hook (and a dodgy uneven backstitch):

Apple in Chunky with a 7 mm crochet hook:

Strawberry in Aran cotton and a 5 mm crochet hook. There is a combination of white french knots and two straight stitches to indicate the strawberry hairs. After three french knots I gave up and stuck to the straight stitches:

Pear in Aran cotton and a 5 mm crochet hook. Later I realised that the pear looks more like a pear if the leaf is at the top of the stem (the way Louise does it), not the bottom :

I just want to stress that (if you haven’t already gathered this from my backstitch, strawberry hairs and pear leaf mistakes) the fruit doesn’t have to be perfect. Honestly, it’s just a bit of fun (I can hear Uncle Bryn‘s voice in my head as I’m typing here). The yarnbomb will be outside during the British Month Of April and when all the pieces of crochet are put together no-one will notice mistakes, so just enjoy it.

And of course you can send me any crocheted fruit, you don’t have to use Louise’s pattern. In fact, I hope someone will send me something different. The multi-national fruit salad could do with lemon, lime, cherry and banana.

When you’re ready to post me your crocheted fruit, send me a message and I will email you my address. The yarnbomb will be going up over the Easter weekend, and I need time to do my thing to turn the pieces into a workable yarnbomb, so I need your fruit before 22 March 2013 please.

I’m really looking forward to receiving your yarnbomb contributions. Remember, every time you finish a piece of crocheted fruit, it counts as one of your five a day. Fact.

Crochet on TV (The Guardian)

13 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by Natasja in As seen on TV, Other people's crochet, Pattern

≈ 7 Comments

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The Guardian

On the 11th October Anita left me a comment saying that she had spotted a crochet throw on The Guardian, Season 2, Episode 10. I just had to investigate.

The episode’s name is “Sacrifice” and the crochet blanket is to die for!!! Betsy, played by Ashley Johnson, wraps herself in the crochet throw. Sorry Ashely, but the throw steals the show big time!

Each square is made up of four of tiny granny squares. (Steps 1 to 8 of this granny square photo tutorial.)

You join your the four tiny squares together with this method to make one big square.

Then, join the big squares together with this zig zag scallop join method. It’s not exactly the same as the throw in the show, but it’s as close as I could find and it will give you the same effect.

To get the same colour effect, make sure you use one colour for two of the tiny squares in each big square as well as for your scallop join. This will be your main colour. If you do it this way, the other colours you chose for your tiny squares will stand out and give a visual rhythm to the throw.

Now that I think about it, this design can be used for scarves, throws, cushions and even sweaters….. I’m off to Ravelry to add yet another project to my queue.

How to beautify white towels

06 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, Pattern

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

crochet border, crochet edge, crochet pattern

The tutorial that shows you how I made the crochet border for these towels, are available on Boocoos Blogthingy blog, here.

Boo asked me to be a guest blogger on her blog. I’ve never done a guest blog before, nevermind on the blog of a paid crochet instructor who has been crocheting since she was 8 years old. I learned a lot just from the Tips, Techniques & Promises section of her blog so I really didn’t think I could do anything crochet related that would be good enough. Luckily Boo liked what I did and even said that I could come back and do a guest blog on her blog again any time. Whoohoo!

I hope you enjoy the tutorial, and all the other interesting crochet related things on Boo’s blog.

A Manly Scarf

28 Friday Sep 2012

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

≈ 11 Comments

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scarf

Check out my Dad modelling a crocheted scarf!

Doesn’t he look like Sean Connery?

The scarf is a Christmas present for one of Hubby’s friends. I started work on it on 20 August and finished it while Dad was visiting me. I just had to rope in Dad to play model – that beard and suntanned skin is perfect for a winter accessory photo shoot.

Check out the “I’m staring into the Great Wide Yonder” pose:

And “I have to wear my sunglasses against the glare of the snow”:

~~Dad~~ The model requested a mug so that he could “make the blog people think it’s very cold. Brrrrr.” No really, he said Brrrr out loud. Method modelling obviously works for him.

If I can drag you away from David Gandy-30-years-from-now, I’ll tell you about the scarf.

I was inspired by Jan Eaton’s chocolate box block from her 200 Crochet Blocks book . I used chocolate box for my livingroom couch cushions and they look really great. To my great surprise I turn the cushions so that chocolate box is at the front, more than the Roses & Daisies. Who would have thunk?

This scarf is basically just a row version of the chocolate box square. I thought I was very clever turning a square into a row. Little did I know that the stitch is an existing crochet stitch called Brick Stitch. I found this out when I bought Robyn Chachula’s Crochet Stitches Visual Encyclopedia. Right there on page 15 is my Manly Scarf sans the Sean Connery lookalike! So much for originality. On the other hand, I was quite pleased to see that my handwritten filofax pattern looks almost identical to Robyn’s diagram for the stitch. Brownie point for me.

The nitty gritty of the scarf:

Pattern: Brick stitch as per my pattern below. For more accurate instructions than my handwritten scribble, see Crochet Stitches Visual Encyclopedia. (On Amazon you can “Look inside” the book and if you log into Amazon you’ll be able to see the full written and diagram instruction for this pattern.) The @ on the edges of my pattern tells me where I should put the stitch markers to indicate the top of the 3 chain turning chain. I know it seems a bit over the top, but whenever I’m doing anything with straight lines I rely heavily on my stitch markers to keep track of the top of my turning chains.

Hook: 4.5 mm. I know the photo above says 4mm, but once I started working on the scarf I felt that a 4.5 mm was better.

Yarn: I used seven colours varying from 100% acrylic, to an acrylic & wool mix, to 100% wool. They were:

Charcoal: Stylecraft Life DK

Claret: Stylecraft Special DK

Gray: Stylecraft Special DK

Black: Stylecraft Life DK

Turquoise: Schoppel-Wolle Admiral 6-fach left over from the Childhood Memories shawl

Silver: Stylecraft Special DK

Mocha: Stylecraft Special DK, left over from the Identity Crisis blanket

The tassels I made using my Finishing Techniques for Crochet book, but you can also get the instructions here. It’s extremely easy to do. Promise. Whenever the tassel is attached to a DC row, I used three strands, and for a SC row, I used two strands.

That’s it. One manly scarf as modelled by Dad.

Thanks for making the scarf look so great Dad, and for being such a great (role)model. ♥

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!

The Chilean poet, the German yarn and the British driver

11 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by Natasja in Other people's crochet, Pattern

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

crochet, crochet pattern, yarn

Love at first sight, that is what I felt for this shawl.

Do you agree? Man, it’s pretty! This triangle shawl is called Recuerdos de infancia which means “childhood memories”. It is designed by the Chilean poet Gabriele Ordenes. You just know it’s going to be good if you see the pattern is designed by a poet! If you’re as in love with this as I am, you can buy the pattern here for $6.

Gabriele also designed this triangle shawl called Flores de invierno which means “Winter’s flowers”.

Buy the pattern here for $6, or buy both shawl patterns for $10. (You can also buy the patterns in Gabriela’s Etsy shop 7Knits.)

Not one for doing things in halves, I bought both patterns because 1) it’s cheaper and 2) I couldn’t choose between the two shawls because they’re both so *&%*$ beautiful! Do you see the intricate detail, the lace effect and pointy edges? Can you imagine draping it around your neck like a scarf, or across your shoulder? I can and I can’t wait to get started!!!

I already know what yarn I’m going to use for my shawl: Zauberball by the German sock yarn specialists Schoppel Wolle. The reddish brown ball of yarn in the Loop Yarn Shop advertisements (which you may have seen on the inside cover page of Mollie Makes magazines), is Zauberball.

Now, guess where I’m going to buy my Zaurberball.

Can’t guess?

Well let me tell you: at the Schoppel Wolle head office in Wallhausen! I’m not going to Germany specifically for this shop, although I can’t promise that I wouldn’t have booked the first flight to Germany after having read this blogpost. Hubby is taking me to drive along the Romantic Road next week and we’ll be passing through Wallhausen on our way to the first town on the Romantic Road route, so it’s totally meant to be! The road trip is also my 35th birthday present.

What better way to celebrate a birthday than doing a road trip with my soulmate & best friend, seeing beautiful German villages and stopping to buy yarn along the way?!

Needless to say I will be doing a full report on any and all yarn shops we pass, including of course Schoppel Wolle.

Her Schoppel beware, the British Hooker is on her way. I’ve got an empty suitcase and I’m not afraid to fill it.

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!

Terrific Tuesday

26 Tuesday Jun 2012

Posted by Natasja in Other people's crochet, Pattern, Terrific Tuesdays

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

amigurumi, crochet, crochet pattern, Terrific Tuesday

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

You can buy the pattern for these very cute amigurumi owls for $5 / £3.30 in Lybo’s Etsy shop here.

I hope your day is hoot! Owl be seeing you later. (I just couldn’t resist.)

Natasja

Anne’s clock

20 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by Natasja in Etsy, Other people's crochet, Pattern

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

clock pattern, crochet, crochet clock, wall clock

Last week I got an email from Anne, who had purchased the pattern for my crocheted clocks on Etsy.

Anne said:

Really cute, easy and so much fun. My husband builds grandfather clocks, and I loved the fact I could incorporate our two crafts together; his love of timepieces and my love of crochet.

…your patterns are extremely easy to read and a pleasure to create from!!!

I just love that the clock could combine her and her husband’s hobby into one crafty item. Isn’t it sweet?

Anne also sent me this picture of her clock. Lovely and colourful isn’t it? Great job Anne!

Crochet a crochet hook!

13 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by Natasja in My ramblings, Other people's crochet, Pattern

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

amigurumi, crochet

I was looking for something (totally different) in Google images when I came across this amigurumi crochet hook. Is this not THE cutest thing you’ve ever seen?! Oh what joy that Google image searches are so very random.

Best of all? You can make one of your own! Nerdigurumi, who is the creator of this mind blowingly cute amigurumi, gives the free pattern here. Check it out and go forth and hook a hook!