I’m sitting outside enjoying the lovely weather. I am so grateful for it!
I hope you are having a relaxed Sunday wherever you are.
Sunny Sunday
30 Sunday Jun 2013
Posted in My ramblings
Surface crochet in Simply Crochet magazine
25 Tuesday Jun 2013
Posted in In the press
In the latest issue of Simply Crochet magazine, issue 7, there is an article on surface crochet. Guess who’s crochet clock was used as one of the examples for what can be done with surface crochet? Mine!!! Yeeeeeha!
I’m very happy to have a mention in Simply Crochet, the go-to magazine in the UK for all things crochet. I really love Simply Crochet magazine. Not because they noticed my crochet clocks, but for producing a monthly magazine that is informative, stimulating and filled with pages and pages of crochet. The free gifts with every issue is great too. If you haven’t subscribed yet, there is a link on the right of the blog. There’s just something about getting home in the evening after a long day at the dull & dreary office, only to find the postman has delivered a crochet magazine right to your door. I know I can buy the magazine in the shop, but why wait a week and miss out on a suprise in the mail?
By the way, the crochet clock with surface crochet numbers is still for sale. You can find it here.
Terrific Tuesday
25 Tuesday Jun 2013
Posted in Terrific Tuesdays
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
Wishing you all a Terrific Tuesday.
Natasja
How to weave away yarn tail ends
19 Wednesday Jun 2013
Posted in GIF, Photo Tutorial
Tags
The dreaded weaving away of tail ends. It’s a not a fun job, but has to be done right. Right?
I reckon if you have a yucky job to do, you may as well do it well so that you won’t have to do it again. Do it once, and do it right I say.
Below is a GIF (a series of photos in a loop) to show you how to weave away the tail ends in a way that they will stay stuck. The GIF may take a few seconds to jump to the next photo, so just give it time. It will loop back again to the first photo so you can watch the process again and again. For clarification, what you’re looking at is the back of a granny square.
The trick to keeping the tail neatly and tightly woven away is not so much the weaving action, but the change of direction. Try to change the direction of the weave as many times as you can. In a typical shell, like in the photos above, I manage to fit in three directional changes. I’ve never had a tail end come loose, so aim for at least three.
GIF Give your yarn tails a bit of love and they will stay hidden through the years of snuggling, stroking and cuddles.
Terrific Tuesday
18 Tuesday Jun 2013
Posted in Terrific Tuesdays
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
Wishing you all a Terrific Tuesday.
Natasja
How make a multicoloured, traditional granny square
17 Monday Jun 2013
Posted in My crochet, Photo Tutorial
Last week I showed you how to make a single colour granny square. Today I’ll show you how to crochet a multicoloured, traditional granny square.
This is probably what you think of when you think “granny square”. If you’ve seen granny square blankets on shows like The Big Bang Theory or the Roseanne show, this photo tutorial will show you how to make one in the same style. I’ve blogged about those famous granny square blankets here and here. If you want to make those blankets, just use black as your final round and be as bright as you like with the other rounds.
As for the green bunny in the photo…. I just couldn’t resist. His fur matched the centre of my granny square so perfectly, he was just begging to be on the cover!
You can hop on over (see what I did there?) to the Photo Tutorials page here, or click on the photo above to download the pdf photo tutorial.
How to join a new colour and weave away the yarn tail at the same time
14 Friday Jun 2013
Posted in My crochet, Photo Tutorial
The title of this blog post is quite a mouthful isn’t it? But if you’re a crocheter, I bet you anything you would have asked this question a few times.
To crochet is lovely, but to weave in tail ends not so much. If you’re making a granny square blanket for instance, you’ll have two tail ends per colour, per granny square to weave away. Most granny squares are at least 5 rounds, so that’s 10 ends per granny square! Weaving in those ends quickly adds up to One Massive Job. I know of quite a few crocheters who haven’t finished a project just because the weaving in of ends seem too daunting.
In this photo tutorial I show you how to work away a tail end, as you crochet. If you do this, you’ll only have one tail end (the one that you create when you finish off and cut the yarn) to weave away. That’s one half of The Weaving Away Job done!
As I say on the cover of the photo tutorial, I am demonstrating the technique with a granny square, but the technique can be used for joining a new colour in a row as well.
The tutorial is available to view on the Photo Tutorials page here, and clicking on the photo above will take you there too.
Photo Tutorials
11 Tuesday Jun 2013
Posted in My crochet, Photo Tutorial
I learned to crochet with the help of YouTube, yarn websites like Garnstudio & Lion Brand and crochet bloggers. These are free websites, or run by people like you and me who just want to share their knowledge and make other crocheter’s lives easier. I’ve learned so much, and taken away so much inspiration from others that I think it’s high time I start doing the same.
This blog is already my place where I share what I’ve done, but I don’t feel I’ve really taught anyone anything. Not in the way that I’ve been taught by bloggers who take the time to take step by step photos, or make detailed videos.
In light of this, and St. Francis of Assisi’s wise words: “For it is in giving that we receive” there is a new section on my blog called Photo Tutorials.
I’ve only made one tutorial so far: How To Make A Single Colour Granny Square. It’s not a ground breaking new design, but I had to start somewhere. 🙂 In time I will add more photo tutorials and eventually video tutorials as well.
I will do all my photo tutorials as PDF documents. That way I don’t create huge blogposts, and the document can be printed. It will also include a (hand drawn!) crochet diagram. I think crochet diagrams are great. If you learn to crochet with a set of photos and then look at the diagram for what you’ve just crocheted, it should be easy to grasp how to crochet from diagrams. That’s how I learned, so I’m hoping it will work for others too.
Please give me your feedback. If you think it’s okay and clear enough, I will use it as a template for all future photo tutorials.
You can find the link to my Photo Tutorials page here.
Terrific Tuesday
11 Tuesday Jun 2013
Posted in My ramblings, Terrific Tuesdays
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
True story.
Wishing you all a Terrific Tuesday.
Natasja
Rubiks Cube Park yarnbomb
10 Monday Jun 2013
Posted in My ramblings, Yarnbombing
Tags
If you want to get in on some yarnbombing action, why not crochet squares for Crochet Grenade‘s Rubiks Cube Park yarnbomb?
All the details are on the Facebook Event page here, or you can read it below. I copy & pasted it straight from the page:
“INTERNATIONAL YARNBOMB PROJECT: “RUBIKS CUBE PARK” DEADLINE FOR SQUARES: JULY 1ST. I will need 2,700 crocheted squares and ANYONE ANYWHERE can help by spreading the word, mailing in squares, coming to meet ups, or even installing. This yarn bomb installation will be on the weekend of Comic-Con San Diego. For those of you not familiar with Comic-Con, it is a four-day event held yearly in San Diego, CA celebrating comic books, science fiction/fantasy and film/television, pop culture, horror, animation, anim…e, manga, toys, collectible card games, video games, webcomics, and fantasy novels. It’s the ultimate geek event and this convention is the largest of its kind in the US with over 130,000 attendees. (http://www.comic-con.org/) In the park across the street from the convention center and the event, there are 60 cement cubes in Children’s Park. I will be joining all of your squares together to create Rubiks cubes. The plan is to install it “guerrilla style” across the street from the convention center, in the middle of downtown San Diego. Each Rubiks Cube will be a different pattern to create a visually abstract appearance. To create these Rubiks cubes I will need 45 sqaures per cube. Although you do not need to use Red Heart yarn, I ask that you try to match as closely as possible to the colors listed. ANY BRAND of worsted acrylic yarn can be used as long as the colors match to keep it all cohesive. I would love for people to volunteer to make a cube!! I will attach a business card with “DONATED BY ___” on the cube(s) that you make. There are 45 squares to a cube and the pattern is very simple!
Link to color palette here.
YARN: RED HEART RED: Hot Red ID# 0390 (Super Saver) YELLOW: Bright Yellow ID# 0324 (Super Saver) ORANGE: Pumpkin ID# 0254 (Super Saver) GREEN: Paddy Green ID# 0368 (Super Saver) BLUE: Blue ID# 0886 (Super Saver) WHITE: White ID# 0311 (Super Saver)
For those not familiar with crochet or reading crochet patterns, I created a video explaining how to make the square needed for this project. http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&hl=en&client=mv-google&v=wXnK3V2zSzA&nomobile=1
CROCHET SQUARE PATTERN Hook: I
Form a magic ring OR ch 6 and join with SL ST
Round 1: Ch 3, *3 DC in ring, TR in ring, * repeat from * three more times, join with SL ST to the top of Ch 3
Round 2: Ch 3, * DC in each DC to TR, ( 2 DC, TR, 2 DC) in TR. Repeat from * three more times, join with SL ST to top of Ch 3
Repeat Rnd 2 until square reaches 7.5 inches (6 rounds) Finish off. Weaving ends optional.
SQUARES CAN BE MAILED TO: Crochet Grenade PO BOX 17188 San Diego CA 92177-7188. I will post pictures of submissions to the event page so that everyone gets credit for what they send.
List of all submissions sent by participants: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApDRRWFRF1SndHl5SXpod2E3VnQwaTd5czhlaFlTZXc#gid=0
The following link is to see the squares that are still needed. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApDRRWFRF1SndDBfT0xmTnVsVkdTV0RMUVljQjVpOVE#gid=0”
I am making nine white squares for this great yarnbomb, thereby covering one side of one rubiks cube. I thought I’d do white as that’s the safest colour if you don’t have access to Red Heart Super Saver yarn. Did you see how many squares are needed? Two Thousand Seven Hundred!!! This is a huge project, so if you have a minute to spare please do get involved.
crochetime 