Zigzag wrist warmers pattern

27 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by Natasja in Etsy, My crochet, Pattern

Tags

chevron, crochet, crochet pattern, fingerless gloves, wrist warmers, wristies

It’s officially Spring in the UK. The daffodils are out, pink and white blossoms can be seen on the shrubs, bright green new leaves are just about sprouting and ye, my hands were freezing on the walk home from the station last night. Of course I didn’t have any gloves with me – see the first sentence. What I need to carry with me for these in-between seasons is something to keep my hands warm yet not be a full-on woolen glove.

What oh what could that be? Oh, I know! The pair of zigzag wrist warmers that I crocheted on Saturday!

This pair.

crochet with fingerless gloves

See how great they are for getting on with things like crocheting and drinking coffee? My fingers can roam freely to do all manner of practical things, yet I ~~look~~ feel super funky while I’m doing it.

I’m a bit obsessed with chevrons lately. I’ve always loved stripes, so a pointy stripe is like striking gold. I love the ups and downs, the zigs and the zags.

Would you like to make a pair of chevron wrist warmers too? You’re in luck. Not only did I make myself a pair on Saturday I also wrote down the pattern and listed it in my Etsy shop! You can buy it for a mere £2.50. Just click on the photo below or on this link to go straight to the pattern. The pattern is downloadable as a .pdf file so you’ll get it straight away.

Just a word of warning. You may end up looking like you have broken your wrist when you try one your first wrist warmer. Don’t let the OnlyOneWristWarmerLook put you off off wristies. Once you’ve made the second one the look comes together beautifuly. Certainly don’t show your husband the first one and ask him how it looks because you will, I guarantee it, be the butt of a Michael Jackson joke.

Zigzag scarf pattern and a bit about ice cream

17 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, Pattern

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

chevron, crochet, crochet pattern

Do you remember my Sunset Shades Scarf? The one I made with the Vinnis Nikkim cotton yarn that my mom gave me which kicked off my love of Vinnis yarn? I blogged about that beautiful zig zag scarf way back in January and said that I will be writing up the pattern soon. “Soon” turned out to be two months later (whoops) but it’s done now and available to purchase in my Etsy shop!

I tried to make the pattern as easy as possible to follow. There are “Good To Know” and “Handy Tips” scattered throughout. There’s even links to two YouTube videos that will show you how to start the chevron and make Long SC stitches.

The magic thing about this scarf is the way the colours blend into each other so I took my time to write a pattern that would explain these colour changes as best I could. The scarf uses 10 shades (two of which are repeated within one colour sequence) so I had to keep my wits about me when I wrote the pattern! That, paired with all the hexagon joining of the Crochet For Kidneys Part 2 blankets, is the reason for the two month delay. Hopefully it will be worth the wait.

Scarf pattern collage

In my efforts to make the pattern easy to follow, each row is written in a font colour similar to the colour of the yarn. Bearing that in mind, do you see all the white, very light grey and light yellow in my scarf? It would have been impossible to read text in those colours printed on white paper, so I created a different colour scheme to write the pattern. The example is there in the bottom left of the photo above.

Do those colour also remind you of Neapolitan ice cream? It’s the pink and brown (or should I say strawberry and chocolate) that does it for me and brings back wonderful childhood memories of enjoying Gatti’s Neapolitan ice cream. (South African blog readers will know Gatti ice cream). A big bowl full of “that stripy ice cream” after Sunday lunch was such a treat. To me chocolate, vanilla or strawberry ice cream was okay on their own, but put them together and suddenly they became cool and made desert taste ten times better.

The same applies to the zigzag scarf pattern. Lots of colours in lots of stripes makes for a scarf ten times better than any other. I hope you enjoy it just as much as I enjoyed Neapolitan ice cream.

*******

Chevron Zig Zag scarf

£3.50 on Etsy

Available as an instant download .pdf file

Sunset Shades chevron scarf ta-daaaah

17 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, Ta-daah!

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

chevron, crochet scarf

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.

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.

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.

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?

Terrific Tuesday

17 Tuesday Sep 2013

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, Terrific Tuesdays

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

chevron, crochet, crochet scarf, Vinnis

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

My Sunset Shades chevron scarf in the making. Perfect for a burst of colour on a Tuesday isn’t it? There are four more colours in the scarf which I haven’t photographed yet. I’m using Vinnis Nikkim 100 % cotton DK yarn. The colours that you see here (from right to left) are Stone, Baby Yellow, Ballet Pink, Peach and Red Violet and Natural. All credit should go to my Mom who gave me a bag of Vinnis Nikkim when I went to visit her in Cape Town earlier this year. She chose the colours – I just had to put them together. You’ve got a great eye for colour Mom!

I’m writing up the pattern and colour sequence for this scarf so you’ll be able to make one for yourself too! Would you want to make your scarf in exactly these colours? I’d love to hear from you.

Wishing you all a Terrific Tuesday

Natasja