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crochetime

~ So many patterns, so much yarn, so little time: story of my hooky life.

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Tag Archives: jan eaton

Jazzing up a skirt

15 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by Natasja in GIF, My crochet, My ramblings, Ta-daah!

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Around the corner crochet, crochet, crochet edge, customise, edging, jan eaton, skirt

So I have this thing for Boden A-line printed skirts, right. I already own three, yet every Winter I get a craving for another colourful, patterned skirt. It only happens in Winter, as Boden’s Winter A-line skirts are of a thicker cotton and the lining is silk (okay, probably a shiny polyester but it looks like silk) that doesn’t cling to tights. Their Summer skirts have a cotton lining that does not work well with tights (if you are as white pasty as I am you need flesh coloured tights in Summer) so I only buy their Winter skirts.

This year, the craving was for the Navy Flower Power skirt. I loved it so much, I even pinned it one of my Pinterest boards the moment I saw it online.

boden flower skirt

It’s as if it was made for me. The colour, the design, the everything! Only problem is that it was a bit pricey at £45 so I waited for the Winter sales. And I waited, and I waited.  Two months ago the little voice(s) in my head said “Go look on the Boden site. They might have a Sale on.” The voices were right. There it was. In my size for £24.50!

In real life it’s even more beautiful, but for some reason Boden decided to make the skirt about 2cm shorter than all their previous A-line printed skirts. That’s not a lot, but when you have ugly, white pasty knees, a knee length skirt that hangs ON your knee is not good. It has to be at least below your knee. What is a hooker to do? Oh I know! Crochet a pretty edge along the hem of the lining !!!!!!! Problem solved, and skirt improved.

Out comes the Skip-Stitch rotary cutter and trusty Around the Corner Crochet Borders book (you can find a link to the book on the right of this page). I chose Border No. 45 and green Sirdar Snuggly Baby Bamboo that I got on sale a while ago.

Here’s what I did:

1. I Used the Skip-Stitch blade to make the holes. One quick swipe by hubby while I keep the lining flat, and it’s done.

2. Next step is to make blanket stitches to give a base to crochet on. It’s perfectly all right to skip step. no. 1 if you use a sharp needle for the blanket stitches, but I wanted my holes to be evenly spaced, so I used the rotary cutter and then did the blanket stitches.

3. Then a row of sc. I managed to fit in two sc between each blanket stitch.(I blog in US crochet terms. For a guide to the difference between US and UK crochet stitches, see this handy cut-out by Freshstitches.)

4. As I need the edge to peek out below the hem of the skirt, and the lining is shorter than the skirt, I made 2 rows of *trebles, chain* to quickly make up the 2 cm difference between the lining and the hem.

5. One more row of sc, making one sc in the top of the treble and one in the space between two trebles.

By this stage the edge is already peeking out under the hem of the skirt.

6. Here’s where I started following the pattern for Border No. 45. It was at this point that I stopped for the skirt that I showed you last week.

7. This is the full edging, looking at the wrong side of the crochet. You can see where the edge of the skirt ends, which means I’ve added 4cm to the length, more than making up the 2cm it was too short!

And here it is, as seen from above (please excuse the ugly carpet. I took the photo in the office this morning.)

Ta-daaah, a customised Boden skirt!


Some notes:

You can use any edging / border pattern for your skirt. As long as you at least do steps no. 2 and 3, you can move on to any type of fancy frilly prettiness.

You can also do a crochet edge beautification of a skirt, straight onto the hem of the skirt if it doesn’t have a lining. I like the idea of the edge peeking out underneath, but I know most skirts don’t have linings. The only thing you will have to be aware of, is that your blanket stitching will be visible, so it’s important that those blanket stitches are evenly spaced.

In the first photo of this blogpost, I laid out two crochet hooks on the carpet. That’s because with the first skirt, I used two sizes of crochet hook. I used a 4mm hook up to step no. 5, and switched to a 5 mm hook for the edging. I was using Rowand Handknit cotton for that skirt, but seeing as the Sirdar Snuggly Baby Bamboo is finer than the Handknit cotton, I didn’t need to switch crochet hooks for this skirt.

Speaking of Baby Bamboo. Can I just say: Oh My Goodness! It’s the softest, loveliest yarn ever! My brain can’t work out how bamboo fibers can be turned into yarn, much less into the baby snuggly softness of this yarn.  I’ts bamboo! How is that possible?! Either way, I’m definitely going to use it again for something bigger. Definitely!

As you may have guessed, the skirt jazzing will not stop here. I have two more Boden skirts. Admittedly they are the right length, but a little crochet loving around the hemline is always welcome don’t you think? 😉

Roses And Daisies cushions ta-daaah!

20 Monday Feb 2012

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

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

crochet, cushions, jan eaton, roses and daisies

Here the are!!!!! The two cushions you’ve been seeing glimpses of over the last two months. It’s amazing what a difference these two colourful cushions have made to the brown couch.

Because the front and back of each one is different there are four different ways of displaying them on the couch alone!

I really can’t decide exactly where and how I want to display them. They were made for the couch, but they also look good on the chair in front of the window…

and on the storage box stools.

To recap the details of the cushions:

Front:

The flowery squares pattern is the Roses and Daisies Throw from Melody Griffiths book Crocheted Throws and Wraps. I made 16 squares for each cushion.

I used Rowan Handknit Cotton in Mist as the background colour. The flowers themselves are done in Rowan Handknit Cotton, Drops Paris and Stylecraft Cotton Classique in various bright shades.

To join the 16 squares for each front panel, as well as to join the front panel to the back panel, I used Lucy’s method, which you can find here.

Back:

Chocolate Box from Jan Eaton’s book 200 Crochet Blocks.

There are links to both the books on the right of the blog.

Hubby really loves the cushions. He even helped to choose the colour and sequence of stripes for the chocolate box squares for the back. He loves the bright turquoise, so I used it as the last round for one cushion. When it came to doing the second back, I was asked to please add more red because he really likes the bright red. So sweet! Out of the two cushions he has “called dibs”  on the one with the turquoise back.

When I have to arrange crochet pieces I always do the arranging on the coffee table. I’d arrange, walk away, come back, swap them around, walk away, make a cup of tea, come back and arrange some more. Eventually I’d declared “I’m happy” and then start crocheting the pieces together.

Well… on Friday evening I was in the kitchen after having declared “I’m happy” when Hubby walks in.

He says “I think we need to talk about the squares”, takes my hand and walks me to the coffee table.

“Those two bother me. It’s too  much green together. We have to fix it”.

Aaaaaah, bless! I gave him the biggest hug ever and we started to swap and rearrange squares until it was perfect. That’s how we spent our Friday evening. The hooker and her amazing husband.

Even though he really loves the striped stopper, the identify crisis blanket and now these two cushions he asked me to please stop making things for the house now because “I can feel my manhood slipping away”. Those were his exact words.

Our house is really very small so these bright, hard to ignore crochet items really pack a punch when you walk into a room. I totally get what he’s saying. It’s only the two of us and, well, he has to live here as well. And it’s not as if he’s unsupportive or forbids me from crocheting at all. He just knows his wife (and I think he’s seen my queue on Ravelry which might have scared him a bit.)

As he suggested, I’ll focus on cardigans and sweaters for myself or gifts for others for now. At least for the forseeable future (read: At least until next Winter when I might be able to convince him that we need a afghan to liven up the brown couch a bit more…)

Until then, we’re enjoying our lovely, bright, cheerful cushions.

Terrific Tuesday

14 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, My ramblings, Terrific Tuesdays

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

200 crochet blocks, chocolate box, crochet, jan eaton, stripe, 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 every Tuesday and find us a pretty picture to add colour and joy to the day.

xxxxxx

This is the back of one of the Roses and Daisies cushions. Isn’t it totally cheery?! The pattern is called Chocolate Box  from trusty ole Jan Eaton’s 200 Crochet Blocks (you can find a link to the book on the right of this page). I was about three rounds in on this one, when I knew I was going to HAVE to make a whole blanket out of Chocolate Box blocks some time very soon. It’s just too good not to – much like a box of chocolates…

Chocolate Box square

Seeing as its Valentines Day, here’s a another chocolates box for all you hookers to get your teeth hooks into – crochet style!

Source: toinenkerros.wordpress.com via Kitiza on Pinterest

I hope you all have a terrific Tuesday and a surprising Valentines Day!

Natasja

Crochet cushions and a handy Flickr feature

27 Thursday Oct 2011

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, My ramblings

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

200 crochet blocks, crochet, cushions, Flickr, jan eaton

Two cushions by Natasja & John
Two cushions, a photo by Natasja & John on Flickr.

Apologies people, but I’m just testing out Flickr’s cool feature where you can post a photo from your Flickr account directly to WordPress.

If this works, you would probably want to know a bit more about these cushions. Well, I made them for my brother way back in March. I used Stylecraft Special DK and the eight blocks are from Jan Eaton’s (brilliant, fanastic, addictive) 200 Crochet Blocks book (you can find a link to the book on the right of this page). The squares are: Big Round, Lacy Cross, Begonia, Mesh Fantasy, Edwardian Fantasy, Catherine Wheel and Circle In Square.

Okay here goes, I’m going to hit the Post button and see what happens…

Update: It worked! Yeah!

Larger than Life handbag

18 Tuesday Oct 2011

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, My ramblings, Pattern

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

200 crochet blocks, crochet, handbag, Interweave Crochet, jan eaton, Larger Than Life Bag

My husband and I visited Hampton Court palace on Sunday and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. My handbag of choice for the day was my Larger Than Life crochet handbag. Looking back at the photos of the day I realised, once again, what a thing of beauty it is. Seriously. I’m not even afraid of sounding vain because I’m just totally in love with my crochet handbag.

In this photo I’m wearing a Green Velvet Travelling Cloak, courtesy of Hampton Court Palace. Its soooo much fun and it really gets you into the spirit of (Tudor) things, but what stands out in this photo, is the handbag.

Now that I’ve whet your appetite, you probably want to know a bit more about this bag. It’s official name is the Larger Than Life Bag by Cecily Keim. Mine is done in Rowan Handknit cotton, the blocks are “Willow” from Jan Eaton’s book 200 Crochet Blocks, and instructions for the construction of the bag, as well as the Willow pattern, is published in the Interweave Crochet magazine – Spring 2007. You can see more of these Larger Than Life bags in the Flickr group.

I loved, loved, loved crocheting the blocks and playing with the colour combinations. I was very scared of the sewing involved in turning the crochet blocks into a proper handbag. Luckily I have an amazing husband who helped me every step of the way. We finished the bag on 7 March 2010 and I couldn’t be prouder.

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If you want to make a crochet statement and scarfs are not doing it for you anymore, have a go at this bag. You can’t go wrong!

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