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crochetime

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

crochetime

Tag Archives: knitting and crochet blog week

Crafting balance

29 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by Natasja in My ramblings

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

3KCBWDAY7, crochet, knitting and crochet blog week

Do I have a balanced craft life? No. Hell no! For me it’s all about the hook.

I do know how to knit though. I was taught to knit in school and my mom knits. But to me knitting is just a bit boring and everyone does it.

I think Stephanie of ObeyCrochet feels the same way as I do.

There are machines that can replicate knitting, whereas no machine can truely replicate crochet. I like to be a bit different and I’m proud of the fact that I use yarn in a way that no machine can.

I also can’t imagine my life without a granny square. Really. That would just be unthinkable!

Crafting balance. Hmpfh, what crafting balance?

Improving my crochet skill set

28 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by Natasja in My ramblings

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

3KCBWDAY6, crochet, knitting and crochet blog week

I’ve been crocheting since August 2009 and to date I haven’t had a single lesson from a real person.  I’m not trying to impress when I tell you this, to me that means that there are quite possibely a whole list of things I’m doing wrong – but I wouldn’t even know it! Hahaha. Ignorance is bliss hey.

I’m happy with how my crochet skills have progressed and I think my crochet is neat and pleasant on the eye. A lot of what I know, I learned because I fell in love with a pattern and was forced to learn to do whatever the pattern asked me to do.

My skills in finding help and instrcutions through Google, is my saving grace (and my teacher). So many people share their knowledge that nothing really stands in my way when I want to try something new. I’m so grateful to the internet for being my teacher.

Having said that, I would like to attend a crochet class of some kind. Maybe not the basics of crochet as I think I’ve mastered that, but I am interested in learning how to shape wearables. A lot of the crochet patterns that I fall in love with turns out to be quite boxy which puts me off from actually making them as they will make me look too… well, boxy.

I’ll give you an example.

The Vogue Crochet Special Collectors Issue 2012 preview was launched a couple of days ago. (The magazine itself will only be availbe in store, and in electronic form, on 8 May.) I almost wet myself when I saw the pictures. Honestly. I was saying yes, yes, yes to almost everything I saw.

BUT, on closer inspection I had to ask myself how many of these beautiful things would I really wear, so that narrowed it down a bit. I was left with these as possible contenders for adding yarn to hook.

They’re stunning aren’t they? At first glance that is.

The first one is very interesting. However the neckline is very wide and off the shoulder, but I guess you could change that when you sew the front to the back at the shoulder seams.

The second one is Doris Chan design which is so pretty. However, it goes over the hips and my dear hips don’t need any more attention drawn to them, so I would have to adjust the pattern. The top is wonderfully shaped and nipped in at the waist so it won’t be a simple case of just making it shorter, you would have to know how to shorten it whilst retaining the nipped in waist.

The third and fourth are my favourites and the ones I initally thought I would definitely make. But they’re boxy and square which does not suit my body shape. I’m a pear shape, so I need definition in the waist, otherwise I end up looking like a milk carton.

The only one I could see myself making is the last one. But would I want to buy the whole magazine, only for one pattern?

If I could however figure out how to add, or change, waist shaping of a crochet pattern it would be a no brainer – that magazine would be mine!

I would love to learn how to do shaping face-to-face, but in the absence of a class I went to my virtual teacher: Google.  Guess what I found.  This excellent article on the crochetMe website that explains exactely how to adjust a pattern to include waist shaping. It’s actually precisely what I wanted!!!! (By the way, they also have an article on adding bust shaping to crochet here).

I started off this blog post with the idea that I will be left with this one crochet skill that I won’t be able to learn without face to face action, and yet again, the internet came to the rescue.

I guess my crochet learing process looks something like this:

Fall in love with pattern + Google search = another skill learned = Happy Hooker

Roll on 8 May, cause Vogue Crochet Special Collectors Issue 2012, you’re mine!

Something a bit different

27 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by Natasja in GIF, My ramblings

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

3KCBWDAY5, crochet, GIF, knitting and crochet blog week

I’m a Hooker and this is what I’m made of.

If you liked this post, you can nominate it to win a prize, here.

My perfect crafting day

26 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by Natasja in My ramblings

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

3KCBWWC, crochet, knitting and crochet blog week

My perfect crafting day would start by waking up later than usual, but not too late. I think 8am is a good time. First drink of the day will be tea with soya milk (as usual) accompanied by a full English breakfast. All of this will be served to me whilst in bed, paging through a crochet magazine. *It’s my perfect day, so calories and fat content will not be taken into consideration today.

I’ll get dressed (wearing as much crocheted items as possible) to go to a Manor House with big garden in the countryside for a crochet get-together with fellow crafters and hookers. Of course, transport to the Manor House will have to be as effortless as possible. I’m thinking chauffeur driven car. No train or bus for me thank you!

My guests would be the ladies I’ve come to know on Facebook, WordPress and Blogger.  These virtual friends would include all my blog followers, Cornel and Christelle from South Africa, Gerlene from Ireland, Lynn from Lancashire. I’d also like to meet Lucy of Attic24, Stephanie of ObeyCrochet, Meredith of OneSheepishGirl and La of LittleMessyLa. My artist friend Tia and of course, my Mom, has to be there as well. Can you image the fun we’d all have together?

The venue would have to provide us with an unlimited supply of tea, scones, clotted cream, finger sandwiches and lots of cake.  See * above. The drinks and eats will of course be free – our mere presence in their venue is payment enough.

After a long crochet and crafting session, in keeping with the English theme, we’d all go off to the Rowan yarn factory shop (I don’t think it exists – I’ve Googled it so many times but with no success) where we’d buy lots and lots of yarn for next-to-nothing. A Rowan designer will then custom design a cardigan for each of us and give us the yarn to crochet the item, for free.

At the end of a long day of crochet fun, we’d go out for a fabulous meal and arrange to do it all again next week.

What do you think? Are you up for it? Of course you are!

My crochet hero

25 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by Natasja in My ramblings

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

3KCBWDAY3, crochet, knitting and crochet blog week, yarn

My crochet hero isn’t a single person. In fact it’s not a person at all. I’ts the yarn company Garnstudio, DROPS Design.

They’re my hero for having 529 crochet patterns on their website. For free. That’s just amazing! Okay, I know it’s in their interest to supply patterns to use with their yarn, but still. It’s free! They also don’t have any guarantee that everyone that downloads a pattern, will use Garnstudio yarn, so I think they’re super nice.

When you visit their website you can search for a pattern using this link. Just choose “crochet” as your pattern type. You can of course narrow down the search further if you’re looking for something specific.

As for their yarn: I’m a huge fan. They have an excellent range of yarns and each brand of yarn has a huge, oh so lovely, colour range to choose from.

I’ve used Drops Delight, Drops Paris, Drops BabyAlpaca Silk and Drops Cotton Viscose and I love them all.

I think my favourite has to be the BabyAlpaca Silk that I used for the Whispers Cardigan. The cardigan is a Garnstudio pattern, so it was a very good match and I think it’s part of the reason why my cardigan came out so lovely. The pattern and the yarn were definitely made for each other.

Drops yarn is also extremely affordable which is definitely heroic.

The DROPS Price policy is to always be 20-30 % below the general market price level. To make sure our customers benefit from this, the DROPS yarn is always marketed with a price guarantee, we call the max price. Max price is a guarantee from our retailers to our customers that the DROPS products are sold at these prices, or less.

Not only do the Garnstudio website have all the lovely patterns, they have crochet tutorial videos. The videos are without commentary so anyone, no matter what language, can follow the videos and learn something new.  There are five pages of videos! I especially like this technique of joining granny squares with a zig zag pattern.

What more do you want? Lots of beautiful crochet patterns, videos to refer to when you get stuck and an amazing selection of yarn at a very reasonable price.

Garnstudio DROPS Design = my hero.

P.S. From 1 – 30 May, 24 of the Garnstudio Drops yarns are on sale at 30% discount (see the list of yarn and discounted prices here) and until 30 April Drops Cotton Light is 25% off. What did I say about affordable yarn?!

Go forth and purchase ye Hookers.

Photography challenge

24 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by Natasja in My ramblings

≈ 21 Comments

Tags

3KCBWDAY2, crochet, knitting and crochet blog week

Granny never got to see me make granny squares.

Colour Lover

23 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by Natasja in My crochet, My ramblings

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

3KCBWDAY1, colourful, crochet, knitting and crochet blog week

I’m a colour lover. No doubt about it. More is more, the brighter the better, if the colour combo gives you a headache that’s good I say.

Look at my stash of cotton yarn. Need I say more?

Even in the way I dress, I just HAVE to add colour. Today for instance I didn’t want to think about what to wear (we all get those days don’t we) so I’m wearing black trousers and a black shirt…. with turquoise shoes and earrings. I just can’t help it – I need to add a bit of colour.

I do have a palette that I instinctively stick to when I buy clothes or yarn for wearables. Mostly blues, greens and purples. By now my wardrobe is so colour co-ordinated that I can go into any shop and buy what I’m naturally drawn to – cool colours like blue, green, purple – and find that it will always match at least three other items in my wardrobe so I can mix and match to my heart’s content. I really love that! If you want to get technical, that means I like to dress in a Analogous color scheme.

When it comes to choosing a colour palette for a crochet item, key to me, is contrast. Colours have to “pop”.

Almost every colour combo in the squares of this Roses and Daisies cushion “pops” against the very light grey background and against each other

As I like contrast, and I’m naturally drawn to green/blue/purple I sometimes have to use warm colours like red, pink, yellow or orange to create the contrast although those are not colours that I especially like. I especially don’t like pink so I try to use as little as possible of it in my own crochet.

However, for the granny square cushion I’m making for Lynn Holland I’ve used three shades of pink for contrast. I have to say it does work well. On it’s own pink is a no-no for me, but mixed up in a rainbow of others, it does serve its contrasting purpose.

See how the pink makes the colour next to it stand out? I just love how that works!

20120422-163650.jpg

If you still don’t think I’m a colour lover, check out my nails. Case. And point.

20120421-112700.jpg

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week

19 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by Natasja in My ramblings

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

knitting and crochet blog week

As from Monday I will be blogging every day as part of Eskimimimakes’ Knitting and Crochet Blog Week. If you want to take part as well, you can find all the information here.

The blog week is in its third year and this year there will even be prizes! I’m donating a clock and a copy of the clock pattern, which I’m very excited about.

Here’s a list of all the topics that I, and numerous other craft bloggers, will be blogging about next week.  Each day, and therefor each topic, has a tag allocated to it. You can type the tag into Google to find all the blog posts that relate to that day’s topic. Nifty innit?

If you have a blog, join in the fun! If not, type in any of the tags into Google  to find other interesting knit and crochet blogs for you to follow (once Blog Week has commenced of course).

It’s going to a fun week next week!

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