May challenge – Ric rac blanket

I came across this lovely stitch pattern on the Happy in Red blog, and then found the pattern for sale by Yummy Yarn and co.

It is a very simple but effective two row repeat, and I think it would lend itself to a lot of different colourways. Mine is 13 motifs wide (I think I started with a chain of 107) and 16 coloured stripes long. The finished blanket is 64 x 53cm and weighs 270g.

Made in Drops cotton merino off white (01), Wendy merino DK corn (2406) and fennel (2382), and Debbie Bliss Rialto DK Apricot (088). It took one ball of each of the three colours and three balls of the off white.

I did have major problems keeping my tension the same – which I can only put down to learning a new stitch. But a little light blocking saved the day!

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Bertie goes to sea

A rather satisfying make using more of my Rowan wool-cotton stash:

Made in Rowan wool cotton dk antique (900), clear (941), celadon (979) and cypress (968) on a 5mm hook.

April challenge – Reflections shawl

I came across this crochet pattern by Ana D on Ravelry, and it seemed to suit some yarn that I had in my stash admirably..

The variegated yarn is Kunstgarn which is a Danish sock yarn – 75% superwash wool 25% nylon. Mine is colour 28 which is apparently called ‘ceramic’. I bought some Scheepjes Our tribe which is 70% superwash merino 30% polyamide in colour 884 ‘Iris Garden’ as the base colour, and made the shawl on a 4mm hook. It took about 150g of the base colour and 100g of sock wool, and measures 130 x 66cm.

Now I have a difficult decision to make – do I wear it or sell it??

Eight is a lot of legs

I came across some mini balls of Ricorumi recently, and somehow they said ‘octopus’ to me…

Made in Ricorumi DK cotton in Rose (008), Vanilla (005) and Light blue (033) on a 4mm hook. I used the pattern by crochetforbabies and had a bit to spare from each 25g ball. I would happily make more – my only problem is there are 60 shades to choose from!

Today I learned…

This is one of my son’s favourite sayings, but it is very appropriate to today’s post, as I was lucky enough to learn how to make this at a crochet workshop recently:

I was taught by a lovely lady named Claire from Cookston crafts who ran the workshop at the recent Dornoch Fibre fest. I am not sure of it is going to be a flower pot holder, or hook holder, or cache pot, but regardless of its ultimate use in the process of making it I learned how to do tapestry crochet, weave ends in invisibly, and neaten up my colour changes! Thank you Claire.

Made in James C Brett Noodles, colours N5 (turquoise) and N7 (grey) on a 4mm hook.

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March challenge – Ombre baby blanket

This months challenge is a stash busting project believe it or not!

Made in Rowan wool cotton dk on a 5mm hook. The colours are frozen (977), grand (954) and antique (900). It looks like this yarn has been discontinued by Rowan, so this is definitely a one-off.

The stitch is Three-colour fan stitch (from Betty Barnden’s book ‘Handbook of Crochet stitches’) also known as shell stitch and it lends itself very well to this three colour ombre combination.

I started with a 91 stitch chain to give 15 shells across the blanket and made it 71 shells long. It measures 72 x 55cm and weighs 315g. I actually think I used 3 balls of each of the colours but I must have had quite a bit of the paler ones left at the end. I would certainly use the stitch again, and would be interested in doing a real stash busting blanket in random coloured stripes.

One for the boys

Couldn’t resist the temptation to make another Bertie baby blanket in Drops cotton merino, and this time it’s one for the boys:

The colours are cream, ice blue, light grey and jeans blue and I used a 5mm hook, starting with a chain of 91 stiches to make a 9 motif wide blanket. The final blanket measures 77 x 60cm and took 4 balls of cream, and just over 1 ball of each of the blue colours, and weighs 350g.

And I managed to take a photo in some spring sunshine!