July challenge – Linen drape shawl

This month’s challenge was ready a wee while ago, but the sunshine to photograph it in has only just arrived!

I used Tamara Kelly’s Chevron lace fingerless mitts pattern as my starting point and added a row of double crochet in Natural between each pair of coloured rows:

To keep the Natural rows the same width visually they all had to start on the same side of the scarf, so there were times when I didn’t turn at the end of a row, but worked over the previous row in the same direction in order to achieve this.

Made in Stylecraft Linen drape Coral (3906), Peacock (3905), Lime (3902) and Natural (3901) on a 4.5mm hook. I started with a chain of 64 to give me three pattern repeats and the finished shawl is 28 x 156cm. It used 1 ball of each of the 4 colours – with a bit to spare.

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June challenge – Moebius strip cowl

Have you heard of ‘pennies per hour of pleasure’? It’s an initiative set up to raise funds for Medecins sans Frontieres for their charitable work. Designers donate a knitting or crochet pattern, and people who use the pattern donate a sum in proportion to the pleasure they got from making it. The pattern I chose is the Moebius cowl by Laura Cracknel, and this is how it turned out:

The cowl on the on the left in Drops Big Delight colour 16 ‘Blackberry’ and the one on the right is made in West Yorkshire Spinners Fusions Aran colour 862 ‘Autumn mix’, both on a 6mm hook. I started with a chain of 90 stitches and each cowl weighs 75g.

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!

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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