A river runs through it

This is my version of a pattern called the ‘Rivers shawl‘ by Rich Textures Crochet:

It’s a relatively straightforward pattern to make, but doesn’t appear so from the instructions! I bought the pattern from Etsy in the hope that it would contain a chart, which it didn’t, so for those of you who would find one helpful here is mine:

The pattern repeat is 16 stitches, plus one extra stitch at each end of the scarf. I started with a chain of 227, to make 226 stitches. This is 14 pattern repeats plus 2. At the beginning and end of each row I just added one extra stitch with no chain before it, and turned. This is not quite what the instructions tell you to do, but it does keep it simple!

The blue scarf is in Drops Big Merino, and the autumn colourway is a West Yorkshire Spinners Aire Valley aran. Both are now discontinued. I used a 6mm hook and the scarves took just over 2 100g balls of yarn each. They are 9 ‘waves’ wide, 14 ‘waves’ long and measure 156 x 24 cm.

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Boho Spirit tiny squares scarf

Inspired by this post from Marion at Wool Thread Paint I have made a version of her granny scarf:

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Mine is made in Cygnet Boho Spirit ‘Folk’ (6464) and Scheepjes Merino soft Velazquez (650) on a 4.5mm hook. It is 21 squares long x 3 squares wide, and took 100g of the variegated yarn and 130g of the plain joining yarn. The finished scarf measures 125 x 19cm and weighs 230g.

In Marion’s version she has continued with the variegated yarn around the border of her squares, but I wanted a border colour that would give contrast throughout the length of the scarf, and for me this works.

I would certainly be up for trying another colourway, perhaps in King Cole Riot, which has slightly longer yardage than Boho spirit ( 294m compared to 240m) and also some warming wool content! Anyone want to commission one?

Zandra Rhodes Forest Stripes scarf

I have been meaning to have a go at some deliberate ‘colour pooling’ of variegated yarn for a while, and this is my first attempt at a striped scarf made from Zandra Rhodes Colour lab DK:

I chose Forest Stripes (1032) and Cerise Pink (0539) and added some Drops cotton merino Navy (08) plus some scraps from stash into the mix. My scarf is 26 stitches wide, made in (UK) double crochet on a 4.5mm hook. It measures 130 x 15 cm and used 85g of the variegated wool plus about 25g each of the solid colours.

The most successful parts of the scarf are 6 row blocks of solid colour followed by a random number of stripes until I needed to break the yarn. The colour lab DK is 100% wool and does not have the stitch definition of the cotton-merino yarn, and lots of single stripes together can look a bit ‘muddy’.

One trick that I used was to decrease hook size for the last few stitches of a row if it looked like I was going to be short of a particular colour. I also designated part of the scarf as the middle, and worked outwards from both ends, which gave me a bit more confidence when I was ‘randomly’ choosing colours as I knew the scarf would be broadly symmetrical when it was finished.

Thanks to West Yorkshire Spinners for such a reliably spaced colour-changing yarn, and to Zandra Rhodes for the brave colourway!

Uist Wool cowls

We had a wee jaunt to Uist last week and I came back with some lovely yarn-cakes made of various shades of their undyed wool. This is what I have made with them:

They are Moebius cowls and I am very pleased with how they have turned out. They are based on the Laura Cracknell’s PPHOP pattern and each cowl took just over 40g of yarn.

I have made a couple of these in other thicknesses of yarn so for reference my starting chain plus foundation row is 58cm long. For Chunky yarn I use an 8mm hook and chain 71, for aran yarn a 6mm hook and chain 91, and for the Uist wool dk a 5mm hook and chain 99. The chunky yarn has only two rows of lattice in the first block, aran and dk yarns have three rows as per the pattern.

A riot of a scarf

I had this idea that I might be in need of some mindless crochet to see me through a period of recuperation, and bought some yarn for a project that I thought would fit the bill:

The yarn is King Cole Riot in colour ‘Stormy’ (3079) and I made a corner to corner scarf with it. The scarf is 17 ‘squares’ across, which gave me a width of 22cm using a 4.5mm hook, and I kept going until it was 130cm long. It took 200g of yarn.

It’s not the first C2C scarf I have made (see here, here and here) and it won’t be the last as I am afraid I over-purchased on the yarn!

Rainbow ripple scarves

These are made from some rather lovely (and expensive!) lambswool.

Made in Kinross 4-ply superfine lambswool in Navy (18) and a set of Rainbow mini-skeins.

Each scarf took 10g each of the seven rainbow colours plus 30g of Navy. They are made on a 4mm hook and are 3 ripples wide, and 6 rainbow-repeats long. They measure 124cm x 19cm, and weigh 100g.

Charity scarves

One of the nice things about winter is that I get a chance to work through some of the stash that has built up over the course of my crochet year, and making scarves for charity is probably my favourite way to do this.

These ones are made in: Stylecraft Batik Elements Platinum (1935) with Debbie Bliss Rialto Lake (23086) and Sea Green (23081); King Cole Drifter Utah (1358) with Rowan Wool Cotton Smalt and Skipper; and King Cole Drifter Kansas (1373) with too many scraps to remember!

My general strategy is to put together 100g of scrap yarn, choose a variegated yarn in co-ordinating colours and make a 30 stitch wide scarf in (UK) double crochet alternating between the scrap and variegated colours every two rows. The variegated yarn is a constant throughout the scarf, and the scrap colours are changed every 2, 3 or 5 stripes depending on what proportion of each colour I have available. You might notice that there are little loops of yarn being carried over going along one side of the scarf, which cuts down on the weaving in of ends considerably and makes the scarf no less warm or cosy.

They will be going to Knit for Peace who now have a database of local centres who will accept knitted donations.

Pip Colourwork scarf

I have waited ages for a sunny day to take a photo of this and used a brief window of opportunity this morning…

Made in Baa Ram Ewe’s Pip Colourwork in Bishopthorpe (020), North Sea (026) and Brass Band (021) on a 4mm hook. The wave pattern is Attic 24’s neat ripple pattern and the scarf is 3 ripples wide (using a starting chain of 45) and 45 wide stripes long. It weighs 107g and took about 35g of each of the three colours of yarn.

I believe this yarn is now discontinued, which seems a shame as it was available in a lovely range of colours, and is one of the few genuinely British yarns – spun and dyed in Yorkshire.

More scrappy scarves

My second go at making some scarves from scrap yarn.

These ones are made in: Rowan wool cotton bronze (967) and Oxblood (989) with King Cole Drifter Montana (3039).

Drops cotton merino navy (08) and Rowan wool cotton French navy (909) with King Cole Drifter Utah (1358);

Rowan wool cotton Grand (954) and Bilberry (969) with Drops merino extra fine Amethyst (36) and Stylecraft batik elements Galium (1939)

The top one has a definite Hogwarts feel to me!

All are made on a 4.5mm hook in double crochet and are 30 stitches wide. They use 100g of wool-cotton and about 85g of variegated yarn.

Scrappy scarves

One of the things that I really enjoy doing is putting different colours together, and what better opportunity could there be for that than making some scarves from left-over yarn?

I have used different variegated yarns as a way of bringing the scrap colours together. The scarves are made in UK double crochet, and are 30 stitches (18cm) wide and roughly 130cm long. They used 100g of wool-cotton dk and about 70g of variegated yarn each.

My colour combinations so far are: Rowan wool cotton Coffee (956) with King Cole Drifter Kentucky (1356); Rowan wool cotton Rich (911) with Stylecraft Batik elements Magnesium (1940) and Rowan wool cotton Gypsy, Grand and Frozen (910, 954 and 977) with King Cole Drifter Kansas (1373) – that one had a lot of ends to sew in!

The scrappiest of scarves

This is a truly scrappy project – made with left-over yarn from at least two projects:

It’s made in Corner to Corner crochet in bands of 3-row stripes. I used a 7mm hook, and the scarf is 9 ‘squares’ wide and 28 ‘stripes’ long. It weighs 265g (so each stripe used roughly 10g of yarn) and is 17cm wide x 160cm long

The yarn is Drops Alaska in Dark blue (37), Navy blue (12), Denim blue (57), Mustard (58), Off white (02), Grey mix (04), Dark grey mix (05) and possibly some others!

It is perhaps not the most classic of colour combinations (!) but it will be sent to Knit for Peace shortly – and I have no doubt that it will keep someone cosy in the cold.

Yarn Art Flowers XY scarf

This is the first of my finished projects since establishing the ‘Rule of four‘:

The pattern is the XY scarf by Mijo Crochet. Made in Yarn Art Flowers shade 263. It comes as a 250g cake and is 55% cotton, 45% Pac (which I think may be polyacrylic). I made mine on a 4mm hook. It is an asymmetric triangle shape – 156cm along the base and 82cm high. 

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.

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.

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??

March challenge – Happy scrappy scarf

At first sight this scarf might not look like a challenge at all. I have after all made rather a lot of corner-to-corner scarves already, so what is special about this one?

Well to start with none of the yarn was mine, I was using up a friend’s stash, and so the colour palette is hers. Secondly I didn’t buy a single scrap of yarn to add to the project, so there was no background base-colour that I knew would bring everything together. Finally the scarf has 12 different colours of yarn in it, including different textures and weights and in very varied quantities.

So what do I think I achieved? The thing I am most pleased with is that to me the scarf has a cohesiveness that does not suggest that it was made of scraps. There is a loose six-stripe repeat, which allowed me to space out the dominant red and turquoise colours evenly between some more neutral shades, and finally I used pretty much every scrap of yarn that there was!

I have shown the scarf to my friend, and she is pleased with it, and with her agreement it will soon be winging its way to Knit for Peace. They currently have an appeal out for items suitable for teenage boys – and I am hoping that this will fit the bill.

February challenge – Going to Skye scarf

Based on Cherry Heart’s Going to Wales scarf, this one has been rather more locally made…

I am not very proficient at reading written patterns so it was lucky for me that some kind soul had drawn out a chart for it on Ravelry. There is a slight error on the chart which shows the loop between trebles on row three as three chains whereas the written pattern says five, but it was a godsend. Oh and I did miss out the edging row as to be honest the edges seem fine as they are. Made in Louisa Harding Amitola (80% wool, 20% silk) on a 4mm hook. The colour is number 136 which seems to be called ‘Hook’ for no obvious reason. I thought that the yarn was 4-ply and although it is described as DK on-line I was not short on yardage at all.

As this post is my February challenge I should explain what was new for me – I have never made a ‘lacy’ or open-work pattern before, I had to match the colour sequence over two 50g balls of yarn, and I did have to read a written pattern even though I had help from the chart. That’ll do for now!

Bee scarf

You may remember the lovely balls of Jamiesons Shetland wool that I was given for Christmas, and if so the colourway of this scarf will come as no surprise:

Made in Jamiesons Shetland spindrift Mogit (107), Moorit (118) and Scotch Broom (1160)on a 4mm hook. The wave pattern is Attic 24’s neat ripple pattern and the scarf is 3 ripples wide (starting chain of 45) and 45 wide ripples long. It took most of 6 x 25g balls of yarn although obviously I could have made it longer and used it all.

I think there is a definite bee vibe going on there!

Wizard scarf

Time for Sheep to venture out in the snow again with another scarf:

Made in King Cole Riot ‘Wizard’ using the corner to corner technique on a 4.5mm hook.
The scarf took 2 x 100g balls and measures 132 x 24cm.

Sheep in the snow

There is no need to worry about this sheep’s welfare. He is just outside modelling my latest corner to corner scarf, and then I promise he will be back in the warm again!

Made in King Cole Riot ‘foliage’ on a 4.5mm hook. The scarf is 17 squares wide and 88 squares long, and it took approx. 185g of yarn.