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.
Thanks to Lucy at Attic24, who posted this tutorial on joining squares, I have had my first go at sewing (rather than crocheting) squares together.
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Made in Rico baby classic dk on a 5mm hook, using light green, light blue, light grey, blue, turquoise, and ice blue. I like the spring colours. and the joining method is something new to add to my toolkit!
I have been thinking a bit about blogging, why it makes such a difference to the whole creative process, and how Lucy’s Mandala project symbolises it all for me.
You may remember my own mandala, packed up and sent to Lucy some time ago:
You might not know that she was kind enough to include it in one of her blog posts along with some wonderful creations sent in by other folk.
http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/2014/05/mandala-love-.html
Lucy has also gone to the trouble of uploading all the mandala’s on to a magnificent Pinterest board – with 95 mandalas pinned so far and nearly 2,000 followers
It may sound overly dramatic but it is pretty wonderful to see my own rather amateur creation up there with so much crochet artistry.
And I think that is the kernel of it – by sharing your work you are contributing to something that is more than the sum of it’s parts. Yes I love to crochet, yes I would carry on doing it even if no-one ever saw what I made, but by sharing my work, and seeing other people’s work I get a sense of something that is much bigger than my living room. Through it I can learn and improve and hopefully, at some point in the future, other people will feel the same way about what I do too.
I think you could call those mandalas friendship circles, don’t you?
At last – a finished project!
It is made in Sirdar Simply Recycled 51% cotton/49% acrylic yarn, and the colours are Denim wash, Dip-dye blue, Fleck, Pumice and Canvas, made in treble crochet on a 4.5mm hook. I used Lucy from Attic 24’s neat ripple pattern, and her method for filling in the gaps at the beginning and end of the blanket (Thank you Lucy!)
http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/neat-ripple-pattern.html
The layout for the stripes is the same as my last Baby Ripple blanket (one for the girls) and is shown here:
pink ripple layout
I cast on 101 stitches for the blanket, and worked as many rows as it took to get a good rectangle shape that ended with the same colour that I had started with (in this case pumice). The finished blanket measures 65x54cm and took 2 balls of dip-dye blue, and one ball of each of the other colours.
I’d love to see other people’s ripple blankets too….
I have recently discovered Sirdar ‘Simply Recycled’ acrylic/cotton dk yarn, and love its muted tones.
The colours are Camomile, Grape, Fleck, Pumice and Canvas, made in treble crochet on a 4.5mm hook. I used Lucy from Attic 24’s method for rippling, and filling in the gaps at the beginning and end of the blanket (Thank you Lucy!)
The main change I made to my last Ripple blanket was to do double rows of ‘background’ colours and single rows of ‘highlight’ colours. This allowed me to mix a wider variety of tones than I have in the past – and got rid of that one neat edge, one scrappy edge problem that comes with only changing colours on even rows!
The colour progression is quite interesting – I had three ‘background’ colours (Pumice, Canvas and Camomile) and two ‘highlight’ colours (Fleck and Grape) and alternated them as shown in the ‘pink ripple layout’ link below. Although there are only five colours in the blanket there is quite a long pattern repeat (about 21cm) which I think is pleasing. The arrangement also gives some interesting colour effects as each highlight colour gets the chance to stand out against all three background colours.
http://www.deramores.com/blog-awards: This blog entry is my submission to the Deramores Blog Awards 2014.
Deramores is the UK’s number one online retailer of knitting and crochet supplies.
What fun I have had making this cheery Mandala for Yarndale
Not at all my usual colour palette, but maybe that’s why it was so much fun!
Made in Rico classic baby dk and Drops wool-cotton (too many colours to list!)
Using Lucy from Attic 24’s pattern (see link below) Yarndale takes place on the 27th and 28th September in Skipton, and although I can’t be there it feels good to be able to send a small circular ambassador on my behalf. It is also a small way of saying thank you to Lucy for her inspiration and all her hard work.
http://yarndale.co.uk/
http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/attic24-mandala-wheel.html%20
http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/2014/05/mandalas-for-yarndale.html
My current work-in-progress is a baby ripple blanket in soft pinks and greys.
The yarn is Sirdar ‘simply recycled’ dk in Camomile, Grape, Fleck, Pumice and Canvas, on a 4.5mm hook.
The darker purple is Rowan glace Garnet (I think) but it didn’t pass the test swatch audition!
This is a work in progress, but I have been wanting to try ripples for ages and I like the colours so far:
Made in Rico baby classic dk blue, ice blue, turquoise and light grey on a 4.5mm hook. It is not my favourite yarn – 50% polyamide 50% acrylic but some colours feel like cotton and some are soft and wool-like so you get different textures even using one yarn.
I used Lucy from Attic 24’s tutorial on how to ripple (see below) and started off with the colour combination from Little Tin Bird’s baby ripple blanket no.3, and the rest has been plain sailing….
http://attic24.typepad.com/weblog/neat-ripple-pattern.html
http://www.littletinbird.co.uk/2010/05/08/baby-ripple-number-three/
Simply hooked 