Perhaps I should just throw?

Craft4Crafters,
Exeter, Feb 2012

The yarn is Sirdar Tweedie. It's billed as 'Chunky' but really, I don't know where they got that idea from! Personally, I'd place it somewhere between a DK and an Aran weight. It was a cut-price bulk buy from the Black Sheep Wool Co stand at the Craft4Crafters Exhibition I went to this month in Exeter. It's an attractive, and robust-sounding fibre mix, being a large part wool, and a small part alpaca with a good healthy dose of acrylic. So it has all the washability of a synthetic without really feeling like one, and it's got a luxuriously soft 'edge' to it that presumably comes from the alpaca. 


I'm trying to recreate Melody Griffiths' 'Cosy Creamy Throw' from her book 'Crochet in No Time' - admittedly without using the recommended yarn (I think it must have gone out of production, I couldn't find it anywhere). I thought Sirdar's Tweedie would do the trick and I treated myself to a rather fantastic bamboo marble painted 7mm hook with an aluminium tip, and got stuck in.


But Tweedie wool is, I think by it's nature, kind of lumpy. It creates its own texture which is subtle and really at its best on the plainest of stitches. Like a knitted stocking stitch, perhaps? Even crochet's plainest stitch (arguable?) the double crochet (US single crochet), is possibly veering towards the overly ornate and interesting to make the best of tweedie yarn, especially when this particular tweedie DOESN'T have the flecks of other shades or colours in it like most of them do. I LOVE the flecks - I used a really gorgeous one out of my stash (I'm sorry I didn't record the details of the yarn) to make my simple mobile phone cover.


I think on reflection I would have done better to find myself a chunky or aran-weight cashmerino to do this job. Preferably chunky because those squares all came up pretty small with this near-aran weight yarn from Sirdar. In fact, I had to make three more for what I would regard as a minimum size for a 'throw'. It's 5 squares by 3 now and nearly complete. I wasn't at all happy with the way the squares are joined (though they are looking better now I've steamed it a bit on the ironing board) particularly where four squares meet at the corners. I'm even considering making some flowers to stitch over them I'm so unconvinced. But you know, 5 squares by 3 squares is turning out to be an irritating number simply because you can't satisfactorily fold the thing. It doesn't sit right in quarters because you are folding squares instead of joins. And if you fold on joins it just looks like a strip or a pile of squares. Not easy to drape about anywhere looking casually beautiful.

I finished the border with a simple
 'Crown Picot' from Betty Barnden's
 'Handbook of Crochet Stitches'.

Anyway, with lots of experimentation around my home, I've decided that the banister on the landing best suits it. It's a short balustrade that's always proved a little restricting for standard quilts (my family are consummate quilters). It's there now but I will have to bring it down again later and finish weaving in the ends. Perhaps those six simple flowers will make me fall in love with it more.......

Multi-tasking

I'm positively FEVERISH with activity at the moment!

A great stash buster....

First of all I've begun making the baby blanket (photo from book below centre) from Nicki Trench's book Cute and Easy Crochet . This is for Lenka, my ex-childminder, who is about to produce a child of her own.

I used a 4ply yarn with a 9mm hook
and took a lace block pattern
from Melody Griffiths' 201 motifs

I'm also experi-menting with the idea of lamp shades, as I've seen some interesting work done on a website called 'Room 39' which has inspired me. 

And I'm teaching chevrons and edgings next Wednesday so I've done a swatch in Rico Essentials mercerised cotton which reminds me of raspberry ripple icecream. I think I'll be able to submit this as part of my swatch set for the Diploma too.

I'm going to Devon next Saturday, to the Craft4Crafters exhibition (combining the trip with a get-together with sister Mandy - also a great crocheter) - so I'll have to decide which project to take with me on the train!

Bits and Pieces

I've finished the skirt, so strictly speaking it's not on my hook anymore. Still, thought it would be nice to show what it looks like.


Now, practicing edging in preparation for teaching on Wednesday, as well as a popcorn stitch square I used a few years ago on a cushion cover I made. 


Am also making swatches for submission to my Diploma assessors. Hoping to get on with that turquoise cardigan again soon though. It's on the brink of being re-ranked from WIP to UFO (Work in progress to Unfinished Object) and we don't want that do we?


Tried some felting recently too. I'll bring you more on that another time.

Double Crochet Miniskirt

A double crochet miniskirt

A very simple design with the easiest of stitches. I promised Nadine I'd make it and bought the crofter yarn before Christmas She has approved it and sent me her measurements since I've had two false starts. I'm now making it in a single strip, with the intention of joining it with a centre back seam. It will be a straight block from the hem to the hips and will then decrease in width as I climb towards a low waist. I may put in a drawstring with flowers on each end.

I want to get it to her before the weather gets warm again, and then I can continue making samples for my crochet diploma. Although it's a very basic stitch it is very relaxing, can be done while I'm watching TV and the self-stripe of the crofter style makes it that bit more interesting to watch as it grows.

It's coming along nicely!

Christmas is coming once again!

Where does the time go? Well last year I played it fairly cautious and made lots of scarves and the odd simple hat. So now my family are kitted out on that front, so what next? Well, I spent the greater part of the year studying an OU module called 'Technology Enhanced Learning', so I've turned to technology for my inspiration, of course! Everybody's getting mobile phone cases. Each one different, tailored for their personalities, personalised. They're a great vehicle for practicing new, fancy stitches. I even finally turned my hand to Tunisian Crochet - more of this later I think!

The prezzies almost all made, my Polish colleague Marta sent me a link to some fantastic crocheted Polish Christmas decorations which inspired me to make the tree decoration in the picture. The pattern is the first four rows of Melody Griffiths' snowflake in her book 201 crochet motifs.....

Have a very merry christmas, and a happy new year!

Mum's mobile phone cover. Made using Tunisian or
Afghan crochet, embroidered with silk embroidery
thread in little chain daisies and then beaded. Edged with
a standard double crochet stitch and finished on the flap
(as shown) with a row of surface crochet. The flap is
also lined with red Tunisian crochet and it fastens with a
simple press stud fastener.

Lindy x

Spring is here!

One of my students asked me about flowers, which prompted me to investigate them in a bit more depth. There are so many flower patterns to choose from - some of them so easy. I’d planned to start the group crocheting in the round the next week anyway, so I found a nice, simple one in Emma Seddon’s Rowan ‘Crochet Workshop’ and had a go myself. Then I had another go, and another, trying out all the different methods I knew for changing colours, finishing off and securing the ends as I went. By the time of the lesson I’d completed a veritable bouquet of demo primulas and decided to use them in an emulation of one of Nicki Trench’s patterns in her book ‘Cute and Easy Crochet’ for curtain tie backs. The joining chain is still on my hook! Piccies to come soon.

In search of the perfect roundel

When I started crocheting I told myself it would be an AGE before I actually MADE anything. It was a psychological trick that, for me, paid off. It took the pressure off, you see, and I just doodled around with the hook and the yarns, producing a basket full of messy little shapes and patterns, ends sticking out everywhere.

My first successful project was the popcorn square cushion cover I gave my mum. I followed the pattern to the letter - which was an excellent exercise in itself, and I only made a 'front'. It was a huge effort to make 9 whole squares the same and a real challenge to join them. I stitched the finished 9 to an existing plain cushion cover. I was pleased and my mum was delighted. But thereal effort had been in the COMPLETION of something of sufficient quality to be able to give it away.

HOWEVER, It was suggested to me as a prospective teacher of crochet that a lot of people, unlike me would prefer to be able to produce a finished object at the earliest stage of their learning. So with that in mind I have been thinking about things you can make with the most basic of crochet skills, and there are zillions of course! This comes with a warning though! If you don't know many stitches you are obliged to repeat and repeat the ones you do, which some might find rather tedious until they are faster at it. I know I would have. Impatient and petulant by nature, the thing I enjoy most of all is trying out NEW stitches, NOT going over the same ones! So if you are grown up you are probably more than happy to continue to work at perfecting your existing repertoire before moving onto the more complex stitches and will be more than happy to plug away until you have produced a half decent OBJECT.

ANYWAY, lately I've returned to the most basic of crochet stitches - the double crochet (or single crochet if you're in the US) and have been trying to make FINISHED, USEFUL, DESIRABLE objects using only that stitch and the chain, with no sewing and very little weaving in of ends. This has lead to an excellent exercise in focussing on the finer details. I've finally taken the time to MASTER the crocheting of a flat disk with no frilling or curling (ok, minimal then - and nothing a bit of blocking can't iron out at the end!) mostly by re-reading instructions and advice already at my disposal. I've also solved the problem of joining each row neatly and producing a straight and (almost) invisible line of joins as the disk grows.

.

Finally, I've developed my own technique for stiffening the bowls and pots I've created after getting the hang of these niceties of crocheting in the round.