So much to do, so little time

I went on a little foray to John Lewis today. I don't go very often: the walk's just a little bit too far from the office so I have to take a slightly extended lunch hour if I go or I won't have enough time in the shop. Another reason for not going very often is I would go bankrupt. AND, the array of colours and textures and yarn weights and fibres is so dazzling to me and so inspirational that after a while I feel like my head is going to explode.


I wanted a large knitting needle so I could start making Broomstick lace. They didn't have one nearly big enough but I bought a 20mm crochet hook and it's turning out to be fine for the purpose - ie, creating a relatively small swatch. I also bought a 6mm double ended hook so I can make some more Tunisian that isn't incredibly firm.


I sat myself down and leafed through a book called Simple Crochet by Erika Knight today. I've seen it on Amazon of course, but this was the first chance I'd had to look inside properly. I found it very inspiring. I'd had the idea of producing a book of patterns done entirely in double crochet and although it's not QUITE that, the patterns ARE incredibly easy but they are BEAUTIFUL, tasteful objects in really interesting textures with a lovely, natural, understated colour palette. Very chic. The photography, of course, is all, and made me even more determined to team up with my friend Karolina, an aspiring photographer with an interest in my craft.


The textures make it of course, leather, raffia, string, hemp, as well as wools, cotton, linens and silks. I'm itching to get on with designing and making something to submit for publication. Lots of ideas but I'm holding myself up by wanting to maintain a momentum with my diploma, as well as creating birthday presents for family. Oh, and prepare classes for my students!

Fingerless gloves I'm making for my
sister Caroline's birthday. I got the pattern from
Nicki Trench's Cute and Easy Crochet

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.......