miss marie's miscellany

Heather shawl

I finished my granny stripes shawl :-) I'm made up with how it looks, the colours are just right for me and it's very cosy. I tried to take a photo of me wearing it, almost impossible, but after lots of shots of the side of my head, I succeeded in taking a presentable image.

 

It was a lot of crocheting once the sides started to get longer, but it was worth the work to get such a lovely finished article. I used a mixture of wools, some Sirdar Countrystyle and Bonus DK, King Cole Big Value DK and the purply-pink is from my Ebay wool from Kingcraig Fabrics. 

 

Thanks to Jenny for her comment on my last post, she said it reminded her of moorland colours and so, inspired by her idea, I've decide to call it my Heather shawl. 

I hope your weekend is full of colour and good things!
 
 

 

Playing with colour

It's a while since I talked about crochet and wool. but I haven't been idle, in fact quite the opposite, I can't stop with the crochet hook!
 
I found some fabulous wool/silk mix yarn on Ebay, from this seller. Their shop has lots of beautiful wool in a rainbow of shades; much of it comes on cones, good for those larger projects, and they have now started selling 100g balls, which is ideal for my purposes.  I chose an autumnal mix of aubergine, dusky pink, mustard, oatmeal and lemon and lime twist (sounds like a recipe) in this lovely nubbly yarn which has turned into this round cushion.

It is an unusual mix but I think it works :-) 


When I was in Liverpool, my sister-in-law took me to an Aladdin's cave of a shop, Abakhan, a treasure trove of supplies for every craft under the sun, and of course, that includes lots and lots of lovely wool. They have an online shop too, worth a butcher's.  It was like being let loose in a sweet shop, I left with a huge bag filled with brightly coloured wool. I decided to make a granny square blanket using lots of colour and a random combination of them.



A freefall colour experience for me, I usually like to be symmetrical ; I'm just keeping going till it's BIG.



Still a way to go before it's ready, but it's turning out nicely!

Continuing with the granny theme, I've seen a couple of lovely granny shawls recently and had a real attack of the wanties. Just the ticket for a cool summer evening in the garden, I thought, and it will definitely come in handy if we have another baltic winter! I'm just playing with the colours, but think I've found a good combination with these.



These are very 'me' colours! A concerted effort over the next couple of days and I should be able to show the FO shawl.

I hope your weekend is full of colour too.

Tom's stained glass blanket

I've been working away making my nephew's multi-coloured blanket, a square here and there, but I got behind when I had to go on my travels for work and missed last weekend's birthday deadline. My nephew was very understanding and patient, he knows you can't hurry a good thing! So this weekend I had time for a final push...... this was the state of play on Friday.

 

After a Herculean effort,  all that joining up and starting an edging which just didn't work and had to be frogged, it is complete.

 

I'm really pleased with the end result - I wasn't sure about the colours when I began making this, but I have to hand it to my nephew, he has picked a winning combination and I have tried a palette which I wouldn't have done, but for his choices. He loves it too :-) 

The bright colours against the black edges put me in mind of stained glass, hence the inspiration for the name of this latest crochet creation......

 

Tom's stained glass blanket!
 

May collage

A month of contrasts of temperature, starting off cold and ending warm and promising. A month of tulips galore, they have brought wonderful colour to the garden. A month of happy crochet projects, including a special gift. A month when I visited some old haunts and places I'm glad I re-acquainted myself with.

 

This is the first time this year I've been able to post lots of flower photos, something which makes me very happy! Enjoy :-)
 

Wool, new and old (and a new crochet cushion)

In these cash-strapped times, it's always good to find something that seems good value. Buying wool can be an expensive business, especially if you go for pure new wool. I'd love to be able to use this more than I do, but just like the UK government, I'm having to make drastic cuts to my out-goings. All my recent makes have been blankets or cushion covers, things which (in my opinion) are better made with wool which can take some wear and tear and is machine washable.  I know some people turn their nose up at acrylic yarns, but I don't have a problem with them, I think they are reasonably priced, crochet up well and keep their shape and don't shrink after washing. I found a new brand recently which I'm liking a lot, Stylecraft Life DK, which is a blend of 75% acrylic and 25% wool.   

The colours are rich and vivid and it has a nice soft feel with enough wool content to make you forget about the man-made stuff.  I got these for £2.25 a 100g ball, pretty good value I'd say. I've been making a little something with some of the colours......

I started making these squares a couple of weekends ago  just to see how the wool fared. I can report favourably, it doesn't split and feels soft on the hands, the stitches look nice and neat and uniform too. 

 

It's a homage to the Babette blanket! The pattern is from Jan Eaton's book 200 Crochet Blocks; I made one of the large squares to start with and then varied the repetitions of rows to get the small and medium sizes. 

  

The lighter green wool in those squares is made with Sirdar Countrystyle DK which is a firm favourite of mine. This is a 45% acrylic, 40% nylon, 15% wool blend. The range of colours is wide and it's about £3.20 for a 100g ball. It feels wonderfully soft and crochets up beautifully. I've used it mixed with other wools in all my granny square cushions, my hexagon blanket, 2 baby blankets and my WIP blanket for my nephew. This green went so well with the other colours, they just seemed made for each other. And I've finished the cushion, what do you think?

 

I'm delighted with how this has turned out.

 

Some buttons to match the wool to fasten

 

Job done; I'm all crocheted out now! And pleased that I've found some new wool which won't break the bank and looks good.
 
 
 

 

 

 
 

 

Granny green and black

When I was down in Liverpool at Easter, my sister-in-law asked me to make a granny square cushion to go with their living room decor. She liked the ones I'd made already, and I was happy to oblige. Their living room colour scheme is soft grey with accents of green, black and red, so I chose a mix of light and dark grey, black, apple and moss green, red and white.

 

This is one side, a large granny square, just like my 2 previous granny square cushions. There are already some cushions with large flower designs in all of these colours in their room, so for the other side, I decided to use this design,  Sarah London's wonderful  Rose Motif pattern.

 

I made 12 of these 

 

In these 4 variations of the colours used.

 

 

Here they are all joined together

 

I love making granny squares so that bit was easy, I'm a dab hand at them now! The rose squares appear complicated but were not too tricky at all, and they really look the business. I like the contrast between the flat granny square side and the raised texture of the roses side. I used a 4mm hook, and a mixture of wools, all from my stash. 

Black and apple green -  Sirdar Countrystyle DK

Red - Patons Diploma Gold DK.

Dark grey, light grey and moss green - Rowan Pure Wool DK.

White  - Sirdar Snuggly DK.

And here's the finished article

 

 

Fastened with some red flower buttons

 

 As luck would have it,  it was my SIL's birthday yesterday, so I managed to finish in time for the big day :-)

Happy Birthday, Deb!
 

 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

Granny revisited

Revisit a past F/O

Bring the fortune and life of a past finished project up to the present. Document the current state and use of an object you have knitted or crocheted, whether it is the hat your sister wears to school almost every day, or a pair of socks you wore until they were full of hole. Or maybe that jumper that your did just didn’t like that much. 

Better late than never, this should have been yesterday's post!  Here is my first granny square cushion, sitting in splendid isolation on the sofa(now it has some colourful friends!) just after I finished it.

 I love the colours, perhaps the finishing off is a bit untidy, but I'm still proud that I made this only a month after learning to crochet. Here it is today.

 

I wanted to say how much I have enjoyed taking part in the Knitting and Crochet Blog Week and a big thank you to Eskimimi for bringing everyone together. It has taken me to visit many new blogs and make some new friends, and it's been interesting to think about my love for making things with wool in the medium of crochet, and my youthful attempts to knit. Blog traffic has greatly increased, and I hope all my new readers will come back to visit again soon, everyone is most welcome!

Inspirational pattern

 An Inspirational Pattern

Blog about a pattern or project which you aspire to. Whether it happens to be because the skills needed are ones which you have not yet acquired, or just because it seems like a huge undertaking of time and dedication, most people feel they still have something to aspire to in their craft. If you don’t feel like you have any left of the mountain of learning yet to climb, say so!

I don't think a pattern has to necessarily be complicated to be inspiring. What should make it inspiring is that the finished product looks good, makes one feel good and that you feel proud of having completed it. A pattern I'd love to make and find very inspiring is the Babette blanket. It is such a beautiful design, looks absolutely stunning and is not without the realms of possibility for me to make; there are some gorgeous examples over at Ravelry and Flickr, so many different colours and combinations, proving this pattern to be a head-turner and the finished article to be something I would treasure. 

I don't have a specific pattern in mind yet, but apart from scarves, mittens and hats, I haven't yet crocheted any garments, and this is something I am going to remedy soon. Perhaps this jumper which I like a lot?

As for a new skill, I would like to learn how to do Tunisian crochet. I have some hooks, bought by accident (don't shop online late at night when tired!) so one day sooner or later I will get round to it!

Blanket battle

This week I've been trying to get started on a blanket for my 9-year old nephew. I've been scratching my head about this one, as I couldn't settle on a design I liked, and that I thought would be acceptable to the recipient. He has been quite specific about the colours he wants, black most definitely, dark red, yellow, dark blue and maybe green.  Not my usual palette!!

I tried rippling, a geometric design and diagonal squares, but they didn't seem right. After a great deal of deliberation and frogging, I found this pattern over at Min Inspiration, a lovely blog I recently discovered. I like it; I worried at first that it was too girly for a cool young dude, but in these bright colours, it reminds me of the sun.

 

 

Edging all the squares with black makes it look 

a) like stained glass 

 

b) quite funky and modern. 

It's also quick to crochet up, which is excellent. So this is the winner, I'll keep you posted as it grows and takes shape. 

Hooking Japanese style

Japanese crochet patterns, a recent  and happy discovery. One might think this is problematic, because of the language in which these are written. But the patterns are written in chart form ie there are symbols for each stitch to make a diagram of the finished article. If your Japanese is non-existent like mine, these chart patterns are great, there's no language barrier to understanding them. I first encountered charts in the book  100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet by Lesley Stanfield which everyone seemed to be buying a while back when I began crocheting. Many of the patterns in this are written in both chart and more traditional worded pattern form, (interesting to see the two versions side-by-side) and there is a glossary explaining the symbols used. I've dipped into this book a bit, but to be honest, as I was a novice when I bought this, I felt a little daunted by its intricacies; there was much looking but not much doing. 

Fast forward. to earlier this year, with much hooking under my belt, I feel able to cope with something a bit more challenging. I found a fantastic site called Rakuten, well worth a look, as there are some really lovely patterns to download - I think there must be hundreds of them, from simple motifs to delicate lacy cardigans, and even better, they're free. This is what you get, all nice and simple, a page with a chart and pic of the finished article.

 

A few people have enquired about the pattern for my mum's flower scarf, and I found that at this site - click here for the link to it.  

 

So the next natural progression was to buy a Japanese  book. I've seen some beautiful ones at various blogs I like reading, and had a tremendous attack of the 'wanties'! I did some clicking and purchasing on Ebay a couple of weeks ago (at this lovely Ebay store)  and a few days ago a parcel plopped on the doormat containing this.

 
 

The demon wanties have been calmed! What a treat inside, it's beautifully photographed and 'styled' as they say, and there are some very appealing designs, with lots of food for thought.

I particularly liked this design

 

Here's my version.

 

 
 
Cushion or blanket, I'm not sure yet, watch this space!

 

It really has added another dimension to my crochet knowledge finding these patterns and learning to read charts. The fact that they are totally visual has improved my ability to look at a picture of something crocheted, work out what stitches were used and try to devise a pattern myself.  And when using a chart, it's great to think it's possible to translate the characters and symbols into something pretty and colourful. A whole new world of projects to make and enjoy!