An Unseasonal Finished Object

So, yeah, daisies in the middle of autumn!

I did most of the crochet for this last spring, when the daisy colours were very apt.
I did the assembly of the parts (ingenious) and the sewing in of most of the ends last summer, and then I started acting up at work and all things crafty took a backseat.
Back in my normal position at work now so I have a bit more free time at my disposal.

One thing I wanted to do was thicken the straps to make them stronger, and that seems to have worked well.

Here is my Daisy Bag then, my version of Inga's Hakelbeutel, which you can look up on Ravelry if you are so inclined.
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/ingas-hakelbeutel-2

It's made from Rowan Cotton Glace, 1 1/2 balls of the blue, less than one ball of white, yellow and green.

Don't let the time it took me to finish this trick into thinking that I didn't enjoy making it. On the contrary, I thought it was great, and I would gladly make another.

Why, yes, that *is* ladies and gentlemen playing croquet in the background of the middle shot!

I have included a closer shot of the daisy squares as the bright sunshine (believe it or not) is kind of bleaching out the colour in the main shots.
There are more shots of this in progress, such as how it it constructed, in this post from last year.
Daisy bag post last year

I'll use this as a wee project bag I think, certainly until next spring.

And lastly a shout goes out to karie bookish who first brought this pattern to my attention in 2010. x K

Daisy Bag in progress

Well, being back at work fairly impinges on one's crafting and blogging time, but anyway, here we are, I'll show you my Daisy Bag in progress.

Daisy bag comprises squares made of yellow in the centre, several rounds of white for the petals, green for the stalks and surrounding leaves and blue for the sky. All of this is in Rowan Cotton Glace on a 3mm hook. I went for 3mm to firm up my fabric because I used UK trebles.

You make 16 squares, you sew

them together in strips of four, you arrange

the strips in a pinwheel fashion and then you sew them together in an interesting way. I like the construction and I would certainly be happy to make this bag again, perhaps in a variegated yarn to minimise ends. I didn't grudge the ends this time because of all the versions I had seen on Ravelry

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/ingas-hakelbeutel-2/people

I seemed to prefer the ones with a cohesive colour scheme.

I like my spring-like colours,

even though summer is now on its way out. Trust me, it was springy when I started it!

All I have to do now is attach the handles and go round the top a few times to strengthen and stabilise.

Hopefully won't be too long until I have it as a finished object to show you. x K

Summer crochet with added real dog goodness

I've got a wee finished object and a work-in-progress to share today.

First is another toys' blanket, this time made in Sirdar Snuggly Smiley Stripes DK in shade 257. The composition is 80% bamboo 20% wool and it has been a pleasure to work with. The stitch definition is lovely and it is easy on the hands.

It's a semi-circle made from UK trebles, then edge with scallops and a

ric-rac final

edge, to use up the yarn. I enjoyed making it and took the chance to learn and practise in the process.

While Esmerelda was modelling it, a red setter was sniffing around us and trying to figure us out. You often see this red setter unaccompanied, but its home is Our neighbours, Balcary Bay Hotel so I am not particulary afraid of it. (Did I ever mention how scared I am of dogs?)

Actually, I'm being urged to get off the lappy so I'll tell you about the WIP tomorrow. For now, I'll just link to The pattern on Ravelry.

x K

Crochet blanket for dollies

This project dates from last year when we had our niece over for several weeks of the summer holidays.

I've been prompted to mention it because as of tomorrow, she is back!!

The yarn is a soft washable acrylic which is ideal because she was only six and her dolls and teddies wouldn't take care of finest cashmere.

The yarn came from a magazine, I think it was called Let's Get Crafting Crochet Creative, Issue 23, and Madame helped me choose the ripple pattern from a stitch library and chose the colour sequence and all. Each ball was only 25g but it was plenty for the project and I had enough to go round and stabilise the vertical edges with single crochet in a couple of colours and to add three wee crocheted flowers as well.

It was really well received, and often when you drop in, even unannounced it's out with dolls, teddies or Playmobile characters on it. An all-round-hit, I think it was because she had such an input into its "design". x K

A Wii cloth

I've never really understood how people can spend hours making cloths just to get them manky on dishes and grimy kitchens.

Face-cloths and shower puffs I can just about handle.

So, to practise my crochet I've made a little cloth to mop my fevered brow when using the Wii Fit Plus. I'm trying to improve my fitness, and using the Wii is one of the ways I'm doing it. Also watching the food and using the bike, taking a Pilates course, walking more etc. Wii Fit Plus on Nintendo page

I've now got a Gold Fit Piggy because I've been exercising on the Wii for more than forty hours. (A Fit Piggy is an on-screen piggy bank of your accumulated exercise minutes, every time you finish say, thirty minutes of Step on the Wii, it tallies up your thirty minutes.)

It's made from King Cole Bamboo Cotton Ravelry link which I had left over from a headscarf from last year. It's proving very useful because I do *glow* a little when I put the Riser on the Wii Balance Board and do a good session. If I dab myself it stops my glasses falling off when I try to do the yoga poses!

It washes like a ribbon in the machine, dries very quickly and has helped improve my crochet as well as my fitness. I have trimmed down a bit and am determined to continue getting healthier. x K

Of course the pictures are different...

... there are more daisies in these pictures than in the last!

And of course there are several more rounds of the blue and then the two rounds from the bit of the Noro sock wool I kept back, but the difference is barely noticeable.

We're up to 96cm diameter now, which although not big, will be ok for a lap blanket.
It is not blocked but I don't imagine that will make much difference.

So I got up to 35 trebles per segment, so 70 per side, thus 560 trebles on the last row.

I have treated myself by making a headscarf starting at 121 sts and working DOWN for once.

I am delighted this is finished, not least because I showed it to my mother-in-law who loved it, which is marvelous news because I was afraid she would find it too scratchy.

She had no idea that she was in the frame to receive it when she was enthusing about it, so she's definitely getting it now.
:-)

Think I'll give it a wee bath now. x K

The Four Cees

Circular Crochet Cushion Cover

I'm delighted to have finished this cushion cover which has been my knitting meetup and commuter "knitting" of choice lately.

In February we had a special Crochet night at our stitching group and this is what I chose to start. I knew all along from whenever I bought this Cascade 220 Paints yarn that I wanted to crochet with it because I wanted like colours to cluster together in splodges rather than the general hazy impressionist look I'd get when knitting with the yarn.
I bought this yarn from Eileen at mchattie@happyhills one evening last winter.

I'm happy enough with the way it turned out although I will have to learn that way of looping the yarn round your finger for your crochet start rather than doing a chain of six as I did here. I've been left with a visible tummy button as seen in picture four, but I'm thinking of hiding it with a crocheted button. I'm not taking it all apart again though just to fix on a button!

Now that it's finished it reminds me of those Flying Saucer sherbety sweets you get and it goes nicely with the Blue Monday Patchwork cushion I made a couple of years ago.

I took two attempts at side two because I had miscounted and ended up with a flouncy flary effect which I was trying to convince myself I could live with. In retrospect I am so glad I bit the bullet and frogged because how on earth could I have joined the two sides if one had all these superfluous stitches?

Although the yarn was not the softest to work with, it is absolutely fine for a household item and I must say it softened up a good bit in the wash.

Final headscarf of the season

No, it's not some lingerie I've been running up in my spare time, it's my latest (and probably last of the year) headscarf.
This time it has been done in crochet. Man, crochet eats up your yarn! This took 1.5 balls of Adriafil Swing which is 100% mercerised cotton.
To be honest, it's a little bit boardy because I hooked it on a 3mm hook which was maybe a little small, but I have good dense, substantial fabric now. Not the world's drapiest, but it does mould to the shape of head at least, it's not THAT firm.
I'm chuffed with this for a number of reasons. I love the yarn, I figured out how to make it all by myself and then I looked it up on the interwebs and I have been doing the increases at each end properly.
However, I have only been doing 2 turning chain at the beginning of each row when convention dictates it's 3 turning chain for British trebles. Live and learn.
Last time I posted something similar I was recommended to say "ties" for the little strings which hold it on. If you remember I couldn't work out how to spell tie-er (which sounds like tyre, nothing like tier of a wedding cake). Ties is good, but I'm still holding out a glimmer of hope one of you brainy folk can give me a variation. Happy crafting, K x

Tip of crochet headscarf

Learned to increase during the course of this project.
Chain edging; looks neater when teased into shape!

Close-up of crochet fabric

Crochet shopping bag

Here's something I finished off on holiday- a bag made from my haul of Sirdar Indigo cotton yarn I got at the SECC in 2005- I'm slowly but surely working my way through it.

This took 3 balls of the Dark Denim shade and one ball of Light Denim. I hadn't really planned on having the light colour up at the top again but the fact that I was on Mull and my stash was in Glasgow meant that I had to tweak my plans a bit.

It really wasn't a problem with this style of bag, but I really must start to make sure I have the right stitch count after each row. I think I am not stitching into the last stitch of each row on a consistent basis. It probably looks pretty much deliberate because of the way the handles pull the top in, but the pieces are parallelograms, not rectangles as originally planned. Edit- not parallelograms- trapeziums/ trapezia?

The handles are Rowan bamboo ones. The denim yarn is starting to take on that weathered look after a vigorous 60 degree wash.
Nice for swanning around the town shopping with. Happy crafting. x K

I left a generous opening unsewn at the side of the bag, so it had a nice wide mouth for all the essentials.

Close-up of the crochet fabric- I call these trebles, what do you call them?

Crochet shopping bag

Similarities

A special shout out to my big sis who has discovered the world of blogs!

Back in the day I used to watch her make lovely cabled school jumpers and such for my nieces, bet she's getting itchy fingers to pick up the needles again.

Could tell you were bending a little when you were looking at the Swallowtail Shawl "in person" at Easter! :-)

I've often remarked on how we (I) go back to the same beloved colour combinations, without even being conscious of it.

Well, continuing the theme, I hadn't even remarked on the similarity of some of my recent projects until it was commented about on here. The shape, the component forms, -I see what you mean!! So, it's not just the colour I'm drawn back to now, it seems.

Thanks for your kind comments about the doily and bag. I'm crafting away for Scotland at the moment here.

Crochet doily

Ali, could you please email me at kedkrafty@hotmail.co.uk about holiday recommendations in Galloway?

Thank you very much for your kind comments about my crochet scarf and patchwork cushion.

The experimentation continues!

I have learned that to make a flat circle you must increase each round by the number of stitches you started with. (Sounds like a card trick.)

So, in this example I worked 12 (British) trebles into the original chain ring.

Round two - Increase one in each stitch, by doing two trebles into each stitch end. (Don't know proper crochet terminology.)

Round three- Increase one on every second stitch

Round four-Increase one in every third stitch etcetera, thus creating 12 new stitches every round.

Still many imperfections, but enjoying the learning process.

If you had told my Home Economics teacher all those years ago I would be making lemon coloured doilies from crochet cotton she would have laughed in your face.

Learning curve

This is the result of me trying my arm at crochet.

Let's ignore the fact it's not exactly the weather for wool scarves, a photo opportunity is a photo opportunity after all.

I didn't tell the full story in the first line - this is the result of me trying my arm at crochet without reading the pattern thoroughly.

This is a version of the One Skein scarf in the Stitch 'n' Bitch Happy Hooker book. I admired one made by blogless (to my knowledge) Ella, who goes to Glasgow Knit 'n' Stitch and had a brief look at her pattern and decided to give it a bash in a very gung-ho manner, and of course, let's lengthen it, and of course let's sub a different yarn of a totally different weight. Let's not worry about the fact you're not very crochet-savvy.

Well, it came back to bite me in the bum! The foundation row, or cast on as I will call it, was far too tight in comparison to the body of the scarf, meaning it curves in a rather astonishing manner! It seems that the Happy Hooker would have you use a hook 2mm larger for your initial row, which makes perfect sense now that I read it after the event.

Anyway, it IS wearable, as a sort of collar pic #1 at the neck of your coat to keep the wind out.

Pic #2 shows you the nice colour of the Twilley's Freedom Spirit (2 1/2 balls) in "Bliss" shade 508and my Swarowski love heart brooch.

Pic #3 shows you how much it wants to curve curve curve.

Enjoyed making it, and I will wear it and LEARNED A LOT about crochet. x K





Pic #4 is Lindsay the Llama who finally came up to the fence at Balcary Bay.

Like many blogsters, I'm a bit limited as to what I can show you at the moment, but I can show you this side to side scarf for a young relative of DH, who does not read this blog. I enjoyed making this, it was a pleasant quick knit, and I'm glad I was taken by the idea of the whimsical funky chunky crocheted flowers on the ends. Not everyone's cup of tea I'm sure, but good for a young teen. And yes, yarns snobs ;-) it IS a wool b*l*e*n*d, again because it's for a carefree young person. :-)