Little black dress

While photographing my gloves I was wearing my new favourite dress/tunic. It's just a simple a-line dress that I drafted for myself last year. It's made of black denim with a white cross thread so it looks more like grey depending on the light. So comfy for everyday wear.

My crochet gloves are slowly making their way onto Etsy so will eventually all get there!

No prizes for guessing when the sun came out.

Coasters galore

Now that I'm back crocheting again I find it almost impossible to stop!

Following the whole doily thing I was driven to make some coasters . . . 

. . . then some more . . . 

. . . and then some more . . .

. . . and then even more.

Cute and practical!

Pretty posy

 

I'm supposed to be working flat out for a craft market/late summer fair next Saturday but couldn't resist the temptation to make a nice flowery crochet necklace.

The stem/chain was made a bit more substantial by running a line of chain and then slip stitching back along it. The flowers are made up of five clusters of chain and double treble crochet and the centres are stitched. Very pretty, I think.

Progress

Latest progress on the lacy, flowery scarf. This is much more what I want to achieve.

When worn the weight pulls the chain straight and makes the pattern considerably more linear but, while I suspect I will work on some ideas to make it even more open, I think this is very pretty.

The lovely slatey blue yarn is a blend of cotton, silk and cashmere. It has a nasty tendency to split if not treated with care while being worked but I think it is worth the extra effort as it is wonderfully soft to the touch.

To doily or not to doily

My earliest adventures in crochet were due to a kind gift from an elderly neighbour of my gran's. She presented me with an ancient chocolate box filled with mercerised cottons and a tiny steel hook. What a thrill!

My gran's house was adorned with doilies, complete with 3D flowers, which cushioned many family photographs. Most of these were created by my aunt, who was a definitely a dab hand with a hook and although she wasn't involved in my lessons her work was always around to inspire. My gran could do the basic stitches and so taught me what she could and set me on my way.

I spent many hours with this magical box, thinking of what wonders I would create.

The reality is that I bore quickly with shop-bought patterns – preferring to work things out as I go – and doilies with #40 crochet cotton, multi-coloured pansies and a 1mm hook were just never going to happen. I did manage a couple of doilies before I moved on to wool and hooks I don't have to strain my eyes to see but I still have the box and I still love looking through it. Good memories I guess.

And so to my current dilemma . . .

I want to create an open, lacy, crochet scarf (doily-ish). I have a pattern (Patons Crochet Booklet 3244)  but although it's not quite what I want it makes me think a lacy scarf will not be too difficult.

I was thinking loose and lacy and flowery all at the same time so played around with hook sizes, flower sizes and lengths of chain.

First attempts

There are a few niggling problems so, to help me figure out where I was going wrong, I decided to make up a sample from the pattern in the book.

The Patons lacy wrap

The Patons pattern worked out surprisingly solid so I'll definitely persevere with my own version but it was a pretty informative exercise all the same.

Seeing the samples together confirmed that I want this to be loose and lacy

The pretty box lid

Extreme knitting

My, it's a busy old time.

A couple of weeks ago I received an e-mail mentioning extreme knitting needles. What? I thought.
Okay, cue some googling and an 'Oh' and 'Ah' and a 'must try this' kind of moment. I dug out some lovely 10mm bamboo (super lovely to work with) needles I had bought a few years ago in a moment of weakness and started experimenting.

I absolutely love this type of knitting – using several yarns at the same time it's possible to combine colours to make your very own colour scheme and texture. Fabulous. I must admit that I got quite carried away and the results are now on Etsy!

I've been making lots of bags too and still sorting out my next batch of corset designs. I'm planning on launching a little 'collection' during the next month so I'm trying to rationalise the ideas I have and create a cohesive look rather than being swept along with the scattergun of things I like.

New listing – at last!

I've not posted anything for a while so thought I'd share the fact that I've finally gotten around to listing the item that left me unable to create anything for ages. Here it is, the neck cosy . . .

It's crocheted in a random arrangement of rows of double and treble crochet (UK versions) and edged in lots and lots (and lots) of trebles to create ruffles. I really enjoyed making this because the flat pattern is so simple, yet, when buttoned and all scrunched up it looks pretty sumptuous and dramatic.