Versus Arthritis March Knitting Challenge 2022

Versus Arthritis (which used to be Arthritis UK), like other charities, has frequent fundraising challenges. Last year I noticed a knitting challenge but was too busy trying to tackle the jungle garden. Since my hands started showing clear evidence of osteoarthritis a few years ago, I find it increasingly easy to overdo things, just as it is when it comes to the effects of physical activities on my feet and knees. So when I saw something on Facebook about a March Knitting Challenge 2022, I wondered what the terms were for the challenge. I've shied away from walking challenges, because I know that the 'walk a mile every day for a month' type of challenge would leave me immobilised and in excruciating pain within a week.

I was relieved to see that the challenge wasn't prescriptive; there were no requirements as to what was knitted (or even crocheted), how many items, or hours - all that was left up to the person doing it, your own personal challenge.

Sitting in the living room, I could see half a dozen knitting and crochet projects without turning my head, works in progress (WIPs), hibernating while I summon the inspiration and energy to pick them back up again. Winter normally sets off my urge to craft, but it didn't happen this winter. A pair of socks which I started while waiting for my Covid booster in December had reached a point of working the toe of the first sock over Christmas, and I'd forgotten how, and became distracted by something else while I was looking for my notes. I think it was using the same yarn for some visible mending on a wrecked jumper, another UnFinished Object (UFO) slung on the side table, looking at me accusingly.

I decided to look around and in my craft notes book to see what I had lined up (don't even look at the wishlist that is the Ravelry queue, it's over a thousand items long, but it really is more for inspiration than to complete all those projects. I could easily find a dozen projects and knew that was the tip of the iceberg. A ball of blue Aran yarn with a cable needle stuck in it has stopped me closing that drawer on the coffee table for months, since I frogged it, having found that the technical editing in my glossy knitting book had utterly failed and that even the errors and omissions corrections I found online had errors and omissions themselves! All the WIPs just add to the clutter and the feelings of guilt and stress I get from seeing them drain my motivation further. But woe betide if I put a project away - out of sight is truly out of mind. And I remembered I had actually done that, packed a couple  of projects neatly and safely away when I moved house in 2015 and hadn't seen them since.

I decided that by joining the challenge, I could raise funds while holding myself to account by getting knitting again. I would try to knit a bit every day and complete at least one project while progressing several others, just to move things along. And then perhaps that progress would help reduce some of the anxiety which has been eating away at me for the past couple of years.

I joined the challenge and found the Facebook group, where knitters were already excitedly sharing what they were knitting or planning to knit. And to my grateful relief, some of my friends decided they would sponsor me. 

So now I've no excuse. I just hope I can keep up the momentum and turn some WIPs into FOs.

Pandemic Pandemonium

Predictably - I wonder what odds the bookies were offering? - the outbreak of the novel Coronavirus  Covid-19 has been declared a pandemic, and all hell has broken out in the UK. Not only is it a public health emergency, it is also an economic emergency, with international markets in free-fall and people already losing their jobs as firms scale back and shut down.

Even before the UK had many cases, people started panic buying, noticeably toilet roll! Not that the infection causes problems with the gut, but because apparently that's what people can't do without. Hand sanitiser gel was also a must-buy. Supermarkets were slow to impose limits, because families come in different sizes and people may be shopping for others, but surely, surely, people could be sensible, given that there aren't shortages with stock coming in all the time? But no, you can't fix stupid, and people, especially when scared, will be greedy and selfish too.

The last time I went shopping, some of the shelves of a large supermarket were looking very empty. No toilet roll, very few canned goods, no pasta, hardly anything left by way of pasta sauces. I went past one couple loading Pot Noodles into their trolley, discussing how many they should have of which ones, dithering and debating because they didn't normally eat them (although I don't blame them for that!). I saw other couples, discussing numbers and needs as they loaded their individual trolleys, although I expect only one of them normally shops for their families. But, for all I know, maybe one of them was doing the family shop and the other shopping for a parent. Short of seeing someone steering a few trolleys piled high with toilet rolls and hand sanitiser, is it really possible to spot the difference between someone panic buying/stockpiling and someone getting supplies in for their family and older neighbours? Without leaping to assumptions, no. It's a tricky one.

There was lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, and I bought a lovely piece of fish from the wet fish counter to put in the freezer, not because I'm stocking up the freezer, but because it looked so good and I already had that day's meal planned. (I'm currently addicted to ratatouille with a baked potato as comfort food.)

There weren't queues at the tills, as there were plenty of cashiers. I had a cheerful chat with the cashier as I put my things through. Apparently the limits she had were a bit higher than those shown in notices on the shelves, and the shelves were restocked regularly, but emptied almost as soon as they were filled. I shall be annoyed if I cannot find what I want as and when I want to replenish what's in my own cupboards (especially toilet roll!) and that's the thing. Even those like me who don't panic buy and hoard supplies, when threatened with the possibility of not finding what we want and feel we need, we're more likely to buy the items, in multiples, when we do see them. Also, when you think that maybe we will all be under movement restrictions soon, and you and yours may be self-isolating for protection because someone in the household is in the high-risk group, or you may go into isolation because you or someone in the household show symptoms, then it makes sense to have some supplies in and a regular online order so you can top up if you can't go out. It becomes both cause and effect.

Elsewhere, fights have broken out, and cashiers are subjected to insults and threats if they challenge the numbers of items people are taking. A friend who was on a course (only the first day of the planned three; it was cut short) reported that the tutor had stopped off at a supermarket for hand sanitiser (makes sense to have it if you're giving a course and you don't know what the facilities are like). She found the last bottle at the back of a bottom shelf, and an older woman saw her and knocked her over. The other woman's husband remonstrated with her and she grumbled that the tutor had beaten her to the last bottle (like that's an excuse for her bad behaviour).
In the USA, there are queues at gun stores, as people buy weapons and ammunition. It seems that they are preparing for a breakdown in law and order (whether they will be causing it or defending themselves from it) and possibly also a zombie apocalypse. I'm glad, once again, not to live in the USA.

Not that living in the UK is much less worrying. The government position last week was 'carry on as normal, no-one is immune, wash your hands, catch your coughs, best we just let the virus go through the community and build herd immunity that way. Some of you will die, especially the oldies, but most will be okay.' Cue outrage at the idea of having the Coronavirus version of a Chicken Pox party for UK citizens, the apparent disposability of our at-risk citizens and that this could potentially be a great saving in terms of benefits and a load off the NHS. We are used to the idea that herd immunity is created after a programme of vaccinations, not, as used to be, just leaving a disease to spread through the population and rely on people recovering and becoming immune. Diphtheria, smallpox, polio, whooping cough, measles, German measles (rubella) - all used to be like this. Perhaps the British are less fatalistic, stoical and stiff-upper-lip than we used to be, but some things are just not acceptable now.

Then there was something of a U turn; people were advised to work from home if they can and avoid going out unless necessary, especially to pubs, clubs, cinemas, theatres etc. A raft of financial support measures were announced, but there were still obvious holes. You might take a mortgage holiday, but still no help for renters. Your employer should pay you statutory sick pay (SSP, which is less than £100 per week, not a lot) but with only an advisory for people to stay away from leisure venues, the owners and managers of said venues cannot claim for loss of income on their insurance. Many will go under unless there are government safety nets in place. The self-isolating should be paid SSP from day one, but many employers aren't being flexible enough and still want a doctor's note, at a time when most surgeries are stopping face to face appointments. There is a proposal to make new claims for universal credit easier in an attempt to provide some support for the self-employed, so that will be good, if they can work it out.

Now the schools are due to close at the end of the week, and exams have been cancelled, all adding to the general confusion and anxiety.

One of the scariest things is that, being a new virus, there are so many unknowns. You can have it but be presymptomatic (not showing symptoms yet) or asymptomatic (not have symptoms at all). The incubation period is still up for debate, from three weeks to three days. Many people apparently can have quite mild symptoms and recover, but there are no numbers on this, as only those who are hospitalised with severe symptoms are being tested (much to the annoyance of health care workers and medical professionals, who would like to know if they are positive since they are on the front line of receiving the virus and passing it on, so knowing could limit the spread, even if it takes them out of the much needed workforce for a week or two, and even if clear, they might need to be tested on a weekly or fortnightly basis). It is still not known whether someone who has had it and recovered is immune, and since you can have something like it without knowing whether you've just got some unspecific, horrible fluey cough or whether it's Covid-19, you can't be sure of anything. Except that you are still alive, which is not something to be sneezed at (sorry, couldn't resist it!).

I do worry about my (high risk group) parents, over 200 miles away, although my brother is with them. All this worry and uncertainty leads to high anxiety, and I found this from Anxiety UK very inspirational:

APPLE
Acknowledge: notice and acknowledge the uncertainty as it comes to mind

Pause: Don't react as you normally do. Don't react at all. Pause and breathe

Pull back: Tell yourself this is just the worry* talking, and this apparent need for certainty is not helpful or necessary. (* or anger, annoyance, however you are feeling). It is only a thought or feeling. Don't believe everything you think. Thoughts are not statements or facts.

Let go: let go of the thought or feeling. It will pass. You do not have to respond to them. Imagine them floating away on a cloud or in a bubble.

Explore: Explore the present moment, because right now, in this moment, all is well. Notice your breathing and the sensations of your breathing. Notice the ground beneath you. Look around and notice what you see, what you hear, what you can touch, what you can smell. Right now. Then shift your focus of attention to something else - on what you need to do, on what you were doing before you noticed the worry, or do something else - mindfully with your full attention.

I observed to a friend that, given a computer with internet connection (tick), craft supplies (tick), books (tick) and food deliveries (cross), I can hole up and entertain myself for weeks without feeling the need to be with people face to face. I'm lucky, I also have a garden to potter in, and live on my own in a house with a few rooms to choose from, so I wouldn't feel too claustrophobic.

Although I've let the people from my gentle exercise class know I can pick up shopping for them if necessary, I have no confidence that I could actually find what they need. With that in mind, I wondered what delivery slots might be available (given that you can book a slot up to three weeks in advance and amend your order until the night before delivery). My local Tesco has no delivery slots for the three weeks you can book. Click and collect slots are only available at the end of the three week period. A quick look for toilet roll showed only small packs of a couple of brands in stock. So much for regular deliveries and no shortages. I went in this morning and there was no toilet roll (apparently only people queuing up when the doors opened at 7.00 am got some!), and among other things, still no pasta, and even the fresh veg was looking a bit bare, with few potatoes left and no onions! Customers were limited to a maximum of three of any one thing.

There have been comparisons to being at war, so if I have to self-isolate I shall use it as an opportunity to make do and mend, and dig for victory.

Remember, coughs and sneezes spread diseases, so catch your coughs in a hanky and wash your hands. Don't Panic! Keep calm and carry on!


Earworms, a suggested playlist, in no particular order: Don't Stand So Close to me (The Police), Toxic (Britney Spears), Mad World (Gary Jules), Shake It Off (Taylor Swift), U Can't Touch This (MC Hammer), Stayin' Alive (The Bee Gees), Survivor (Destiny's Child), I Will Survive (Gloria Gaynor), It's the End of the World (as we know it) (REM), We've Gotta Get Out of this Place (The Animals),

Create 366 January

Following on from last year's Create 365 paltry output, I restarted the clock from the winter solstice. It's a leap year, so it's Create 366! Even if I don't manage to create 366 items, the aim is still to do something creative every day and then brag, sorry, blog about it. It will also be a continuation of the destash, getting projects and ideas off my chest and out of my overcrowded head.

I've made a good start, I think, over the first six weeks (although it could be better, of course!). While I was fetching the Christmas decorations, I came across a bag of bags of works in progress (WIPs) and there's nothing like a spot of knitting or crochet in front of the TV on a winter night for some some relaxing, happy, flow time.

The process of working out patterns is perhaps not so relaxing. Trying to get the decreases on a hat (to match the cowl, below) while keeping the pattern going, the frogging (that is, unravelling, ripping back) has got to me. It's sitting by the side of the sofa, looking at me accusingly, while I remind myself that I must pick it up again - this is the way that works in progress become hibernating Unfinished Objects (UFOs). As usual, I aim not to have UFOs and finish the WIPs, because these posts are all about the finished objects (FOs), but it really takes an effort of will. It's still a good idea, it just needs some persistence.

The WIPs included bags of knit and crochet motifs; sets of different coloured leaves, to be attached to a scarf (yet to be worked out and knitted, or possibly 2 scarves, depending ...); a bag of flowers in pinks and pinky-purples, with some leaves, to be made into a flower scarf; another bag of motifs in orange and yellow shades, with some greens for leaves, to be made into a summer jumper - better get on with that! I started all of these five years ago. FIVE! High time they were finished. So I've picked them up again and in so doing, made a start on another idea which has been lurking in my subconscious for a while.

Create 366 

Here's the 'January' output:
'Hillview Road' cowl. The textured stitch is absolutely scrumptious. I shall do a separate blog post on this when I've sorted out a hat pattern, providing I can get my head around the decreases, and possibly mitts too, if I have enough yarn,
A 'destash' crochet square.
A double layer flower knitted with the last of the Stylecraft Cabaret. It needs a matching leaf or two before it becomes a brooch.
Various knit and crochet leaves: 9
Various crochet flowers: 5

Create 366 totals:
Total this month: 17
Cumulative total to date: 17

A Little Milestone

After I'd been using  Ravelry for a couple of years, I started to think how lovely it would be to design and share a pattern (and even lovelier if I could design something which I could sell!). The tutorial for Little Tinsel Trees has been written up and published on this blog and (fanfare and drum roll!) it's my first pattern published in Ravelry! Now I more or less know what I'm doing with that (and I have the ability to create a .pdf file easily, not something I had with my old computer and software!) I'm planning to get some other patterns written up and published as free patterns. I love Ravelry, I love the other designers who happily publish their patterns for free, so I'm so happy to have become one! Squee, it's even got compliments already, despite it now being past the season when everyone is furiously crafting things for the winter holidays and celebrations.

I'm counting the tutorial and the published pattern as two items. There are only a few other things which count towards the creation goal:

Three crochet squares. The sizes are only approximately the same, a couple have taken a bit of invention to size up (learning point, do 2 rounds of trebles (UK terms) rather than a round of double treble and a round of double). The first set of four seemed so quick and easy; not so much these, each one taking me an evening (with breaks and interruptions). I've learned a neater way to join in a new colour and can now do stitch clusters without wondering if I'm doing the right thing. I also feel like I can switch more easily between UK and US terms.

A pair of summer palazzo pants bought in a late summer sale last year (when it had started raining again here in Wales, although the rest of the country was still parched and sweltering). Two inches too long, now taken up and ready for summer if and when it eventually arrives. We need to get through spring first.

Another pair of old socks reduced to jersey yarn.

I've spread out a selection of sea glass and found my wire (the law of the stash - I'm missing the gauge of wire I really wanted to use for some of the pieces). Other stuff has taken over for the moment, but watch this space!

This batch of things: 7
Cumulative total: 21

Create 365, second set

Things are crawling along. The first thing which has become evident (and should be a no-brainer) is that to be productive, I need to be more organised. It's one thing to sit down for 10 minutes to knock out a pair of earrings, but if I can't quickly find the beads I have in mind for them, I can spend 30 minutes or more looking. Which is exactly what I ended up doing for the pair I made. The idea was to make earrings to sell but I love these too much.

The second thing is a question of when, exactly, I have created, made, recycled, upcycled, whatever. So I'm making that up as I go along.

What do you do when you have old jersey, not right to make a t shirt bag, no more space for dusters, not right for flowery things? Make jersey yarn, to be crocheted into some sort of basket, bowl, bag or mat or something. The thing is, does each recycled item count? Perhaps the yarn, as a craft supply material, doesn't count until it's been made into something? I decided against these two and am counting a 'session', so one jersey long-sleeved top session, and another two sessions making yarn from seven pairs of old knickers and a pair of socks.

Talking of socks, a replacement pair of socks in what has become my 'standard' pattern, utterly in my comfort zone.

I also made the Virus shawl, for more details see this blog post.

My ridiculously long Ravelry queue contains lots of crochet block patterns, which I added for no other reason than they were pretty. I picked one and did a set of four blocks. Even though these are also an intermediate stage on their way to being something else, if I can count a jersey recycling session then I can count a crochet session.

Crochet blocks, socks, earrings and jersey yarn. The Virus shawl has already been given to a friend.

Other WIPs are trickling along. I'm going to have to pick up the pace a bit to meet my target at the end of the year!

Set 2 total: 7

Cumulative total: 14

Virus Shawl

I'd had the free pattern for this shawl queued in Ravelry for a while. It was such a popular pattern and everyone seemed to find it easy, so I thought it might be a good bet for increasing my crochet confidence.
Stylecraft's 'Cabaret' yarn, an acrylic DK plied with a polyester tinsel thread was a popular choice, so I bought three 100 g balls (a quantity recommended by others making the same shawl with the same yarn - ah, how wonderful is the Ravelry community for sharing details like this!) in the 'Rainbow' colourway, deciding this would be a Christmas-New Year 'hibernation' project. In the event, I didn't start it until early January, still intending this to be a shawl for myself.

Before Christmas, my friend Chrissie came round for a cuppa. She's had a pretty miserable year, losing her mother and learning that one of her siblings has been diagnosed with cancer. I showed her the yarn and she smiled and squooshed the ball, admiring the softness and the colours. Seriously, the photos don't do this yarn justice. It is wonderfully soft and squooshy, the colours are lovely and the tinsel thread twinkles.

As someone else commented, this yarn isn't great. I had a knot in one ball, a weird thick bit in another, and found that the rainbow inexplicably contained shades of russet and khaki green in with shades of blue, green, purple and pink, (rather than any red, orange and yellow) which didn't seem to follow a pattern. The yarn itself is a bit like a single with a loosely plied tinsel thread. The tinsel thread would break if it were tightly plied, but it sometimes snagged and pulled and I managed to break it in a couple of places. The ball band suggested working from the centre, but I couldn't find a centre-pull end easily and when I did find one, it just pulled a snarl of yarn from the centre of the ball. As others found, the balls are soft and loose, so great loops of yarn fall away from the ball until you're about half-way in. I found them quite easy to manage; even when the loops started to tangle, gently lifting and separating the yarn loops was enough to avoid knots. I doubt I would use this yarn for a cardigan, because matching stripes would be impossible, but I'm going to buy more (perhaps in another colourway) to make a shawl for myself.

Just after I started the shawl, I saw a Facebook post from Chrissie that she had lost her mother-in-law. I'd only just seen a Christmas photo, with Chrissie resplendent in a red dress, her MIL smiling at the head of the table. As I crocheted, I kept seeing Chrissie in my mind's eye, smiling as she caressed the yarn, and decided that this shawl had to be for her, with love.

It really is an easier pattern than it looks and I started to appreciate crochet in a way I hadn't before. The rhythms can be more complex than that of a row of knit or purl. Gone wrong? Just pull the stitches back to where it was right, pick up your loop and carry on. My 'Longshore' throw has been hibernating for a few years now, as I fell out of love with it, unsure of what I was doing and becoming increasingly inconsistent. I now feel I can pick it up again, even if I frog it back and redo it.

The pattern repeats over 4 main rows: create a foundation row of loops creating chain spaces, (UK) trebles in clusters in the larger chain spaces, with loops in between. The third row is trebles onto trebles and the last row is treble+chain 1, before it repeats, As I was getting to the end of the third ball, I finished up on a row 4 and went back over the edge with double crochet into each chain space, with a picot in the centre of each arc.

What do you mean, I can't sit on it?

I took a couple of photos of the finished shawl and marvelled at how light and drapey it was, working just as well as a scarf. I hadn't washed and blocked it (or taken any measurements, but it's about 1.5 metres/5 feet wide) by the time Chrissie came round in mid-January, but she was thrilled with it and immediately put it on. Smiles all round, (except for Xena with the ridiculously long whiskers, who was a bit put out that I wouldn't let her snuggle into the shawl!), job done!

Create 365: The First Set of FOs

It's been something of a slow start, despite my various WIPs and UFOs. And yet, this is a learning journey as well as creative exploration.

The first FO (finished object) was to create space, have a bit of a clean and tidy, and decorate for Christmas. Even though this is only a temporary thing, it counts as a creation for me; with no friends or family visiting, it would be so easy not to decorate. Putting up the tree and some decorations, if only for myself and for a couple of weeks, gets me out of my rut a little and creates some seasonal cosiness. There is a nostalgic sweetness in unpacking the decorations; some of the baubles are at least 45 years old! It also meant that I took the time to swap around a cupboard and a bookcase, which I've been meaning to do for months, and which makes the living room look a little larger. The decorations are now down and put away again, except for the cards, which I shall come to soon.

The first set of Create 365 FOs

In mid-December I started a pair of plain socks in Stylecraft Head Over Heels 'Etna', because I'd made a pair to sell and loved the yarn colours, so wanted a pair for myself. Having finished them and unable to resist, I made another pair (King Cole Zig Zag 3158 Pinecone, a blue/brown print). The burgundy print socks are the 'desk drawer socks' I made a back in 2014 (blog post here)  which needed some mending at the angle of the heel and instep.

The next item on the bottom row is the 'Wellen Baktus' (Wavy Baktus) scarf, which was technically finished before the start of Create 365 (so it doesn't really count). I had intended to use the faulty dyed, white bits of yarn I'd cut out as I was knitting to create a couple of tiny snowflakes, one for each end, but there wasn't enough yarn even for a couple of tiny pom-pom snowballs. So it's finished except for a hand-wash to test for fastness.

The silvery blob in the lower right corner is a little cork/bottle topper tree. I made a few of these in King Cole Tinsel Chunky for the craft market in mid December, but forgot to write down what I did, so I made another and wrote it down before I forgot! I'll write up the pattern and find out how to list it on Ravelry as a separate 'creation'.

Top right is a mended scarf. There is a Japanese tradition and art called Kintsugi or Kintsukoroi, of mending broken pottery with lacquer mixed with powdered gold, silver or platinum. The mend shows and is beautiful in itself, reflecting change and imperfection. Having attempted to darn the holes in this scarf (and wondering why I was even bothering, considering it's just a cheap, viscose scarf which crocks dye even after several washes) and found the loose weave just pulls apart, I decided to use a coppery metallic embroidery thread and cover the holey areas with chain stitch. I could never darn this to disguise the holes and make it look perfect again, so the embroidery both mends and embraces the imperfection.

Centre back, an attempt at a crochet motif. The brushed acrylic yarn was donated, and I thought I might use it to make some sort of crochet, snowflakey baby blanket, but I lost patience with the catchy yarn (and I needed to use a larger hook, but that's already in use for something else). So the motif, and the yarn, can be donated to the Yarn Bombers. No doubt they will be able to create something wonderful. #alwayslearning #lifestooshort.

Back left, a 200g ball of super-chunky acrylic, which is also destined for the Yarn Bombers, as it will make a nice something-or-other, like a tree trunk out of a lamp-post. I experimented with seed stitch and linen stitch and different needle sizes and stitch numbers to make a rufty-tufty, manly cowl, but found the yarn colours too drab and the yarn made my eyes itch!

I need to pick up the pace, but can't spend all day crafting!

Total so far: 7

Create 365

I'm in awe of some of my arty friends, who are so productive and create such loveliness. Even some friends of mine who have been posting about what their naughty Christmas elves have been up to, complete with pictures.

Glancing through old posts, especially those from this time of year, I despair at myself; the same old aims pop up time and again. Lose weight, exercise more, earn some money, learn how to do all sorts of things, get everything sorted out, get a grip!

I spotted a post in which I talked about peyote stitch bezels around stones and the offending articles are still in the UFOs box, where I left them years ago when I couldn't decide how to create the bails. I had another look at them when a crafty friend came round for a cuppa and decided that I would not be able to get a pinch bail or even a jump ring into the beadwork, (because I didn't 'cheat' and use a strip of double-sided tape around the stone, so the beadwork is as tight as I could make it). Beaded bails it is, then.

With the turning of the year at Yule, and thinking about my recent creative impulse, I set a goal. I need to be more productive and to do a major de-stash, so I am going to make, create, renovate, repair, alter and complete 365 things.

I have an appalling record when it comes to personal goals, as they often dissolve and disappear within a month, displaced by important and urgent stuff or other interests. Given that I need to be smarter about the goal setting, I decided posting every day and having a photo of every object would be unfeasible and unsustainable, so I'll post periodically and keep a running total. Although 365 is one object a day, I probably won't complete one a day, but I shall have to try to produce more or less 30 things a month just to keep on track. If I run short of time I might start making lots of earrings (although that at least will help de-stash the beads and give me something to sell!).

I've a long list of crafty things I want to try, and have been saying for years that I should pick my art things up again.

Choreographies will count. Making/repairing elements of the garden will count. Making everyday meals will not count, nor will making a mess (something I can do with no effort at all!) I've also decided that blog posts won't count unless they are tutorials or patterns, but I do need to complete a lot of draft posts too.

So that's a major aim for the year, to bring things back into use and create lovely things. How do you think I'll do? Feel like joining me? Let me know what you think in the comments below!

Officially Cold

The clocks have gone back to GMT and everything was covered in frost for the past few mornings. Halloween/Samhain is tomorrow, there has already been snow in the Scottish Highlands, and I'm wondering if the predictions that we're going to have a hard winter will be correct.

I've started to feel the cold (I normally run quite hot) so it's my cue to break out the wool socks, long sleeves, scarves, coats, jumpers and crochet blankets on the sofa. I'm not complaining; I love the changing seasons.

Autumn seemed to be a warm and gradual thing. We've had a lot of rain, but on the sunny days, I was distracted by spiders every time I went into the garden. Digging out compost bin #2 took a while, distracted as I was by the wildlife. So many fat, female Araneus diadematus hanging in their webs! I also found some other well-marked female spiders, but was confused about what they were until I had one in a magnifier pot and used an online resource. Even so, I couldn't get enough magnification to determine whether they were Metellina mengei or M segmentata. There were a few other spiders and harvestmen which I've not identified yet.

I don't know when the swallows slipped away this year. The local ones just disappeared at some point in September, and I saw some tail-enders fleeing westwards while I was driving over the Preselis, the weekend of the Autumn Equinox. The swifts seemed to disappear suddenly in mid-August. There were lots of blackberries this year (the best, as always, completely inaccessible) and lots of wasps. And yet again, I was completely useless with recording butterflies!

I saw potato plants flowering in the second of the free-standing compost heaps and a few weeks later dug out enough for a couple of meals. I really must get a grip on the vegetable and fruit growing next year. While I've been concentrating on the front garden this summer, the back garden has rewilded itself.

The new houses on the field behind me are still being built. During the summer, the work sometimes started at 7.30 am. No-one could accuse the builders of throwing these houses up! There is still ground-work going on (I don't know if they've finished laying the road) and the heap of subsoil nearest my back fence is taller than ever. Internal work has been going on for weeks now, and annoyingly, some of the lights get left on overnight. The buildings have been painted in candy colours which seem to glow in low light. In my opinion, it doesn't make them any less of an eyesore.

The view from my bedroom, 23 October 2018. 

There's still a way to go with them. According to the planning, there will be some young trees planted, bird boxes put up and gaps left in the soffits for roosting bats, to improve biodiversity. I wonder how long it will be before they, and the houses themselves, are inhabited.

A Good Yarn?

I love Ravelry (oh, did I mention that already?), and one of the things I love about it is the wealth of experience it contains.  I'm starting to learn (the hard way) that I should look at yarn reviews and project comments. Comments on yarns can be very revealing. I sincerely hope that the yarn producers read them and act accordingly. Free, relatively unbiased feedback, for which you don't have to do market research? These reviews are a gift!

A few months ago, I was browsing through the DK and Aran weight yarns hoping to find some which I can afford and don't have too many drawbacks, in order to do a couple of cabled sweaters, major projects after all of last year's socks!

Naturally, the yarn brand's own description is unlikely to reveal some of the downsides of a yarn and you may need to read between the lines of the description. Wonderful for felt? It probably felts very easily. Superwash wool? Is it, though? Plenty of people have experience which may say otherwise, even when they carefully follow the care instructions. Good stitch definition - does it keep it after washing?

On the other hand, many of the yarns have quite high star ratings from users and have been used in hundreds or thousands of projects, but have relatively few pages of users' comments, which tend to reveal the real issues. I found myself wondering what that was about. Of course, it's easier just to click the rating than put your thoughts together and write a comment.  It could be that users don't think to go back to comment once they've discovered issues such as the dye running, or growing after washing. Or perhaps when they do, it's all been said already and they don't think they can add anything, so they don't. Yarn comments are often included in project comments.

It's tempting to rely on the old maxim that you get what you pay for, but this isn't necessarily true. I saw a review for a mid-range to expensive yarn from a textile student who was creating a garment as an examination piece, and finding terrible problems with the yarn fuzzing and pilling, almost starting to friction felt, during knitting. She contacted the brand's helpline and it turned out they knew about the issues, and advised that she try to knit holding it well away from herself and with the stitches separated! (For the non-knitting reader, this is not a practical solution!) The yarn has since been discontinued.

Yarn quality is important. If you were spinning and dyeing the yarn yourself, you might be happy that you've produced something and take a relaxed view that 'it is what it is'. With experience, you may then improve the quality of your handspun and dyed yarn. We expect yarn producers to have that experience already and to manage quality issues as part of the production. Of course, commercially manufactured yarns and the resulting items, such as sweaters, may have quality problems too, such as the dye crocking or running and ruining the Fairisle pattern of the jumper and the blouse you were wearing under it, or a 'Superwash' sweater which shrinks and felts on the first wash. If that happens, you take it back to the shop. If the same thing happens after you've shelled out your hard-earned cash for yarn and spent many hours creating your knitwear, then all you can do is complain to the yarn producer, comment on Ravelry to warn others, and have a cup of tea while you curse and sob your heart out in anger and frustration over the wasted money, time and effort.

'Known' Characteristics
Some characteristics may be normal for certain yarns, but an unacceptable feature and a sign of poor quality in others.  For example, mohair yarns are naturally hairy and grippy, so stitches are hard to unravel and textured stitches will be hard to see. Apparently, alpaca is known for showing up uneven stitches, and paradoxically having poor stitch definition. Merino often grows on washing and pills when knitted too loosely. Singles (yarns which aren't plied, that is, more than one yarn twisted together), at any weight, may pull apart or snap if your tension is too tight. Nylon can feel quite harsh. Tweed yarns contain neps. Thick and thin yarns are deliberately thick and thin.

I saw someone complain that her wool-rich jumper smelled of wet sheep when washed! I suppose the smell of wet sheep isn't for everyone, but I would be disappointed if my wool-rich garment didn't smell of wet sheep when I washed it! I also had a look for comments on a very popular acrylic yarn, to find that no-one had anything to say, good or bad, although it had a reasonably high rating. Perhaps it's because it is so completely as expected.

Yarn Texture
Sheddy, linty: Hairs or bits of yarn drop/fly off while knitting or wearing the garment, leaving you and the area where you've been sitting covered in bits
Fuzzy: Some apparently smooth yarns develop a fuzzy 'halo' or 'haze', either after washing, or while they are being knitted. This can be a precursor to pilling and may make a garment look more worn or old than it is. Fuzzy, hairy yarns don't make for good stitch definition.
Grippy, sticky: Sticks to itself, may also stick to the needles (depending on their material - plastic and wood can have issues), difficult to frog/unravel or tink/correct stitches. This can work for you if, say, you are an accurate knitter creating a sweater with steeked armholes.
Pilling is a very common issue. It happens when short, loose fibre ends on the surface of the fabric form small bobbles. Wool, cotton, acrylic, polyester and nylon tend to pill the most, with knitted fabrics pilling more than woven ones and loosely knitted fabrics more than tightly knitted. If you are working with a yarn which is known to pill badly, it's worth working out gauge and size to allow you to work on smaller needles. Wool pills tend to break away from the fabric and fall off, but pills on synthetics will need to be shaved off to keep the garment looking good.
Friction felting: Some yarns may start to felt while they are being worked, and the soles of socks may felt from the friction of being worn. 
Splitty: Especially in loosely plied yarns, where the plies unravel enough that you leave part of a stitch behind while knitting. If you pick up and adjust the leftover loop and it settles back with the other plies, no problem. However, some splitty yarns are unforgiving and the loop cannot be persuaded to rejoin the main yarn, leaving a snag. If you are working with a splitty yarn, sometimes it's worth changing your needles for ones which are less sharply pointed, and working more carefully.
Snaggy: Also in loosely plied yarns, or where two yarn types are plied together, such as a metallic thread or a binder thread with sequins. One of the yarn types may catch on things more than the other, leaving snags and pulls, which very quickly make the item look old and tatty.
Coarse, harsh, wiry, crisp, stiff:  Different colours of the same yarn may be coarser than others, due to the way that the dyes react with the fibres. Depending on the reason, this is sometimes resolved by washing and a rinse with fabric conditioner. If there appear to be no problems with the yarn/fabric growing on washing, pilling and snagging, it might be possible to work at a looser tension. However, very coarse yarns can be a literal pain to work with. I used to crochet doormats from recycled baler twine and have yet to find anything coarser than that!
Itchy, scratchy: This generally depends on how sensitive you are to the fibre types in a yarn. It's also a good idea to wash new garments to remove any lingering factory finish which may cause irritation. Even so, some yarns seem to be itchier than others. The scratchiest thing I have is a shop-bought shrug/wrap cardigan, made from a chunky-weight synthetic ribbon yarn plied with a sequinned thread binder. The sequins stick in at all angles - definitely not as comfortable as it looks.

Dye problems
Excess dye
Colour runs in wash:  There is often a bit of excess dye when it comes to natural fibres, either pure or blends, so always wash dark and saturated colours on their own, at least for the first time. You can try a dye catcher sheet or colour run remover for unexpected disasters, but it's worth knowing if the colour runs and taking steps to fix it as repeated running can lead to fading.
Crocking is a worse problem, because the dye starts to come off the yarn with friction or the smallest amount of moisture. You can often pick this up while knitting, as you realise your fingers and even the needles are a picking up the colour where you tension the yarn or hold the fabric.This also has the potential to ruin your clothes.
If you don't want to or can't return the yarn, you can try fixing the dye.
For cotton, linen and viscose, soak the yarn (you need to unwind it into skeins/hanks first) or the finished item in water in which salt has been dissolved (weigh your item dry first and use its weight in salt, with easily enough water to submerge the yarn). Use white vinegar in water for wools and silks (protein fibres). It's difficult to give proportions. I've seen advice which varies between a 'glug' and a cupful per bowl or (stainless steel) pot. It may be worth treating it as if you are dyeing the yarn; here's a good article from Knitty.
Having soaked the yarn, wash separately to try to get rid of any excess dye before knitting the yarn up (or wearing, if it's a piece which has already been knitted). Be careful of wearing the piece with other items of clothing which will show any transfer.
Colour fading: It's no accident that 'vintage' fabrics look slightly bleached or faded, with muted colours. Exposure to UV light (and oxygen) causes most dyes to fade, (some, such as reactive dyes on cotton, linen and viscose, faster than others). By the time the fading has happened, there's nothing you can do about it. So move that richly coloured cushion out of the sun, and don't place or hang items to dry in bright sunlight.
Unexpected colour variation within a ball: If it's a solid colour, this usually indicates something was wrong during the dyeing process. If it's a kettle dyed or hand painted yarn, then it's likely that the dye didn't penetrate a section of the yarn. Some self-striping or self-patterning yarns have knots (or, if you're lucky, splices) with abrupt colour changes either side of the knot or splice.
Colour variation within a dye lot: You don't expect it, but you do see it. Not good, yarn producers, not good at all! The best fix  I've seen, from someone who couldn't get a solution through their yarn supplier, was to buy more and use the variation in shades to create a subtle Fairisle pattern.

Spinning, plying and winding issues
You wouldn't think this would be a problem with commercially-produced yarns, but it reflects poor quality control.

The fibre may not have been cleaned very well, so that there are still bits of vegetable matter (VM) in the yarn. I've also found bits of plastic and nylon in some cheap yarn, and unwanted neps (small lumps of short fibres, sometimes in a different colour - normal in a tweed yarn, but a bit annoying in a fine sock yarn!)

An uneven spin/ply can lead to variations in the yarn weight, so that it is (unintentionally) thick and thin and there may be unplied sections in a plied yarn. Alternatively, the yarn may be spun (overspun) or plied so tightly that yarn twists into loops and tangles.

Overspun yarns and thin sections may result in breaks or yarn ends within the ball . Where these are found, and presumably also where thin, tangled, frayed or stained sections are found in quality control, the ends may be knotted together so that you get knots in the ball. I've seen a couple of comments to the effect that a couple of knots in a 100g ball is pretty much industry-standard for acceptable quality, so if you get a ball without knots, you're lucky. That said, most of the balls of yarn I've knitted so far have not had knots, but my experience isn't so very extensive!

I've seen some reviews of mixed-fibre recycled yarns, especially those containing silk, where the yarn pulls apart quite easily. I'm all for reusing rags, but some of these yarns seem quite expensive to me, so I would definitely read the reviews before buying!

The yardage/metrage is often stated as a rough guide, but you would expect the ball weight to be accurate. However, it can be out by as much as 10% (although it's rarely over; I've had quite a few 100g balls which have been 98g). I've also seen a review for a yarn stating that the length was incorrect - I can't imagine actually measuring a whole ball or skein of yarn, but it strikes me that you would have to keep the yarn at a constant tension to get an accurate result.

And last, but not least, loosely wound balls which fall apart, leaving a tangled heap of yarn.Try not to pull, as it might knot itself tighter. And keep away from playful cats!

Washability
During processing and winding into skeins, balls or cones, the yarn fibres may be stretched, compacted or have some residual oil or finish, so that the yarn can feel quite different after its first wash.
Growing, stretching is where the yarn stretches and relaxes. Especially a problem for loosely knitted, heavy items. If the maker's suggested gauge seems tight and the yarn is known to grow on washing, go for the tighter gauge.
Shrinking is a common problem with wool.
Blooming is where the yarn seems to swell or puff a little and have a slight halo after washing, and the fabric seems to get a little wider and shorter. It's not really a problem, as the fabric often feels and looks softer, although you may need to pull the garment back into shape or re-block and you may loose stitch definition. Finely crimped, downy fibres (e.g. merino, lambswool) often bloom when washed and dried the first time and woollen-spun more than worsted-spun yarn.
Felting in wash. If you want to felt, use hot water, rub and wring the garment to your heart's content and rinse in water at different temperatures. It should be enough that if you don't want felt, use cool-lukewarm water for both washing and rinsing, and handle the garment carefully, avoiding rubbing and friction. Unfortunately, some yarns felt (and shrink) regardless of how careful you are when washing them. And I would like to know why.

Other issues to look for are stitch definition (possibly related to how crisp or soft a yarn is) and how well the yarn/item holds its shape after blocking (heavy, soft, loosely knit items may not hold their shape).

Finally, the same yarn may change in quality or characteristics over time, maybe because the producer has made changes, so it is worth giving and reading recent feedback, as well as older comments.

There are fixes for some of the quality issues, but you may not think to do it, and why should you, when you've just paid for a yarn which you expect to be of reasonable quality?  This is where creating a swatch can be so useful and important. Not only do you check your gauge (number of stitches and rows over 10 cm/4"), but you can wash it to check for dye loss, dry it and block it to check for growth/shrinkage, felting, and other quality issues, and make notes for posterity in your design book and on Ravelry, so others can benefit from your research! If you're planning a very large project, you might want to buy only a test ball before buying all the yarn you need (in the same dye lot, of course!).

After I'd written this, I belatedly wondered what else was out there about yarn quality.  I found this post by knittingharpy, who strangely didn't mention Ravelry but pointed to other sources of information on the Knitter's Review and on WiseNeedle. The latter has been taken down, having become uneconomic in the face of competition from Ravelry. It contained reviews since 1995, and it's probably a vain hope that the information has somehow found its way onto Ravelry. The owner, String or Nothing, has a good reference section.

Owl Socks Finished, Time to Reflect

I've finished my fourth pair of socks,  how did that happen?
I'm sure when I decided to knit a pair of socks, it was because I had been told (and therefore believed) that socks were challenging, difficult to knit because of the heel shaping.   Like so much else I had been told or read about knitting, it has proved to be wrong.  Or at least, if not wrong, then not completely right.

I should remember my own mantra: Lots of other people do it, how hard can it be? In this case, really not hard at all.  As suspected, the self-patterning yarn makes the owls difficult to see (oh, well, that's owls for you!). I also discovered that on 2.75 mm dpns, 66 sts as per the pattern is the lowest I can go for the cuff and still get the sock on my wide (24.5 cm) foot and ankle, although the cables do reduce the stretch a little.  If I were to make them again for myself, I would add some stitches, perhaps make it 4 stitches between owls instead of 3 to cast on 72, so that the owls aren't stretched out of shape as they are currently. And get some beads so that they can have eyes! And make the toe less tapered by starting it a little later and then decreasing every row for the last few rows. (I'm tempted to make another pair for me, as they knit up so quickly, but the next pair I make will be as a gift and the pattern as written will suit her foot size and shape just fine.)

While I was looking for socks to knit and before I had remembered these in my queue, I saw the phrase 'standard slip-stitch heel' on a few patterns. As it turned out, these socks have a slip-stitch heel flap - a new stitch for me (but there's plenty of scope there!).  This was my fourth pair of socks, but the first pair with a slip-stitch heel.  So it's probably not really 'standard' then?

Finding out that you shouldn't believe all you read, and that what you thought you knew isn't quite correct, can have an unsettling effect.  I have books which show me how to hold the needles and yarn, how to cast on and off, increase and decrease.  But now, with YouTube and various websites and blogs, I have access to a whole new world of information. There's no single, correct way to hold the yarn and the needles. You can approach stitches differently, twisting or not if you like, based on how they are mounted on the needle (whether the leading leg of the stitch is at the front or back). Instead of the three methods for casting on which I knew, (knit-on, cable and thumb, although I couldn't get the hang of the latter), and the single way to cast off, there are loads of them, with fibre artists inventing new ones from time to time. You can even knit backwards if you know what you're doing. And crochet isn't confined to rows, circles or afghan squares, but anything goes!

So, rather than feeling unsettled, I'm finding a new confidence in knitting and crochet.   I'm enjoying the exploration enormously. There are several patterns in my queue which I've decided are possibly a bit too advanced for me at the moment, but their time will come.

Looking back, I realised that my lack of confidence didn't stem from only knowing a few basics, but from a few incidents which left me wondering why I bothered to knit, coupled with a lack of practice.  For example, I was sitting knitting some interminable beige thing during a family garage sale in my teens and an older woman stopped by and came over to watch me knitting. After a couple of minutes, she grabbed my needles, held up my work and declaimed for everyone to hear that I was not holding the yarn or my needles correctly, that it was a horrible yarn in a terrible colour, that I was twisting the stitches and, in short, was just doing the whole thing completely wrong. She may have been right about the horrible yarn, but not about anything else, and what a nasty thing to do to anyone, let alone a teenager!

In my early 20s, after making a couple of sweaters for myself and friends, I made the mistake of knitting for my then boyfriend. Soon after the sleeveless, 4 ply V-neck and gorgeous, cabled  Lopi sweaters were finished, he left me. The sleeveless V-neck was requested, but the beautiful, expensive sweater was not.  It wasn't until years later that I ran across the concept of the 'Sweater Curse'; that knitting a sweater for your boyfriend (or significant other) can be the kiss of death to the relationship.  It may feel like a curse at the time, but it's probably a blessing. Whatever, it stopped me knitting for a few years until I decided to knit a 4 ply cabled cardigan for myself, but then agreed to test knit a DK cabled cardigan for a local wool shop. Knitting against time burnt me out and the 4 ply cardigan went into hibernation (and is still there, so much for finishing all my WIPs!)

As the saying goes, that was then. Now for the next pair of socks ....

A Flower a Day: Week 6 - Even More Crochet Flowers

The time has come to get to grips with crochet charts, so this week's offering is a miscellany from charts I've found online. I even popped in a couple of leaves for good measure.  Most of them had no picture of the finished flower, so it was quite entertaining to imagine the flower from the chart outline.  The large, jazzy  flower was interesting, as it was built around chain loops of different lengths. There are a few flowers with open centres where I played with the number of petals resulting from the original chained centre and they cry out for something in the centre, but that won't be a problem.

Lesley Stansfield's book '100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet' gave me some practice in seeing how charts work, although at the time I found it easier to follow the written instructions.  However, the strength of charts like this is that providing standard symbols are used (and they mostly are), the pattern can be understood and used with no need to translate instructions from one language to another. Once you know the symbols and know the different stitch lengths, charts are suddenly far simpler than they appear.

A Flower a Day: Week 5 - Flowers by Lucy at Attic24

Materials: Acrylic DK
Techniques: Crochet, Sewing

So, what with all the colourful inspiration and joy at playing hookey, I am finding myself pretty much addicted to crochet flowers.  I had queued up all of Lucy Attic 24's flowers on Ravelry to work through, but ended up sitting with her blog, since that's where all the tutorials are.  Lucy does superb tutorials, with well lit and focused close-up photos and clear instructions, including descriptions of how to work the different stitches and tips for refining techniques. What more could anyone want?

I started with Lucy's pattern for teeny tiny flowers. Gosh, these are addictive, possible because they are so quick to do.  If you don't count weaving in ends, one flower takes approximately 3 minutes.  Yes, really!  So I made one in each of the flower colours I'd chosen for this project.  And then one of the tiny leaves in each of the chosen leaf colours. Lucy also suggests playing with hook size. I had noticed that the Woolcraft luminous peach DK yarn is rather coarser and woollier than the other flower colours, which I think are all Stylecraft DK. I used a 3.75 mm hook for all of the flowers, and then made an additional spice coloured one with the same hook, and an additional peach one using a 4mm hook. The resulting difference in size means that the flowers layer quite nicely.
The leaves took me a little longer, simply because they are small enough to be fiddly, there is a strand to weave down the centre of the leaf, and a couple of my leaf colour yarns are a bit soft and splitty.  (I feel a post comparing acrylic DK yarns coming on, but flowers first!)

And so onto the Crochet Flowers and Leaves.  Having used a magic loop rather than chain 4 centre on the tiny flowers, I decided to go back to a chain centre for the first of these flowers.  Ugh! I just cannot get my first round stitches evenly around the chains! I did the double layer flower first, and liked the way that the second layer is worked on top of the first, rather than having to fiddle around behind the flower to add a layer. I decided I would also do the single layer flower with a magic loop centre and ended up with seven rather than six petals where I forgot to skip a stitch.  Never mind, it's fine. The leaves are easy enough, on the same pattern as the tiny leaves - chain a number, work your way back with ascending and then descending size stitches, turn and repeat.  Emboldened by that, I chained an extra 4 and added a couple of double treble in the centre and another couple of treble on the other side of them.

The little picot flowers are cutely ruffly.  I went back to the chain centre just for practice, but after the first couple, ended up doing magic loop centres again. I love the way that Lucy eggs the reader on to do more than one and it is a good idea. You get to practice!  It gave me a 'what if' idea for a flower, exploring the potential for a picot of three chain on top of trebles into the centre rather than doubles (the peach centre with pomegranate petals).

I hadn't noticed them before in the list of patterns, but little crochet daisies looked pretty so I had to have a go at one of them. I went back to magic loop for the centre and found that I just could not manage to get the hook under both loops of the chains in the petals. This was something which I had tried and failed on the leaves done before, and had thought perhaps it was just because of the soft, splitty yarn. I had another go at a chain centre and going through both loops of a chain while making the little leaf, and was much more successful with a coarser yarn.

Moving onto the triple layer flower. These use five colours.  I magic looped the centre The seven petal flower created for the first layer was very cute just by itself, so I made another one. The flower would work just as well with two layers, but I carried on to finish the flower. Although these crochet flowers are destined for my flower garden scarf (or whatever), this triple layer flower would make a great brooch.  I also had a go at the leaf, although my attempts were a little haphazard.  I found it easiest to do the central vein with the 4 mm hook and then go down to the 3.75 mm for the main part of the leaf, but I seemed to end up with more chains than expected and started to improvise with the numbers of various stitches.  Still, I feel that's the best bit of using patterns like this, using the basic methods as a stepping off point to start playing with different stitches and numbers of repeats.

It's May, perhaps a little early for roses, but let's do some May Roses anyway. The coppery-spice one was made with the 3.75 mm hook and the coral-shrimp coloured one with the 4 mm and with a larger double crochet centre. I also made a couple of leaves, forgetting the second treble into a chain in the first leaf and then experimenting with a longer leaf with longer stitches, using the way that one yarn end is passed back down the leaf to change its outline slightly.

The Japanese Quince are still flowering, (although not as beautifully as those in Lucy's photo!) so that was the last pattern for the week, (even though there are more flowers on the blog). Again, I played with the yarn and hook size, doing the pale pink, lighter DK with a 4 mm hook and the coarser peach DK with the 3.75 mm, just to see the difference. I was intrigued by the propeller-shaped greenery, so I had a go at that, got carried away and did one with four arms instead of three.  Oh well, it's all good!

 Clockwise from top left:

Triple layer flower
Crochet flowers and leaves
Little crochet daisy
Japanese quince
Little picot flowers (with my larger one)
A drift of teeny tiny flowers and leaves
May Roses

Knit and Crochet Flower Garden

When I started with the knitted roses, I had in mind some sort of flower garden scarf.  Since then, I've done 14 crochet flowers and counting, but I still haven't quite decided quite what it's going to be.  Something wearable, perhaps it will be a scarf, perhaps not.

Once I started the crochet flowers, I decided that I should put together a colour palette for my flowers and their eventual leaves.  I found Design Seeds some time ago, and loved the way that five or six (sometimes more) colours in toning and contrasting shades were picked out of interesting photos to create colour palettes. (The pic on the left is an edited screenshot of the Google search results for Design Seeds and orange.)

A friend and I went shopping over the Easter break and remarked on the peach/coral/salmon shades in evidence at the moment.  I don't wear girly pinks if I can help it, but I like these orangey-pink shades and found myself seeing them everywhere. My friend even bought me a bunch of salmon pink spray carnations!
(I've worked out how to do a photo montage, too.)




Inspired by this, I put together a basket of orange-peach-pink-yellow and greens which I thought went well, and these are the colours I shall use for the knit and crochet flowers and leaves, a sub-project of my Flower a Day project.

It's been a bit grey and murky recently, so I had to sit the basket on the back doorstep in order to take a photo.  The colours are fairly accurate.  Unfortunately the orange for the marigolds and flower centres is a rather bright and luminous, like the peach. Hopefully the cool bluey-greens will tone them down a bit.

A Flower a Day: Week Four - More Crochet Flowers!

I am well and truly hooked on crochet flowers at the moment, and my set of test flowers is growing.  Having decided that freeform was probably the way to go, to join the flowers and leaves into something wearable (although I haven't quite decided what, yet) I searched online for more crochet flower images and charts and information on freeform crochet.  This led to links on Irish crochet and designs for Japanese flower tawashi (scrubbing cloths). I also found a number of charts which look as though they have come from China via Russia. However, they are quite blurry copies and I think I need some more practice with instructions before I rely on charts alone.

I noticed that several of the flower patterns I'd queued in Ravelry were from the book '100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet' by Lesley Stansfield. I thought I would have a look on Amazon for it, finding it really quite cheap, I bought it and another Lesley Stansfield book '75 Birds and Butterflies to Knit and Crochet'.  My birthday present! As it says in the foreword, these aren't necessarily accurate flowers (or butterflies, etc) and both books also contain leaves, flowers, fruit, vegetables and so on, so there's enough here to knit and crochet an entire garden.  That should keep me going for a while!

However fanciful some of the flowers might be, they are also temptingly photographed with clear descriptions, so I thought I would do some as this week's set. Note, they aren't finished, with tails woven in and nicely blocked - I'll save that for when I'm putting them together into whatever I decide to make.

Materials: Acrylic DK yarn
Techniques: Crochet

Centre: Spiral rose
Clockwise from top:
Santolina
Helenium
Lazy Daisy
Apple blossom
Marigold
Small Rose

A Flower a Day: Week Three - 'Simply Crochet' Flowers

Materials: Acrylic DK
Techniques: Crochet

Apart from the crochet puff stitch flower in the Simply Crochet (issue 16) project supplement, there were seven other flower patterns in the main magazine (and that's not counting a couple of other lacy/afghan flower motifs!). Quite handily, that's a week's worth - and here they are.

The large flower came out rather differently to the original, probably because I wasn't using the same yarn and hook.  It's interestingly 3D, but I'm glad I wasn't making the six suggested as cushion decorations, because it seemed to go on forever and was getting a little hyperbolic by the end, when the curls were tamed by flattening them down and doing a contrast edge around the outermost tips of the petals.

A Flower a Day: Crochet Puff Stitch Flowers

Materials: Acrylic DK
Techniques: Crochet puff stitch

For some reason, I didn't have this style of flower queued in Ravelry (although there are patterns in there, of course!), but it features in the issue of Simply Crochet which I picked up the other week.  The version in Simply Crochet is part of a pattern for a puff stitch flower purse and features flowers with 5 petals, each petal made directly into the centre ring. It didn't explain what a 'treble cluster' was, exactly, so I went to find some tutorials on YouTube so that I could learn how to do it.

There are some very beginner-friendly tutorials available. My first attempt (the pale pink flower) was with this tutorial from B Hooked Crochet. They are cute enough, but I wasn't happy with the way the chains stood out from the petals. Still, I learned how to do the cluster and went back to the magazine to do the 5-petalled flower (bright orange).

I thought I should do a couple more, just for the fun of being introduced to different ways to do the centres. This tutorial from Crochet Jewel was very easy to follow. I noticed that some of the tutorials mention the yarn brand and the US hook size, but 'Red Heart yarn with an H hook' doesn't mean much to me. The important thing really is to use whatever you want, with a hook size which matches your yarn size. (Peach with a bright orange centre.)

My favourite video tutorial, this time by Kim Poelwiijk, is also easy to follow, even though it's in Dutch. (Don't let the fact that some of these tutorials are in another language put you off, unless you are a total and utter beginner and can't tell a slip stitch from a treble crochet. If the work is clear and slow, you can follow it and perhaps learn to count in other languages, too.) I might have missed something from the other tutorials, but this one has each petal starting and ending with a slip stitch into stitch from the first round and only two chain before starting the puff cluster, which seems to give much better definition. (Salmon pink with a yellow centre).  Kim goes on to demonstrate how the flowers can be 'joined as you go'.

A Flower a Day: Crochet Corkscrew Spiral Flowers

Materials: Acrylic DK yarn
Techniques: Crochet

These are super-easy to do, just crochet a foundation chain and then do 3 trebles (UK or double crochet US) into each chain on the way back.  I think there may be an optimum length for the foundation chain, but don't know what it is.  Too long, and you end up with a corkscrew shape.  To short, and it's not a very full flower.  I think the spice coloured one works best, and I think I chained 30 or so as the foundation.
As you can see, I haven't fastened off the ends - that will come when I decide what I'm going to do with them.

A Flower a Day: Popcorn Stitch Flower

Materials: Acrylic DK
Techniques: Crochet, popcorn stitch, in the round

This was another of the Ravelry patterns in my queue and I happened across the tutorial video in YouTube, which is very clear and easy to crochet along with. I stopped after three rounds - the centre, first round of 8 petals, then a round of 16. I love that the instructions include the 'formula' for increasing crochet rounds, so that this could be done as a cushion cover.  It makes a very dense flower in the acrylic DK.

Watching the video, I was fascinated by the elegant way that Brittany rolls the hook to grab the yarn. I'm using (I think) a 4mm hook.  I'm not sure of the size, because I am using my trusty old Clover double-ended steel hook. The hook sizes are 5/0 and 6/0, which I think equate to 3.75 and 4 mm. It feels like I've had it forever, so it must be at least 40 years old.

A Flower a Day: Crochet Spiral Rosette

Materials: Acrylic DK
Techniques: Crochet

This was one of the patterns in my Ravelry queue.  I'm using some of my acrylic DK stash to create the flowers and mine doesn't look anything like as pretty as the original, which was done with a crochet cotton.  Amazing, how a single thread of this shade looks an innocuous peach colour, but it's really quite a luminous light orange.

I had a couple of false starts with the instructions for this flower, as I couldn’t work out exactly what I was doing from the instructions (don’t join the circle, but then do a single crochet in the next stitch - isn’t that joining the circle?). Eventually I twigged that the ‘centre’ made from the first two rounds is in fact a spiral base, and by turning the base over and then doing 2dc (US) into each stitch in the spiral base, you are spiralling back in towards the centre.
I've seen this technique described elsewhere as 'crochet on a plate', the 'plate' being the round or spiral base.