Last weekend I went to the Unravel Festival at Farnham Maltings. I had an excellent time and bought a whole lot of yarn. Above is a rather cheesy recap video of my weekend. Filmed on my phone, but I think gives you a flavour. If you love yarn or fibre and are close by it would be well worth taking a look next year!
Here is a list of some of the vendors featured in the video;
A pile of beautiful samples.
I love Tunisan crochet, so as you can imagine the beautiful PAX shawl has been on my list of things to make for a very long time. I was overjoyed to hear the PAX’s designer Aoibhe Ni was coming to The Sheep Shop to teach a class on how to make it.
Aoibhe, being the wonderful talented lady she is, has invented a whole new kind of Tunisian crochet – Tunisian Lace Crochet. When she came for the class she brought samples from her Legendary Shawls collection. All unceremoniously dumped in a big pile in the middle of the table, they needed no hype to make us ooooo and ahhhhh in wonder.
As you can imagine I was entranced by all the beautiful patterns. It took Aoibhe quite a while to get us concentrating on actually crocheting rather than pawing at gloriously lacy shawls.
Aoibhe’s new take on Tunisian crochet was, to begin with, quite bewildering. She said her inspiration was seeing those beautiful knitted shawls and wanting to recreate their style in crochet. I can totally relate to that as I love the look of knitted and have only recently taught myself to knit for just that reason.
After much patient tutoring and many confused looks I’m pleased to say everyone in the class eventually had the eureka moment when it finally clicked what we were supposed to be doing. Once I realised the basic structure and stitches it all suddenly seemed so simple and logical. Of course! Why didn’t I think of it that way before?
My samples are in DK and of course scrappy, but I managed to practice all the skills needed to create my own PAX.
Wonderful Sheep Shop owner Sarah and Aoibhe
Much fun was certainly had by all and everyone agreed that should Aoibhe ever return to Cambridge we would all very much like her to teach another class at The Sheep Shop. I know she does teach an advanced class but I think I would love her to teach a class on the new collection of garments she is releasing soon. I can’t wait for the Classical Elements collection to come out, as I really want to apply this new version of Tunisan crochet to clothes!
A little birdie told me that Aoibhe would be at Fibre East teaching several classes in July 2014. I would heartily recommend them if you plan to get started on any of her wonderful patterns as the classes are no end of help. I quite like the look of the Beyond the Basics class myself!
A band of merry crocheters!
We are now holding a bit of a CAL over in The Sheep Shop ravelry group. Please feel free to join join us if you would like to make a PAX too. Aoibhe also has her own ravelry group in which there are lots of CALs, discussions and sneak peaks of new patterns. I of course ignored all of my many ongoing WIPS and cast on straight away. So far I’m pretty pleased but have yet to attempt the lace part!
A simple beginning
This week and last I’ve been making lots of snowflakes ready for Christmas. I plan to use them for ornaments and Christmas cards. I’ve been using the wonderful Festive Snowflakes patterns by Valerie Bracegirdle which I think is great value, three great patterns for £2.oo. There has been a whole group discussion in her Ravelry group about things we are making for Christmas now that it is just around the corner. After a little chatting and some lightning fast pattern design by Valerie, she agreed to create a snowflake design for me to share with you for free!
I’ve recorded a how to video;
And as promised here is the chart;
Here is the link to the Ravelry design page.
I hope you all like it! It was a great pleasure to work with Valerie on this. I really hope I can do more tutorials like this in the future. Any questions just leave a comment here or on the YouTube video.
The start of an Anniversary Sharf in beautiful pumpkin colours
I don’t know about you, but Autumn is my favourite season. It shouldn’t be. We have horrid windy rainy days and those days are getting darker and shorter. However I think what I love is the riot of colour that explodes on the trees. I’m a sucker for colour and in my opinion Autumn leaves trumps summer flowers any day.
With the beginning of Autumn well and truly here I find myself in a whirlwind of projects. Not only am I continuing the light summer projects of scarves and shawls, I’ve also hauled the blanket projects back out that were too heavy to work on during the hotter months. So now I have even more projects on the go then I did a month ago! I feel like I’m drowning in them.
To an extent it feels like my head is spinning. I’ve a terrible attention span and hardly ever finish a project before starting a new one. It’s driving me up the wall a little. I know some people who crank out projects at lightening speed and still have time to design patterns at the same time. There must be a way to approach all this. Does anyone find a particular method is useful?
Tunisian crochet blanket pulled from the cupboard, ready to be worked on again.
I think perhaps because a lot of things that I create are not for a particular purpose or person that could be what stops me from finishing. No deadline means no pressure to finish? Or is it because I’m a perfectionist and often half way through a project I decide its not exactly what I had in mind and this puts me off?
I’d love to know what people think. How do you manage projects, keep yourself motivated and deal with the influx of projects that come with the Autumn/Winter season?
A tutorial demonstrated on the Anniversary Sharf project showing how to YO at the beginning of a row. Please excuse the colour changes in the video as I’m still in my learning curve. I will look to resolve the issue in future videos.
Valerie Bracegirdle’s pattern for the Anniversary Sharf on Ravelry is here
My Ravelry project page is here
The WIP video for this project is here
My current work in progress the Anniversary Sharf by Valerie Bracegirdle.
Find my Ravelry project page here;
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/KerryWallis/anniversary-sharf
The pattern is available to purchase on Ravelry here;
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/anniversary-sharf
Find the Agrarian Artisan KAL Ravelry thread here;
http://www.ravelry.com/discuss/agrarian-artisan-designs/2664758/551-575#564
This time I’ve tried a video blog! Have a look and see what you think.
The snowflake pattern I talk about is actually called Festive Snowflakes by Agrarian Artisan.
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/libra…
The pattern for the Short and Sweet cardigan I’m working on is in the Stitch ‘n Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker book.
The lovely Valerie of Agrarian Artisan posed the question;
Granny Squares – Do you love them or not?
Hummmmmm. I’ve read the other blogs thus far (See bottom of post for links to previous posts on the blog tour). I’m tempted to agree generally with what has been said. When I first started to crochet it was because I had seen Amigurumi dolls and that inspired me to learn. Amigurumi is not the easiest item to learn crochet from but somehow I managed it. They were not fast projects though, with each tiny doll taking weeks to complete. At that point I was completely unaware of the vast amounts of patterns and variation available to me in my new craft.
When I first noticed granny squares, and most importantly the fact that I could easily make them, I was overjoyed. I immediately started on a massive scrap yarn granny square blanket. I loved working on it and it grew in no time. I loved the way I could use any colour in a wonderful crazy rainbow working out from the middle. It felt like colour therapy.
I became obsessed. I bought 200 Crochet Blocks and I was away. I joined swaps, and when there were not enough swaps going on I started my own. Then just to fill in time in between swaps and blankets of my own I started making granny square blocks for Knit a Square. I became Kerry the granny square lady. It all culminated in making a granny square blanket for my mum’s 60th birthday.
Please excuse the poor photography of 4 years ago!
I burned myself out. It was bound to happen. I wanted something more interesting. A challenge. I began my obsession with shawls and scarves. I think it was the natural progression. I’d found much better, and certainly more expensive yarn. I wanted to make much more intricate things than simple old granny squares.
I think granny squares were a marvellous learning tool for me. They allowed me to make large projects in no time, which gave me the confidence to branch out. If I could make these huge colourful blankets, then why not a scarf? For me granny squares are a little like Marmite. You love them or you hate them. I really dislike granny square blankets in cheap acrylic in clashing colours (basically all my first attempts), but if done right with great yarn and colour combinations they can be beautiful. I think the key is using the simple structure to really show off your yarn/colour choices.
Previous stops on the Granny Square Blog Tour;
Amanda of The Natural Dye Studio
For future blogs please check this ravelry post;
Last weekend I took part in the Beginner Sock class at The Sheep Shop with Louise Tilbrook. I’ve had a crack at socks before, and by that I mean I started a two at a time top down magic loop method. It’s crazy, I always jump right in and whether I’m capable or not and try the most interesting looking thing. You can see my first, and as yet unfinished, attempt here.
I wanted to really get a handle on proper socks. With all the lovely 4 ply yarn I have, I have never made a pair of knitted socks. I also wanted to get to grips with double pointed needles. I was aware of the theory, but have never been brave enough to try. I picked up some needles and some rather uninteresting but hard wearing yarn the week before. I wanted yarn that I could undo and redo many times as I was sure I was going to do that in class. I mentioned the yarn in this post, it is the first yarn I talk about.
The class was wonderful. Just the right number of people. I managed to drop my needles about every 5 mins for the whole 3 hours. At various points I ended up with less needles in the project than I should have had. It was like a yarny game of kerplunk.
Through all that I still managed to produce a smaller than toddler sock, but the main thing is that it included all the techniques needed to make a full size sock. We decided my miss formed sock was more of a cat/dog sock than a toddler sock. I was going to try and get Cleo to model it for you, but I don’t fancy my chances.
Of course I came straight home and cast on some proper adult size socks. I’ve managed to get past the heel turn so I think that in it’s self confirms that the class is a success. It looks like Louise is doing another class in April, so if you are interested I would highly recommend it. I’ve also just noticed she is doing a toe up class in May, I shall have to sign up for that!
It’s taken me a while to write this post. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m already excited and making other projects or because this one went a little wrong.
Ta dah! The Short and Sweet cardigan. I made the length and sleeves a little longer than the pattern called for. As you can see it’s being modelled on a mannequin at The Sheep Shop rather than on me. That’s the hint on what went wrong. It’s too small!
I had the sneaking suspicion as I was making it that it wasn’t going to be quite big enough to sit right. I was hoping that because it is a cardigan that is designed to be small, that was just how it was going to appear until I was finished. No such luck! I checked my gauge when I was done (yes, yes I know I’m supposed to do that at the beginning) and that was fine. I can only assume I picked a size too small. Also the size I made was designed not to close at the front, leaving a gap, which I wasn’t keen on. Never mind! Some lovely person who is smaller than me will receive it in the future, I’m sure.
All the details of the yarn used etc is in my WIP post if you are interested. I really enjoyed using the Bamboo Cotton mix. It has excellent drape and I think the cream colour suits the project very well. I’m already planning another go at this one. The next size up is designed to close at the front, a quirk of the pattern repeat, which I much prefer. I always like a cardigan to be big enough to wrap around me. I’ve chosen some brilliant 100% llama yarn from my recent Sheep Shop haul. It is a wonderful variegated grey and black colour, is soft and snugly and seems to have wonderful drape. This means the cardigan will be more of a Autumn/Spring wear, which suits me fine as it will probably be Autumn before I start!
Finally, a funny thing I noticed as I tried it on the dummy. The pattern from this angle kind of looks like little skulls. Really angry alien skulls, but skulls none the less. Is it just me or can you see it too?
Oddments 