Thursday 22 October 2015

My First Crochet Throw - finally finished!

I haven't been around for a while - October holidays crept up quietly and pleasantly, very nice it was too!  I had no plans for the break apart from a vague notion to finish off the crochet throw/blanket I'd started making squares for at the beginning of the Summer.  81 squares and each one different, if only marginally - I was really pleased to make them all unique, it was a bit of hit and miss.  I really wanted to make a genuine granny throw from oddments of my wool stash though to give it a real heirloom feel.

It was a lovely sunny autumn day when I sewed the last row together . . .


. . . . draped over a ladder outside the house . . .


a close up of the squares . . .


I'm chuffed it's finally finished!  Not sure that Ji Ji the cat was quite impressed, but I'm sure she'll find her way to lying on it yet!  Whether I let her or not is the question . . . . hmmmmm.


I'm enjoying leafing through my two crochet books from the summer in the meantime - I love picking up a book and making a square just for the fun of it!


The 'Home' double crochet square was fun - I haven't done cross stitch since I was in Primary School, hehe!


I'm just playing with these squares for a bit of fun at the moment - with a view to covering this cushion maybe - no deadline, just practicing!


It's blowing a hoolie of a gale here in the Hebrides today!  Just right for snuggling up :)

Bye for Now :)
Alison x

Tuesday 6 October 2015

More lace - sheeeesh!

Sorry, I am boring Blogland with my lace but when I get absorbed by something . . . . . :)

Here's the last shawl for a while - honest!  I really wanted to try some 2 ply lace yarn to test my lace knitting skills to the max! (well not quite - but cobweb/1 ply yarn - I don't think so!).

This lovely pattern (Annis) by Susanna IC seemed a good choice for practicing nupps (Estonian lace stitch) and also simple enough to practice using 2 ply yarn - so we thought haha!  Actually it was . . .  AFTER I finally found the right cast-on for lace - 363 stitches later, aaaaargh!

It was all worth it in the end though . . . .


I used a knitted cast on which creates quite a loopy edge as you can see but these loops help the edge to stretch out - it all came good eventually!  More nupps (the bobbly things!) in this shawl - 150 I think!

A lovely sheer lace effect though (after blocking) - notice the difference from the photo above . . .


Finished in 5 days which is a quick knit for lace, so I'm happy!  This was really a 'practice' shawl and only used one ball of  Malabrigo lace yarn so nice and economical too . . .


I think my 2 month 'masterclass' in lace knitting has probably come to an end . . . time to move on :)  I've had fun with it though!

Speak soon
Alison x