Willow [Free Pattern]

Good morning, folks!  I don't know about where you are, but it's absolutely tipping it down in Central Portugal. Not that I'm complaining - I've always said that rain makes the best soundtrack for creativity!  ;)

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Do you remember the handspun I got from Scott and Lynn at willowvalept?  It was by pottering around with this yarn that I came up with this potholder/coaster pattern.  For a first attempt at working with handspun, I'm pretty pleased with the results :)

Willow

For this pattern I used a 5.5mm hook.  The yarn was comparable to a chunky weight, and the finished project measured approx 13.5cm across.

The pattern is written using American notations throughout.

Before I start with the pattern proper, I'd just like to take you through the cluster stitches used in round 6.  To be honest, I'm not even sure if they are cluster stitches (beyond SCs and DCs, terminology really isn’t something I’ve grasped), but to make things easier I’m going to keep calling them that, rather than cluttering up the pattern instructions with too much jargon…

Start by making a dc (in the first cluster stitch of round 6, the first ch2 counts as the dc) [see pic 1]

Next, YO and insert hook into stitch.  YO again and bring to the front.  YO and pull through 2 loops.  You have 2 loops on the hook [see pic 2]

Now YO and insert hook into next stitch.  YO and bring to the front.  YO and pull through 2 loops.  You have 3 loops on the hook [see pic 3]

Finally, YO and insert hook into same stitch.  YO and bring to the front.  YO and pull through 2 loops.  You have 4 loops on the hook [see pic 4]

To finish the stitch, YO and pull through all 4 loops [pic 5], then ch1 and sl st into the base of the cluster.

(This is all a lot simpler than it sounds, promise!)

For the pattern proper:

Round 1: Ch4, join to make a circle

Round 2: 8sc into the centre of the circle.  Join with sl st (8) [see pic 1]

Round 3: 2sc in each st.  Join with sl st (16) [see pic 2]

Round 4: Ch2 (counts as first dc), 1dc in same sp [see pic 3], *ch1, skip a stitch, 2dc in next st*.  Repeat between * 6 more times.  Join with a sl st to top of initial ch2.  (8 petals) [see pic 4]

Round 5: Ch2, 1dc in the space to the right of this ch [see pic 5].  *Sc in the second dc sp from the previous round, 2dc in the gap*.  Repeat between * 6 more times.  Join with a sl st to the top of the initial ch2 (8 petals) [see pic 6]

Round 6: Ch2 (counts as the first dc) and complete the cluster [see above], ch2.  *In the next dc space from the previous round, Cluster as directed above, then ch2* [see pic 7].  Repeat between * 6 more times.  Join with a sl st to the top of the cluster.

Round 7: *5dc into the next gap [see pic 8], and sl st into the top of the clusters*.  Repeat between * 8 times total.  Join with a sl st into the top of the first dc of the round.

And there you have it!

To finish, darn in your ends, block and enjoy!

The Semi-Solid Solid Square Rectangle

Oh dear oh dear.  I must apologise!  It's been SUCH a long time since I posted.  I'm not neglecting you all, I promise!  I still read as many blogs as I can, but sadly I've had little time to leave any comments recently.

In my absense I've been busy working away on a new blanket.  It's still in the fairly early stages, but most of the coloured squares are now finished.  I've even sewn in the ends!

Such a lovely jumble of colour and chaos, don't you think?  I love the yarn too - King Cole Riot DK makes a great Noro-ish substitute (especially for those working on a less than Noro budget!).  It's wonderfully soft and drapes brilliantly.  A perfect blanket yarn so far!

The pattern I'm using is based on Jan Eaton's Solid Square, although I made the following modifcations (noted here using American abbreviations):

I replaced the ch3 in the first round with a dc (this helped to close the little gap that had been appearing). In the second round the ch3 became a ch2. I made up the third round as I went along: a ch1, 1hdc in same space, 1hdc in each subsequent space, and 2hdc, 1dc - 1dc, 2hdc in the corners. With these mods, each block came out at approx 6cm square.

Now all that remains is to decide how to join the squares up.  I've ordered some cream acrylic, which should hopefully arrive soon, and in the meantime I can plot out the border.

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I'm also very happy to report that yesterday I finally found the patterns and ideas I scribbled down a few weeks back.  To my astonishment there are 4 different patterns and various odd doodles, most of which I have no recollection of ever doing!  Being such a scatterbrain, I didn't leave any clues as to what the patterns would make, so it'll be a nice surprise later when I sit down with some yarn and decipher them.  :)  My fingers are crossed that I'll be able to share the patterns with you all very soon!

Much love,

Kim

Psycho Delia: ta-dah!

It's here!  It's happened!!  Delia is COMPLETE  :D

Remember when it was all just circles?

...and the cirlces grew and grew...

...and the piles of circles got bigger and bigger...

...and then the circles turned into squares.  It started to get exciting...

...and the excitement grew at each step...

...and along with the excitement, the worry that it might not work...

...that maybe it was just too psycho...

...it required a lot of patience and persistence.

It felt giddy to be joining the last sqaure...

...and sad to find that the border colours just didn't quite reach.

But it got there eventually.  It was worth it...

...and the thousands of ends just celebrated the achievement.

Now take a deep breath.  Stand back and see: ta-dah!

Wow!  I'm a little bit stunned.  All along I worried that it was just going to be a massive mess, and all of that hard work would have been wasted.  And then it got to the end, and I realised that I loved it.  Strange, eh?

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It's only fair to credit all the hard work that other people put in designing the patterns and techniques I used on this:

The main pattern is Lucy's Summer Garden Granny Square

And the general gist of the composition is inspired by Lucy's Sweet Flower Granny

The border follows this brilliant crinkle-free pattern

My Ravelry project page is here

I used mostly Sylecraft Special DK (you can read more about that in my post here, although I didn't end up using all the colours listed).  I also used some other balls of DK acrylic mixed in.

The finished blanket measures approx 153x108cm, with 13 large sqaures, 98 small squares and a grand total of 1002 ends.  It took approximately 1 month to finish.

It's also an absolute pain in the bum to get a decent photo of the whole thing!

Springtime Hexagon [Free Pattern]

I don't know about you, but Spring is making me VERY happy this year.  Especially now that all of the delicate little flowers are blooming

These little flowers definitely inspired me to make this hexagon... I hope you like it :)

Pattern

Before we begin, just a few little notes as a bit of a guide.  As you can see above, I made a few different sizes by stopping at different points and by varying the weight of yarn and the size of the hook.  The tutorial will guide you through all the steps needed to make the biggest hexagon (which measures approximately 4-4.5 inches before blocking), but hopefully the step-by-step pictures will help you to see how the hexagon looks after each round.

Notes

As usual, the pattern is written using US terms.  For this hexagon I used DK yarn and a 4mm hook.

sp = space
sl st = slip stitch
ch = chain
sc = single crochet
hdc = half double crochet
dc = double crochet

Round 1
To begin, ch4 and join with sl st into the first chain to form a circle.

Round 2
Ch1, and work 1dc, 1hdc, ch1 into the circle.  Then work *1hdc, 1dc, 1hdc, ch1*  Repeat between * 5 times - you will have 6 clusters in total.  Join with a sl st into the top of the first ch1.

Round 3
Change colour.  Join your new colour into any ch1 sp.  [Ch1, 2dc, 1hdc, ch1] in the same sp.  [1hdc, 2dc, 1hdc, ch1] in each of the next 5 ch1 sps.  Join with a sl st to the top of the first ch1.

Round 4
Change colour.  Join your new colour into any sp between clusters.  In this round you will be creating the "corners" of your hexagon:  [Ch1, 1dc, ch2, 1dc, 1hdc, ch2] into the same sp.  [1hdc, 1dc, ch2, 1dc, 1hdc, ch2] into each of the next 5 sps around.  Join with a sl st to the top of the first ch1.

Note that this was the point at which I stopped for the smaller hexagons.

Round 5

Change colour.  Join your new colour into any ch2 corner sp (ie: the 'pointy bit' of the hexagons).  Work (Ch1, 2hdc, ch2, 3hdc, ch1) into this sp.  *In the next ch2 sp, work (3hdc, ch1), and into the next ch2 corner sp, work (3hdc, ch2, 3hdc, ch1)*  Repeat between * 5 times.  In the final ch2 sp, work (3hdc, ch1), and then join with a sl st into the top of the first ch1.

Round 6

Change colour.  Join new colour into any ch2 corner sp.  Into this corner sp, work (Ch2, 2dc, ch2, 3dc).  *Into the next 2 ch1 sps, work 3dc.  Into the next ch2 corner sp, work (3dc, ch2, 3dc).*  Repeat between * until the round is finished.

If you want to make your hexagon bigger, just keep going!  Just remember that on each round you want to make a (3dc, ch2, 3dc) cluster into each corner sp, and a 3dc cluster into each sp between clusters along the 'straight' edges, just as you did in round 6:

And there you have it!  These would work great for a blanket, a cushion cover, a bag.... the possibilities are - as they say - endless!  Experiment with hook sizes and yarn weights to find what works best for you :)

ETA: there is now a Ravelry project page for this pattern here

Psycho Delia

Oh dear.  Blog week didn't go all according to plan here at eggbird did it?  I'm quite sad I missed out, but these things happen.  I wasn't feeling too great last week, and lost interest in a lot of things that I usually enjoy - blogging seemed to be the worst hit.  Sod's law really, but happily I can report feeling much more enthused now and normal service should be resumed forthwith!

The squares you see at the top there are the starting blocks of my new BIG project, which I'm pretty excited about.  But first, I'd like to share a story.

 
You are of course all aware of the terrible tragedy which happened in Japan.  A couple of weeks ago, a group of Japanese students in Bangor started fundraising for the Red Cross.  They did a really amazing job, and raised an incredible amount.  As part of their efforts, they organised a cultural day: an event to promote Japanese culture which would also raise funds to send to the Red Cross.  My friend Yuka asked if I would like to be involved by crocheting things for people to buy.  Since I only had a couple of days, I needed something quick and simple, so I made some Pretty Little Petals (you can find the tutorial in the sidebar) in the colours of the Japanese flag

We asked only for a small donation for the flowers, but people were incredibly generous.  It was a fantastic day, with so much love and support for the people of Japan and for the Japanese students in Bangor.

And then on the way home from evening service on Sunday, we were approached by a friend of a friend of a friend, who from nowhere asked "are you the girl who makes the flowers?"  That was a strange feeling I can tell you!!  Such a strange coincidence, but it really lifted my spirits when I'd been in need of them lifting.  And now I have another Japan flower made which will be passed via friend via friend via friend to someone I don't know.  Awesome!  Just goes to show that kindness and love is always returned somehow or other when you most need it :)

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Psycho Delia - or Granny P. Delia - is finally making progress.  I had so many false starts, I uhm-ed and ah-ed about colour combos (hence the psychedelic reference in the project title), I very nearly gave in and sold off the Stylecraft via Rav (madness I know!!).  But then I looked again at Lucy's Sweet Flower Blanket from which I'm drawing my inspiration, and decided to just GO FOR IT!  Hurray for Lucy, eh?!

Even though I'm joining-as-I-go, the amount of ends already trailing about is really rather frightning!  Good thing I can ignore those for a while then!!

Anyway, I'm very glad to be back in blog-world - now all that's left is to catch up on all of your marvy posts that have stacked up in my reader!

Much love,

Kim x

Strangeness and Charm

A Tale of Two Yarns (2KCBWDAY1)

Sometimes, I really cannot handle the unpredictability of sock yarns.  Take for example Hot Socks Circus 

"Wowzers!" you might rightly be thinking, "that is one exciting lookin' ball-o-yarn!".  There's no shame in it - that's exactly what I thought too.  It's also exactly the thing that made me buy a ball, even though I'd already gone over twice my craft budget for the week ("Shush your lips, Responsibility!")

Next comes The Choosing Of The Pattern.  Most sane people choose their patterns first and then purchase an appropriate yarn - a sensible way of doing things.  But as you may have gathered from my rebellious approach to budgeting ("Kim, do you really need food this week?"), sensible isn't really part of my repertoire.

A quick delve into my ever expanding Rav queue provides me with something promising though: Sharon Maher's Suggestion Square  And I figure that I can do something like this amazing rainbow.  Next thing you know I'm hooking like a good'un...

...until this happens.

It's not even an 'ugh!', it's an 'aaargh!'

What happened to those lovely colours?!  What is the point of a teensy tiny colour repeat?  Why do sock yarn designers insist on including those silly speckle things? 
Just why?!

So now I'm stuck.  I really want to carry on with this idea I've got.  I convince myself that maybe it's not so bad, I just need to make a few more...

No.

I know it's not really awful, and that some people make really good use of the speckles, but it's just not what I wanted...

Then a lovely shiney bright light of hope: another Rav yarn search, and off to ebay I go ("Just pay your rent next week, I'm sure the landlord won't mind").

Oh my!  Schoppel-Wolle Zauberball Lace, I think I'm in love!  ("Hot Socks who?!").  Since ebay doesn't provide any pre-purchace squidging ops, that has to be made up for upon delivery.  I squidged and stroked and just looked at this for ages.  All 800m of it!!  Quite perverse really...

But yes, we've been through this before.  And although this time I'd had a sneak preview via Ravelry's project pages, I still wasn't entirely sure if it would work.  So out of cowardice more than anything, I started some of Gaby Vicente's Square Shells rather than the original blocks.

...and holy moly!  I'm LOVING how these come out

I'll be making lots of these.  LOTS.  And then some more after that.

Except that they're TEENSY, and not at all suitable for blanket making.  And now, having previewed this post, I think I want to try the Suggestion Squares with the Zauberball.  Gaaah!

My conclusions on sock yarns then are thus:

Really the problem with self-striping or self-patterning yarns is that you can't tell what it will turn into just by looking at the ball.  Sometimes it's obvious, and sometimes you can have a little check via Rav, but not always.  It's especially difficult when your LYS is a good 35 minute train journey away, because that's when impulses get the better of you ("If you buy it now, you'll save money on another train ticket.  It's practically a half price deal!").

It's not that I don't like the Hot Socks (well, stupid speckles aside, but I can live with that).  I love the drastic colour changes, I love the texture and the feel of it on the hook, I even love the shorter colour repeats in small doses.  It's just not really what I'd hoped for.
And as for the Zauberball, I'll admit it's not entirely perfect ("Shhh, it might hear you!"), but it's as close to perfect as I've ever found in a self patterning yarn.

Perhaps the only real problem left to discuss is user error? ;)

Nuthatch [Free Pattern]

So, as promised in my previous post, here is the pattern for my new granny square, named "Nuthatch" in honour of this month's British Birds calender page (an awesome calendar). 

Nuthatch [Free Pattern]

Notes
I used a 4mm hook and DK weight yarn.  The pattern is written using US terms (however if you prefer UK-speak, there is a handy conversion chart here).

Sp = Space
Sl St = Slip stitch
Ch = Chain
Sc = Single crochet
Hdc = Half double crochet
Dc = Double crochet

Round 1
Create a magic loop (I really like this tutorial for the magic loop).  Into this, work 4sc loosely  Join with a sl st

Round 2
Ch1, 2sc into all sts, join with a sl st (8)

Round 3
Ch2 (counts as first dc), dc into same sp, 2dc into each sp around, join with sl st (16)

Round 4

Join a new colour into the same space:

...Ch2 (counts as first dc), 3dc into the same sp, Ch1.  *Skip 1 st, 4dc into next st, Ch1*  Repeat between * 7 times.  Join with sl st into top of initial Ch2

Round 5
Change colour - join new colour into any Ch1 sp.  Ch2 (counts as first dc), 2dc into same sp:

...Ch1, skip next sp, sc, skip next st, 3dc into next Ch1 sp, Ch1:

...Continue working (1sc, ch1, 3dc, ch1) around.  Join with sl st into top of initial ch2:

Round 6
Change colour.  Join new colour into any Ch1 sp which comes immediately after a 3dc cluster:

Do not chain.  Work 2sc into this sp, and 2sc into the next Ch1 sp:

...work 1sc into each of the next two sts:

...3dc into the next Ch1 sp, ch1, then work 3dc into the next Ch1 sp:

...*work 1sc into each of the next two sps, 2sc into each of the next two Ch1 sps, 1sc into each of the next 2 sps, 3dc into next Ch1 sp, Ch1, 3dc into next Ch1 sp*.  Repeat between * until you have 4 corners, 1sc into next 2 sps.  Join with a sl st.

Round 7
Ch1, sc into the next 7 sts, 1hdc into the next st.  *Into the corner Ch1 sp, work (1dc, Ch1, 1dc):

...Into the next sp, work 1hdc, and then 11sc along the row, and 1hdc into the 12th st.*  Repeat between * until all 4 corners are completed, then work 1sc into each of the next 2 sts.  Join with a sl st.

You may like to work in your ends as you go (this is defs much easier and simpler), however I prefer to wait and then sew them all in with a tapestry needle, mainly because I worry about the ends working loose over time.  It is of course entirely up to you which method you choose - I'm probably being over cautious.

And there you have it!  One Nuthatch square finished!  :D  I have a few blocking at the moment - hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to show you how I'm going to use them :)

Hope you enjoy the pattern!  If you want to add to your Ravelry queue, you can do so here.

Much love,
Kim