D.I.Y. Yarn Club

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Back in November of 2011 I was starting to ponder Christmas presents for myself (my birthday is the 23rd and I invariably get lots of people asking me what I want) and I was looking at all the beautiful different yarn clubs available.  Ones for sock yarns, ones for lace, ones for sock patterns, ones for shawls, ones with a theme, ones for a particular type of fibre, ones for indie dyers… it was all so overwhelming.

I also felt a bit like I was cheating on my existing stash – and I had a couple of unanswerable questions about the yarn clubs (what if I didn’t like the colour, or the pattern, or needed more, or if I fell behind?).

What I ended up deciding to do was my own ‘free’ yarn club.  I would bundle up my existing yarn with the pattern I wanted to make from that yarn, with maybe a surprise and then a ‘sketchy’ note on the outside such as ‘quick’ or ‘laceweight’ or ‘rustic’.  Then each time I finished a project I could ‘adjective’ dive and pick out a surprise lucky dip type package.  Of course life isn’t quite that smooth, so I didn’t get chance to wrap up everything before December, but I did get to give a number of yarn/pattern pairings to a dear friend. I say a number because I genuinely can’t remember how many.  His instructions were to add a *small* surprise if he wished (he is forever buying me little treats) and to hand them back at some point in 2012 to be decided by him.

We meet up for dinner every month(ish), and this month I got an extra bag!  My beautiful forest green Wollmeise was returned to me, along with my signed copy of Franklin Habit’s Giovannina Stole (both of which I had completely forgotten I had handed over in the first place)

Forest Green Wollmeise

do-it-yourself stole kit

along with 2 bars of Lindt chocolate (nom) and a wonderful collection of 1940-1980s patterns (knit and crochet) which he had found in his mothers loft (who used to own a haberdashery).

collection of pattern fronts

anybody else feel old?

(sorry about the blurry quality – I will take some better ones I promise!).  I’ve had a ball reading the Woman’s Weekly from Sept 1980, and some of the yarn pictures are genuinely terrifying – the Paton’s green boarded one you can see on the right has the entire family dressed in the exact same green cabled/lace jumper (though ‘his’ buttons the other way) – no wonder the dog needs two people to hold onto him!

The yarn is sitting staring at me, and I have managed to photocopy my own ‘abuse’ copy of the pattern.  Now I just have to get up the courage to start!

Validation in the Virtual World

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Last year there was a challenge on one of the Rav forums to see if I could cloudburst patterncreate a bandana shawlette inspired by a design on the highstreet.  The result was the CloudBurst
shawl, which I posted on Ravelry as a free pattern.  Afterall it was an afternoon of ‘playing’ and then about a week of writing up / pattern testing so it didn’t seem fair to charge.

I was delighted when the pattern was  taken up by so many (currently standing at 105 finished projects, and 600+ favourites) and got a sense of warm satisfaction from having appealed to more than just myself and the original requester.

Imagine my surprise when this week I got a message from another Rav member to let me know that not only did she enjoy my pattern, but she enjoyed it enough to start producing them and selling them in her etsy shop!  I’m strangely proud of this, despite the fact I had absolutely no involvement in the process or production – I simply made a pattern available for her to go off, but I feel I have somehow had some validation of myself by this acceptance – not hindered by the fact that the seller gave me a shout out in the product description!

I have several designs in the ‘pipeline’ and this lovely message this week has firmed my resolve to get cracking on them and get them published!

Incidentally, for those who want to know, the original shawl pictured above was gifted to my sister in law, who looked at me like I thought she was 90 and who, as far as I know, has worn it once, as a ‘granny shawl’ in a production of Oliver!  She seems to be bemused when I tell her this is a popular shawl design on the internet and that she owns the original.  Some people just don’t get it do they?

The State of the Nation

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As we roll up in bunting drenched vehicles ahead of the Diamond Jubilee this weekend, I can’t believe that it’s been nearly 4 weeks since my last post, and it’s been very busy!  I shall add a note to my diary to write a post at least once every two weeks 😉

I am still awaiting results of tests of the (spreading) pain in my hands – I’ve finally managed to get referred up the chain, but there is the usual 6-8 week wait now to see a consultant.Starry Starry Night Shawl

Crafting time therefore is still very limited, but I have achieved a couple of small successes.  I finished my version of Eva’s Shawl, Starry Starry Night, a beginner level shawl which I ‘pimped’ with beautiful Unique Sheep Eos yarn and some serendipitous beads.  I’m really pleased with the resulting gorgeousness.

The soft changes and multiple skeins of colour phase yarn worked really well in crochet (so many variegated yarns don’t work for crochet) and the whole is light and very warm.

I also managed to pick up and make a concerted effort on the front of my Jan sweater (by the adorable Susan Crawford, from Stitch in Time vol II) – I’ve been working on this since JUNE 2011 (gasp!) and had finished the back last August then ran into a variety of interesting excuses as to why I couldn’t start the front.  I finally Jan Sweatercast on the ribbing in November, and then, at the change point I suddenly couldn’t find the energy to find my 3.25mm needles (and crochet got in the way, and then I was teaching and, ya know, ‘stuff’) so I dug out the needles, and my Portuguese pin (sorry, I don’t think I mentioned I’m trying to do this entirely Portuguese style – add another skill to the box) and did another set of rows – now I’ve started the main body of the front hopefully I’ll get a bit further along on this one…

I finally managed to get Part 1 of my Crochet Chart reading tutorials up and on this site.  I promise not to take so long with the other parts!  I’d love to hear what you think – and of course there are the PDF’s as well.

This month (as in next month, June) I’m hosting a CAL (crochet-a-long) over on Ravelry for the beautiful Recuerdos de infancia – the yarn I wanted to use I don’t have enough yardage for (isn’t it always the way?) so I think I might be going down the laceweight path and stash diving (after all, it’s not like I’m short of yarn here, and I really can’t justify buying any more without making something from stash first).

The instructions are there for a reason

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Welcome to May, I can’t believe how fast this year is spinning by!  2012 has become the year of minor, but frustrating, injuries for me.  February resulted in ‘interesting’ times after I broke the middle finger of my right hand – I’m left handed, so other than the (continuing) numbness it wasn’t the end of the world.  Four weeks ago however I was getting a pain in my left thumb joint – it’s amazing how much you use your thumb when you realise you can’t – and that put a serious crimp in crafting time.  Over the next couple of weeks it got worse and worse – resulting in a trip to the GP to try and find out what the problem was.  I’m still awaiting results of the tests, I’ll let you know.

In the meantime I’ve slowly worked back up to 15 minutes of crafting every other evening.  I was surprised to discover how much I took ‘doing something’ while ‘watching’ something for granted, and how strange it was to actually have to ‘watch’ something (as opposed to having a film or DvD series on ‘in the background’) – and how bad many of these shows are!

However, there is a point (unusually for me).  I’ve been working on the beautiful Honeymeade shawl, which combines crochet and tunisian stitches, for several months.  The pattern and I are having something of a battle – the first two yarns I picked for the project didn’t want to be the shawl and I’ve frogged and restarted more times than I care to count.  Finally though I got hold of some beautiful fyperspates sparkle sock which doesn’t pool horribly and I can see the stitches and everything has been going swimmingly since.

I finally managed to get out to the first ‘major’ charted pattern repeat, on Easter weekend when i was away.  I’m a confident crocheter, and a little bit impetuous, and I glanced at the chart, worked out what I (thought I) needed to do and away I went.  FOUR weeks of slow work later I finally finished that single row and returned to the pattern to find out what to do next.  At which point I discovered that I had non-read part of the instruction for the previous row.  Gah.  Ripping out what I knew to be 4 weeks work was soul destroying.  Ok, realistically it’s only about 4 hours work, but when crafting time is as limited as it is now 4 hours is a lot!

One of these days I’m going to learn to READ a pattern.  I do not know ‘better’ than the designer, I cannot ‘guess’ the next stage and the whole thing goes so much quicker if I take those 30 seconds to read the d*mn instructions!

Mind the Dust

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Ok, I’ve finally pulled myself into the 21st century and have a blog that’s accessible by most of the world (as opposed to one that isn’t).  I’ll be blogging infrequently, and posting things of interest including reviews of my collection of craft books and updating my ‘How to Read Crochet Charts’ tutorials (there will be links soon I promise!)

This is very new, and I have to learn my way around and work out how to do things in ways i’m not used to.  Of course, as with any move everything is in boxes, and I need to find new homes for everything.  I will do it as fast I can I promise – but in the meantime I’m looking for the hoover..

See you Soon,