It all comes back to Manchester

I’m very excited.  I’ve just published my first ‘paid for’ pattern on Ravelry. The Manchester Shawl is available to everyone here: buy now with Ravelry (and PayPal)

Manchester ShawlManchester has figured heavily in my life – I was born there, as my Aunt crocheted a traditional granny square shawl in the waiting room for my mother to wear during early morning feeds.  We moved frequently over twenty years, but after every move away we always moved back to Manchester – to within 2 streets of where we lived before in fact!

That original shawl is now mine, but much like me starting to fray around the edges and show it’s age.  It has been worn around my mother and me as a baby, it’s been a superhero cape, a den, a secure ‘hiding place’ and a portable hug.  It’s be worn in all weather, dragged through mud, tossed carelessly in bags and used to wipe benches dry… So I needed a new shawl that could withstand abuse required.

Luxury yarns were right out from the start, and the yarns I used are best acrylic – lovely soft modern squishy machine washable acrylic.  The pattern I found and adapted was originally published in the Manchester needlework pattern book (yet another tie to Manchester!).

I had nothing to lose and decided to take a risk on the colour choices – everything else I have is ‘safe’ colours and in the winter months everyone wears dark or neutral colours and I wanted something a bit more eye catching in the grey days.  I’m delighted with how the teal and orange pop together – and it’s certainly eye catching!

Having made one, I decided to write down the pattern – and made another for a friend who also needs a portable hug that can take a bit of abuse from her two lovely boys.  She’s a lot taller than me, so an upgrade to Aran weight and a larger hook produced a positive blanket of a shawl (she’s 5ft 10″ and it’s ankle length on her).  A bone-deep goth, bright colours just weren’t going to cut it, and the Women’s Institute aran rich purple was perfect – dark but rich and jewel like in saturation, this shawl gives a pop of suitably goth colour to her generally black ensembles.

Writing a pattern though takes HOURS.  Not just a couple, but the best part of a working week – somewhere between 30 and 40 hours.  I’m sure they can be written quicker but I take great care to make sure that my patterns are as understandable and as clear as possible.  Writing and rewriting and rephrasing and rereading takes time.  So I made the decision to charge.  Its a token amount, as there is no chart (those are coming for another pattern) but I really hope you will enjoy it!

summer of completed items

Hello, pull up a chair, tell me – how have you been?  It’s been simply ages, and that is entirely my fault.  I apologise.

I can’t believe it’s July since we last spoke, so this is isnt’ going to be a mega long post – I’m going to break it into bits.  There’s what I’ve achieved crafting-wise, and details of my trip “Abroad” to Europe over the summer, and lots of other bits I’m sure I’m forgetting right now but will remember once I start talking to you.

So this post is going to be a quick(ish) summary of everything I’ve got done over the summer.  Which makes it sound like loads, but don’t get too excited – it really isn’t.

I started by finishing (at long last!) my Jan/August Sweater.  It was such a joy to finally get it off the needles, and everyone complements it when I wear it.  The excelana yarn was a joy to work with and if I ever get around to repeating a pattern this one will be very high on my list.  I’m also absolutely solid in my Portuguese technique now!  I don’t think for one minute that repeating the pattern would take me the 2 years that this one took me – maybe a couple of months as it is a quick knit and an easily memorised pattern.

Jan (August) Sweater

took a while but got there in the end…

I also finished my Herbie shawl (after 2 years), replete with beads, this week and it’s currently blocking on my front room floor.  I’m delighted with how this turned out – the shading, the beads, the size everything.  I love it, and am still manically in love with The unique sheep yarns as well.  Really looking forward to getting the wear out of this one as the nights turn cooler – it’s HUGE.

Herbie Shawl

The Herbie Shawl is also known (affectionately) as the Attention Deficit Shawl as every time I got bored of a pattern I changed it!

I finally gave up trying to get the ends to match on Love is a Prism – there is only so much ripping back I’m prepared to do, and though my scales told me I had more than 1/2 my yarn left at more than the 1/2 way point there still wasn’t enough to do the last three rows.  Gah.  However it’s lovely and heavy (just over 300gms) and the drape from the linen/bamboo blend is just stunning.  The colour is outstanding and I can well see me using this yarn again for summer tank tops – if it means another trip to France so be it. I haven’t blocked it, but it’s gorgeous as it is.

Love is a Prism - photo 1

I did a couple of samples for the texture and colourwork class – of which there will be more in another post – another one of those ‘learning experiences’ where for some reason on the day my brain went a bit dead, and the colour theory section of the course could have been done *much* better I believe so I’ll do my best to get some of it up on here.

Finally my hands flared up again, not as far as my wrists this time, and the doctor was great in getting me straight back on the drugs, so it’s all good 🙂

cracking on and getting things done

It takes a while but I do get there eventually!  After a couple of weeks of not doing anything (particularly craft related) I got time to sit down and convert part 2 of the crochet chart reading tutorial into a webpage along with it’s PDF.

so you can find that at the top of the page…

I’ll do part 3 and 4 soon, I promise.

I also got chance to block my most recent shawl – it’s the Lisa’s Shawl pattern in a Three Irish Girls 4ply colourway called ‘Finlay’.  The beading took forever, but I’m pleased with the results..

Lichen Dew