summer of completed items

Posted on October 20, 2013 by honey

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.

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.

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.

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 🙂

Warning! Long post reversing…

Posted on April 20, 2013 by honey

Well what a week it’s been – learning and discovering so many things, teaching and giving and actually being productive for a change… although of course the path is never quite bump free

First up was teaching the new Crochet Shaping course, exactly 1 year to the day since I taught the Crochet Beginners class with Purlescence. We had a lovely crowd of intelligent, inquisitive people along for the ride, who are the best type to have on a class as they help point out the bits I’ve forgotten to say or taken for granted. I adore having a class full of people who ask questions! The new tech worked pretty well – a couple of tweaks and I think we’ve got it sorted, and I’m beavering away now putting the finishing touches to the Tunisian Basics course which runs in June.

I think the nicest complement I got from the day (and I’m paraphrasing as this is a week on, if you’re reading this and you remember exactly what you said please let me know and I’ll correct what follows) was:

It wasn’t like a workshop at all – it was like popping round to a friends for a bit of crochet and a natter and learning stuff by accident.

Learning can come in many forms, so of it literal and involving conscious effort to learn on your own behalf. I’ve had two instances of this in the last 7 days. First up I signed up for some knitting courses on Craftsy. I’ve done several of their courses before and found them useful and informative. The two I signed up for this week were Franklin Habit’s Heirloom Lace Edgings – if you are a knitter and want to know more about lace edgings and different ways of attaching them to your work (and why snowflakes should always be knit in yellow yarn) then this is an indispensable course. I also signed up for Lace Shawl Design, which I’m not enjoying quite as much but again is packed full of information. It’s aimed at knitters but I can see applying some of the info to crochet designs.

Another type of learning is that from which you learn something from even though you are doing something else at the time – for example, don’t photograph the missing bits of your stash for Ravelry, put it all away and then upload the photos. You won’t remember what the brand is and how much of it you’ve got by that point, I guarantee it! My other ‘non-learning-learning’ session this week was teaching the Shaping class. Any teaching involves just as much learning for the teacher as the students (or it should) and of course by 3am Sunday morning I had not so much ‘rewritten’ the course as ‘reordered’ it – for when it runs again in the future to give a more cohesive and logically structured course.

I also got two new stitch dictionaries in the shape of Robyn Chachula’s Visual Encyclopaedia and Edie Eckman’s “Around the Corner, Crochet Borders”. I love my reference books and I’m finding them indispensable in preparing for the texture and colour course in September. Robyn’s book is very well put together – I’ll do a review soon I promise, but I’m already using one of the stitch patterns.

I’ve started a new baby blanket, which may result in a new free pattern. I’m loving this reversible stitch, and the Vinni’s (as always) works beautiful for baby stuff.

I’ve made lots of progress this week on loads of different things. I’ve also finally cast on the first sleeve for the Jan Sweater. Having been knitting this sweater since August 2011 I’m really looking forward to finishing it, and while I still have two sleeves and the seaming to do I’m already fantasizing about the next project I will take up once I finish this..

I’m also on the last 3 rows of Honeymeade – although these rows are over 450stitches long so may take me a little while.. I have finally had to admit (temporary) defeat in the face of Frechen. My head is just not in right space to focus on this at the moment, so I’m calling a halt instead of getting more and more frustrated with it. I’m going to back away from it slowly for a couple of weeks and pick it up again next month.

In the course in the photographing of the stash I may have taken a couple of snapshots of the yarn I got from Purlescence to make the samples for the Texture and Colours course in September (gee, aren’t I organised?) This is Rooster Almerino DK.

and it’s lovely. A blend of 50% baby alpaca and 50% merino it’s squishy and soft and the palette of colours are strong without being overpowering – sort of deep subdued pastels if that makes sense. The colours are saturated without being overly bright giving a lovely rich luxurious feel to the palette. I’m just whittering now, their gorgeous. That’ll do. Of course I didn’t just buy yarn (who could?) but I was very restrained. I bought a lovely clasp for my Anais jacket..

and I also picked up one of Tulips new interchangeable Tunisian hooks, along with cable and (for some inexplicable reason) a pack of FOUR cable stops. Why they don’t sell them in packs of two I don’t know – I know we’ll all lose one down the back of the sofa, but trying to remember where I put the other three will never work!

I haven’t had chance to play with it yet, but I will let you know how it goes when I do.

Last weekend I popped up to the familial home to visit, well, my family. My mother decided that this year. instead of buying me (her eldest daughter) an easter egg. she would go unconventional (if you’ve met my mother you’ll know this is a habit of a lifetime). Along with a fabulous Vogue branded umbrella in navy blue and silver, and several ‘subtle’ reminders that it’s a Vogue umbrella (the furl strap to fasten the umbrella, the handle and the mechanism button are all branded suitably) I got a a book. Not just any book of course, but a copy of:

Not only does the title make it sound like owning a shawl is some form of terminal illness, but the introduction boasts of a whole career option I hadn’t thought of previously. Apparently during the 1980’s nearly every Canadian department store had it’s own Qualified Scarf Consultant. I want to know what’s involved in becoming a Qualified Scarf Consultant. I so want that on my C.V.!

The whole thing is wonderfully 80’s and slightly dated, though to be fair a lot of the ideas are just as usable and applicable today. I flipped the book open at random to give you a taste of the illustrations…

At the start of the post I mentioned a ‘bump’. Well I must have caught my ringshawl on something and snagged it.

The beauty of crochet is that if a thread breaks then each stitch is independent and the whole thing doesn’t just unravel on the spot (phew!) and I do (luckily) have the 2grm scrap of yarn remaining from the original project in order to darn it up and make it good as new. (Hence me going through my stash in the first place to realise that I hadn’t photographed it all for my Ravelry stash pages)

It also forces me to sit down and study my shawl – which should help me start writing up the pattern, something I’m determined to do before the end of April.

hairpins do more than hold your hair up

Posted on March 17, 2013 by honey

First up, I got another couple of repeats done on my Honeymeade shawl, completing the first set of charts and about to start the second. Aoibhe Ni has produced a really interesting way of combining crochet and Tunisian crochet, turning things (literally) around and producing a really interesting visual texture.

Detail of the Honeymeade – showing Crochet and Tunisian sections

I’m still loving how the yarn is working up, and it feels so fabulous. the touch of stelina makes it sparkle (you can see it a bit in the photo towards the bottom right and top left). On the right you can see the ‘crochet’ section – and on the left you can see the Tunisian section (split almost exactly in the middle of the photo) The method of increases results the beautiful pleating you can see in the top left – but that will mostly block out when the shawl is finished.

I know I spoke about my hairpin tunic last week and how enthusiastic I was about it. Well, pride come before a fall and I quickly discovered that, despite what the label might claim (why do I trust those?) it is nowhere near an aran weight and while the pattern calls for 2 ‘stitches’ to the inch, and I’m getting nearly 8! So I’ll have to buy some more yarn. boo hiss. But I need your help, dear reader.

The tunic is this one, from Crochet So Fine by Kristin Omdhal:

I’ve found an appropriate yarn, Delphine by Louisa Harding, but I’m having a tough ole time deciding which colourway to go with..

now, obviously this is more a summer tunic, so I’d like to go fairly summery – which means the charcoal is out. And I look really ill in pure white – so that’s the Ecru out. I’m also not a massive fan of the bright pinks, which removes the Watermelon from the equation. I know that I don’t own much lime green or orange, but when I do people complement the colour on me. I’m just not sure I can carry off such a large area of such a colour. At the moment I’m drawn towards the navy or coffee or the natural (as I can see those over pale summery colours) but I’d value your opinion… what do you think?

Finally I’ve been back to the Consultant and have permission to start trying to come off the drugs over the next 5 weeks. Fingers crossed it’s worked and I can stop taking them and be wonderful and pain free from here on in!

2nd crochet project of 2013 finished!

Posted on March 2, 2013 by honey

It’s just a short post this week as it’s still a bit ‘all go on the home front’.

This week I progressed a little further on the Jan Sweater, only 8 rows but in the words of a famous UK supermarket- “every little helps”. There isn’t enough of a change to justify a photograph, but I reckon I’m about 8 rows short of the armhole shaping now, so it’s going pretty well.

I did however finish the Anais (pronounced Ah-nah-is) Jacket. Using Rowan Big Wool in a delicious dark purple colour this has come out really well and I’m really pleased with it. It’s a very fast Tunisian crochet project (once you get around the slightly fiddly main stitch) and although I had ripped out completely once, and gone again I still ended up with the wrong stitch count at one point, but decided it was close enough. The pattern notes state that this won’t close in front, mine does – and I’m contemplating adding some clasps, but it’s just lovely without.

The combination of bulky yarn and tunisian stitches means that this is a very structured little bolero with a stand up collar, and though the yarn seemed to have a lot of bits of plastic twined in with the ply that I had to pull out, the stitch definition is outstanding.

Want a peek?

and here’s a couple of the stitch detail because you’ve been so good…

A little fairy tells me that the Tunisian workshop is selling really well, so if you are thinking about it now is a good time to act – though I just know we will be running this one again!

Going back to work for a rest!

Posted on February 23, 2013 by honey

Last weekend I went over to Purlescence for their first open day of 2013. They had remodelled over the winter break, and the new shop layout is gorgeous. Of course, being overwhelmed with all the lovelies, I completely forgot to take photos, but it is much more open and bright than the previous layout, and the yarns are displayed in all their colourful temptation goodness. I was very good and other than buying a couple of needles I needed after I broke my knitpicks 3mm, 2 Tunisian hooks to make the Anais jacket, cotton yarn to make two more baby blankets and yarn for a birthday present, I didn’t buy anything at all!

I took along the Tunisian Spa Cloth sampler for the Tunisian course, and there was lots of interest from people throughout the day, so that is looking like it’s going to be a really good day.

I also got to spend time with the ever lovely R at her home and talked well into the night about the upcoming courses and teaching and ideas (and yarn and stash and upcoming babies and 80’s children’s shows… you know the sort of evening)

This week has been half-term break for me, which means that I have been insanely busy and running around. I really need to use my camera more because then I could show you photos of the champagne tea I had on Wednesday and the fabric shops I was in on Thursday – though you are probably less interested in seeing photos of the MRI scan I had on Monday, or the packing boxes I was surrounded by at a friends house yesterday as I helped her pack for moving.

Monday’s MRI was interesting. I don’t get the result for a few weeks (11th March), but I did discover that lying on my front, with my arms stretched out above my head and holding them still for 30 minutes is really really painful on the shoulders. Otherwise it was pretty uneventful and standard type medical procedure with lots of waiting about etc..

Wednesday’s Champagne tea was lovely. An excuse to dress up and eat cake, what more do you need? We had champagne, tea (well I had a tissane as I’m not allowed tea on the mix of drugs), finger sandwiches – including a lovely pesto bread, scones with cream and jam and little tiny cakes. The waitress tried to take my champagne before I was finished (I mean the glass was over half full!), and we had a visitor in the form of a little tiny dormouse who created all sorts of excitement for a good 20 minutes, all accompanied by a beautiful pianist doing the best of Rogers and Hammerstein. It was a lovely afternoon, and I can see afternoon tea becoming a regular feature of my annual calendar.

Thursday’s trip I went into town with a friend and her almost teenage daughter who has decided she wants to learn to sew. I’ll be honest, it’s many years since I did some sewing, and have several yards waiting be to turned into several beautiful things, but I was still shocked by how much the price of fabric has increased since I was last buying fabric regularly. OK, we’re talking London prices, but still! Teenage Daughter eventually got some beautiful cotton to make her first skirt, at £12 a meter (!) and I got the thread needed to finish the winter coat I’ve been making for several years. Naturally we did have to go for tea and cake at Camille’s (lemon cake with frosting, delicious!) but otherwise the day was pretty healthy.

All this activity has resulted in very little crafting time (other than on the commutes – so I have several swatches completed). I had started the Anais Jacket, but after several inches I discovered I had made a mistake somewhere, so had to rip back out to row 1. gahhh… Loving how it’s coming out, but of course, in the theme of this week there are no photos!

Today I’m going to be trying to problem solve a friends tension when she crafts, everything she does is far too tight… wish me luck!

I’ll go back to work for rest

Posted on February 15, 2013 by honey

Well it’s half term already and I have a busy week. I’ve bundled Mr TuesdayFortnite off for his first skiing holiday and I have the house to myself.

Tomorrow I get to have a wonderful day out at my favourite ‘local’ yarn store, seeing friends and picking up those complete essential bits that I *need*.

It’s been a busy week, with two friends announcing their impending parenthood (due dates within 2 days of each other) resulting in a night ‘down the pub’, valentines day – which neither Mr TuesdayFortnite or myself subscribe to, but it did get my dinner made for me. However busy social evenings cuts severely into the time available for crafting.

I got more samples done for my Crochet 102 course, which are now blocking before I can sit down and work out what’s missing..

this is about half of the samples blocking…

I also started some for the Tunisian course. I had an idea of using a pattern to create a beautiful textural scarf from the Resolution Scarf pattern, but so far all three yarns from stash I’ve contemplated don’t agree with my ideas. I’ll post pictures when I have something that isn’t 3 rows of just frogged scarf…

Next week I’m off to spend a day at one of my favourite places, the London Victoria and Albert Museum, to see the stage costume and fashion galleries with a 12 year old friend who is thinking about taking up sewing.

If you don’t already know about the on-line galleries of the V&A museum, then check out the following links..

Hand Crochet

Hand Knit

These links will take you to the V&A archive pages where you can browse some of the hand worked items they have in storage. You can zoom, get background details, multiple photographs etc.. and they are adding more and more of their storage items all the time! Even cooler is that if you have a specific interest in and area of textiles/fashion you can request to visit the archives and see items you request in person.

Right now I have to try another yarn for that scarf…

Finally finishing projects!

Posted on February 9, 2013 by honey

I’ve had a great week catching up on several bits – and a bad week in that it’s been a stress filled and eventful week.

I finally got around to photographing all my outstanding stash (from last October!) so I’ve added a huge heap of yardage to my Ravelry stash pages and made a complete mockery of my ‘2013 Yarn Diet’. Must. Not. Buy. More. Yarn. Well, at least not for myself!

I also finished a couple of projects! Yeah, go me!

I finished a cushion ‘front’ that I had been doing in that popular ruffle yarn, you know the stuff. I loved the colour but didn’t want a scarf, and it so happened that the colourway worked well with my existing living room decor. It’s only taken about a year to get around to finish this..

I also finished the baby blanket, and I’m really pleased with how it came out. The Nikkim Cotton was perfect and it’s gone beautifully soft during blocking. I just know it will wear well in use – perfect for busy parents.

I also made headway on starting the samples for the Beginners Tunisian Workshop I’ll be teaching in June, and made a great ‘sampler spa cloth’ in Paton’s 100% cotton.

The cotton I can’t recommend highly enough if you’re looking for a tight twist cotton – it comes in 4ply and DK, in range of fabulous colours. It gives great stitch definition (as you can see), has a gorgeous eggshell-like soft sheen and I loved it so much I’ve picked up a range of colours to use in the class for the lucky students to take away with them..

Today I’m finally getting around to blocking the samples for the Crochet 102 (Shaping) class, and I have plans for some KnitPicks multi-colour I acquired…

Well the Drugs DO work, and Workshops have been confirmed!

Posted on January 25, 2013 by honey

Well the drugs *definitely* work! I could have cried with joy today when I carried the shopping in without a second thought. Ah, the simple things that we take for granted. I missed you.

The drugs I am on are a bit of cocktail, and one of the ones I have to take is a massive dose of Vit D (I’m clinically deficient, who knew?!) once every 4 days. Combined with the steroids, this seems to have the effect of making me a bit, well, wooshy..

My thought are on a bit of ‘go fast’, which has resulted in my braining spinning on project ideas, teaching ideas, design ideas all day. Unfortunately most of them fly across my head that fast that I haven’t been able to note them down, but some of them I have, and they are real zingers! More to come on those at a later date – but one of them involved some serious maths

The physiotherapist on Monday was, erm, interesting. I now have to submerge my arms up-to the elbow in water as hot as I can stand and do a series of stretches three times a day. For six weeks. I’ve been going a week and I’m already bored of it. However I also get to play with Play-Doh three times a day so it’s not all bad. I also now ‘have to’ swim once a week, and I’ve been given permission to go back to using light weights in my gym workouts, so hopefully that will help combat the slight ‘balloon animal caricature’ that’s happening to me. More interestingly she also gave me permission to ‘return to normal usage as much as possible’ including my crafting – so I am now trying to fit in at least a little every night upto an hour when I have time. You can’t see it from where you are, but I have a very happy face!

This comes just in time as we have confirmation of at two teaching dates with Purlescence:

13th April – Beyond Scarves and Granny Squares – Crochet 102 (Shaping)

Beyond Scarves and Granny Squares will take you from ‘beginner’ to ‘confident’. Teaching loads of techniques to expand your repertoire, increase your confidence and improve your skills, we’ll be talking about those little secret ‘tricks of the trade’ along with the more conventional wisdom gained from my 30 years of practical experience. We’ll be covering

Starting – how to get a pretty cast on edge and how to do away with foundation chain
Couture Touches – such as how to get rid of “that” gap at the edge of your work, useful stitches to know and how to change yarn
Shaping – how to do shapes other than squares, rectangles and circles, lots of increases and decreases
Short rows – what they are
Gauge – *why* it’s important and when we can ignore it
Blocking – how to do it and why it matters

You will need:

to be comfortable in the basics of crochet – holding the hook & yarn, chain, Single Crochet, Double Crochet (American terminology)
a crochet hook of type and size of your choosing (we recommend a 4 – 5mm)
about 50g of light coloured yarn with a nice twist (so it doesn’t come apart too easily or split) of a weight to match your hook (we recommend a 4ply or DK weight).
A pencil/pen and notepad

We won’t be making anything specific in this class, just having a play with techniques in an informal, fun, environment. If you have any questions or want any advice, please feel free to contact us.

15th June – Tunisian Crochet 101 – Complete Beginners

Also called Tricot, Shepherds or Afghan, even Queen Victoria was smitten with this fascinating form of crochet. Tunisian combines crochet and knitting ideas to create a unique fabric which can be dense and warm (perfect for mittens!) or light and lacy. You can easily combine crochet or knitting with Tunisian to get stunning effects, but you don’t need to know either to be able to do Tunisian!
This one day workshop will give you a solid grounding in the basics of Tunisian in a fun and informal environment with a teacher who first picked up a Tunisian hook in 1985.
We’ll be covering..

Getting started – what is this strange tool and what do I do with it?
The Basic Stitches – including tunisian simple, tunisian knit and tunisian purl stitches
Combination stitches
3 Colour Tunisian
Casting off

We will be producing a beautiful stitch sampler during the day, which you will be able to take away to show off your new skills.

Depending on time we may also look at two projects you can start in class and finish at home.

You will need:

no previous experience at all
a pen/pencil and notepad for notes
a mid sized crochet hook if you have one (I’ll have lots of spares if you don’t)
You will be provided with all tools and yarn needed for this course.

If you have any questions or want any advice, please feel free to contact us.

Places on these courses are strictly limited, to make sure I give you all the time you deserve, so book early to avoid disappointment.

With the addition of at least three more workshops in 2013 – Crochet 102 (textures) , a half-day hairpin lace and a half day broomstick lace later in the year, it’s going to be a busy year. I am super excited, and churning out swatches as fast as I can. I can’t tell you how happy I am to not only be teaching the more advanced crochet techniques that so many courses neglect, but also to have to opportunity to bring the lesser known crafts of Tunisian, Hairpin and Broomstick to everyone. Tunisian is tipped to be the big ‘in thing’ for 2013, so now is a great time to learn with lots of exciting designs coming out from the big designers!

It’s going to be lots of work over the next couple of months getting ready, but I’m *really* looking forward to it.

Tuesday Fortnite

unraveling the yarn

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