I received this yarn for Christmas. It is a mohair acrylic blend called Scirocco. This wool has a tweed look, mostly charcoal but hints of green and flecks of white. The string is not so thick but it requires larger needles or hooks becuase that stuff is fuzzy and sticky.
This fuzziness would be nice for a snuggly lace shawl so crocheted this yarn into a wrap for a friend moving from Tokyo to Hawaii.
I made the piece about 10 cm longer than it needed to be. I had no pattern for the whole work except for the lace stitch: Berry Lace from Crochet Stitches Visual Encylopedia (Kindle) by Robin Chachula. I’m using a 7mm crochet hook. I can’t imagine crocheting this fiber tightly. I like tight, defined stitches this yarn is too sticky for that. I’m learning to love loose stitches. I’m also learning how to appreciate small errors for their “charm” since it’s almost impossible to pull out mistakes. Pulling the yarn back through the loop feels like crocheting with velcro.
Luckily the pattern built up quickly and it was fun to make… when I didn’t have to fix a mistake.
I like how the openness of the lace allows the allows the fabric to display its fuzzy glory. I think it will be a nice balance for cool nights in Hawaii. It was also a nice feeling to see a gift made into another gift.
NOTE: I originally wrote this post year ago and just found it among my drafts. Thought I’d post it anyway.
When does stash busting become stash stuffing? When you decide to make a blanket from stash and you realize some yarn is just not quite the right color. I decided to make a blanket from an old project that wasn’t working for me.
I had an i-cord scarf that I started last winter. After finishing the dot scarf and the beads and pendant scarf, I no longer had the mental energy to join up all the i-cords I’d made.
LEARNING POINT: I could make i-cord all day with the little i-cord machine. Doing something with the i-cord is much more tiring.
So I had bunches of strings in a basket that just sat there. And how many scarves do I need anyway? I thought I’d unravel the i-cord and make a granny square blanket. Nothing too ambitious. Just a lap blanket. After starting I realized I didn’t have enough stash to do a whole blanket, but I had enough to do a nice border with a larger middle panel.
LEARNING POINT:
Stash projects require a lot of fiddling and problem solving.
Once I’d made as many granny squares as I could, I laid them out to create a border. And then yes, the problem solving began.
Challenges
1. What granny square motif?
A: I have a Japanese crochet book. I used one of the motif patterns. I liked the motif but not the project.
2. What kind of stitch for the middle panel?
A: I looked at a stitch bible and chose a double crochet v-stitch that stacked on top rather than had the next row in the gap.
3. How to join the granny squares.
A: I used a chaining method. I didn’t think it would be strong enough but it was ok. I went around each panel with dc to increase the size of the border and my blanket.
4. How many stitches across for the centre panel?
A: This required a lot of do-overs. Just counting the number of stitches in the border didn’t work. It made the middle panel too large. I ended up counting the stitches in 10 cm and then calculating for my length.
5. If I double crochet around the border instead of the blanket, how can I get the corners right?
A: I realize I did this backwards. But I solved it by doing a DC border around the corner squares and that made all the panels match up
LEARNING POINT:
DO THE BORDERS AFTER THE MIDDLE PANEL. WORK FROM INSIDE OUT NOT OUTSIDE IN.
6. How long to make the panel?
A: Same problem. The sides matched up better. Two border stitches per dc on the side. But I thought I was done several times and I wasn’t.
A: I sewed up most of the border panel before finishing the final rows of the centre panel. Once I only had two stitches left of the border panel to attach I knew I was on the final row of the centre.
7. How to join the borders and the centre panel?
zipper stitch joining dc and sc rows.
A: I found this stitch called the zipper stitch that worked to join the pieces together without creating a ridge. It took me a while to figure out how to do it. For some reason, it took me forever to realize I was joining the two closest loops that on the “back” of the work. LookatWhatImade did a great tutorial. The problem was all on my end.
So did I win the stash-busting war? I have new 2 balls left over from the blanket project but I used up half of that old scarf project. My original plan was to use more of the wool from the scarf project but the original raspberry was more orange-tinted than I liked. I’m happy to find a raspberry I liked better. And I love the blanket. I’m calling it a win.
Maybe I’m excessively delicate, but I don’t like to hold on to a cup that is burning hot or a cup that is icy cold. I feel guilty when I use the paper cup holders, sleeves, cosies, whatever you want to call them. But I lose stuff easily. The more boring it is, the easier I seem to lose it. Cute and quirky sticks with me a lot better. And I found a solution for my cup woes.
I found this pattern during a visit to Gina Brown’s during Mission Yarnpossible: Calgary. I was looking for something else completely but couldn’t resist this pattern book, Monkey Around by Patons. You can get the cup cozy pattern for free at Paton’s site Yarnspiration.com
but the book has lots of fun patterns.
The sock monkey cup cosy is really easy to make. I finished the first one in a day, including time to run out and buy notions. I din’t enjoy making the ears. They were fast, but… meh for the ears. I also used different yarn than listed in the pattern so this can be a great stash busting pattern. My mom gave me 5 balls of Sirdar Denim tweed DK so I bought some yarn at Gina Brown’s to complement and complete the pattern. I have enough yarn to make a sock monkey cup holder army.
A friend has her birthday coming up and she loved my sock monkey cozy. Since she is a Hello Kitty fan, I adapted the pattern and added a needle felt name tag.
If anyone is interested in the pattern I made for the Hello Kitty face, let me know and I’ll post it.
Hope you enjoy the cup cozies and let me know what you think.
Since my European Yarnpossible missions, the wristwarmers, and Argie I hadn’t made anything for months. From late March, I’d been working on a writing project and a photography project which took up all my time. In May I went to the Romantic Times Book Lovers’ Conference in New Orleans and visited my family in Canada. It was lots of work and lots of fun. But I was going into maker withdrawal. Making something from yarn is like a kind of meditation for me with the bonus that I have some product to show for my time. Still, I don’t live in Calgary anymore so I don’t know any knitting stores there.
My mom gave me five balls of Sirdar Denim Tweed DK that she found during a cleaning binge. I thought, “Hey great! Free yarn.” But then the yarn sat there, and it just begged to be made into something. But I don’t have a crochet hook. Then I think, “Hey! I could maybe buy some Noro books in English.” Remember that Phildar pattern I liked? Noro Love has a pattern called Aimee that is similar. I know you can order books online, but I’ve been burned too many times before on craft, crochet and knitting books. Just because the picture is great, doesn’t mean that the book is going to work for YOU. I need to hold that book in my hands and check all the patterns and the instructions before I spend my money.
Gina Brown’s
Happily, Gina Brown’s has a great Noro selection and a great selection of Noro pattern books. I also wanted to consult someone because I’d need to adapt it to make it longer and I need advice on the wool. The pattern calls for Kochoran, a wool that Noro discontinued. There is no substitute for talking to experienced staff at a knitting store when it comes to swapping out wool.
I promptly got the Noro Love book and then talked yarn with the staff. She recommended I try Malabrigo Chunky or Diamond alpaca wool.
I loved the feel and colors of Diamond alpaca. I wasn’t sure about my tension, so I bought a ball to try it out. I knew right away I wasn’t going to be my sweater. It was soft, colorful, quick to knit but I forgot how much alpaca sheds. I gave up on the swatch but decided to use up the yarn by making a pair of slippers which would be far from my face in daily life. I took a look at some slipper patterns then decided to try my hand at making my own pattern. Luckily I used just under one ball, plus a contrasting trim to make up the slippers. It took about two days to make them, including start, restarts and shopping. Everything was great but the shedding! I was covered in blue hair. It looked like I was owned by a big blue dog.
Slipper in Diamond alpaca
Stitch detail (single crochet)
Even super warm, felted slippers from Estonia are no match for chilly ceramic tiles
The idea to make slippers was no doubt was inspired by the glacial temperatures of the ceramic tiles on my parents’ floor. Even my super slippers Ratti and Ratto couldn’t protect me from chills. It turns out that my new alpaca slippers make great inserts for Ratti and Ratto. The extra layer of alpaca is like a massage for my feet.
While shopping at Gina Browns’ I nabbed a fun book, Monkey Around by Patons for knitting or crocheting various kinds of sock monkey toys and accessories. I promptly bought more wool to complement the my recently acquired denim tweed to make a sock monkey cosy. I post about the sock monkey cup holders in next week’s Yarn Addiction Thursday.
Gina Brown’s has lots of lovely fibers in some of my favorite brands, Malabrigo, Noro and Cascade. The staff was lovely and I got lots of great advice. They also showed me a pair of magical knitting needles. Check them out in an upcoming Yarn Addiction Thursday post.
Pudding Yarn
I just happened on Pudding Yarn when I took my mom out for lunch on 17th Avenue. We parked the car and right outside was a yarn store I’d never heard of. It’s been there for a while, but I no longer live in Calgary I’m out of touch with shops. It was also perfect timing because I had just decided that the lime green cascade yarn I had for the sock monkey cup was a great contrast color for the slippers but the size just looked too awkward. My attempt at amore delicate edging failed miserably. The woman who worked at Pudding Yarn was helpful and the store has a lot of nice, luxurious yarns. I was able to get a really nice yarn (Phildar, coincidentally) in a lovely deep magenta to trim the slippers.
It’s interesting how my memory of yarn shops in Calgary has changed, or perhaps knitting in Canada has changed. When I was just starting to knit in high school, most of the patterns were Patons or Beehive with the occassional exotic French patterns. The yarn was ok, but not particularly amazing compared to the wonderful array of colors, textures and materials available today.
So the next Yarnpossible mission in my European adventure was to find some yarn in Helsinki. Thank heavens for ex-pat sites and blogs. If you are travelling to a foreign country, I really recommend checking out some ex-pat sites. Knitmap.com was a great help. I spent a lot of time looking at this world-wide knitting store database. When searching for stores I discovered Riihivilla.com. Riihivilla sells through an online shop and at Kauppatori Market in Helsinki. It is a family business which produces and dye their own wool and make gorgeous kits. I didn’t go but it is definitely worth mentioning because this shop really represents Finnish yarn and knitting to me.
The doorway to yarn!
Large knitted window display.
Lots of great fibers and colors.
On January 2nd, I went to Lanka Deli by Novita. I enjoyed the shop but the women who worked there were polite, they weren’t as chatty as staff at other stores I’ve been to or other Finnish people I met. I think there was a language barrier.
I found a felting wool which I later used to make my felted iPhone case. The yarn is called Huopanen. It was interesting to work with a wool specifically for felting after knitting. It works up easily and I din’t have problems with splitting the yarn.
I also bought some wool to make some mittens. Florica by Novita is a 5-ply sport weight. It seems similar to the craft-boutique wool I saw in Tallinn. It was a bit softer and I had a chance of ordering more if I liked it. My color choices were inspired by Marimekko designs and Italla tableware, and Dick Bruna’s Miffy. Bruna is one of my favorite illustrators.
Florica by Novita
Florica by Novita
Florica by Novita
Lanka Deli by Novita.
Malminrinne 1 B, Helsinki, Finland 00180 Finland
(09) 673 246
I made this scarf for a friend. My inspiration was the Welsh dragon as my friend is Welsh and green rather than red as green is her favorite color. It is made with Noro Kirara (#10?).
I had originally wanted to make a spaghetti-string (i-cord) scarf with this brilliant green colorway in Noro Kama. I was making heaps of these scarfs based on a La Droguerie pattern. Sadly, Kama is way to thick to go through an i-cord knitting mill. I found a thinner yarn in a green colorway in Noro Kirara. No luck with Kirara in the i-cord mill either.
My next idea was to make scales using the crocodile stitch. I didn’t like how it was looking. I was hoping for something a bit more elegant than I could achieve with the stitch-yarn combo. If I was just going for playful, it would have been ok. But I wanted something that would look nice with a big coat. Amother minus for crocodile stitch is the large amount of yarn it requires. Kama is no longer produced so getting more than two balls was challenging. This was another reason to switch to Kirara.
I searched through the web for inspiration and found lots of shell patterns that were close but not quite. and found this pattern for a sweater which I adapted to a scarf. It had a kind of dragon scale feel to it. I made a few changes to the pattern. Stuffing the shell with more stitches per shell gave it a more structured scaley appearance. Since it was a repeating pattern, it was fairly relaxing to make. The hardest part was keeping track of the row ends and making sure I was doing the correct ending for the current row. One benefit of this over a spaghetti scarf is that there is NO sewing.
I like the color way for the Kirara but it was a bit more itchy than I expected. When I grabbed the ball of yarn it was soft but it became scratchy as the scarf progressed. I’ve heard that it gets softer when you wash it. When I finished it, I gave it a good wash. It did get quite a bit softer but I did lose a tiny bit of stitch definition. Happily, my friend loved her scarf.
Last year I was feeling kind of stressed and needed a distraction. My friend Deanna of Deanna Kobou Studio does great crochet work and she really inspired me to try it. Crochet looked like something that would distract me and, at the end, I’d have some kind of product. The plan worked really well. Crochet required enough focus that I didn’t think about my problems, and I chose simple stitches that weren’t overwhelming.
This bracelet was my first finished crochet project after playing with flower motifs. I had first started a free-form plushy I called Doubty Dragon, but Doubty took longer to finish. I used Noro Kureyon Sock (70% wool, 30% nylon) which I bought at Yuzawaya. I like Kureyon Sock because its colorway gives a lot of different colors in a single skein. It turns out that it is great for making flower motifs of different colors. The bracelet is two crochet strings with leaves, attached by beads acting as bars connecting the strings. I added the flower motif that I learned, attached a clasp and voila! I gave the bracelet to a friend.
Use ’em or trash ’em! I found these sakura I made years ago in an old box.
The bracelet below is a product of some stash-busting I did a while ago. I was going through my stuff trying to figure out exactly what I had. I wanted to use things or get rid of them. I found these flowers that I must have made years ago. I have a vague recollection of thinking I could make a sakura necklace from beads. I love beads but I’m not so great at beading so it was nice to make something out of this.
I thought about doing the double string like the first bracelet. I like the effect but not the work. This was a simple string with leaves, attaching the sakura, the bird, and the clasp. I thought it made a nice accessory for Spring or Summer.
Detail views of the sakura bracelet.
Sakura close up. Brioche beads for petals. A regular bead for the centre.
What kind of crochet accessories do you like? Recommendations are always appreciated.
Early Spring was really chilly for my fingers. I had a nice toasty electric blanket for my lap but my fingers got stiff from typing and being cold. My solution? Procrastinate on my writing-work-in-progress by making some wrist-warmers. This project had two-extra bonuses: I could use it for stash busting, and since I had more appointments and commuting time than usual I could feel productive while waiting.
I wanted something warm and fuzzy, yet a little bit lacy. I had made valentine wrist-warmers from the wool I bought at Lil Weasel in Paris. They are super cute, but for a second pair, I wanted something a bit more sophisticated.
Hanging out at a museum and crocheting while waiting for an appointment.
I had some extra alpaga teint from La Droguerie that I thought would be perfect. Alpaga is a 100% alpaca plied texture wool, fingering weight (4 ply). In my stash I had some grey and some light aqua blue which made for a subtle combination.
So I had my wool. I needed a pattern. I started looking on ravelry.com for a pattern. Most of what I saw was really cute, but most patterns were long and slouchy. I wanted something fitted, especially around the wrists. Not really finding any, I decided to try to make my own pattern.
I used Crochet Stitches Visual Encyclopedia by Robyn Chachula. I got the Kindle version so that I could refer to it while on the train. I crocheted a few swatches of different patterns but settled on the fairy shell. I used a 3.0 hook. I crochet really tight. It’s a problem, but I don’t favor loose stitches so much, either. This will probably change as I mature as a crochet-er (is this the correct word? Seems odd.)
My swatch of fairy shell
The cuff is made by single crochet in blue and double crochet in the grey, crocheted flat. For the body I added five stitches, joined the ends together then crocheted in the round leaving a gap for the thumb. The thumb was tough to make. Keeping the pattern while expanding and decreasing the stitches was hard. I’m not really satisfied with the thumb, but done is done. The finger-edge trim is done in a modified fairy shell pattern.
I used old buttons that came with shirts I bought long ago to use up stash. I tried two different ways to fasten the wrist portion. The left hand is a single crochet loop and the right uses three buttons. The three button was necessary because just having the end two buttons allowed the inside edge to poke out. For some reason, the crochet loop doesn’t have anything poking out.
I did really well to use the alpaga I had. Too well. I didn’t have enough to make the second wrist-warmer. I ended up going back to La Droguerie to finish the project. So much for stash-busting. I ended up buying even more yarn! I did manage to restrain myself from buying more buttons, cute and tempting as they were. La Droguerie is such a feast for the eyes and drain on the pocket book.
So these wrist-warmers are my second attempt at making my own pattern. I enjoyed the process but endured a lot of stitch ripping and do-overs. At some point, I’m going to try my hand at writing out the pattern. Maybe re-photograph the wrist-warmers, too. It is shockingly hard to photograph your own hand for demos.
If anyone has any great sites or tips on making patterns, particularly for thumb gussets, please share. I’d love to see them.
I made these wrist warmers with wool I bought in Paris at Li’l Weasel. Gorgeous shop and lovely staff. The wrist warmers are like long-in-the-making souvenirs.
I finished them in time for Valentine’s Day so that I could type with warm fingers.
The Spendy Pencil 