Green crochet scarf and brooch

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Here is the scarf! It wasn’t difficult at all, actually. I remember thinking when I was a student that I would never ever have the patience to finish a large crochet project. It took me 7 years to finish a flower poncho, and now - what a progress! – the scarf took only a couple of weeks in total. It took several goes of undoing the stitches because of mistakes (making triangles or pentagons instead of squares, or starting a new row along the long side of the scarf instead of the short), but luckily I never had to undo more than one row.  When it was finished, I still dreaded spreading it out – what if there was a triangle lurking somewhere in the middle?

Since the scarf is quite dark, I thought it needed something to it. So I’ve also made a flower brooch in a lighter green shade. This Gluis Yarn is hand-spun by a local crafter (http://gluisyarn.weebly.com) and can be purchased in small skeins in a variety of colours. 

Style: Art Deco black cat

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One of the advices that I keep coming across when reading about selling crafts is this: make the shop consistent, develop a recognizable style. I can see that many of the successful shops do indeed look consistent: matching colours and patterns, defined sets of materials.

It’s very difficult though to apply this to myself, the simple reason being that I like variety in what I do. Crocheting for a couple of weeks, then hand-stitching cute felt things, then machine-sewing something less cute, more stylish (or so I say to myself), like iPad covers. Then – gemstone and bead jewellery. Then painting paper-mache boxes. Can it really be true that I have to pick just one and drop all the rest, or open one shop per each type of items I produce?

Maybe it’s a question of time. Maybe one gets fed up with many styles but one – probably the one that best reflects the personality?

Please share your story! Have you settled on one type and/or style, and if yes – how did it happen?

On the practical side: this is my Art Deco black cat, made from upcycled (or recycled?) wool fabric. It is 38 cm tall. I was considering giving it long eyelashes, but then its face would look like Bratz doll’s, and that was NOT what I wanted. As it is, it looks thoughtful and peaceful – I was actually pleased that I managed to give it the intended expression.

On even more practical side: the cat itself and the the PDF pattern are available for sale in my ETSY shop.

Crochet net scarf in making

Recently I found myself drowning in crafts supplies.  Even trying to be super-organized doesn’t help – not that I manage that very well either! Which means that either my storage system needs revision, or that I need to make more beautiful/pretty/cute/useful creations and find new homes for them. Here is a project I am doing to help with the overflow. I had two skeins of very soft and fluffy yarn (50% merino wool, 50% acrylic) in a beautiful green colour, so I decided to crochet a net scarf. The inspiration came from here - thank you to Olga! It’s very easy to make, and the best of all is that it grows very quickly, I’ve used up one skein already. The pictures of the finished scarf to follow!

Inspiration: Irish lace

When visiting Ireland in summer, we stumbled upon a small museum of lace in Kenmare, “Kenmare Lace and Design Centre”. With me being a textile addict we, of course, had to go and check it out. Here is a souvenir set of cards: 

 
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The centre is very inspirational: not only it has a very impressive examples of antique lace, but also a selection of contemporary crafts as well as craft supplies for sale. After seeing that, I was itching to go back home and crochet something as intricate as possible. Here is what I’ve done.

There was a small green organza bag lying in my supply box and waiting to be used, so I decided to decorate it with crocheted flower (the same pattern as for the legwarmers) and make it into a lavender pouch. I used a plain green sewing thread and, just to add more history to it, a 100+ year old hook that I got from my grandmother. Now that must qualify as lace! The bag is available in my shop.

 

Flower pincushion

I finally got to handle the REAL sheep wool. Having grown up in a city, it was an unforgettable experience! During our trip to Ireland, Beara peninsula, I saw children playing with sheep wool. I didn’t know exactly what I could use it for, but I wanted some anyway, and a kind farmer gave me a whole bag.  What I hadn’t realized was that the wool was in its most native state and needed some work before it could be used for anything. On the way back from Ireland it felt like we had a live sheep in the car, even though the wool was sealed in two layers of plastic bags... But a thorough washing (according to instructions found on the internet) turned it into something soft and fluffy and very pleasant to handle. 

After washing

Yuk!

I read somewhere that sheep wool is the best stuffing for the pincushions, as the residual oil on the fibers lubricates the pins and prevents rust. Don’t know how much oil is actually left after washing the wool, but I wanted to try. A new pincushion was on my “to do” list for months. A piece of an old green sponge that I used as a pincushion was an eyesore, and it was tiring having to crop it off the photos. Here is what came out of it:

It’s too early to say anything about rust, but it’s definitely better than sponge, cotton wool (both too hard) or polyester wool (doesn’t hold the pins well).

Crochet leg warmers

Hmm, it has been a long time since I've written here. Not really in line with my «9th of June Resolutions», but I don't give up. Especially that I have lots of projects to share, enough for several posts. 

Here are the leg warmers for my older daughter:

They are crocheted from 50% merino wool, 50% acrylic double knitting yarn, hook sizes 5 and 6. The instructions are modified from here.

Lower cuff:

Starting at lower edge with smaller hook, ch 30, join with sl st to form ring, ch 2, do not turn.

Row 1: Sc in each ch, join with sl st in top of ch-2, ch 2, do not turn.

Rows 2 through 8: Repeat Row 1.

Middle:

Row 9: With larger hook, ch 2, hdc in each sc across, join with sl st in top of ch-2, ch 2, turn.

Repeat Row 9 to length desired.

Upper cuff:

With smaller hook, repeat row 2 eight times. After last sl st, fasten off.

The flower was made using a beautifully illustrated tutorial here, with the only difference that I’ve made three layers of petals only. The brown yarn was leftovers bought from a charity shop, feels like pure wool. As it was rather thin, I used hook size 2.5.

Dear readers, could anyone recommend software for Mac, preferably free, to draw crochet patterns?