Crochet in August 2012

At last an update albeit a brief one as I will need to go acquire some sleep soon. ( 8 minutes before midnight)

Crochet that joyful pastime for me has been rare of late mainly due to the WW programme which encourages ACTIVITY such as walking or cycling rather than sitting still and crocheting....

Can't complain though as I have reshaped by just under 2 STONE and feel ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS as a result. Back to crochet: partly no time as above but also because I do like making garments I have slowed down as I sinply no longer have any space at all in my wardrobe for the crocheted jackets to lay while awaiting being worn.

This is partly due to new clothes for my new size (10 or 12 ) and partly due to dance dresses acquired for my increased participation in Scottish Country Dancing.

So If the jackets have nowhere to go then it's better if they stay in the work basket?!

Anyway back to crochet: I have the white SALICE jacket 89% finished and a white 4 ply circle top on the go but also took 1250 g of cotton and bamboo yarns to CORFU on holiday, thinking with a WHOLE WEEK of nothingness I might get a lot of crochet done?

Not so! At 32- 38 degrees C in daytime and 28-30 degrees at night It was TOO HOT to crochet and to stay cool I was mostly to be found IN THE SEA. Swimming or floating or walking or just treading water...BLISS but no crochet.

I did attempt a bit as you can see and a very sandy sweaty effort it was too. To amuse myself I tried a few gauge samples to learn the stitch patterns of the sweaters in Dora's new book. I took a Bamboo cotton King Cole yarn DK and a 4mm hook and started with the shawl collar tunic on page 63.

And that was it  just too hot and sandy. I did read a book every 2 days though so that was 3 books read.

On the flight home I thought: well let's try an experiment. I 'll take ONE hook and see if it's confiscated and at £1.25 it might be worth a try. I took yarn and the book and guess what: IT WAS ALLOWED!!!

Please note though I didn't bring scissors and ensured I could break this yarn by pulling it firmly. 

So on the 3 hour flight home on Easy jet I crocheted THREE yes 3 gauge samples with other stitch patterns from the book.

Here are my projects, book, yarn and hook and sweets all ready to go.

Easily accessed on the plane 

First sample was the crossed trebles one but I'm not sure I like it in a plain yarn, that mini mochi really makes it sing.It's Fiji on page 81.

THEN UPtown on p 111- I LOVE this stitch pattern! The vertical lines are subtle and take a while to appear, in fact they are more pronounced when you stretch it widthways.

And finally just before landing: the hug shrug and my start chain was too tight so it buckles a lot. Probably my tension reflected the landing process? This was the fastest 3 hours ever, it FLEW by pardon the pun.

The Shrug hug sample was done with this view as below:

And this is the hilariously over estimated amount of yarn I took to Corfu:

This amounted to 1250 g i.e. over a kilo of my precious 20 kg allowance. For once I didn;t go over being 19.2 kg on the way OUT and 20.5 on the way back ( But daughter was under 18 kg so it was OK)

I brought home just 5 samples for the 7 days away. The pale blue DK COTTON one was from page 71 the IN VEST which I did on Friday night in the hotel room and on the balcony in the balmy evening/night air.

Working with the Baby Bamboo smiley stripes had been going awry when I tried to do flowers or motifs as the colour change repeat is too short and it looked all patchy and just plain ''wrong''.
Until I hit upon THIS pattern stitch- I thought of it as I studied a stripey scarf knitted in tis yarn by a child- it suddenly struck me that I wanted those same stripes to appear in MY CROCHET.....So I needed a very short or small stitch to allow STRIPES to develop. VOILA:

That was what I started and then I got ''hooked literally'' as it's such fun watching the colours juxtapose differently on each row.... Very '' MISSONI'' I think?

So that's all folks, it's just turned 20th August and that's all the crochet that's been happening so far.
I have had the immense pleasure and am hugely grateful for having been able to go dancing for an entire week as well as visit the lovely town of St Andrews AND as mentioned above been to Corfu with Miss E and photos of those jaunty happenings will be appearing in a while.
Grateful. Blessed. Had so much fun! Thankful. Blissful .The past 4 weeks have been PURE JOY.