Wednesday 29 October 2014

QUICKIE Half Term Update: walks and X-mas pudding time again?

 This was a week ago in some of the most amazing summery weather we have been having this October? 20 degrees C and sunny, most unusual for mid to late October! This is at Aston Rowant, what we call ''the Bluff'' at home.
Just a quick flashback to the week after Delft when we ate a lot of this on our crusty brown bread...
 
 And back to the woods at Aston Rowant: such loveliness and peace.









 Getting the hang of taking a panorama shot?


 Pippa not that keen to carry on walking....
 Loving this view!
 And yes it IS very windy at this time. Lucy's ears were being blown upright...




 Me too, very windblown but so happy.
 New fence and gate along one field...


















That was such a lovely walk and we did the Little Kinble walk yesterday after avoiding it for 6 months since I broke my ankle there but let's see those photos in another post?
Here are the fabulous pumpkins the girls carved today: with the booze destined to soak into our Christmas pudding.

 Wish this had smelly-vision.... The scent of the fruit and rum, spices and orange zest never ceases to put me in that Christmassy mood!
It will be soaking and absorbing all that booze for a few days in the fridge now.
This will be the tenth year that I make our Christmas pudding....!!!

Sunday 19 October 2014

Lover's Knot Stitch and Flower Lattice stitch on Youtube

Just a quick crochet day in between further updates from our trip to Delft and Amsterdam?
I learned TWO new stitches yesterday thanks to the wonderful tutorials on You tube so I wanted to briefly share this with you?


Having searched the Rave;ry pattern catalogue for a Shrug pattern and found there were 1488 to look at, I did see a nice Solomon's knot one: there's a free pattern for this as well as one you have to pay for. But first I needed to learn this stitch which I have much admired but never attempted before.
THIS is the video tutorial I used;
She is really good and if you watch first and then copy while you watch it's really easy!
The only difficulty lies in keeping the loops the same size. But then another video showed you to keep the loop on your thumb so it stays the size of your thumb wrap consistently but that makes quite small loops depending on your thumb of course!


This was my first sample, the shrug I will make in this is the DENIM blue cotton viscose from Drops bought online from Woolwarehouse? 
I choose from these 3 lovely colours but the denim best matched the new dance dress from York.

 See? I love this dress, it swirls magnificantly but I worry about the polyester lining- gets very hot when dancing Scottish Country- AND I need sleeves as I don't like my bare upper arms...
Hence the need for a lacy cotton and viscose shrug!


 Now the Solomon's stitch or Lover's Knot stitch shrug pattern on Ravelry had many projects showing people who had made it and most said they made it in as little as 2 hours! AND it takes very little yarn so some used only 1 skein...
Still I was also thinking of the dark purple dupion silk panel bodice and satin panel skirt ball-dress that is still lurking in my mentalm pictures and which I may still make in time for next Saturday? Will I? Won't I? Not so sure but I have the blue grey roses as a back-up plan in any case.
For the purple gown I was thinking a flower lattice shrug...?

This is a stitch I have attempted many years ago from a chart and I messed up well and truly.
Had to abandon it in the end but that's against my nature so I was very keen to have another go, this time with the aid of technology: i.e.: YOUTUBE!
Below is the link I used to learn it and learn it I did!

This is my lattice sample:

 And I wrote it all out in English crochet terms too, I may be posting that later...if there are any requests for that??? Would you like and/ or use that? Would it help?
 This time still with the cotton viscose from Drops- I just love that shine but it is quite splitty?!
And in deep purple: I estimated I'd need about 15 flowers for elbow length shrug and I'm using a 4.5mm hook. The 4mm I tried made it too tight.
 4 hours later and I have 3 complete rows of flowers, that's 6 crochet rows and that measures 11 cm by 94 cm and weighs 39 grammes. I'm hoping that the 4 balls will suffice for the shrug with a little trim at the sleeve cuffs and neckline.


Finally my own experimental pattern:
 From a discounted Lanna Grossa ball from KNOTTEN , I made a bobble bow on the ferry home:
 It's 10 stitches of double crochet with a bobble at stitch 2,5 and 8 : making 3 bobbles across.
I decreased a bit and worked plain dc in the middle then increased and worked the other half mirror image. Sewn onto a hairclip with yarn warps at the centre.
 There it is, holding up my hair?!