Bramble Yarn

 I have a new favourite yarn and have got totally carried away with its possibilities.

King Cole Bramble DK is a variegated yarn with a long colour run - oh how I love a long colour run - and it comes in these ten lovely shades. From left to right on the top row there's Mixed Berries, Heather, Loganberry, Chestnut and Raspberry (aren't the names nice?) On the bottom row there's Earth, Blueberry, Goldenberry, Gorse and Haze. I had to  look up Goldenberry which is, apparently, a rather exotic looking fruit. 

Bramble is a 100% Acrylic yarn - a joy to those of us plagued by moths - and, with 290 m per 100g knits to a standard DK tension. I'm starting to sound like an advert, aren't I? The only faults that I could find with this yarn were the knots which appeared from time to time, sometimes breaking the colour run. 

It would be a good yarn for my Ten Stitch patterns and no, I'm not planning to design another one of those any time soon. So, do you want to see what I've been using my Bramble yarn for?

First of all, I'm crocheting a shawl, using Loganberry which is probably my favourite of the colours.

It's nearly big enough but I have plans to add a collar, buttons and possibly pompoms, all of which require thinking and decision making, things that are difficult for me now so I keep putting it off.

In the meantime, I've been playing with the possibilities of combining slip stitch and two shades of Bramble. 

First I made a couple of cowls using two similar shades so that the colours blended together. I've just published this pattern and you can download it from my Ravelry store Obviously, it's called Bramble Cowl.

This one uses Loganberry and Chestnut.

Then I decided to use contrasting shades - this time Raspberry and Earth - to make a scarf. I thought I would make it more interesting by working it diagonally which had the lucky effect of making the stitch pattern much simpler too. I rather like both sides of this pattern.

It's now much longer than in these pictures and, again, is waiting for me to work out how to finish it. I'm going to sew the ends together so that it can be looped round the neck; I just need to get round to doing it ... and taking the photos.

I've also been experimenting with using Bramble for weaving. The colours work out beautifully in these 6" pin loom squares.

This set of squares are all from a ball of Loganberry and I didn't plan them at all; they're just how they came from the ball. The next set are more subdued but equally pleasing I think. This time the shade is Goldenberry.

I'm using one of the newer shades of Stylecraft Special DK, A Hint of Silver to edge my squares which I'm finding sets off all the colours very well. I'm probably going to weave four more sets of squares from different shaders and then turn them into a blanket.

Yet more Loganberry, this time woven into tiny hexagons.

I'm using my little Penny Loom from Turtle Looms to weave these. As each hexagon is so small, they come out a solid colour so I'm sorting them into pile of six and then turning them into flowers. Maybe one day it'll be a doll sized Granmother's Flower Garden blanket. I don't know if I shall stick to the Loganberry or use other colours too. The joy of this sort of yarn is that all the shades go together well.

People often end this sort of post by saying that they were given the yarn to review etc etc ... well, I wasn't. I bought it myself and I love it!

Spring Mantelpiece

Today is the first day of Spring, meteorologically speaking, so I thought you might like to see my newly decorated Spring mantelpiece.

The star of the show is my cross stitch sampler which I framed last week. Many of you will remember my daughter and I working on this series of samplers last year. I thoroughly enjoyed these projects, from the first stitches for each season ...

... to the last ...

It took me ages to decide on the mount and frame for each sampler but so far it's looking good.

I'm really pleased with that mount - I think we used to call that colour mauve.

Hanging above the mantelpiece is my Springtime Wreath from 2014. I had to re-attach one of the knitted chicks this year but, other than that, it's wearing well.

The rest of the ornaments are a combination of pretty things and little treasures. I'm a big fan of windmills (the toy variety, although I have no objection to working ones); these are probably the smallest ones I've got.

They're standing in one of my old green bottles. I'm trying to collect ten (obviously), each one different. They were displayed along the sash of the kitchen window ... until Tolly the cat knocked one off and broke it. He is a bad cat.

On the other side of the sampler is one of my little Polish Peg Dolls - another one of my collections. I thought her outfit looked particularly Spring-like.

Next to her there's another one of my little green bottles with a few random things on sticks that used to be my Mum's. She was partial to decorations on sticks; here we have a chick, a cat and a hen on a nest.

The yellow teapot has been retired from use after I broke the spout off. It has sentimental value and I don't want to risk breaking it further. My kitchen floor is tiled with old stone tiles - anything dropped on it breaks - so now the teapot just looks pretty. Next to it is a very pretty little coffee cup from the 1930s. I have a somewhat eclectic collection of pretty china cups, all of which get used. I thought the flowers on this one were especially nice.

I was going to round this post off with a photo of some of the Spring flowers in my garden but ... it's raining. Of course it is.