92 Colours

Finally, I've managed to write up a pattern from my backlog of finished projects. This one holds the record for the most colours I've used in one pattern - all 92 solid shades of Stylecraft Special DK .

Over the years of using this as my main yarn, I've collected all the colours and they're a great resource whenever it comes to designing a new pattern. They even have their own tower of baskets, each one colour coded with knitted stars.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to knit a scarf using every single one of the colours but I didn't want to darn in all those ends. This is why my Shade Card Scarf is knitted in the round; the tails of yarn can simply be knotted together and hidden inside the finished scarf.

I couldn't bring myself to choose the colours completely at random - just a bit too scary - so, instead, I worked through them in alphabetical order by shade name. This resulted in some fun combinations and kept me interested as the scarf progressed. I'm pleased with how bright it turned out; it seems that the more colours you use, the better.

If, by any chance, you don't have 92 shades of yarn, you can of course just use the basic pattern with whatever oddments of yarn you do have. Each stripe only took about 3g of yarn, a length of roughly 8 metres or 9 yards.

I've been using my Stylecraft Special colour pegs to choose colours for designs for years now and they are starting to get a bit tatty.

I thought it might be a good idea to have little samples in each of the colours to play with when designing so, while knitting my scarf, I also worked a little crochet penny in each of the colours too.

These are small, textured crochet circles, a few inches in diameter which I think will be just right to give me an idea of how the colours go together. I can pull out some intense shades ...

... some pastels ...

... or perhaps a set of more subdued pastels with a vintage feel to them ...

You get the idea. I also used the same pattern but thinner yarn to crochet a little thread mat for Pamela, my old Singer sewing machine. The original felt one was too small for the modern big reels of thread.

If you'd like to crochet a little penny or two, this is what I did. I used a 3.5 mm hook with my DK weight yarn.

Make 4ch and join with a slip stitch into a ring.

Round 1:     3ch, 11tr into ring, join with a ss to the top of the 3 ch (12 sts).

Round 2:     3ch, tr in same st, 2tr in every st, ss to top of 3ch (24 sts).

Round 3:     1ch, (Frtr round next tr, 2dc in next st) x 12, ss to first Frtr (36 sts).

Round 4:     1ch, working backwards, (miss 1 st, dc) x 18, fasten off and darn in tails.

ss          slip stitch

ch         chain

tr          treble (US dc)

dc        double crochet (US sc)

Frtr      front raised treble, treble worked round post of stitch

My Stylecraft pennies fit nicely into this old glass sweet jar that my daughter gave me. Don't they look nice?

Making Stuff

Nearly two months since I last wrote a blog post - I keep meaning to do it but then the extreme weariness that is one of the many delights of Long Covid stops me. So .... let's try again. I've sorted out a folder of photos, let's see if I can link them all up.

I am still making things, mostly very slowly but it's surprising what you can achieve in tiny bits of time.  And I do mean tiny. I've been working on a 3D cottage shaped box for months now. It was originally going to be called 'Spring Cottage' but now will have to be 'Summer Cottage'. I'm determined not to have to turn it into an Autumn cottage though! I sat down to work on it yesterday, drew a few rough sketches of flowers for the walls and then had to give up - see what I mean?

Anyway, these are probably the fiddliest, most aggravating things that I've knitted for a long time ... and I made two sets of them!

These were Easter presents for my two grown up children and they were very pleased with them. If you don't know the Frog and Toad books by Arnold Lobel, you need to read them at once. The pattern for the knitted creatures came from Frog & Cast and is very true to the original illustrations. It's not a pattern for beginners though; there's lots of detailed shaping and the knitting is done on very small needles so it's hard work. Then there's the cutting holes for the eyes ... nerve-wracking every time. I am pleased with the finished animals though.

Much easier to knit was this lovely dressed hedgehog from Knitted Animal Friends by Louise Crowther.

This was a very well designed animal - I was particularly taken by the way the foot was shaped - and the clothes have lots of pretty detail. All the animals in the book are based on the same basic body shape so the clothes can be mixed and matched. My hedgehog, who was made for a friend's birthday present, is actually wearing the pig's clothes from the book.

When I ordered the yarn for the hedgehog, I also ordered enough to knit myself this owl, although I haven't started work on him yet.

I particularly like his lace up shoes and his duffle coat.  Louise has written other books, including another toy animal one, Knitted Wild Animal Friends which is very tempting.

Having knitted the hedgehog, I then made a bag to put it in; presents are always nice in a homemade bag I think. This one was a mixture of vintage barkcloth, charity shop finds and buttons.

On one of my occasional visits to Orinoco, our local scrapstore, I bought two sample books of velvet squares. They had very sticky metal stickers on each piece but, with the help of my trusty Sticky Stuff Remover (I was impressed that it worked on velvet), I ended up with lots and lots of velvet pieces.

I used just a few of them to make myself this bag. Velvet is a a pain to sew but it turned out well.

I've made two more bags for presents recently: this one to hold my Mother in law's birthday present ...

... and this one to hold presents for a new baby (more of that later).

I've lost count of how many tote bags I've made from this basic pattern over the years. If you'd like to make one (or lots) yourself, you can download the free pattern from the link under 'My Free Sewing Patterns' on the sidebar; it's the reversible tote bag.

There's one present that I've been working on for months though and the end is still not in sight. This is the quilt for my son's (big) coffee table which is the biggest quilt I've made. It went quite quickly until I started the hand quilting but that is taking me ages. Never mind, I'll get there in the end. This picture was taken just before I started the quilting.

Admittedly, it's not exactly the weather for hand quilting a large, heavy quilt. I also had a break from it to make this little quilt - much more my normal size - for the same friend I knitted the hedgehog for. It has old family photos on it which she gave me to scan years ago so I thought it was time I actually got round to turning them into a quilt. I enjoyed working on this.

Now back to new baby knitting. I'd forgotten how quick it is to knit baby clothes which is just as well as lots of people seem to having babies at the moment. The bag with the animals on that I showed you earlier holds this set ...

That's my Pippi Jacket, hat and bootie set, together with a Lazy Vee blanket and a Paddle Ball. These things are on their way to baby Lucas who is five days old now. His parents are friends of my son's; long time readers of this blog might remember me knitting these bride and groom bees for their wedding cake a few years ago. 

As soon as I'd finished making things for baby Lucas, I started again, this time for the baby of my daughter's friend (due in August). I've just finished another Pippi set.

Now I'm about halfway through another blanket. Again, I'm using the Lazy Vee pattern but, this time, with King Cole Bramble DK for the contrast colour. I really love this yarn; I'm using the brightest shade, Loganberry and I'm really pleased with how it's working out.

You need a yarn with a long colour run for this pattern; short ones just look too busy and you lose the effect of the stripes. 

As well as all these things, I do actually have finished stuff ready to write up and publish. Actually, there's a bit of a backlog. Normally, I'm quite quick to publish a new pattern but ... I've been writing up the pattern for this scarf for weeks (by which I mean I wrote a few pages last month and then forgot about it).

It uses all 92 solid colours of Stylecraft Special DK but without having to sew in all the ends. I really must get back to that. 

This is another little scarf, well two actually, the idea being that you can knit several in different colours and wear them together. I need to take more photos before I can start writing this one up.

The photos are holding me up with this very colourful crochet shawl pattern too.

This is it blocking but, when I took the final set of photos, I couldn't be bothered to get my big lights out ... which means I've got to do them all over again. The yarn for this is a ball of Scheepjes Whirl in a shade with the wonderful name of Rosewater Cocktail. Isn't it pretty? Also, it matches my new velvet bag!

So, am I getting on with all these patterns (or finishing some of my many unfinished projects)? Of course I'm not. I am however starting new ones. Firstly, I was tempted to design a Lazy Vee shawl, using the same technique as the baby blanket - one row stripes without cutting the yarn - this turned out to be much more complicated than I'd expected but I think I've cracked it now.

The coloured yarn is Bramble again, this time a new (to me) shade called Victoria Plum; the main colour is white.

Then, the other day, I got sidetracked by discovering African Flower crochet designs. So I played around for a while and came up with my own version, using some yarn I had in stock.

I'm using cream for the flower centres and background, Hayfield Spirit DK in Sundown for the flowers and another shade of the same yarn, this time Casper to edge the hexagons. Of course I needed to crochet yet another blanket!

I have actually managed to finish one blanket that I started years ago. This one is Tunisian Crochet and is a rainbow entrelac, worked in the round. I had terrible trouble crocheting the border as, because of the way it's constructed, the outside edges are actually on the bias (I think that was the problem anyway) which meant my crocheted border kept flaring dramatically. In the end, I reduced the number of stitches drastically and then gave it a very serious blocking.

That's one of my WIPs finished but as I've started several more, I can't really say I'm winning!

Meanwhile, I have been enjoying sitting in my garden. I haven't been well enough to do gardening this year as I did last summer but my son and daughter have rallied round, cutting the grass and dealing with the most invasive growth so that I can sit out there without worrying about it. Luckily, it is meant to be a wildlife friendly garden. At the moment, the bees are enjoying all the ox-eye daisies.

And I'm enjoying my roses. You can never have too many roses in a garden and no, I don't have enough yet. This one is called Buff Beauty ...

... and the rose we planted in a cage last year is growing well too.

I don't know the name of this red one but, as normal, it's showing off, spreading its flowers all over the patio.

What looks like  the paw of a dead cat is actually Linnet, relaxing in the sunshine. She is very laid back sometimes, considering she was very badly treated as a young cat. This was her indoors this morning, waiting for the rain to stop so she could go outside again.

Meanwhile, Tolly cat likes to think of himself as a fearless hunter, stalking through the long grass but he's nothing of the sort. He likes me to be with him when he's in the garden, just in case a bee or a spider should suddenly frighten him.

You can just see him in this photo too, guarding my pot of tea while I take a picture. A pot of tea in the garden is one of my favourite things.

Speaking of which, I've been writing this for hours now and the sun has come back out so I think it's time to put the kettle on and get back out there. I hope you've enjoyed reading this.

A Magic Box and other Pretty Things

I've had a very exciting addition to my craft room recently. Want to see?

Yes, I know, it doesn't look very exciting. It's basically a big black square with a handle on the top. Open it out though and you get ...

... a big black cube. This is the Pixapro Light Box which I ordered from Essential Photo when it was reduced the other week. Obviously, other people had been eyeing it for a while too as it quickly went out of stock so I had to wait a few weeks for it to arrive. 

To put it together, you just unfold it - everything sticks together with velcro strips - it takes hardly any time and then you just slot in a background and you're ready to go. It gives you a nice white backdrop for photography which is so hard to get right.

That's not all though. Did you notice the pocket with the cable in on the first picture? It has LED lights inside the top, operated by a dimmable switch.

And yes, I did have to virtually crawl inside to take this photo.

This is how bright the inside is with the light switched on to full brightness.

This means that I can now take project pictures, however gloomy the day is. They still need the brightness adjusting digitally (my camera is pretty basic) but the quality of the photos is so much better. You don't get annoying shadows and the colours are spot on.

If I open that square flap on the top (more velcro), I can also take photos from above. This is very useful for the many step by step photos I often need at the start of a project.

Obviously, I had to test it out straight away. I've been waiting for the magic box before starting on a crochet shawl pattern using this very pretty yarn from Scheepjes called Whirl which is a blend of cotton and acrylic.

I was a bit concerned that taking photos of small scraps of crochet on full zoom might not give good results but I needn't have worried. These two pictures are from the same photo, both on full zoom with the second being a cropped version of the first.

Of course, it didn't take long for Tolly cat to discover this new, exciting place ...

Needless to say, I've been removing cat hair from the backdrop ever since. I now keep the flaps closed when I'm not in the room. Not that he ventures up there without a human in attendance - he's not the bravest of cats. Meanwhile, Linnet still refuses to acknowledge the existence of the room. She will occasionally venture as far as the doorway to collect me if their food bowls have been empty for too long but that's about it. It's lovely to be able to take decent photos whenever I want to. 

In other news, my daughter was here last weekend and she helped me clear out my kitchen cupboards. Actually it was more of a case of her doing it while I did a bit of washing out of containers and answered simple questions like "do you ever use this?" and "have you seen the best before date on this?". The combination of change, nowhere to sit and a task involving more than one thing to do made me feel particularly ill; I wouldn't even have been able to start it on my own. By the end of the day my cupboards were transformed. Here's the big, built in one which no longer has heavy china where I can't reach it ...

I can actually see what I'm low on now and I've even got room for some of the dishes and bowls I inherited from my Mum which have been languishing in boxes for years. I love this cupboard which was built with the house in the nineteenth century and holds lots of stuff. My neighbours have one just the same (the two houses were built as a pair) and my son has an even bigger one in his new house which was built around 1860 or so. His goes right up to the ceiling.

I must write a blog post about his house which is very exciting. Anyway, we also tidied up my kitchen cabinet which is one of my favourite things in the room.

I'm not a fan of fitted kitchens so this drop down table on the cabinet is one of the few work surfaces in the kitchen. My cutlery lives in those drawers and the cabinet also houses the all important tea making supplies. My son gave me the lego calendar a few years ago which is brilliant. You do have to re-make it at the start of each month though which leads to me being very confused if I forget to do it. In front of the calendar is my chicken stapler. What do you mean you don't have a chicken stapler? Needless to say, it is purely ornamental.

For many years the little brown armchair that my mother-in-law upholstered has been living at the end of the kitchen. It was a daft place to put it really as it meant that anyone sitting there often ended up hidden by the open scullery door. So ... we (well, I watched) swapped it with the table so that it's now in the middle of the room.

This simple shifting of a chair led to another burst of making things this week. First, I used some old barkcloth fabric from Orinoco to make a cushion cover, complete with buttons. It took twice as long to sew the buttons on as it did to make the cover. Another couple of photos to compare, this time the cushion photographed on the chair and then in my new magic box. As you can see, the colours are so much better when I use the light box.

I've got enough of the fabric left to make a couple of little bags too. I regularly find treasures at Orinoco. I made this little pincushion from a needlepoint kit I found there; it was very compulsive stitching, I think I finished it in a week.

Anyway, having made the cushion for the armchair, I then had a lovely time choosing colours to match it and crocheting a cover for my little milking stool that I uses as a table. Mats are always falling off it so I made this one to fit.

I'm really pleased with how this turned out. At first I'd thought of just adding elastic to a big circle to hold it in place but then realised that it would be better to shape the crochet as I went along so that's what I did. The cover finishes on the underneath, just where the legs meet the top.

One more photo before I go and this one isn't a pretty thing at all. Tolly cat managed to get something greasy all over his fur the other week (oil? something from a barbecue?) and he couldn't wash it off so he had to have several washes with actual detergent. He wasn't impressed.

Let's hope he's learnt his lesson and will keep away from strange stuff in the future. I wouldn't count on it though.