Author: knackeredpsycho

What’s my style?

crochet, Shawls, yarn

Well, it has been a very exciting couple of days, and I am so thrilled with the response to shawl club.  The best thing about it has been the enthusiasm for it given that I am a new pattern designer and I haven’t yet put too many examples of my own patterns up on the blog, so people are trusting in me to give them some interesting projects.  One question that has come up is “What is your style?”  Its a great question, and one that I have been thinking about a lot since I was asked it.

I guess at the moment I have more of a set of guiding principles that influence my design choices, rather than an overriding style, which I suspect will become apparent as time progresses.  So here they are:

  1.  Simplicity: I enjoy the act of crocheting and I have made so many shawls since I became addicted that I have learned that I prefer patterns that are simple enough that they are not stressful to produce (easy to remember repeats of stitches), but that have enough variation in them to keep them interesting.  I get frustrated with lots of hook changes, or with patterns that are very strict about gauge, as they take the relaxation out of crocheting for me.  I admire these patterns as they usually look amazing, but they aren’t me, or at least they aren’t me at the moment anyway.
  2. Practicality: I love a make that gets used.  So the shawls have to be practical and wearable.  I have made sure that there are lots of different shaped shawls in shawl club to suit different tastes and styles, but all of them can be worn out without fear of people pointing and laughing at you.
  3. Colour: A (knitter) friend of mine has a joke about crocheters having an inexplicable love of ‘clown vomit’ yarns.  By this she means the sort of bright and clashing colour combinations that look great in the stitch but offend against Principle Number Two (i.e. people not pointing and laughing).  I have favourite colours of course (see picture above) but I like colour combinations and contrasts that are harmonious.  I do like the odd riot of colour, and I love vibrant colours, but this is tempered by a desire to put together a more restricted and complementary set of colour combinations.  So having experimented with clown vomit in the past, I have now moved down the road towards more restricted colour combinations, with a preference for jewel tones and colours inspired by nature.
  4.  Comfort: A shawl should be a comfort to wear – a great big yarn-y hug.

I hope this helps those of you who are trying to get a sense of what you might expect from shawl club.  I am really enjoying making them at the moment – I hope that you will enjoy them too!

A one-skein make…

crochet, scarves

So this weekend I promised my Instagram followers that I would put up some instructions on how to make this very pretty, and very simple scarf / cowl, which uses up one skein of sock or DK weight yarn, depending on what you have in your stash and how long you want it to be.  I have made it quite a lot, and I am making it again at the moment which has given me the chance to take some pictures as I go so you can see how I made it.  This picture above is a version I made in a Lollipop Guild sock yarn (merino).  I have also made it in sock weight merino / bamboo mix, and it is lovely and soft and cosy for a lightweight scarf (see below).

photo 36

The yarn in this picture was from Jo.Knit.Sew, who makes cracking yarns and the colour pooling on this project was the best I have seen, forming a spontaneous zig zag pattern!

At the moment I am making it with a merino / silk mix yarn, again from Lollipop Guild Yarns (called Snow Angel if you want the colour way!).

So, this is how to make it…

If you are working with sock, use a 4mm hook.  If you are using DK I would suggest a 5mm hook, but you might want to play around with it until you get the texture and drape you want, as I tend not to block these scarves.

Chain 34.  (If you want to adjust the width, either add or subtract in multiples of 3 to this number).

Row 1. Treble (UK Term), into the 4th chain from hook, chain 2, and double crochet (UK Term) into the same space.  *Skip 2 chains, then treble twice into the next stitch, chain 2, and then double crochet once into the same stitch**.  Repeat from * to ** to end of chain.  Turn.

Row 2. Chain 3, treble into the chain 2 space in the row below, chain 2 and then double crochet into the same chain 2 space of the shell in the row below…  

*Treble into the next chain 2 space twice, chain 2, then double crochet once into the same space**.  Repeat from * to ** to end.

Then you just repeat this last row (I have put the row in bold to make it clear which row I mean) over and over until the scarf is the length you want. You will end up with a really pretty scalloped edge to the length of the work.

photo 35

It is your choice whether to leave it as a scarf or sew the short ends together to make a cowl-type scarf.  Sew in your ends and admire your work!

Let me know how you get on.

 

Shawl club has launched!

crochet, Shawls, yarn

So finally I can tell you a bit about what I have been working on.  Tonight I have launched a shawl club with Sam from Unbelieva-wool.  I am beyond excited – her yarns are beautiful and I have had great fun plotting this behind the scenes with her!  So the plan is that you can sign up for a series of yarn boxes, each one about 6 weeks apart, and each one will contain a skein of her yarn which has been dyed to suit the pattern I have written (all of which are new and have not been published before), and a extra something that will help you to do the pattern, plus the pattern itself.  The yarns will be either standard merino sock yarn or a luxury base.  And I am so giddy tonight with the interest in this.  We will do the club for about 8 months and then see if folk want us to continue.

The patterns themselves will be a mixture of styles and shapes to keep it interesting and I am really pleased with how they are coming out so far!  Once everyone has received their boxes I will do a little reveal on this page.

If you are interested in signing up, click the link here and complete the online form.  The first invoices will be payable by the end of March so we know what numbers we are working with.  If you live outside the UK, it is worth knowing that Sam is happy to ship overseas if you let her know on the sign up form so that she can tweak the price to allow for the extra postage.

In the meantime I am also working on some other patterns to go up on Ravelry on the 7th April, including the Moo-Ra dress, a hat pattern, a rather lovely wrap, and a few other bits and bobs.  And as a special thank you to you, my blog-watchers, I will be putting up some free patterns on this site over the next few weeks.

 

Having my cake…

crochet, yarn

OK, so today was a horrible weather day.  It rained heavily all last night and this morning I had to be up early for a very grown up meeting at work.  The sky was dark and it was still raining and miserable, and the roads were starting to flood as I drove to work.  I spent the day running from one part of the university campus to the other for meetings, becoming progressively more like a drowned rat as the day wore on.  And the last meeting was one of those ones that left me feeling a bit twitchy and agitated.  The small person was exhausted today too, so an early night for her, and a bit of yarn therapy for me.  Some new and beautiful skeins in the post to squish (shhh!  I have posted pictures on my instagram feed if you want to see them) and the chance to cake some others ready for a bit of a making frenzy.  The picture shows my latest yarn caking set up in my room, and the yarn pictured is ‘Psyche’ by Unbelievawool, which is just a little bit lovely.

I am due for some leave over Easter, so I want to have a nice pile of yarn cakes to take with me so I can get plenty of hooking in, and maybe even a pair of knitted socks.  And then when I am back I will upload some patterns to Ravelry and link to them here so you can see what I have been busy working on for the last month or so.  And I should be able to finally tell you about one of my top secret projects this weekend, I hope, so watch this space.  In the meantime, don’t forget to let me know what sort of things you struggle to find patterns for, or what sort of stuff you would like me to have a go at designing for you.  At the moment I have some ideas for clothing for children and adults that I want to have a crack at. But I am up for a challenge, and its a good way of getting a pattern named after you if its a good one!

One final note, thank you all so much for your support and enthusiasm so far!  The blog has taken off much more quickly than I had dared to hope it might. I have plans to reward you for your support so watch this space!

Tired, but not of yarn…

crochet, yarn

So, about an hour ago I hit ‘the wall’.  The week has caught up with me and I can barely keep my eyes open, and I feel exhausted.  After I have done this post, I will retire to my bed with a cup of tea and a blanket and try to get some rest.  And yet my head can do that magical thing with ‘work’ that small children can do with food.  Just as a child can complain of being not hungry but is ravenous for desert, my head might want to sleep and stop thinking about the day job, but somehow it also wants me to sit and write up the pattern to the retro granny square ripple blanket.  My crochet habit is clearly deepening, and I need a fix of something yarny before I head for bed.

I could, of course, spend some time fondling my latest yarn pets.  This week has been a bit of a treat on the postal front – my YarnMama purchases have arrived over a number of days, interspersed with yarn boxes that I ordered a while back but which arrived in the same week. So its been a bit like Christmas around here, with my daughter helping me to open the parcels and making appropriate ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ noises, and stealing any additional chocolate treats that might have been popped into the packages.  At 4 years old she already has all the yarn lingo down pat, best illustrated by: “Mummy, I can’t find XXX, can we look in your stash for it?”

The picture above is of my YarnMama haul from the amazing FleabubsByLala.  One of the constant sources of sadness to me is that I cannot use her beautiful hooks; the way I crochet means that I tend to drop hooks which have weighted handles. But her yarn is very special and I can indulge in that.  These skeins are almost too pretty to cake, and even my daughter gave a “Wow, THEY are beautiful!” when she opened the packet.  So these were able to comfort me as I put some of my stash up for sale last night to help to pay for the garage bill I earned the other day.  And the spaces created in my stash were filled by this new loveliness, that will be turned into something very special.  But I don’t think I will have the energy to cake them tonight.  I might have to squidge them one more time before I go upstairs though…

Move over Mr Bowlby…

crochet

Gah.  Yesterday felt like a day wasted. I had to take my car to the garage for its annual check to ensure it’s roadworthy and that meant heading out to the town I used to live in (never give up on an excellent mechanic!) and trying to kill a few hours while I waited for the phone call to collect it.  I brought some work, and a WIP in need of finishing, both of which I did in the first few hours.  I had planned to bring more yarn so I could crack on with the next project  but in the morning rush I left it behind.  So I comforted myself with some window shopping on Etsy, and a new handbag which is a suitable size to take my WIP bag with me without having to cram it in.  And I did some sketches of things I want to make next.  But then I just wanted to get home and crack on with some crocheting or write up patterns.  I was also due one, maybe two, yarn parcels and was experiencing some significant yarn-based separation anxiety.  Yes, I have what is known in the trade as a ‘secure yarn attachment’.  I am distressed by the absence of yarn, and elated and comforted by its reappearance.  My husband (a biological psychologist) prefers to construct my hobby as an addiction, and has even said ‘your dealer has been…’ when he has spotted a yarn delivery waiting for me when I get home.  But I’m not addicted, not really.  I mean, I can give up any time I choose.  Honest. I just need to finish this project first…

Self-medicating with yarn…

crochet

It has been one of those full-on weeks: lots of travel, lots to do and think about, limited time, and one or two moments when the only reasonable thing to do was to close the office door and indulge in some Anglo-Saxon vocabulary revision.  In amongst it all, as ever, there have been those random acts of humanity that remind me what it is really all about, and some perspective takes over.  Beautiful yellow roses from a work colleague left in my room were just what I needed to find today.

Tonight was the last Friday of the month, which is when YarnMama have their market night.  Now, I am supposed to be reducing my stash this year, but so far I am failing miserably because I am still buying yarn at about the same rate that I am using it. Also, when I am stressed I self-medicate with beautiful yarn. I know this because this week I really found myself hankering for a yarn-y package to be waiting for me when I got home from work.  So I got a bit carried away tonight and bought a bit too much nice yarn to be entirely justifiable.  But it was so pretty, and I was so tired, and the idea of all the fabulous things I could make with it was a bit too much.  I was weak.  Don’t judge me, wait until you see it (I will post pics when it arrives).

Anyway, in amongst the yellow roses, you can see the fabulous purple and turquoise yarn I bought last month at YarnMama.  Its a Dye Candy one, so that means that the colours are fabulous and vibrant. I need to come up with something a bit special for that one, so I am having a think. In the meantime I am playing with an equally eye-popping Dye Candy grad which I am going to make into a beaded scarf-thingie (stop me if I get too technical).

photo 22

Anyway, in other news my notebook is quickly filling up with lists of things for me to have a go at designing at some point this year.  Let me know if there is something you want to add to my list!

Making the most of every free moment…

crochet, Shawls

So one of the things that amuses / irritates the people closest to me is that I crochet every chance I get.  And I mean, every chance.  Between the day job and my resident small person, I get very little time to do something that I would like to do.  So I have a basket in the living room with my current blanket WIP in it (so that I can pick it up and put it down as I get the chance during the evening, small person permitting) and a WIP bag that is usually always with me.  I am lucky enough to be able to crochet in the car without getting motion sickness, and so I look forward to long drives so I can get some serious work done.  Last year on one of our regular trips to see the in-laws we got stuck in traffic for many hours in what was already a 5 hour car trip, and by the time we arrived I had finished a cardigan for my daughter…

Today has been a ‘hooking on the train’ day.  I love these days.  Today was a special treat as it was a 2 hour long direct train there, and the same back again, and I managed to get some real progress done on my latest design project.  And it also involved some added jeopardy, as it involved beadwork.  So in amongst the suited executives with their tablets and laptops, I quietly removed my Marvel Comics inspired WIP bag from Jo.Knit.Sew (a nod to my husband, so that he isn’t totally embarrassed when I get it out) from my smart work bag, and start crocheting away, swapping hooks when I get to the beads and praying that I don’t knock the jam jar with my hand and send them flying across the carriage.  In previous attempts the jar has jiggled with the movement of the train across the lap tray until it gets close to falling off the edge.  Today I discovered that if I stand the jar of beads on my empty WIP bag it doesn’t move (top tip) and I can bead without worrying about the jar sliding onto the floor.  On other train trips I have been known to walk the length of a carriage to get off, with a gent running behind me winding up the ball of yarn that I didn’t know was still in my seat, following me like a yarn-adoring courtier followed by a chorus of good-humoured giggles!

Crocheting in public typically results in some really lovely conversations with people who are genuinely surprised that people still do it (or who haven’t done it for ages), and today I was even called a ‘young person’ by the lady I chatted to.  “The problem with most young people now”, she said, “is they have too much money and they don’t think about the real value of things, the love that people put into things that are handmade.  They throw things away and buy new things.  They don’t cherish what they have. And they don’t understand what handmade really means.”  I love these conversations about things that people loved because they were made just for them.  Crocheting or knitting in public triggers these reflections and they are so moving.  And so true.

A quiet day in…

crochet, Shawls

So today is a rare treat – I have been able to book a day off from work to concentrate on getting some yarn-related jobs done, and I am ignoring all the essential house-related work I should also be attending to.  I do feel a bit like I have to ‘earn’ my yarn time by doing lots of other stuff first, but today I can indulge.  I am really excited because I finally have a logo for my blog and patterns (what do you think of it?) and as a result I have spent this morning finishing off some of my patterns ready to go live in April.  So much seems to be coming together at the moment, including a design for a shawl which I can’t show you yet but I am really pleased with.  It is a big yarn-y hug for someone who has both inspired and helped me, and I wanted it to be something special.  I made it over the last two days in DK, and now I am going to do it in sock-weight yarn to see how much yarn I need for a lightweight version.  The picture above is the yarn from my stash I am going to use.  Its by Pollyorange and called ‘The cold side of the pillow’.  I have been saving it for something special and I hope that there will be enough to finish the pattern.  I will cake it later and make a start.  Its going to be part of something very special that I hope to share with you very soon!

I have really been enjoying the reaction I have had to the post on beading, and I am so pleased people have found it useful.  Eventually I will treat myself to a camera with a video function so I can make some video tutorials to go with that post and to show you some other techniques I use.  The thing about crochet is that everyone seems to have their own quirky ways of doing things, and its nice to see them and compare. It really does build your confidence when you realise that it doesn’t matter how you hold your hook, join your yarn, sew your ends in, sew garments up, and so on, as long as you are happy with it and the end product works.  I am far from a purist, and I do things in all different ways.  So I am going to add a ‘techniques’ section to this blog so you can find those sorts of posts more easily.  And thank you all for your interest and lovely comments so far.

My bead-y eye…

crochet, Shawls

One of the things that I get asked about a lot is beading.  I like to insert beads into the shawls I make and I tend to do this with a miniature crochet hook rather than threading them onto my ball of yarn, which seems to be the more common way of doing it. However, I find this approach has three main drawbacks:

  1. You have to know exactly how many beads you want to work with for the whole project and thread them onto your yarn at the beginning of your project / ball of yarn (and pray you don’t have knots in your ball of yarn!);
  2. You can only see the beads from one side of your work;
  3. There is only one strand of yarn holding your bead in place.

I prefer to use a crochet hook as my preferred method, as doing it this way means that you can see the beads on both sides of your work, you don’t lose ages threading beads onto your yarn, and you can be more thoughtful about bead placement and colour choice as you go, rather than having to work it all out in advance.

So, this is how I do it:

When you get to the place where you want to insert your bead, put a bead on a skinny (0.75mm or smaller) hook.

Remove your regular hook from your stitch and insert your skinny hook:

bead 1

Pull the hook up so that the loop is long and thin, and pull the bead to the top of the hook…

bead 3

And onto the loop…

bead 4

You then carry on crocheting as normal.

It is very simple and very satisfying.  You can insert beads between stitches (as described here) or you can insert them into the body of a stitch by waiting until you have the last two loops of your chosen stitch on your hook, and then you pull a bead onto one of the loops and finish the stitch with the final yarn over hook and pull through.  This can create effects like this…

atlantic beading

I hope you agree that the overall effect is worth the little bit of fiddling with hooks.  I hope you have a play with it – if you do, let me know how you get on!