Category: Ravelry

Floral Beauties… self-indulgent pleasure…

Right now, flowers, whether knitted or crochet, seem to be the flavour of the moment & over the past few weeks I’ve been playing around with these happy little gems adding them to a selection of new scarves after finding the lovely ‘Silk Supreme’ from Bendigo Woollen Mills – the yarn is a delight & simply gorgeous  to work with…

more over, creating the array of crochet flowers was pure pleasure… although  patterns were used as starting points,  I was rather self-indulgent & pretty much made each flower up & improvised as I went along…. placing the flowers in just the right place took lots & lots of sewing though, but…

Hey! what fun….

 

Freestyle Crochet made easy….

I had this gorgeous hand-dyed, 100% pure wool 3 ply fingering yarn in my stash… what to do with it? It was far too precious to just incorporate bits & pieces of it into my freeform work.. it would simply get lost in amongst the flurry & bustle that freeform can be…

but I wasn’t up to painstakingly following a pattern to create something worthy of this beautiful yarn either… so what to do?…

with a large hook (10 mm (N/P) I made a long length of chain (I didn’t even count how many) & just started… one row of dc (US sc) so I knew where I was at &, from then on, I used a different pattern for each row improvising with plain stitches at the ends where the pattern didn’t quite fit…. I worked in this way until the yarn ran out – What a joy… true, no stress crochet….

 

Ideas & Inspirations No6 – Crayon Garden

Perhaps you can remember back to when you were young & the excitement you felt on receiving a lovely box of  new crayons & crisp sheets of butcher’s paper… the joy, when stroking the rich waxy colours over the page & creating those vibrant treasures that your family plastered all over the fridge because they were so proud of their little artist?

Well, that’s exactly how I felt when I came across these shamelessly, super brilliant yarns… I just had to have them, even though at the time, I had no idea how I would use them…

And, I have to say, they did linger in my stash for quite a while (though never forgotten) before I decided to have a play & create this vibrant handbag – I think it tuned out to be a real happiness piece… I hope you like it..

Crayon Garden is available for sale in my Etsy Shop

Ideas & Inspirations No5. ~ Portuguese man-of-war (Bluebottle):

 

Portuguese man-of-war (Bluebottle): a small marine creature that I remember from childhood.  I have lovely memories of strolling the beach, with stick in hand, bursting the little blue bubbles washed up along the shoreline – but, don’t be fooled, although not lethal, this iridescent beauty can deliver a mighty sting…

The moment I saw the vibrant, blue/purple of this gorgeous ‘Noro Silk Garden’ yarn I was reminded of those earlier days – the felted crochet crown is 100% pure wool with the band crochet directly onto it – the textured coronet is a continuous band of fairy wings which have been individually hand-beaded with tiny glass seed beads & then hand-sewn to the finished beanie. I’m rather please with the result…

From the bizarre to Classic Style ~ A collection of scarves & wraps

Whenever my creative juices wane or go walkabout & seemingly disappear for a while, I simply return to the basics… the versatile scarf ~ wrap… I’m fortunate that my yarn stash is vast & varied so it’s not all that hard for me to choose a few favourites & play… let the hook & yarn lead the way…

As cliché as it may sound, it’s nevertheless true, at least for me… each yarn has it’s own colour-way & texture & therefore its own voice, so it’s just a matter of listening & going with the flow – this collection of scarves & wraps is the realization – it still surprises me too…