Hooks at the ready

I've worn my crochet neckwarmer all week and I love it. It's really cosy and fits neatly under my work coat without the bulk of a scarf.

I decided to make some more and list them for sale in my Etsy shop - take a look!

These are the ones I've done so far, and there are more on the way..

Cosy and warm

Browsing through Etsy over the weekend has led me to my latest quick-fix project.. Yeah, ok, I know - I don’t exactly need more projects but then sometimes you just feel the need to use a specific yarn don’t you?

It’s a cosy collar or scarflette which took 30 minutes to make from start to finish!

I had a single ball of this beautiful chunky fuchsia pink/dark purple yarn as part of my birthday present from Fiona. The yarn seems to be a heavyweight chunky slub wool strand plied with a variegated silky soft (probably nylon) eyelash strand, and originally came from The Threshing Barn.

I crocheted the collar using a 10mm hook over 10 stitches with 1 row of dc & 1 row of sc alternating until I ran out of yarn. Then I sewed on a button, which fits through any of the dc stitches without needing a specific buttonhole. Result: one lovely neck warmer, which fits neatly underneath my coat without the bulk of a scarf hanging down the front.

Now on to the next on-the-fly trial - this time for my youngest DD.. although having knitted some more of this tonight I think some tinking is in order as it's getting rather too big.

Pictures at last!

It seems that the Blogger picture problem was solved last night, but I still couldn't upload mine - maybe too many people were catching up on theirs. Anyway, here we are at last!

The stripy scarf.
I actually finished knitting this last night, and now just have the fringe to sort out.
It's incredibly difficult to photograph accurately - somehow the flash keeps catching on the eyelash Boa yarn!

This jumbled lump is the aran lace cardigan.

I'm working on the first sleeve, then I have to do the other one and finally finish the body.

You get an idea of the stitch pattern though.

Bag it up

I’ve had some lovely comments on my French Market Bag, and it’s proving to be extremely useful. It holds an amazing amount of shopping, and is proving very capable in carrying a considerable weight very comfortably too! If you haven’t made one yet, I’d recommend it. In fact I think lots of people may be getting felted bags of one kind or another for Christmas this year!

Della – the bag is a natural off-white colour at the top and caramel underneath. I felted it in my front-loading Zanussi washing machine by running it through a 50 degree cycle twice with a pair of my corduroy trousers – my jeans were still clean from the Booga Bag felting… ;-)

More hot projects on the go.. I've been trying to upload pics of these for 2 days without success, so they'll have to stay that way until Blogger decides to behave again.

I’ve received the (incredibly short) 40cm Addi circular needle so that I can work the sleeve of the cropped lace aran cardigan in the round more easily. The Magic Loop technique with a longer circular needle was getting cumbersome with the lace pattern, and I wasn’t enjoying it as much as I wanted.
The Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran yarn is gorgeous to work with; I just hope it holds out when being washed and worn.

My current on-the-fly project is a soft stripy scarf in my colours of the moment, which are tending to revolve around the blue-teal-green range. I’m using 2 Sirdar yarns – Blur and Boa, so the end result is an airy kid mohair, acrylic, and nylon mix which is very soft.

My first New Year’s resolution has struck me too – write up more of my patterns instead of squirreling the bits of paper away in a folder to do later! That folder is getting way too full…