Thursday 27 May 2010

Mission accomplished


Phew! After much manic crocheting and mini-skein winding, I've finally sent off my parcel of 70 promotional items today. Hopefully the receipients at the We Make London craft fair in Chelsea next month will like them enough to take a peek at my shop.

It was good fun to see what I could come up with. I've already told you about the mini-skeins, which I have fallen in love with.

Here is a selection of the colour graduated mats and coasters I have included. Suitably summery I think!

I still love the red colourway the best, and those are the colours I tend to wear.

I have also been taking pics of the gorgeous flowers we have around the garden at the moment. 

The aquilegias inspired me to crochet another mat in the pink-green colourway. 

My daughters love it, and I have to say it does make me smile.

Friday 21 May 2010

Colour!

After I've spent quite some time gathering together an entire collection of all the colourways of the cotton yarn I use, the penny has finally dropped. I love colour. Duh!

Not just colour but graduated, tonal colours and shades together. It's always colour that attracts me to an item, more so than form or function.

It started young - I remember reading through a 1970's craft book and the thing that stuck in my mind to this day is the image of bargello embroidery. It was the shapes but more so the graduations of colour that I loved - and still love to this day.

Hence the latest obsession with colour graduations in my crochet.

Here's a recent project, which has just been sent off to the Med as a birthday gift. Hot and spicy coasters!

Wednesday 19 May 2010

We Make London Summer Fair

I follow the UK Handmade group over on Flickr and recently read there about a promotional opportunity.

There are going to be 70 tote bags for sale at a nominal price at the We Make London Summer Fair to be held at Chelsea Town Hall on 26th June.

Anyone can contribute 70 promotional items to go in the totes, so I decided to do just that. Seems like a great idea to me!

One of the items I've come up with are mini-skeins of my hand-dyed yarns. When I rewound my laceweight yarns after dyeing I wound off any broken lengths into little balls and have kept them aside. They are perfect for making into mini-skeins!

These are so cute. I had a look at the patterns on Ravelry and it struck me that there are many patterns using laceweight yarn for smaller projects. So these mini-skeins are useful to the buyer too - they can be used to make a bookmark, jewellery, etc.

They also make a great "taster" for somebody wanting to try out lace knitting without being overwhelmed by a full-scale lace shawl type project.

I think I may work up a little pattern and sell some mini-skeins in my Etsy shop in the future, with the free pattern included.

Monday 17 May 2010

How cute?

DH's boss and wife had their first baby last weekend - a beautiful little girl. How could I resist such an opportunity?!

I've crocheted these super-cute little baby booties in candy pink and plum. I don't think they'll fit for long but they're just too sweet to resist.

Baby items are such gratifyingly fast projects!

Wednesday 12 May 2010

Featured!

I was delighted to find today that I am currently featured on the SWAC (South West Arts & Crafts) team blog

Woohoo! Thanks guys!

Please do check it out.

Friday 7 May 2010

Thursday 6 May 2010

100th sale promo

My etsy shop currently has 99 sales - bag the 100th sale and I'll refund your shipping cost via PayPal after payment!

Tuesday 4 May 2010

Treasuries

I've been lucky enough to be featured in several treasuries recently. Here are a couple of current ones:

Green With Envy - gorgeous shades of crocheted items!

Earth and Water - turquoise and brown - what a great colour combination!

Monday 3 May 2010

All Tooled Up


Knitting and Crochet Blog Week - Day Eight - The Final Instalment!

 My favourite tools for yarny crafts have to be these:

Firstly my beautiful wooden swift bought as a birthday gift from my DH from Purlescence - he was under strict instruction!

This feels so wonderously smooth to use and is invaluable when working with skeined yarns - either winding from them to knit up or re-skeining yarns that I've dyed, ready for my Etsy shop.

It makes life so much easier when the penny finally drops about which way up to use it too.. ahem...

The other tool has to be my many sets of long Addi Turbo knitting needles in different sizes which I've invested in over several years. 

I love magic loop for circular knitting, and find long Addis the most lightweight and smooth needles to use.  Circular needles are great for straight knitting too - much more portable!

Sunday 2 May 2010

What a Yarn


Knitting and Crochet Blog Week - Day Seven

OK, coveted yarns... When sorting out what to include in this post I realised that for me a yarn has to be soft. I mean really soft! So here are 3 yarns from my stash - amongst many others that could have been included too!

1) Hand Maiden Lace Silk in colourway Nova Scotia
100% silk
I bought this several years ago at the same exhibition as I got the Hipknits cashmere (previous post). I couldn't resist the intensity of colour, the gorgeous sheen, and the luxurious softness of the silk. I don't do much lace knitting but this yarn is so worth it!

2) Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in colourway Vera (shade 70)
80% superwash wool, 20% nylon
I had been on the lookout for this colourway of this yarn for so long. It's not the easiest yarn to get in the UK, particularly if you want a specific shade. I finally found somebody destashing 2 skeins on Ravelry last year, and jumped on it! Fabulous colour combo - and so soft!

3) Mirasol Sulka in Cream (shade 200)
60% merino wool, 20% alpaca, 20% silk
I got this in a sale from an online UK store to try out for winter neckwarmer or such. The finished item was originally to be sold in my Etsy shop but it's soooooo soft and squishy and yummy I may not be able to let it go...

Saturday 1 May 2010

Revisit a past FO

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week - Day Six

I don't think cashmere is the most durable yarn for a pair of socks, but sometimes you just have to go with your heart instead of your head!

I knitted my Tidal Wave cashmere socks in March 2008 from a great free pattern which I think I'll probably knit again. I used some Hipknits cashmere sock yarn in a gorgeous Raspberry Ripple shade which I had bought at a great price from the Knitting and Stitching Show at the Birmingham NEC.

In November 2009, disaster struck - the most enormous hole in both heels! They had actually lasted over 1.5 years, which is pretty good going for a luxury yarn I suppose. They are still in the same state today, as I haven't got around to fixing them yet. One day..

Oh and by the way - Happy 70th Birthday Mom!