Knit, Crochet and Natter 4 - Yarning into Spring

[lazylinguist]

A thread for knitters, crocheters and woollly crafters in general. All welcome, including total newbies! Previous thread here

Oh @lazylinguist they're lovely! Fluffy does look very intricate!

They look amazing! I really need to get better at knitting!

@sophs29 definitely read the books! DS is currently reading them for the first time, and comes down every evening after his bath (he reads in the bath) with a long list of questions, so we get to discuss it every night. Although he's clearly going to be distraught when Hedwig dies - he's currently on book 5 and is at the bit in the Department of Mysteries where someone dies (just in case I need a spoiler alert!) and I'm amazed we haven't had tears.

Anyway, back to crochet. InTheNightWeWillWish I'm on round 37 of 113 (I think) so still a way to go! It's definitely getting easier as the sides get longer as I can get into more of a rhythm - and as per the instructions, I've also gone up a hook side which helps.

Loving Hedwig and the dragons. I'm always amazed at how quickly people can finish projects - clearly I need to spend less time procrastinating on Mumsnet!

@BookShark I love reading in the bath! I will definitely read them at some point after the million other things I have planned!
Your Sophie is looking stunning! I've seen also 'Sophie's dream' which I think is just the blanket you're doing up to a certain row!? Also how much yarn have you used roughly so far?

I think there's a few variations of the Sophie. I've seen Sophie's Universe, Sophie's Dream and Sophie's Garden. There used to be a stool kit as well but I never had enough spare money and now it doesn't seem to be available :(

Has anyone used Paintbox yarns? How do they compare to Stylecraft? They've got some beautiful colours but I don't want to buy a load if they aren't nice to work with!

@CrochetBug I was wondering the same! They have a sale on at the moment on love crafts I believe and I was eyeing them up earlier

Finished. Now it just needs a baby

Anyway, back to crochet.

What? Wait! I didn’t get to partake in the Harry Potter chat!!! I’m roughly the same age as Harry Potter and the first book came out when I was in year 5, so I was convinced I was getting a letter to Hogwarts. It’s 22 years later and I’m still not over it The final book came out as I went on my first girls holiday to Newquay at 17. We’d all bought the books and it was a race to see who could read it in the youth hostel we were staying at. As characters started dying, you just had girls in various stages of crying but nobody could talk about it because otherwise we might let out spoilers for those who weren’t there yet! Wild week away In addition to the dragon eggs, I’m also making in-laws a house scarf each but they take so long to do! I’m about halfway through MIL’s hufflepuff scarf. Has anyone got the HP trivial pursuits? There’s about 3 sets of them now. DH and MIL will often go head to head on the questions and we’re there for hours until one gets a question wrong. We’ve also built the Hogwarts castle (along with a few other kits) throughout the last year... we now just need to find somewhere to store the bloody thing!

flavia I love hedwig. She’s so lovely that I think I should take up knitting but I should probably master crochet first

bookshark it’s probably at that stage then that you think it’ll never be big enough but next time you look it suddenly be big enough to cover northern France!

crochetbug I’ve also been eyeing up the paintbox yarns but haven’t taken the plunge yet (and I’ve got so much yarn now that I really need to finish some projects). The colours are just so gorgeous and seem a bit more vibrant than other yarns, admittedly this is looking online so they could have a good editing team and photographer. Paintbox yarns will probably be the next yarns I buy but I should probably refrain from buying any more yarn until at least May Especially as I had an order from WW and an order from Deramores, after telling DH I didn’t need any yarn this month!

We have one of the HP trivial pursuit sets. Most people refuse to play with me because I always win
We also have HP Cluedo, scrabble, uno and a random potions game which is boring as fuck.

I'm a couple of years younger than Harry. I did get a Hogwarts letter one year though. Thanks to a work secret Santa

I’ve got some paintbox yarn to do some cushions so I will feed back, the cushion patterns are for Rowan cotton dk so too spendy really.

I have that HP knitting book too, there are some lovely patterns in it, I have already bought yarn and beads for two patterns... so many projects so little time! Though I have such good intentions to not leave so little time to knit Xmas and birthday gifts this year!

OMG you two are so young! I was 26 when the first book came out! We have one HP trivial pursuit set, but we basically all get all the questions right all the time except dh who is (only slightly) less of a Potterhead than the rest of us, so it gets a bit boring! We have the Cluedo too. And lots of Lego sets. The dc have finally decided they're over Lego, so we're hopefully selling it bit by bit. Just finished putting a Hobbit set together today. Takes aaaaages, because all our Lego is combined and stored by colour!

We told DS he's can't watch the films until he's read the books but it's just annoying him I think because they leave so much out so I don't think it's actually a bad idea to watch the films first!

I'd been trying to find DS a Lego quidditch set and finally found a toy shop that still has one, but the second hand ones are going for £££ on eBay so it's definitely worth doing!

Oh, I like the look of that other Hedwig pattern. I must check my library!

We've got a Lego quidditch set! It's the less impressive one without the different house colours towers though.

Selling Lego? That does not compute!
DS2 is lego obsessed! He has quite a few HP sets . It's so annoying when they stop making a set! He saved up a few years ago for the Lego Death Star (star wars is his other obsession.) By the time he had enough money they'd stopped selling it. Found a 2nd hand one on Shpock that he could afford. All the characters and some of the pieces were missing. The woman promised us it was all there and said to let her know if it wasn't. She blocked us . Furious didn't even come close.

Anywho... if you're anywhere near Reading please let me know what you are selling as DS may well want some (if that's not too cheeky)

I gor a lego hedwig for my birthday, he is wonky as i put wing in wrong position

Ha, I still play with Lego, so no way am I selling DS's. I just wish he wouldn't insist on playing with it and breaking it...

Re Sophie, there's Sophie's Garden, which is more or less my last picture. Sophie's Dream is 12 of these in various whirl colours (which is where I got the idea) attached to make one blanket. And then there's Sophie's Universe which is the extended version of Sophie's Garden - extended by 76 rounds! - which is the one I'm doing

And then there's the stool, which seems to be the central mandala bit of Sophie's Garden, with some additional plain rounds to make the sides. Clearly the designer knew she was on to a winner with the pattern!

I'm afraid I'm approximately 250 miles from Reading! But that doesn't mean I couldn't send stuff.... We don't have a Death Star, but we do have some Star Wars Lego - an X-Wing and Mos Eisley Cantina Bar. Most of the rest of our Lego is Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit stuff.

Aww I missed the HP chat. Our y5 teacher read it to us and I was 11 when the films came out so grew up with it. Want to make my own hedwig now I've seen this one!

The knitted Hedwig looks amazing!

Oh my goodness! I've added the third ball to the back of the cardi & managed to pick up an 85th stitch again somehow 🙄 I managed to do a whole two rows before I realised it wasn't counting right 🙈

My 11yo's in the process of reading the HP books again after her y5 teacher introduced them last year. He was brilliant to listen to reading them, voices for all the characters & everything.

@lazylinguist

I'm afraid I'm approximately 250 miles from Reading! But that doesn't mean I couldn't send stuff.... We don't have a Death Star, but we do have some Star Wars Lego - an X-Wing and Mos Eisley Cantina Bar. Most of the rest of our Lego is Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit stuff.

His eyes lit up at the mention of the star wars and Harry Potter stuff. Please let me know when it's sorted and he can see if he can afford it/still wants it :)

I've started the dream catcher cardigan for my friend. I'm using aran not chunky so might need to do more rounds. I really should do some more knitting though.

Name change fail pfftt.

[quote sophs29]@BookShark I love reading in the bath! I will definitely read them at some point after the million other things I have planned!
Your Sophie is looking stunning! I've seen also 'Sophie's dream' which I think is just the blanket you're doing up to a certain row!? Also how much yarn have you used roughly so far? [/quote]
Sorry, realised I didn't answer the question. Not much! I think maybe a third of a whirl to get the square you'd do for Sophie's Dream? Difficult to say without weighing it, and I've spent the evening popcorning so will be more now anyway!

Oh that's okay @BookShark thank you for replying! I was only asking as I've seen them made into cushion covers and they're just lovely but none of the ones I've seen are very clear in regards to how much yarn you need!

I've just looked up when the first Harry Potter book came out and I would have been nearly 4 years old haha so I think that's a good excuse not to have read the books straight away

Soooooooo... my very best friend in the world inherited some money and sent me £100 for yarn. I may have placed a rather large WW order
I was going to order some paintbox yarn as it was reduced on lovecraft but loads of colours were out of stock.

Although the caron cake, bernat and cygnet are my mums.

£100 on yarn?