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

@lucysmam yes it was me. I'm using Aran not chunky so I'm going to have to do some extra rows on the initial square to make it big enough. It's really easy though.

I've got a lovely ball of super chunky that would be gorgeous for this, but buying enough balls to make it would cost a bomb so might not

The bright balls in the pyramid were all Hayfield Bonus DK . I can check which shades if you would like :)

Ooh, yes please! Particularly the orangey one on 2nd row up and the bright turquoise on the third row from top please.

I did wonder about adding extra rows to the shrug; the cakes are dk. I suppose I can see how it goes & try it for size along the way.

The orangey one is 'peach melba' (assuming you mean the one there is 2balls of) and the blue is 'azure' . Making it with dk should work fine, you'll just need extra rows. I'm making mine for a friend who lives about 200 miles away so can't even try it on and check the fit

Mum's almost finished her 2nd KAL cushion cover, but ran out of yarn half way through the back. She had a 400g ball and each one only used 190-200 according to the pattern. So she's going to do another cushion 'front' in a contrasting colour and make a reversible one. She bought yarn to make 2 more as well. Having hardly knitted for years she's going non stop now

I love looking at other people's bright colours even if I rarely use them myself!

Argh. I just frogged 2 rows of my Tunisian because I couldn't get the stitch count right and then realised I was looking at the wrong size bit in the pattern

I'm the opposite @lazylinguist. I mostly use bright colours so having a box full of pastel tones is exciting!

Ah - even your pastels count as bright for me . I seem to exist in a sea of grey, beige, white and cream!

This afternoon I have started reupholstering my dining room chairs. It's hard work because every chair has loads of heavy-duty staples holding the old fabric down and they are difficult to get out. I've only done one so far!

Urgh, Ravelry has switched classic off. I hate the new one. It looks like a toddler high on comic sans and sugar designed it.

I abandoned the attempts to remove the staples when I redid mine and just stapled over the top of them lazy. I improved my time from 40 minutes per seat to 5

Hmmm... 40 sounds like about what it's taking me! The trouble is, there are so many damn staples that they might impede my ability to get new ones in!

I entirely agree with you about the new-look Ravelry, Flavia - it's twee, silly and annoying.

I thought I would too but the staple gun had enough force that it only failed in a couple of places. I did my SIL's with her and we were much more careful with hers and it was a better job tbh.

That chair looks gorgeous @lazylinguist. I always think I'd like to live in a tastefully decorated grey/cream home. Instead it's a mish mash if colour and style.

Tunisian crochet is working up quite quickly. Although I can't imagine this ever fitting a human! Also realised I forgot to order a green for this , the one they suggested is discontinued and I clearly forgot to sub it. Not sure any of my greens will go. I could always miss the green out I guess.

It’s DH Nan’s 90th over the weekend. She loves whimsy and installed a fairy garden in her back garden. So I’ve made her a little fairy to visit her fairy garden.

The pattern suggests brushing her hair so it’s smooth but as she’s a fairy I quite like it left as strands. I’ll see how I feel tomorrow before she goes in the post. I’m not sure if I just don’t want to brush it because I’ve spent longer on her tonight than I have on my hair cumulatively over the last year

crochetbug I’ve got some style craft DK green that looks similar to the one you’re missing. Happy to post it. It has no home here as it was the wrong colour. I’d describe it as christ

Thanks CrochetBug, I've made a note of those for next time...which may be soonish as dd2 is busy scrolling my Pinterest account looking for a skirt pattern she likes!

The tunisian looks good -is it easy? I don't think the missing green will take away from the finished piece.

lazy I'd do the chairs like Flavia said; it'll be soooo much quicker (but I am very lazy at diy stuff!).

InTheNight I vote leave the fairie's hair as it is. She's lovely just like that 🧚‍♀️

I'm half way through the second front panel; I was right when I said that one's r2 was backwards too 🙄No frogging this time though because I half expected it!

That fairy is cute @InTheNightWeWillWish! I saw a video where they separated the strands of hair so it curled. It looked gorgeous but I'm not brave enough to try it on the doll I made
Apparently you can also wet the yarn, wrap it around wooden dowels and bake it to make curls too. Before you add it to the doll of course, but that seems like a lot of effort.
I definitely have a green that will go, I'm making DS1 a C2C which is about 10 shades of green so one of them must be right! Thank you for the offer though.

@lucysmam the actual Tunisian itself is easy. But I'm a bit stuck with the pattern and the corner increases. I either end up losing a stitch, or with the pink 'blocks' being too big. I'm on my 4th attempt. If I can't get it right then I'll go for the right number of stitches, but blocks of 5 not 3. serves me right for jumping straight in with an intermediate pattern

@crochetbug you really know how to dive straight on 😂 you could make the colour lines solid to make it easier. Your tension looks great. I don't think the colour of the stripes really matters. You could do them all pink if you wanted

I think I was being too fussy again. Trying to keep the blocks all 2 stitches wide and increase on the corners didn't work. But it looks OK now.
I'm going to stick to the original colours this time, but think it would look lovely in various shades of the same colour.

😍😍Can't wait to see the finished object

I’ve spent longer on her tonight than I have on my hair cumulatively over the last year

She's lovely InTheNight and that's such a thoughtful idea for a gift!

That's pretty CrochetBug! Gorgeous pattern, I would totally wear it myself...

I bit the bullet since I'd saved enough and look what came home to live with me It's quite a learning curve to get consistent yarn compared to the nano where you don't have to worry about your feet, but that's part of the fun

Right, I might try a chair without taking the staples out then! Did you leave the original covers on and just put the new ones over the top then @FlaviaAlbiaWantsLangClegBack , or did you rip/cut off the old covers and just leave the staples? How exciting about your spinning wheel!!!

@CrochetBug - that's looking lovely! I think it would look fine with pink and no green.

I cut the majority off using a craft knife and tugged the bits of fabric left under the staples with pliers after I cut down each side of the staple and it generally ripped out ok.

Your first one is a lovely job.

Wow, this moves quickly if you drop off for a few days!

Coming back to the books discussion, I'd recommend the dragons and unicorns one if you like amigurumi - I've got a couple of them and they're really well written. Much better than Edward's Menagerie and the rest which I stupidly bought a couple of ages ago, and have never used.

And shops, you say? Wouldn't that be lovely! DS wants a new phone as soon as shops open so he can have a browse, so I might drag him into the John Lewis haberdashery section for a browse while we're there. Not that I actually need more yarn! My local shops are more fabric than yarn - which has been great for face masks, plus I'd like to try quilting at some point, albeit it would have to be by hand as I haven't got a sewing machine, so not sure how realistic that is.

Sophie is still growing (slowly) but otherwise not much to report. I'm on round 50 now, so each round is taking quite a while! Hoping to make a good dent in it over the Easter weekend though, especially as the brief glimpse of spring seems to have disappeared.

crochetbug you’ve had your Tunisian hooks for what a day and already you’ve got that far through?! This is also whilst your trying to learn knitting? 🤯

Wow flavia that’s amazing. Do you have a whole craft cave for your bits and pieces?

bookshark my mum took up quilting. She borrowed a sewing machine and it was only a few days before she texted asking for money for her birthday because she was going to buy a better sewing machine. She also has boxes of yarn and now boxes of fabric too. So be prepared if you venture down that route what your future looks like!

Here is the yarn shop I'm hankering to go to. I think it looks really nice, and it seems to have classes and a knitting group!

I was actually a member of a local knitting group a couple of years ago. I stopped going because it clashed with a sports class my dc used to go to, but I was planning on going back and then the pandemic started! They meet every week in a pub. Have any of you gone to real life knit and natter groups?

InTheNight I wish! The pedals fold up and it lives in my bedroom between my bookshelf/wool cupboard and my wardrobe. I'd put a photo up but I was having a clear out and I need to bag a pile of stuff up before it's not embarrassing

BookShark my DM crochets and got very annoyed at the way Edwards Menagerie patterns were written. She cancelled a class she'd booked with the designer at Woolin before she tried them.

I'd put a photo up but I was having a clear out and I need to bag a pile of stuff up before it's not embarrassing

Every time I put a photo up, I’m trying to get an angle so people can’t see all the crap in the background. Or cropping out the crap

despite the size of my stash, I usually claim it's not me, my DH and DS's just spread their stuff into my areas but this time it's all me. I'm being ruthless since I normally wear about 5 outfits on rotation anyway... knitwear doesn't count in this obviously