Knit, Crochet and Natter 5 - the roadmap to MORE YARN!

[lazylinguist]

A thread for knitters, crocheters and yarn crafters of all kinds. Total beginners very much welcome! Previous thread here

@sophs29 thank you for the wool warehouse recommendation! Ordered on Thursday eve and just got a big old bag of yarn and 2 new hooks delivered and am delighted! Really good prices and free delivery too yay.

Went for some snazzy colours as I want to do lots of sunburst granny squares and make a really fun/bright blanket with alternating colours.

Got 3 balls of each colour and as I'm slow at crochet it'll probably keep me entertained until Xmas! Hours of fun for £30

Lovely colours, @badatcrochet1996! Yes, that's something we should always remember when feeling guilty about spending money on yarn. It doesn't just give us the finished item, it provides countless hours of enjoyment too. And therefore the slower you are, the better value it is.

Speaking of which, my Goldwing jumper is going soooo slowly! I've bitten the bullet and decided that knitting two-handed for Fairisle is the way forward. I'm getting better at it, but it's still barely quicker than the slow alternative of picking up and dropping the yarns!

Lovely colours @badatcrochet1996.
Yarn is definitely money well spent. I always say crochet is a form of therapy for me so I'm sure the Dr should be giving me a yarn prescription

Oh you're welcome @badatcrochet1996 you've got lovely colours there! Can't wait to see the progress of your blanket ☺️

I agree, yarn is money well spent! Crochet has kept me busy for hours since I figured it out.

@badatcrochet1996 I look forward to seeing your blanket! Granny squares don't particularly excite me but I've seen some recently that may change my mind.

Have any of you made wired crochet flowers? I don't often get fresh ones so was considering making some for my living room. I bought a pack of wires at The Range earlier on & have been browsing Pinterest - I think I like the ones in the pic, maybe in pink, and white.

Hey everyone, can I join in?

I’m designing my first batch of crochet patterns at the moment but it’s taking ages to get all the samples made up. Trying to make a second blanket in a different colour way and feel like it’s going to take forever, still need to take all the step by step photos too.

I generally use Wool Warehouse too although I gave up on acrylic long ago - I got converted to natural fibres and it’s hard to go back! I mainly use Drops but currently making my blankets in paintbox cotton yarn from Love Crafts as they have such lovely bright colours!

Hi @SinkGirl! I love Drops yarns - very affordable for lovely natural fibre! I've got a shedload of acrylic dk that I'm trying to use up on the stashbusting scraps basket I'm making though. It's all leftovers from big crochet blankets for which I couldn't bring myself to fork out the money for real wool!

Designing your own crochet patterns? Impressive! What kind of patterns?

Various things - some amigurumi, some blankets, working on various rainbow things at the moment. Working on a way of making geometric relief knitted blankets too (hard to see as haven’t done enough repeats yet to establish the pattern). As always about 20 things half done 😬

I discovered Drops Puna recently making these bunnies and it’s so lovely - I need to make myself a scarf with it!

Currently trying to finish these two blankets and then all the photo taking and writing up of patterns, then the same for the rabbits.

Oooo. I've got so many half designed patterns in my head. Although I have found that some of them actually do exist already, I just haven't seen them iyswim

@lucysmam I bought some wire to make flowers back in lockdown 1.0 (remember that?!) But it was too short so i never did anything else . Flowers are on my to do list though!

Yes that does happen as there are only so many ways of putting stitches together! I’m sure there are some similar wave blankets to mine, but I’m a bit obsessed with texture so have added in some different ones and I’ll be adding a border that looks like a bit like brioche knitting but is actually crochet so that will be fun.

Forgot I also started a cowl pattern, so that’s another one I have to finish eek.

@CrochetBug erm...I didn't think to check the length . They're about 12" ish though I think so should be long enough. I did wonder if I should have bought two lots though 🤔 Might message my dad & see if he may be going at all...I want a big multi-picture picture frame too but couldn't have got that on the bus & dd1 might have died of embarrassment if I tried

They should be fine @lucysmam. Mine were more like 6" so i could make some small flowers. I want to make different ones so I can change them with the seasons and then always have flowers in the house

@SinkGirl there's a certain feeling of achievement that comes from working out a pattern I find. Even if I later find am almost identical one. I just worry that I'll be accused of copyright if I try and sell them.

Ooh, I like that idea! My candle holders change with the seasons atm...I could have "matching" flowers too!

I think I might put 'design my first pattern' on my long list of things I want to make/do. I don't feel as if I have a very good intuition for the way garments etc are constructed though. I'm astonished enough at people who breezily talk about adaptations they've made to existing patterns, never mind actually inventing new ones from scratch!

@CrochetBug

They should be fine *@lucysmam*. Mine were more like 6" so i could make some small flowers. I want to make different ones so I can change them with the seasons and then always have flowers in the house

@SinkGirl there's a certain feeling of achievement that comes from working out a pattern I find. Even if I later find am almost identical one. I just worry that I'll be accused of copyright if I try and sell them.

It’s unlikely that your pattern will ever be exactly the same as someone else’s though, unless you’ve looked at a photo of someone else’s Item, counted the stitches etc. Many patterns available for things like blankets, the stitches come from a crochet dictionary and then they’ll make small adjustments etc, so very few patterns are totally original.

I’ve designed some rainbow toys and a cushion to go with my blanket and I haven’t seen any patterns that are the same (yet), but if someone decided to make a rainbow cushion using the same construction method they’d end up with a very similar pattern to mine.

When I’m working on patterns I tend to use notes on my phone and strike through text if I change something, so I can show my working if that makes sense. Very difficult to copyright a stitch pattern - slightly different if it’s something like a toy.

I love making toys and am designing mine to be seamless so there’s no sewing on of arms and legs and heads etc as I hate doing that. I’ve still got the original prototypes I made for my twins when they were babies although I’ve changed a fair bit since then. You’ll be able to find similar shape toys but the patterns won’t be the same as I’ve refined it as I’ve gone.

@lazylinguist

I think I might put 'design my first pattern' on my long list of things I want to make/do. I don't feel as if I have a very good intuition for the way garments etc are constructed though. I'm astonished enough at people who breezily talk about adaptations they've made to existing patterns, never mind actually inventing new ones from scratch!

I find crochet much easier to design than knitting because it’s much more straightforward in terms of construction. Have you made much amigurumi? That’s how I started designing - making these items is a really good crash course in how to achieve lots of different shapes - what happens when you increase evenly or asymmetrically, what happens when you decrease quickly or slowly etc.

The clothes for my bunnies use a lot of tricks I’ve picked up from crocheting and knitting - things like raglan decreases in knitting translate really well, making ruffles etc. It’s really not that difficult. I struggle more with knitting as there are so many options for so many things - increases that are left leaning, right leaning, mitred, cables, lace etc etc. So definitely I would start with designing in crochet first!

I discovered Drops Puna recently making these bunnies and it’s so lovely

It's nice isn't it? I've also used it for bunny making in the past.

I'm a much more experienced knitter than crocheter, @SinkGirl, so I'm not sure I'm ready to design crochet patterns yet! I've never tried amigurumi - it's another thing on my to do list!

I would definitely recommend doing some amigurumi before designing anything - it’s a good grounding in figuring out construction, and in small items that are quick and cheap to make.

I started with the Lalylala four seasons patterns and then made some of her bigger toys and learnt loads.

I’m definitely more experienced with knitting but still find designing crochet easier.

That’s lovely @tizwozliz :)

Drops baby alpaca silk is my favourite yarn but I can’t often be bothered to work with 4 ply 😬

I tend to use cotton merino for a lot, or the wool and alpaca blends. Want to make a blanket in Andes too.

@SinkGirl that rainbow blanket is gorgeous!

@tizwozliz how cute is that little blanket, looks soft and cuddly!

@lucysmam I looked into making my mum some crochet flowers before but never got round to it! Will be interest to see how it goes if you try it

Gorgeous rainbow blanket SinkGirl!

That bunny is very cute tizwozliz

I haven't used Drops puna before, I must have a look.

Yarn shops are open again here, life is good not that I need any wool

I'm after cotton yarn suggestions please. I haven't used any other than Ricorumi which is 25g balls but dd2 has finally picked the skirt pattern pictured.

I'm not entirely sure how to work out how much I need but I'm going to have a google tonight and try to work it out.

Forgot my pic again

What weight yarn? I like Drops Paris as an aran weight. Actually any of the Drops cottons are nice and not too pricey.

I'm using James C Brett cotton on atm which is a cotton/acrylic blend which has a lovely drape and is really soft.

Actually; from Ravelry; it would have been 25g balls, had it not been discontinued. So I wonder if I could sub cotton dk maybe?