Knit, Crochet and Natter 7: the School of Stitchcraft and Wizardry

[lazylinguist]

A thread for woolly crafters of all kinds, from beginner level to advanced sorcery!

Previous thread here

That jumper is absolutely looking beautiful, @NiceCardigan!
Having a lovely time at my birthday do. Looking forward to lunch at my old college today and my posh dinner tonight!

Sounds amazing lazy!

That's a lovely poncho CrochetBug! I like the cable work!

I've ran out of wool for my sleeves so until I get more I can knit anything I want with a clear conscience New cast on time!

Gorgeous poncho, @CrochetBug! I'm kind of wishing I brought some knitting- definitely would have had time for a few rows in the hotel room before lunch!

Thanks for the compliments everyone. It isn’t difficult @lucysmam but you do need to concentrate or things go horribly wrong.

Your mums poncho is really nice @CrochetBug I love the Tesco car park photo shoot.

Enjoy yourself @lazylinguist!

nicecardiagn that’s a lovely sweater. I love the colour combo.

crochetbug your mum’s poncho is lovely. A puzzle feeder won’t mean you eat less food, it just means you feel more accomplished when you reach the food and if someone else isn’t controlling your food, you probably eat more for the sense of accomplishment Our dogs are getting more puzzle feeders for Christmas because hopefully it will help tire them out when we’re otherwise occupied. Problem is that dog1 gives us the evil eye for making her work for her food. It’s beneath her to actually use her brain to find her treats, she should just be offered them by her human slaves. The lab is just so food driven, he solves the puzzle so quickly but it does involve scattering the puzzle bits everywhere because they just slow him down!

See that picture...? That's the very last end of the LFC scarf that I'm just about to sew in 🥳🥳

@InTheNightWeWillWish I'll rethink ordering one for myself then
I had a guinea pig a few years ago who was too lazy to work for his treats. They'd stay in the hidey treat thing he had until I reined them.

@lucysmam whoo hoo!!! You must be feeling very pleased! Am i right in thinking its for your ex? (I might have imagined that). In which case you're nicer than me. The only thing I'd crochet my DCs dad is a noose

Despite promising myself I wouldn't start anything new I fell in love with this sock pattern. However. Despite measuring my foot and making the correct size (which was still about half an inch narrower than my foot) its come out so big I could almost get both feet in.
I think I might frog it and buy some sock yarn. I'm using 100% cotton but it might not actually be soft enough to wear.

@CrochetBug your mums poncho is lovely! Great colour! And that sock pattern does look very nice, shame about the sizing though 😬
@lucysmam yaaay, I'm doing a happy dance for you 😂

Can I join in? I randomly decided to learn crochet this week. I thought it would be a nicer thing to do in the evening than sitting on my phone for hours. I bought a kit to make an elephant from Wee Woolly Wonderfuls and am following their YouTube tutorials. I spent an hour getting incredibly frustrated trying to make a magic circle, nearly threw the whole thing out of the window and had to walk away. Then next try I found a way to hold and angle everything so that it worked. By the end of day 2, yesterday, I had finished the legs and joined them with one round of stitches. I'm hoping to finish the body tonight. It's not perfect but I don't mind if my first project is a bit 'rustic'

@Oysterbabe - it took me ages to crack the magic circle when I first started. Not sure why as now it seems so simple. I think it's just about finding a method that works for you.

@InTheNightWeWillWish - we only have puzzle feeders with no removable parts, pup would run off with the bits otherwise. I dropped a scoop of kibble on the floor the other day and the scoop was considered the greatest thing ever! Had to go retrieve it from the garden.

Hello @Oysterbabe ☺️ those little legs are adorable! Looks great for your first try! It also took me a million attempts to get the magic circle right!

@CrochetBug yep, it is.

@sophs29 I was very happy to have made it to the end yesterday.

I'll snap a couple of pics after this online safeguarding course this morning. I'd much rather be in person doing it 🙄

@Oysterbabe I'm another who took millions of attempts to get the magic circle. Doing it for your first project's impressive! Elephants are my favourite animal, I'll look forward to seeing it when you're finished :)

@tizwozliz would your pup accept a toy yarn ball? Or does it have to be the real deal?

I'm going to go back to looking for a jumper pattern for the green tea dk later on. My plan is to make 30 ish candy cane holder decs from the remains of the red first though, for my Rainbows and Guides.

Morning all

Yay! @lucysmam

Nice enormous socks @CrochetBug. I'm always in awe of how fast you work. I'm a snail compared to you. I like that poncho too. Clever family.

@tizwozliz puzzle feeder eh? I know some children who could benefit from that!

@Oysterbabe those legs look neat to me. Way better than my rapidly abandoned try at crochet!

I am waiting with baited breath@lazylinguist

Alternating green scarf and blue scarf here. Feels slow. I've abandoned my life lines in the brioche as it caused another problem. Don't know why. Is this mad of me?

Hi @Oysterbabe - you're in good company, seems like lots of us (including me) found the magic circle hard at first!

We're on our way back up north. Won't arrive until at least 5:30 ish, but planning tget straight down to knitting .

@Oysterbabe welcome. Those legs look fab. I'm also one who struggled with the magic circle, then it clicked and I can't work out what was so hard! One of the first things I made was a toy giraffe for ds1. I realised after I'd finished that I'd made the whole thing inside out. Which was really fiddly and of course the stitches look better if you do it the right way! He didn't care though. Giraffe lives on his bedside shelf.

@MerylSqueak I work fast but never finish anything

I frogged my massive sock and tried again with a 2.5mm hook. It was slightly too small and I can't find my 2.75. It's probably under the sofa in a random bag/box of yarn. So I'm holding off making them until I find it.

Speaking of socks does anyone have any sock yarn they love? I keep finding gorgeous stuff on Etsy, but not sure I can justify £14 on a ball that will only be enough for 1 pair. Woolwarehouse has some Drops on sale which isn't listed as sock yarn but is the same make up of fibres as sock yarn so I'm tempted to buy some of that.

@CrochetBug Drops Fabel seems popular on my FB Drops group. Also Nord but it's not very hard wearing or machine washable apparently

Oh no, I've just ordered Nord as it's on sale and had some lovely colours. I'll try washing a test square and see what happens. If it's no good I'll make something that won't need to be washed often instead.
I've used fabel before. It's nice but doesn't have the most exciting colours.

Maybe I'll ask for sock yarn for Christmas (my dad will think I've lost the plot)

Well, today has run away in a whole lot of not much achieved! The Zoom course this morning wasn't as bad as I'd imagined though, and we have been to Asda for a top up shop.

I'd hoped to find giant marshmallows to toast on Friday (I have a burning bin full to burn so thought it'd make it a bit more exciting) but they didn't have any & I don't really need a full shop this week just to buy giant marshmallows.

Anyway, as promised earlier, front and back pics of the scarf. I think I cropped a little too close to its edges though so the Photoroom watermark is in an awkward place 🙄

Wow @lucysmam that's amazing. Well. Done!

I've picked up and discarded a billion WIPs. Most of them seem to need white DK which I thought I had 2 balls of. Only when I started using it it feels a lot more like 4-ply. Goodness knows where it came from. I've never bought white 4ply that I remember.

Despite promising myself I wouldn't start anything new I fell in love with this sock pattern.

I promised myself the same thing, then crochetbug, you posted the snowflake hat pattern. So that promise lasted a long time I’ve finished the hat but was making a Pom Pom, which has not gone well and I can’t be bothered to unknot it!

lucysmam that looks great, loads of patience to finish it. I hate scarves. I’ve still got MIL’s hufflepuff scarf to do (and I’ve not started FIL’s Ravenclaw one).

oysterbabe the legs look great. My first attempt at crochet was a granny square. I watched a 20 minute tutorial on YouTube and it took me about 6 hours to get a very wonky granny square!

I don't think I'll do another in a hurry InTheNight, but I learned a new technique & had a go at designing my own pattern so I'm happy.

That said, I do still have those two cakes I bought with this years' birthday money so might turn them into a pocket shawl thingy still.

Ooh, I still have the snowflake hat pattern saved too, but not enough of anything to make it, I don't think. I haven't had a proper rummage though.

I'm trying to think which hat you mean, was it this one? Its my favourite hat to make. It's so simple and so pretty.

There were pictures. Are they showing? MN is so crap for posting photos!

No photos showing. MN struggles to upload photos for me in the evening if there are other things taking the internet so if we’re watching Netflix or DH is gaming.

Hopefully this photo works as nothing else is using our WiFi at the minute… it’s this one crochetbug. Super pretty and I really liked the pattern. It’s not showing up too well in the photo but the grey is a sparkly one, so the hat looks really (accidentally) Christmassy. I wanted to make some matching wrist warmers but didn’t have enough silver but there’s a bit too much to make a Pom Pom which is why it’s now a knotted mess. The two yarns look so pretty together I’m tempted to buy another ball of the silver to make the wrist warmers but I’ve got so many other things to be getting on with.

Yes that's the one I was thinking of. I made hats, mittens and cowls. The cowls used chunky yarn and the white I used for those was sparkly. I fancy a black one with bright coloured 'snowflakes'!