Rainbows……….

I have been playing with colour a lot in recent months. It was all sparked off by Bohemian Rhapsody, that design just made me want to explore colour more. And I have been studiously sticking to my plan of making one block of Bohemian Rhapsody every 2 weeks. I have now completed 11 – only another 7 to go.

Inspired, I bought 2 packs of The Natural Dye Studio’s Dazzle HT in rainbow colours when I visited Wonderwool Wales. Most of one pack became a subtle colour exploration with the Wild Diamonds Wrap:

Wild Diamonds Wrap
Wild Diamonds Wrap

And I am now working on something with the remaining 6 colours which may take a while, so I won’t share that with you yet.

But my most recent colour work has now been revealed. It is a cowl made with a complete rainbow of The Natural Dye Studio’s Godiva HT, which is the most lusciously soft single merino yarn. You can find the yarn here: http://www.thenaturaldyestudio.com/godiva-ht-4-plyfingering-yarn-356-c.asp

What made this colour work most special was that the yarn was a present, totally unexpected and very welcome. I was feeling a little low and Amanda sensed I needed cheering up, so she sent me a pack in the post! I can’t tell you how wonderful a gift it was – 10 mini skeins of the complete rainbow, it came at just the right time and really raised my spirits. I can’t thank Amanda enough. So, of course, it had to be made into something beautiful. This is the result:

Rainbow's End Cowl
Rainbow’s End Cowl

You can’t tell from the photo just how soft this yarn is. But you can tell it gives good stitch definition and it blocks well; my uneven knitting now looks quite passable!

It is now written as a pattern and can be found in my Ravelry, Craftsy and Etsy web stores.

All this colour work has really boosted my creativity, and yet another colour project is on my hook right now! So there will be a few more colourful reveals in the not too distant future.

Happy knitting and crocheting xxx

International Crochet Day

Today is International Crochet Day 2013

What is International Crochet Day? Well, it’s a day to celebrate all things crochet – so definitely a day to get your hook and yarn out and crochet away, anywhere, preferably in public so the world can see us celebrating!

But I have a confession, I forgot it! Consequently I had absolutely no plans on what to do to celebrate. So I sat at my keyboard 4 hours ago and wondered what to do. It didn’t take long – I decided to design a motif today. And here it is – The International Crochet Day Triangle Motif:

ICD motif
ICD motif

Like so many of my spontaneous designs, it wasn’t planned to be a triangle – in fact I set out to design a hexagon because, as you know, I love hexagons. Somewhere in round 3 it became a triangle.

This is a nice dense fabric and would be ideal for a blanket.

DSCF0999

It is now for sale in my Ravelry store here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/international-crochet-day-triangle-motif
And to celebrate International Crochet Day you can get it for free for the next 24 hours (until 14.00 tomorrow, Friday 13th September, UK time) – just use coupon code HAPPYICD at the checkout.

Happy crocheting xxxx.