Month: November 2013

A good week

On By agrarianartisan4 Comments

This has been a good week for me, lots of really lovely things have happened and it had made me very cheery! So I thought I would share a couple of them with you.

First the lovely Amanda Perkins wrote a blog about me – yes all about me! It was a huge surprise and she said some lovely things, which left me blushing. If you don’t already know about Amanda you should find out now. She, her husband Phil and daughter Daisy are the family team behind The Natural Dye Studio. They hand dye the most gorgeous luxury yarns in North Devon using historical dyes and environmentally friendly methods. Find the website here: http://www.thenaturaldyestudio.com/
Amanda is also a very talented crochet designer and I have had the privilege to work with her for a few years now – she is a joy to work with. She crochets like the wind and produces the most exquisite blankets in next to no time (ok maybe a bit of an exaggeration, but she certainly crochets them a lot faster than anyone else I know). You can find her pattern and books on the website or on Ravelry here: http://www.ravelry.com/designers/amanda-perkins
And her blog here: http://amandascrochetblog.blogspot.co.uk/

The second good thing I want to share is a publication I received yesterday. It is my ‘contributor’ copy of a new bookazine by Tailor Made Publications (the publishing house of Inside Crochet). It is called ’The Knitting Collection’ and comprises 47 different designs, from small home projects to beautiful fashion items. My contribution is a one-skein shawlette, yes a new knitting design from me:

Molly Shawlette
Molly Shawlette

Co-incidentally (or maybe not) it is made with a skein of The Natural Dye Studio’s Angelus 4 ply yarn, which fabulous to work with and so soft.

I really enjoyed reading The Knitting Collection yesterday evening. It has a lovely array of designs in it, the layout and photography is good and there are very few adverts. Altogether, in my opinion, a quality publication and well worth the £9.99 cover price. I don’t submit my designs to magazines often, as I prefer to work to my own timetable, but I am proud to part of this one.

The Knitting Collection, vol 1
The Knitting Collection, vol 1

Finally, today I am starting block 16 of my Bohemian Rhapsody wrap. It has 18 blocks, so I am getting close to finishing…. my excitement level is growing, so much that I am thinking of bringing the completion deadline forward. I’ll just see how the hooking goes this weekend……………………

Bohemian Rhapsody
Bohemian Rhapsody

Happy Knitting and Crocheting xxx

Getting Festive

On By agrarianartisanLeave a comment

I am sure you are wondering if I met the WIP challenge I mentioned in my last blog. Well I am pleased to say I did – but only just! So for the last 10 days I have had the luxury of starting some new projects.

This year I have not made many Christmas presents, I decided it would be good to take a year off making them and I am sure it will be a relief to my family and friends as they have already received hat, mitts and scarves over the last 3 years! But I still feel the need to make something for Christmas. So my new projects have been festive – I have thoroughly enjoyed making some decorations to adorn the parcels I will wrap:

Wrappings....
Wrappings….

These use some of my festive snowflakes. Pattern here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/festive-snowflakes

And some new bunting to adorn the house:

Festive Bunting - Granny Style
Festive Bunting – Granny Style

Which I absolutely love! Pattern here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/christmas-bunting—granny-style

I also found time to design a new snowflake for Kerry. I am calling it Snowflake 2013 and I think I may have set myself a new challenge – to design a new snowflake each year! This snowflake features on Kerry’s blog. You will find the chart for it there as well as a video tutorial – and it’s free. So pop over and have a look, I am sure you’ll be crocheting your own snowflakes soon!

Crochet Tutorial – Christmas Snowflake/Star

Snowflake 2013
Snowflake 2013
Happy Knitting and Crocheting xxx

WIPing away……

On By agrarianartisan2 Comments

If I’ve been quiet lately, it’s because I have been busy trying to finish some WIPs (work-in-progress). Why? Well about 10 days ago I read a lovely blog by my friend Kerry http://oddmentsblog.wordpress.com/2013/10/22/autumn-crafting-whirlwind/
It was all about how she had so many projects (WIPs) on the go she felt she was drowning. It made me stop and think. Why? Because, like Kerry, I do drown a little in the volume of projects I have. I always have a lot ongoing at any time, but I rarely take stock. And I knew that there would be some projects lurking in my cupboards which had been there for far too long. So I decided to have a good rummage and found what I thought was rather a lot. So I confessed my list of WIPs (work-in-progress) on Ravelry. There were 16 of them; some I started in recent months but the oldest was over 17 years old!!!!!

There is something quite cathartic about clearing out cupboards, so I decided that I should clear out my WIPs because I knew it would make me feel good. I must finish those that deserve it and frog those that don’t. (For those who don’t knit or crochet, to frog is to rip back all the yarn and give up on the project). I laid down a challenge to myself – to finish at least 25% of these WIPs in 2 weeks. How have I done 10 days on? Well I frogged 4 WIPs and completed 2 WIPs. In theory that means I have 10 left………………but I have found another 3 hiding in a trunk

But I am so keen to do some new things and I am finding it very hard to finish the 2 more WIPs to meet the challenge! I think I will complete one more, and make a try at the second, with the help of an evening in front of the TV! But I so long to do something new…….or rather add to my pile of ongoing projects.

As well as WIPs, I have been busy on the pattern writing front and seen some of the fruits of my labour in this field. I have written the pattern for Poppet’s Blanket and I am just awaiting a little more feedback before publishing. Here’s a sneak photo of the design……..it’s a granny blanket with a difference and the difference is that it features my favourite diamond stitch in it!

Poppet's Blanket
Poppet’s Blanket

As the blanket is for Poppet, and Poppet came from The Cats Protection League, I have decided to donate £1 from each pattern sale to the charity. I’ll let you know when I publish it.

The fruits of my labour is a small design which also uses my favourite diamond stitch in a slightly different way. It is the Diamonds Collar and features in this month’s Inside Crochet magazine. I don’t feature much in magazines because I don’t often submit my ideas to them, I prefer to dabble and design at my own pace. But being published does give me a bit if a buzz, so I may just send a few ideas off this month.

You can find it in the latest copy of Inside Crochet – website here: http://www.insidecrochet.co.uk/magazine where you will find it in their photo summary.

Inside Crochet issue 47
Inside Crochet issue 47

Happy knitting and crocheting xx