My Crochet Cardigan Adventure.

 I have been watching Kelly from Craft and a Cuppa on You Tube who demonstrates how to make a Granny Crochet cardigan from 2 hexagonal Granny stitch shapes and I was intrigued by how it works. She has a website here. A Granny square lays flat but a hexagon turns into a weird shape, but folded from one corner to the opposite creates and upside down L shape that can form the basis of half of the body and a sleeve of a cardigan. Of course 2 halves are made.

Kelly uses different coloured yarns for her demonstration but I used Hayfield Bonus Breeze, which I later found is discontinued. I used this as there are colour changes in the yarn and this was originally used to make a Granny Go Round pattern by Iron Lamb, a pattern I may revisit later.  The hexagons were quick to make to the size needed but I was realising that I was going to run out of yarn! 

The hexagons are joined by sewing the wide part of the L and making rows to create a back panel before adding length to the sleeves and the body.  As I said earlier I was running out of yarn and I had to find and alternative.  Looking online I didn’t find a solution, but going to a local yarn shop did.

I went to Unwind With Us, a fairly new wool shop a few miles away and found they had Stylecraft Batik Swirl, a yarn cake with different colours of the Batik yarn.  The lady suggested winding off balls of the different colours.  That didn’t take long to do and soon crocheting the added lengths for the sleeves and body length. Below are the little balls of Batik, plus a green that I already had in my stash.

Yesterday I got to a point where the cardigan was nearly finished and lastly making a band around the fronts, back and neck and 3 rows of Granny stitch finished that off.  I decided to leave the sleeves edges loose, but there are instructions for adding cuffs.  I intend to wear this to slip on of an evening when it’s a bit cooler, so I’m not worried about adding cuffs and a bit more on the front and I think it’ll do the job nicely.

I just had smidgens of the Hayfield yarn left.

And from the Batik Swirl I had this left

Here’s the finished cardigan 

I got out my selfie stick (used as a tripod) and my watch for to take the photo from my phone. That worked brilliantly.

I’m pleased with how it went and I’d like to make a scrappy version of the cardigan from my stash.

It Did Get Worse Before it Got Better

 It’s November

My mini Toft Chrysanthemum is displayed with some chrysanthemum print fabric for this month’s Monthly Marker.  November is birthday month and birth flower, so it seemed fitting to use the photo. 

Anyway October was busy with new carpet in the hall, stairs and landing after floor repair on the landing. A visit to an exhibition (more of that to follow in another post), more hexagons, and some knitting - though no finishes. Photos in my last post here

To start with is the knitting and progress is going well on the pink cardigan. Back and fronts done and first sleeve in progress so going well.  I’m using King Cole Pricewise yarn and Stylecraft pattern 9586.

I started some socks as part of The Bakery Bears’ “Sockoween” and using a Bakery Bears pattern, which is a Patreon Pattern, called Hobbity socks.  One down and I’m on the instep gusset of the second, so not a finish but good progress. The photo below shows the up to the heel stitches.

I started a new project, which only yesterday has come to a halt.  I had started a crochet Granny stitch cardigan, pattern by Iron Lamb and got so far with it but found another pattern, which is on You Tube by Kelly, Craft and a Cuppa and called the Granny Hexagon cardigan. This consists of two heaxagon pieces to make the body and sleeves, joined together then the sleeves and added length are crocheted after.   

Having joined the 2 halves together I was running out of the yarn, which is Hayfield Bonus Breeze and I bought this a few months ago from Hobbycraft, however this yarn is now no longer available and I tried various websites and it appears that this is discontinued so I’ll have to think how I’ll finish this.  An option is to get a few balls of Stylecraft Batik which seems to have the stone wash appearance and the colours that would go well with the colours of the cardigan.  Whereas 400grams for a cardigan is ok, crochet eats up so much more yarn.  There’s a challenge.

There’s not been much sewing this month other than continuing the #100hexies100 days, which is heading towards its end.  Just 2 more weeks to go.  Later this month I will post about this project.  I have been sewing them into their ‘flowers’ as I go. 

Week 10 - Micro Mini.  I chose this Bookworm Fabric by Lewis and Irene, for the small books and plants, not sure if that was Mini enough but I enjoyed pulling these together.

Week 11 - Berry Cute.  I didn’t have enough berry fabrics, so some lemon slices went with these hexies.

Week 12 -  Celebration.  I used my favourite Cocktail Party fabric by Lewis and Irene for a bit of fizz for this subject.

Week 13 - Gratitude.  For this theme I used a quilt label panel from (what was) Sewing Street from Festival of Quilts a few years back.  I also added some stamped fabric using a stamp set from Flying Tiger, again bought a few years ago.

And an ATC - the theme this month was Architecture

 

And my inspiration was a window in Bath 

It’s now 6 November and I hadn’t posted the blog at last month end so my apologies for the delay.

There will be a postscript about the crochet cardigan, which is now finished!

It’s Got to Get Worse Before It Gets Better

 October 👻

and I didn’t need to add text to my monthly marker this month.

We decided that we needed a new carpet in the hall, stairs and landing. The hall and landing are quite small areas, but the floorboards on the landing were getting a bit wobbly underfoot and needed repairing so it was an ideal time to replace the old carpet, which was here when we first moved into the house over 24 years ago.  David took the opportunity, while we were without a carpet for the week or so, to paint the skirting boards.

This week the floor was fixed and a thin layer of plywood fixed on top. The carpet was laid on Thursday and the hallway looks so different. 

Meanwhile, I have been sorting my crafting stuff out ready for a table top sale later this month. My Mum has parted with her remaining fabrics, books and patchwork magazines. I’ve also been sorting through my fabrics and got a pile of books too, to go. There are piles of things in the dining room and in my room too. It does look so messy.  But sometimes things have to be worse before the become better.

There seems to be a lot of activity on social media this month, with Vlogtobers, Blogtobers, Socktober or Sockoween (The Bakery Bears).  On You Tube there are several crafting Vloggers doing Vlogtober, but it is a job to keep up with daily watching (and I’m retired!) so how they keep up with daily filming and editing I really don’t know.  One thing I’m taking from this is the Bakery Bears tutorial series on Sockoween is knitting (socks of course) is knitting on double pointed needles. I usually knit magic loop with a circular needle and not a fan of dpns (or as someone called them, the Devil’s sticks!), but I thought I’d reacquaint myself with them and it’s not so scary. 

This was on Wednesday- I cast on and knitted the rib.

This was Friday (yesterday) I got as far as doing the heel flap.  I’ve now turned the heel and onto the gusset shaping.  I’ve used a Vanilla shorty sock pattern but I’ve added the Hobbity stitch pattern for a bit of knitting interest.  The yarn I’m using is from a few Christmases ago and is from a local dyer, Country Mouse yarns and it does look autumnal to me as I love the rusty colour in this yarn and it has glitter. 

I’ve had to do some unknitting on a cardigan that I’m knitting for my daughter. I accidentally picked up 3.75mm circular needle (for travel knitting again) instead of 4mm and wondered why the raglan shaping came up a bit short. So I’m picking up on the back at the point where I changed needles. At the same time I’m now making the left front, so swapping between the two pieces. So this is another thing that has been worse before it gets better.

And a bit more sewing has been done.  A few pouches, this is just two of them, which will go towards my local Townswomen’s Guild charity sale and a local charity sale. I have made more bits and bobs, like wash/dishcloths, which were quick to make 

So this is how my October is looking at present.

A September Furtle

 I don’t know where the time goes and just like that we’re three quarters of the way through the year.  September seems like a sort of a new beginning, even though my work life never involved term times. The youngest grandchild has started school and one of the older ones has started college and it’s good to see them move on.

Anyway, this is about Furtling.   I’m pleased to say I have a finish *ta-da*.

The cross stitch crocus bowl. A long standing project that hibernated for years, that I wrote about last month but I’ve yet to get mount board and a frame to put it in (I guess that’ll be next month’s Furtle!).

And another finish- a pair of fingerless gloves.  The pattern is a favourite of mine, by Snapper Knits and is  called Fingerless or Not. The yarn is Zig Zag but I can’t find the yarn online so I think it’s a discontinued one.

I’ve started a new knitted project, which is a cardigan for my daughter.  I found today though I’ve been knitting on the wrong size circular needle, 3.75 instead of 4mm, so there will be some un-knitting 😕.  I’m using pink yarn that I used for Flo’s cardigan and Stylecraft pattern which I’ve used before. So I’ll just have to bite the bullet and redo the part that used the smaller needle.

Another project I started this month is making a pair of crochet socks.  So I’m on the first sock, which is crocheted from the toe up and turned the heel (took several attempts but got there) and finished the leg apart from doing the ribbing and that’s where I’m stuck.  I may do the second sock and get to the same point after which I will have to have the ribbing mastered. I’m using the remains of some West Yorkshire Spinner yarn from stash.  The pattern is from Inside Crochet magazine.  Ooh, just noticed that my knitting and crochet projects are very pink this month.

I haven’t done much sewing this month, other than the finish above. But I have been. Hand sewing some hexagons.  I have been taking part in #100hexagons100days2023 on Instagram (I’m @suewilduk), but I still have a lot of hexagons from when I took part back in 2019 that have been sitting in a fabric bowl.  So I’ve taken the decision to join them together and I think so far I have 11 flowers. Below is just a few of them.  Not sure what they will become yet.

Talking of the 100 hexagons, here are the last few weeks

Week 5 - Rainbow - I think this one is self explanatory. I placed them on a white with rainbow coloured background 

Week 6- Pawsome. Well I ran out of animal with paws so there were a couple with claws 

Week 7 - Love.  I thought I was going off-topic for this one with selecting some favourite fabrics, but the range of fabrics were by designer Beth Studley, and the selvedge of one of the fabrics was “love from Beth”. So it fitted the bill.

Week8 - I Spy. Apart from the little bit of Tula Pink in the pink purple fabric (which would have had a lot of hidden things) I couldn’t find much, but the foxes and the hidden text were good ones and I figured that the dinosaur bones would be hidden.

And lastly for this month is week 9 - Magic.  That wasn’t an easy topic, so I used some hexagons from a mini charm pack called Saturday to show from these little squares, they became hexagons, then joined together to eventually become part of a quilt. I think that’s magic.

The ATC theme this month was Autumn, so I made a fabric one to illustrate Pumpkins, which are now quite visible in the fields. I padded out the orange pumpkin with a small piece of felt. I machine appliquéd the pumpkins and free machined the details and the word.  I meant to make another but didn’t get around to it.

I had some autumn leaves in return.

I’ve also been to a Kaffe Fassett exhibition in Bath earlier this week and the post about that is here.

So that’s my Furtle for this month. Looking forward to October and a bit of sorting out and de-stashing.  See how that goes. 

Meanwhile joining in with Mini Archie’s Furtle Around the Blogosphere. 

Trip to Bath

 Yesterday I went on a coach trip with Quarterjack Quilters from Wimborne to Bath to see an exhibition of Kaffe Fassett’s work from his book Timeless Treasures. There was a detour along the way to Midsomer Quilting in Chilcompton, near Radstock, Somerset. It has been a long time since I last visited this quilt shop, which has relocated to a unit at a farm in the village, which is considerably bigger than the previous shop. 

One don’t visit with purchasing fabric, even if you don’t have a project in mind! So here’s my purchases, only fat quarters, so didn’t break the bank.  

There was a lovely row by row quilt made of the local area in the workshop room.

Another couple of quilts were on the walls, this fishy one (in progress)

And this large one with small square blocks

We reached Bath at lunchtime (though we had our lunch on the coach journey). We were dropped off very near the Art Gallery for a timed ticket to the exhibition.  Before I saw the quilts I was blown away by this.

A beautiful Baroque style mirror, decorated with plates, tiles and pieces of broken china with porcelain flowers hanging from it, which was in the reception. You can see a couple of Kaffe’s quilts reflected in it. This lady holding up her phone features a lot in these photos. 😂

As usual Kaffe’s quilts are really colourful with simple shapes that makes the fabrics a feature.  They have been long arm quilted but it really isn’t a feature, the colours really shine.

His quilts were on the side walls but the end wall of the gallery were more mirrors, designed by Candace Bahouth, another American artist, who lives in the UK. 

I loved this mirror with blue china 

I took a close up to show pieces of Wedgewood and handles from cups and teapots 

Shells and pale coloured plates

A shrine on the wall with a display of animals in front.

And these repurposed china models

They were just beautiful. There were 2 more mirrors that I hadn’t seen in the reception on the background of Kaffe Fassett designed wallpaper

It was a colour overload but a lovely exhibition to see and lucky to see this before it closes on Saturday.