Summer Colours

Hello there, first of all I'd like to say a big thank you for all the lovely comments on my cushion, I'm really chuffed you all liked it and took the time to let me know.

I wasn't able to post last week, life has been both busy and sad here as I was helping N sort out his late mother's home. It was also the hottest week of the year so far so it was exhausting. Arriving home late in the evening I didn't feel up to doing anything too complicated but I did manage to squeeze in a little crochet to relax before bed time. Do you remember this?

It's the lace weight merino yarn I wrote about buying here. I fell in love with these summery colours and have, from the day I bought it, pictured a summer wrap to throw over light summer dresses or white tops in the evenings. I've enjoyed browsing through different lace stitches, picturing the end result before trying a few out and finding that actually, it looks far nicer if I keep it simple.

I loved the effect of the different colours in a simple chain made with a large hook, the bright green fading to yellow, turquoise and lilac so I decided to keep it simple and make the wrap in an easy diamond mesh pattern. This is just the thing for working in a nice easy rhythm when I'm too tired to concentrate on a pattern. It also has the benefit of showing off the yummy summer colours of this yarn much better than the more complicated lace patterns. Isn't this gorgeous?

By Thursday we were shattered and ready for a break so worked really late to finish up and stay home on Friday. We had a quiet day relaxing and pottering about and inspired by Elizabeth's post at Mrs Thomasina Tittlemouse I was pleased to see the elder flowers finally out in our garden so I could make a batch of cordial. This Elder is called Black Lace, the cordial it makes is pink and the newly opened flowers have a delicious citrussy elderflower aroma. It also looks absolutely gorgeous in the garden.

So that was the first week of our summer holiday - clearing, cleaning, pottering in the kitchen and garden and of course a little crochet.

The light is much brighter today when I took this last photo and the yarn looks more blue, mostly it looks green though. If you would like to make a wrap like this, I'm using a 5.5mm hook with a 3 ply laceweight merino yarn with 400 metres in a 100g skein. This is a bigger hook than would usually be used for this yarn weight but I chose it as I liked the effect of the bigger hook and wanted the wrap to work up quickly. It only uses chain and double crochet stitches (single crochet in US) so is ideal if you are new to crochet and want to move on to making something a little bigger than squares. I made 242 stitches then working in UK terms:

1st row - miss 1 ch, 1 dc in next ch, *5 ch, miss 3 ch, 1 dc in next ch* repeat to last st, 1 dc, 5ch, turn

2nd row - *1 dc in ch space, 5 ch* repeat to end

Repeat the second row until the wrap is the size you want and that's it, nice and simple. I don't know yet how wide mine will be or how I will edge it, I'll just stop when it looks right.

Til next time,

Hx

The Paisley Granny Cushion and Mini Construction Tutorial

 
Hello there, it's finally finished, the Paisley Granny Cushion had it's first outing in the garden yesterday. I am very pleased with this cushion, the colours look so good in the the sunshine, especially the turquoise, the bright light really brings it out.

The schools here break up earlier than other parts of the UK, finishing up today for the summer holidays, so yesterday I took my finished cushion, a magazine and my ereader and had some quiet me time. This is my favourite shady spot in garden, I love to see the sunshine but don't like sitting in it as I'm fair skinned and burn too easily so while everyone else soaks up the sun on the patio I'm to be found enjoying the dappled shade under the tree. Both N and I like to have a scented, bee friendly garden and I was really pleased to see buds yesterday on the Graham Thomas honeysuckle I planted a couple of years ago to grow up through the tree.

Once I had joined the motifs for the cushion front it wasn't quite tall enough so I worked two stripes at the top and bottom of the cushion first with pink then orange. I knew I didn't want to make the back the same as the front so decided to crochet it in one piece which I wanted to make in blocks of colour. To break up the turquoise, I chose orange and pink for the colour blocks, making a pink central block which I decided to make slightly bigger than the two orange blocks at either end. I like this, it would make a nice summer cushion even without the paisley squares.

As I will be using this cushion outdoors I wanted to be able to easily slip off the cover for washing so using the orange I made a chain long enough for a 50cm cushion, then worked a foundation row of double crochet before continuing in treble crochet. I worked an extra three rows on the bottom section so I would be able to fold it over the cushion inner and tuck in when finished before changing to the pink yarn.

Constructing the Cushion

 

To make up, I double crocheted with wrong sides together starting at the bottom right corner with the granny front facing and worked around the sides with three dc in each corner.

When I reached the bottom of the third side, I double crocheted the two sides together until I reached the join of the first two motifs, then marking the join for the last motif on the other side, I continued to dc along the front edge only.

When I reached the stitch marker, I again double crocheted the two sides together to the end of the row then all I had to do was tie off the yarn, weave in the ends and lightly press the fold. You could add poppers at this point but I was too impatient to get into the garden with mine.

 

I popped in the cushion inner, tucked the flap inside and headed into the garden. I love that this cushion is a one-off and as all our garden furniture and camping chairs are different blues, it goes with them all.

As N will now be on holiday until August I hope the rainy weather we have mostly been having will ease off  and we will get some lazy, sunny holiday days to chill out in the garden, with some crochet for me of course. I hope the mini cushion construction tutorial is helpful if you also want to make a summer outdoor cushion.

Til next time,

Hx

Exploring new places

Hello there, have you been busy enjoying the long, light evenings and doing some crafting?

While I finished the front of my simple Paisley Granny cushion and started working on the back I took some time out for a spot of unexpected retail therapy at a newly opened craft shop in our town before getting back to nature at the the National Museum of Rural Life at East Kilbride in Lanarkshire.
 

Craft Shopping

First was the visit to the craft shop. As I live on the edge of the town I often find out about changes from friends and neighbours before I see them myself and this was again the case when I discovered the lovely little craft shop which has opened in the town. On my next walk down that way I popped in to have a look and found the friendly Allison who owns it and is following a long held dream. Allison crochets too and I was so pleased to find she had some crochet cotton in stock, just the thing for the lace book which I wrote about recently.

Allison sews, her shop is full of the most gorgeous fat quarters and projects she has made herself with fabrics she sources from America. With ribbons, buttons and embellishments it is a craft heaven and so easy to just pop down the hill. As the shop is quite small she doesn't plan to stock a lot of yarn (she is also a crocheter) but did have a big basket of yarn packs, well how could I resist? I fell in love with the colours of this yarn, they made me think of autumn so I ended up coming home with three balls earmarked for a cosy project later in the year and of course the crochet cottons.

With so many beautiful fabrics in her shop I will be going back to visit Allison again soon.



Down on the Farm
 
My second new place was the National Museum of Rural Life at Wester Kittochside which isn't far from us being about a half hour drive away and last weekend they had a Woolly Weekend event. As NTS members we get entry to this museum even though it is run by NMS. It's a little space of tranquillity amidst the bustle of the outskirts of south Glasgow and the new town of East Kilbride. The museum is actually just off a busy road but once the car was parked and we walked down the path to the farm we could have been miles away. The museum building is a lovely place to visit but as we've been there before we headed down to the courtyard to meet the Westyett Alpacas and their friendly and knowledgeable owners, Pauline and John. I should point out that I don't know Westyett Alpacas and this post isn't sponsored, I just enjoyed meeting the alpacas so much I thought I'd share it with you all.

We spent quite a while finding out all about these cute little guys who are actually quite shy with humans making it difficult to get photos of them....

 however patience and perseverance paid off.
 

 

Whilst they may be shy with humans, they are not slow to react to dogs, the appearance of a cute little dog belonging to another visitor had them down the ramp and over at the edge of the pen in no time. Pauline's husband explained as we were watching that alpacas don't like dogs or foxes and will actually chase them off. This little brown chap was a little braver and more inquisitive than the rest, he definitely seemed to be the leader of this herd,

and keeping an eye on his owner's sales too!

There was a bucket of alpaca clippings for people to feel (the alpacas are a bit shy for petting though I did see the brown one above allowing a little girl to stroke him), they were so beautifully soft, the type of fibre which is impossible to resist. The alpacas are lovely, they talk quietly to each other all the time and I could (and did) watch them for quite a while. We discovered that they are herd animals who won't do well on their own and though very hardy, they can't cope with driving rain as unlike sheep they don't have any lanolin in their coats so must have a shelter.

I also found out why I often find wool uncomfortable as John explained the difference in structure between sheeps' wool and alpaca fibre, basically alpaca is smoother and warmer due to the hollow fibre giving an insulating effect where as sheep wool is heavier and has scales with little "barbs" which cause the itching people sometimes experience from wool. As well as breeding and showing Alpacas, Pauline also sells products made from alpacas fibre, if you would like to know more about Pauline's Alpacas or where you can see them check out their Westyett Alpacas website to find out where they will be.

I've mostly crocheted with merino mixes before such as Sirdar Flirt which is merino and bamboo or Debbie Bliss Cashmerino however I have used alpaca fibre once before when I used Drops Lace which is an alpaca and silk mix to make a pink shawl. Now I've met these animals up close and seeing how gorgeous both they and their fibre are I think I'll be using Alpaca yarn more in future. Regretfully, we left the alpacas behind and made our way along the path to the farmhouse. This was a lovely peaceful walk and I really enjoyed getting close to the wildflowers in the hedgerow.

Aren't these Hawthorn blossoms beautiful?

We saw some very pale, delicate bluebells under the trees as we made our way through the garden to the house. I haven't seen bluebells like this before, they were almost a pale lilac colour.

We hadn't been to the farmhouse before and it was like stepping back into a scene from my childhood as I used to visit my friend's grandparents' farm in the late seventies/early eighties which though smaller had a similar feel. Wester Kittochside hasn't been updated since the 1950s, with the previous owners leaving it to the NTS in the 1980s. It is still a working farm retaining the old ways of earlier times, including using horses which we saw turned out in the field.

We made our way back down the path to the Museum building for a late lunch as it has a good cafe, spotting this piece of yarn bombing at the entrance. I'm sorry the photo isn't very clear, the light inside the museum is very poor for photography and this was the only piece of yarn bombing I was able to photograph.

The yarn bombing was a trail throughout the museum for kids to follow (as we are big kids we did it too) and there were yarny, woolly craft activities for children as well so families were having a fun day out.


I am still working on my cushion, being half-way through the back, I hope to be able to show the finished item to you later this week.

Til next time,

Hx