My Blue and Pink Southbay Shawlette is finished

Hello and welcome back,

Over a week ago I had finished my latest South Bay Shawlette.

(You can read a little bit more about it in my previous post)

This one is a very large Shawl, it measures  200 cm wide x 105 cm high.

I used more than 3 x 50g Rowan Kid silk Haze Stripe yarn and 3.5 x 100g Arne and Carlos Sock yarn. It weighs approx. 507g.

It feels fuzzy and fluffy due to the high Mohair and Silk content.
It will definitely keep me very warm!

Here are the photos!

 

 

Nearly 1 m wide

Finished size - 2m wide x over 1m long

 

I'm very pleased with the result!

This is such a useful shawl pattern. Do you have a favourite crochet pattern? Or a knitted shawl pattern?

Please let me know! Looking forward to your comments!!!

Crochet Shawls : Fortune's Shawlette, Virus Shawl and a colourful South Bay Shawlette

Hello my dear Blog Friends,

How have you been? Thanks so much for your lovely comments on my knitting post!

For those of you who have been wondering if I had given up on crochet - this post is especially for you! This time I will show you some interesting crochet shawls and links to the patterns!

Interesting Crochet Shawl patterns


1) The Virus Shawl

I can't tell you how much this pattern demanded to be made! Almost every time I go on pinterest, I seem to come across this pattern. So I put this on my ideas list until I had finished some other projects first. I had already bought the yarn in Germany.

The pattern is on ravelry, of course and it is free!

Virus shawl.                         Here is the direct download link (PDF)

Virus pattern in German.     And here is a photo tutorial and chart on Facebook
The yarn I am using is lace yarn by Zitron, called Filigran Lace. It is super thin and fine pure merino wool and the colours are amazing!

The colours are really as vibrant as the first and last photo. (Some days the day light is not great for taking photos!)



2) Fortune's Shawlette

I first mentioned about this shawl in a recent blog post here.

Here is the Fortune's Shawlette! It's from another fantastic crochet designer, Tamara Kelly, better known as Moogly. You can also find all her many (and often free) patterns on ravelry.

So far I have used 2x 100g skeins of the lovely soft Merino wool, and I'm about to start my last skein!

3) The South Bay Shawlette

Some of you might remember that I have used this pattern quite a few times, because I love how you can use it for different kinds of yarn, different thicknesses etc. I love variegated colourful yarn best!

A lot of you really liked this version here from a previous post.

The South Bay Shawlette is from Lion Brand, you will find the free pattern here.

Sometimes incredible things happen, such as finding the new sock yarn by Arne and Carlos (shade 03653 - shown in large) and then coming across another yarn in matching colours - Kidsilk Haze Stripe by Rowan (Shade 202). Kid silk Haze is an amazing soft fuzzy and light Kid mohair yarn with 30% Silk added. It feels very luxurious!

I couldn't think of a better pattern to use these 2 yarns together! The colour effects are simply stunning! (these photos don't do them enough justice!)

And here are all three shawls together!

Funkycrochet - Three great crochet shawl patterns!
 

I hope you enjoyed this little round-up of interesting patterns and might come back here for the links!

I find it really interesting to look at a pattern on ravelry and then check out the different versions that people have made from the same pattern! It really is very inspirational!

If you haven't tried pinterest before, I urge you to give it a go! It opens up a whole new world of ideas and patterns, lots of them for free. For example, if you click on one image, it shows a whole lot of similar and complimentary patterns below.

You can find (and follow) me here on pinterest:  https://www.pinterest.com/myfunkycrochet/

Last, but not least: Thank you for following my blog! A very warm welcome to my latest new followers, hope you enjoy what you see!

I welcome your comments and love reading them, so please don't be shy and say hello... ;)
 
Have a lovely weekend!!!

The Knitting Catch Up - Barcelona Alpaca Jumpers, Soft Merino Cowl, and the rebirth of the Ombre Shawl

Hello Dear Blog Friends,

A quick preview of my first finished project (finished on 1st January 2016): More in a moment!

The knitting catch up

I mentioned in one of my recent posts that I have done some new knitting, finally here is my chance to tell you in more detail about it.



Two Alpaca Jumpers called Barcelona

First of all, this time I am following a pattern for a jumper from this lovely book: Jules & Julie by Julia Jaeken featuring 35 patterns for the entire family! It is photographed beautifully and features members of Julie's family!

She is the owner of Julija's Shop here in Antwerpen.
I love her shop, she stocks some of my favourite yarns!
This is already her second book, her first one is full of delightful knits for small children!

Jules & Julie

Unfortunately it is only available in Dutch so far. I guess if you wanted to, you could mail Julie whether you could purchase the pattern in English, might be worth a try...

You find Julie's website, blog and shop here!


So I am currently knitting an Alpaca jumper for one of my daughters. The thing is, before I could get the light grey) wool for hers, I bought a different shade (dark grey) and got started - this will be a jumper for myself. So in fact I am actually knitting 2 jumpers at the same time, in different sizes, but from the same pattern. (Barcelona).

Here you can see what Barcelona looks like (both adult and child sizes)

Here you can see work in progress on the two jumpers that I am making:
Not only am I making 2 jumpers, I am also working on front and back together!!! I am using the same wool as Julie in her book - Drops Alpaca Boucle which I bought in her shop. I already worked with this super soft yarn last year!

 

I am making progress, slowly.... (well because I have also been doing crochet of course!)


My first finished project - a knitted cowl

Then in mid December I started on a large Merino loop shawl which is a present for a good friend!

I finished it on the first day of January, what a good start into the New Year!

Measurements: 188 cm all round, knitted in the round, 21 cm wide. This is large enough to wrap around the neck 3x. I love this yarn, it is unbelievably soft and squishy, yet warm! I knitted quite loosely, so it is very elastic and stretchy! The colour is 174 (Olive Green). I used moss stitch.
I've already made quite a few of these super long loops!

 

My Alpaca Ombre Shawl

I also decided to frog the ombre shawl I had been knitting and to re-work it because I wasn't happy with how it turned out. Luckily I am knitting on large needles (9mm). This is from the oh-so-soft Alpaca Silk yarn from Drops.

Well, that's it for now on the knitting front, we'll talk about crochet soon!!! ;))

Again, I am looking forward to hearing from you, please leave me a comment or two! See, that even rhymes! Looks like we're off on a good start for 2016!

Wishing you all A Very Happy New Year!!!!

Hello my dear Blog Friends,


This is just a little note to say I'm thinking of you all and hope you had an enjoyable Christmas time and managed to relax at home!



This is what funkycrochet stands for: crochet, colour and fun!

Thank you all so much for your support and encouraging kind comments! It always means so much to me! You help to make this blog what it has become! I'm looking forward to telling you more about my makes soon!!!

With best wishes for a great 2016!!!!

Hello December! Two granny square blankets, a chunky wrap and progress on the Fortune's Shawlette

Hello all,


Wow, December is finally here... no snow yet, at least none that stayed! When the weather is turning cold and windy, then it's ideal to spend the dark evenings with some nice crochet at home.

Thanks for your lovely comments on my last makes, it always touches my heart to hear from you. Meanwhile I have started working on some new projects, more about that later.

I hope my American friends enjoyed their holiday season!



My finished granny square blanket for a boy

Here I got some photos for you to show off the finished blanket that I talked about in my last post.

As soon as the above blanket was finished, I got started on another granny square blanket! This one is for the boy's baby sister!



A granny square blanket for a baby girl

I started with 6 colours in warm shades, ranging from yellow to lilac. The yarn is Stylecraft Special DK, as before with the other blanket. Each ball of yarn is 100 g.

I kept working away, my goal was to crochet 6x squares every day.  Soon I had about 11 squares for each colour.

I decided to mix things up a bit, making squares with 4 different colours in each!

First, I went through all the different permutations which resulted in 25 mini squares!

Playing with my squares on the floor!

 

 

I began to turn those mini squares into full size ones!

This was what it looked like yesterday!!!

Today I have started my assembly, attaching the squares row for row! I will let you know when it is finished, still lots more work to do for now!!!



A chunky crochet wrap or lap blanket

I also made this wrap to keep my shoulders warm, I used 3x 100g  Auraucania Budi with an 8mm crochet hook!!

It was done pretty quickly, I used a simple V-stitch pattern! (15x Vs in a row). The hand dyed yarn colours vary between a deep to a light rose pink, and black to pale grey.

The finished size is 36cm x 104 cm. It's lovely warm!

Here you can see one of the skeins and one already rolled up into a yarn cake!

 

My Fortune's Shawlette

Here is the progress on my not so small Shawlette, I took it with me on the train to Gent last week when I went to visit my daughter there! I draped it over the chair on the train to get a picture!

That's it for now.... more to come in the following days!

If you want to leave me a comment, please do! Have you been making any Christmas gifts for your loved ones? Do tell..... ;)