Colourful South Bay Shawlette, knitted Moebius Cowl, Queen Anne's Lace Scarf and much more!

Hello and welcome!

Thanks for your many enthusiastic responses about my last post, I loved reading your comments!

Today I have lots of things to share! Hope you are sitting in a nice warm and dry place and have a few moments for reading this!

First, my current WIP - The colourful South Bay Shawlette

I have been working on this every day, currently on my 5th 100g Ball of the colourful Fenna yarn. Here are some progress pictures:

Cleo checks out the Shawl!

27.10.14

29.10.14

I will keep working on it for a bit more! It is still slightly smaller than the SBS that I made with the Malabrigo Silky Merino yarn this summer.

As the rows are getting longer each time, it also takes longer to crochet along the outside. The (current) last row had about 540 stitches! I must have crocheted about 4 rows yesterday!

I probably would have done more, if only I had not started a new project yesterday mid day!


Queen Anne's Lace Scarf (new WIP)

This free pattern was saved in my favourites on ravelry for a long time! Basically it is a long skinny scarf with a curly motif on both sides that gets made in a continuous way, so no awkward joining up and sewing up of pesky ends!

I managed to find a good video which I followed and tested with some Scheepjeswol Stone Washed to see if I could master this pattern.

Here is another (written) pattern link in English.

As explained in the video, the pattern could be adapted with smaller/larger loops and different yarns/hook sizes. It works a treat with variegated yarns in my opinion, if you just look through the over 3000 projects featured on Ravelry!

Have any of you ever tried this out? What did you think?

Trying out the pattern first with Scheepjeswol (left) , then with Fenna (right)

Scarf detail - made with Fenna in a different colourway than the Shawl

29.10.14 Queen Anne's Lace Scarf

Such a lovely pattern!

Yesterday I managed to make 38 motifs which is about 106 cm long so far, I will probably aim to do about 60 motifs (150cm) and then it will be finished!


My finished knitted Moebius Cowl - Ta-Dah!

Moebius Cowl finished 27.10.14

Wearing my new cowl 28.10.14

Sometimes random comments spark interesting results... On Tuesday I went to the cinema to finally see 'Gone Girl' after having devoured the book in March 2014. (You can find out about the film here!)

Well, have you ever knitted in a cinema? (That is what the random remark was about). I can say now that I have! I must have knitted the last 25-30% of the above cowl in a dark cinema whilst watching the above film! It was a dare to myself and I'm happy to say no stitches were dropped (phew!) and the result was equal to my normal knitting standard! (it was also easy enough since it was all garter stitch = knit every row).  And yes, I enjoyed the movie! ;)

When I got home that evening I cast off the stitches and sewed the cowl together in a Moebius loop. (The rectangle scarf before sewing measured about 30cm wide x 100cm long). You can see me wearing it in the above photo, but in fact the cowl is stretchy enough to be worn double and is very warm.

The colours are lighter and darker Turquoise, with some brown and golden Ochre shades for contrast. I used 3x 50g balls of Rico Creative Design Melange Chunky (34) - the same yarn I used recently for my Red Shrug! It is very warm and cosy!

I have already cast on stitches with the same yarn in another colourway for a new cowl! (No photos yet)


'T Arm Schaap Knitting Group 28.10.14

Last night I went to this Knitting Group again and I got a couple of snapshots to show you:

Lots going on at the knitting group!

Crochet Mobile Phone Cover with Mini Granny Squares (by Christine)

My friend Christine (who is very active for this Knitting Group) made this adorable crochet mobile phone cover from Mini Granny Squares! (Thanks for letting me photograph it!)

You can spot Christine on the above photo (second lady on the left, wearing a striped Top). You might also spot my Harlequin blanket on the table towards the back! (Apologies for the bad quality of the 1st photo, lighting wasn't very good!)


Happy Cats!

Here are our 3 cats on the brand new Cat Seats with Scratching posts!

Cleo and Jasper demonstrating their new multistorey appartment!

Jasper in the Penthouse Pad upstairs!

Twinkle, the Invisible Cat (Jasper's brother)

Finally...

Today I received my parcel from Woolwarehouse in England! I placed the order on Friday, it was despatched on Monday and arrived here in Belgium on Wednesday morning! Fantastic service!!!

Hooray! More Stylecraft yarn for the Harlequin Blanket!

For those of you who are interested, I picked the Attic 24 pack with 17 shades, plus an additional ball of Teal. Hopefully I will have more than enough to complete my Harlequin Blanket! (Looks like I will have to wind a lot of yarn next!)

A few more things...

I also have more ideas buzzing around in my head, things I read on other blogs, that I can't wait to try out!

I was sad to read that some people have decided to take blog breaks for personal reasons, needless to say that their contributions will be missed and that I will be thinking of them! Hopefully they will return soon again.

The weather in Belgium has gotten wet and rainy, much colder now.
Having said this, it was about 20 degrees on Monday afternoon when I came out of the cinema!

Yesterday I discovered that some of my balcony plants have begon flowering anew!
I got some small pink blossoms on the Azalea and also on the Mini Chrysanthemums.
I got Cosmos and Sweetpeas flowering (from the seeds I got of the first flowers!).
Sorry, no photos for now!

Thanks for your patience in reading this! I hope you enjoyed it, and feel free to post me your comments!
I am looking forward to find out what you got to say! 

Beautiful September Days and some new things in the making

Welcome back! 

Thanks for all your lovely comments on my recent makes and a warm welcome to my new readers! I also want to thank each and every one of you for inspiring me with your makes, your friendship, your strength of character and also your sense of humour! I'm eager to read what has been happening in your world and I want to contribute!

I thought this time I will show you a few other things, apart from my crochet! On Monday night there was a beautiful clear full moon (whilst I was waiting for a bus home after my evening class), sadly I cannot show you a picture because I didn't have my camera with me. So the next day I carried it with me on my travels out and about. This is what the weather looked like on Tuesday lunchtime:

Beautiful sunshine in September!

Schelle

The Church in Schelle

These are pictures from my neighbourhood where I live (Schelle). The Church is a landmark and can be seen from afar.

After my knitting/crocheting group on Tuesday afternoon I took a tram ride across town to Mortsel which is part of Antwerp. Here I managed to track down some wool I needed! As you can see it was still a nice day, but in the afternoon it went more cloudy. Often you can see pretty flower displays in public places.

A Flower Display in Mortsel, Antwerpen

And here for some updates on the crochet front! First of all, I have started making some more granny squares, just for the fun of it. I love using that Veritas Laura yarn, nice and chunky, it is fun to work with.

Furthermore you can see the scarf I have been knitting, it was finished on Monday.

Sunday evening I had started with a matching hat. (This is for my son's birthday, pssst!)

Monday: Mystery Granny Squares and WIP: Scarf and Hat

By this morning I had turned the remaining 3 smaller squares into big ones! (If in doubt, crochet a granny square!!!)

Wednesday: And then there were 8!

To give you a better idea of their size: Each square measures about 15 cm across (6" for my English friends!)

Just look at these whoppers!!!

Tuesday: Hat and Scarf finished - Ta-dah!

Here is the finished Hat and Scarf Set (it's going to be soft and warm to wear!) - which I am going to hand over in person this Saturday (because we are going to visit my Son for his birthday, yay!!)

Mystery WIP - 3 balls of yarn

The Mystery WIP has also grown enormously! Luckily I managed to find some more of this yarn on Monday, phew! Still debating the possibilities as I got several ideas for this.

Cleo is keeping an eye on things here!

Today I got very busy with yarn!!! No, not crocheting, but winding! Cleo, my cat kept me company and watched the proceedings!

First you take a lot of yarn (by which I mean 21 balls of 100g!) which look super pretty in their little bags. Then you wind as hard as you can, for as long as you can, until you think your arm is going to drop off, or that you could not possibly unknot yet another 23 knots in one ball of yarn alone, or that you have to go back to the kitchen for yet another cup of coffee to sustain you! You don't even pause and carry on winding whilst having phone conversations (time is running out!!!) And most of all, you don't even ask yourself what possessed you to buy such a bumper crop of yarn in the first place!

My Stylecraft Stash (from Loveknitting)

In the end, it was all worth it, just to see them next to each other like this:

After much winding - some lovely yarn cakes! Yumm!!!

Well, to be precise: I wound about half of each ball so that my project would be portable! (I try not to think about the other half yet!). So what am I going to do with this rainbow of yarn? I am going to make a blanket! This evening I went to another craft group and I had a go with doing some test crochet squares!

This rose started flowering again with the warmer weather recently

Just a couple of pictures from my 'garden', I mean balcony garden! One of the roses has produced new flowers which are very pretty. And I am eagerly watching my sunflowers as they get bigger and start to open up slowly!!

I got 3 tall sunflowers which are starting to flower

Well, by now you are starting to get to know me better, you already know how much I love colour! And seeing these yarn cakes together like that makes me happy, plain and simple!

Hope your week has been a good one! Leave me a comment or two, let me know what's been happening or what you think, I'd love to hear from you! I'll try to answer when I can (but I will be in England this weekend, to which I am looking forward a lot! I might be visiting the odd tea room or two!)