Too many WIPS?? Japanese Crochet Flower, Crochet Basket pendant, Linen Stitch and Shell pattern

Hello my dear blogfriends!

I'm back with some more updates, finally!!! How have you all been? Hope you had a chance to enjoy the first warm rays of sunshine. We had some lovely spring days, but now it seems we are back to colder weather again.

For me it has been a busy time, but it seems there have been too many WIPs. I have ideas aplenty, but never enough time! Isn't that the problem for any crafter? Let's see what I have made recently?!

A new Japanese crochet flower pattern

I came across a wonderful crochet pattern here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/crochet-japanese-flower. The pattern is free and easy to follow! If you like the look of it, why not try it out?

Here are some photos of my flowers:

Japanese crochet flower

I will probably need to make evern more, not sure whether to make them into a long shawl or a triangle one.

A tiny Crochet Basket Pendant

On further crochet news, I was inspired by some small crochet baskets which were made as pendants I saw on Pinterest. I thought to myself that I wanted to try this! So I used some strong thread and a tiny crochet hook and made my own crochet basket pendant! It's smaller than one cent!

My Crochet Basket Pendant

Colourful Knitting

On the knitting front, I made this piece from the Rowan Colourscape yarn I bought recently.

Rowan Colourscape Chunky

Knitted up in a 4 row rib

Here next to an old WIP (right) from the same yarn, in a different colourway

What am I making? Well, I knitted the first part maybe 3-4 years ago and it was left as a WIP because I moved to Belgium and forgot about it. As I decided that this year I would try and complete some of my WIPs, I dug it out again. Initially I wanted to make a cowl. After knitting up the second piece I thought this is too nice just to make a cowl from, so I will make a sleeveless cardigan from it instead. Unfortunately it has to be put on hold for now, until I can get more of this yarn! I just love the colours!!!


A new Baby Alpaca Beanie Hat

Remember the yarn I bought last winter in the LN Knits shop in Antwerp? I knitted it up in a cosy soft Beanie with a sort of basket weave pattern!

Trying on my new Beanie

100% Pure Baby Alpaca Love

A Neon Linen Stitch Cowl

A while ago, I got greatly inspired by another blogger, the lovely Roobeedoo because she made a most amazing cowl, read about it on her blogpost here! I vowed to myself that I also wanted to try this linen stitch and use some very bright yarn! I struck lucky with two different sock yarns.

They are quite different from each other, so I thought the result should be very interesting!

I love knitting it because it is so vibrant, the only thing is that it grows incredibly slowly, because 421 stitches per row and 3mm needles and the stitch itself makes knitting slower than usual. However, the result is more like a woven fabric and fascinating.

If you check out ravelry, there are a number of ideas when you search 'linen stitch'.
Oh, and do follow Roobeedoo if you enjoy knitting and/or clothesmaking!

This yarn was just calling out to me!!!

421 colourful stitches on the needles

A little bit of balcony knitting with Cleo

And back to more crochet...

I'm in the middle of making and designing my own baby cardigan for a friend. It's all a bit of trial and error at the moment!!

Another WIP : Working on a baby cardigan

Heart Key Rings

I made these 10 little Heart Key rings yesterday, it was a fun project. They are made with Scheepjeswol Stone Washed yarn.

Crochet Heart Key Rings

And finally I started on a new crochet project last night: Making a Crochet Jumper, something I have not done before. I chose Scheepjeswol Stone Washed XL yarn and I am using a 5.5mm hook.

This is how far I got by now:

New Crochet Shellstitch Jumper

New WIP: Crochet Shell Stitch Jumper

Well, it has been a good thing to list all my WIPs! Here I thought I hadn't achieved very much during the last 2 weeks, but looking back, it was more than I assumed!

Oh, and I nearly forgot: I got hooked on watching 'The Great British Sewing Bee' which was very inspiring and fun, also gripping! Did you watch it? If you haven't seen it yet and get the opportunity I highly recommend it to you all! It doesn't matter if you sew much or not, it is thrilling to watch!

I wish you all a lovely and happy weekend ahead, enjoy the sunshine if you can!

What will you be making?

Let me know! Leave me a comment, I love reading them all! Thanks for your time! :)

A Walk in the Woods, a good day for customers and some knitting

Hi! Good to see you back here! I hope you had a nice weekend!

This Sunday we went for a nice walk in the woods! Only this time I remembered to bring the camera, so you can all come along (on this virtual tour)! We went to one of the National Parks in Kempen (a lovely area in Belgium) - near a place called Donderslag (Thunderclap!).

This is my favourite photo of the walk!

The walk went through woodland, along fields, through wetland, heather, along a pretty lake. We chose to do the 8.5km trail (which was marked in blue on the map and also along the paths).

Start of our walk

I soon stopped to take more photos, there were toadstools, spiders and lots of acorns to admire.

Cute Toadstool

This is my wood - from a spider's view

After we came to the edge of the forest (see first photo) we walked along some corn fields.  I soon spotted a dash of colour in the grass along the side!

Dainty harebell flowers

A field of corn - very tall!

The corn stood over 2m tall! A bit further we walked along a huge ant hill and I spotted another colourful flower!

Purple Cornflower

We walked through the woods again and the ground became wetter. It was really funny, every time we approached a big and deep puddle, there were a dozen or more little frogs jumping into the water for cover! I tried to take a photo but failed! They were too fast! Finally we had this vista in front of us!

The Lake

View through the trees

A few more flowers...

Wild Camomile

Until we came towards a field of green beans! Belgians love their fine green beans!

A Field with Green Beens

Before the last stretch of the walk...

What a mighty tree!

Along Birch trees

...back to the car park with the map where we started! We were lucky with the weather!

The map with our walk marked in Blue (8.5km)

Afterwards, we drove to the nearest small town (called Meeuwen) and sat outside a roadside Ice Salon to enjoy some very special ice cream as refreshment.

Special Ice Cream and Coffee

I hope you enjoyed this little journey! Believe me, I limited the photos, I took quite a lot. The scenery was quite varied and it was very enjoyable. There was so much to see and experience.

Knitting WIP and Harlequin Blanket

This post wouldn't be complete without any mention of making things!

On Saturday I went back to the Lana Wool Shop that I mentioned before. I had received an invitation for the Day of the customer (Dag van de klant).

Here are some additional photos of the window displays. You can see a customer version of this blanket (A recent mystery Knit Along Afghan Blanket by Martin Storey for Rowan):
Rowan weblink
Ravelry link

Rowan Blanket in the Window display at Lana

Lana Shop, Antwerpen

Inside the shop the owner, Lea was holding a knitting cafe (Breicafe) for the customers. We sat around a table and enjoyed refreshments, there was coffee and Cava, Cake and Belgian chocolates. It was lovely to be with so many like minded people who were making some awe inspiring knitting projects from Rowan, having bought the wool here at Lana. Many of the people present had also followed classes with Lea. Maybe I should enrol, too?

I had decided on Friday evening that I wanted to make a sort of Loop scarf, so I cast on! (Below you can see my Autumn Loop Scarf and the Granny Stitch Crochet Scarf of Many Colours (made with 7 different colours of variegated yarn from Lang) that I both made about 9 months ago. I used them for inspiration and size guide.) I used RICO Melange Chunky yarn (size 6-7mm needles - I used 9mm!). I took this with me to the shop to continue knitting there.

The idea: Knitting a Loop Scarf

On Saturday and Sunday I did quite a lot of knitting (and hardly any crochet!), and this resulted in the scarf on the left below, shown here knitted up with 2.5 balls of yarn.

Laying it on the floor to photograph I played about with it and changed my mind about WHAT I was making! I thought I might as well go for it and use the 6 balls of yarn I had (instead of the 3 that might have been enough for the Loop Scarf). I decided that I would make a Shrug instead! I love the yarn so much, the colours are fantastic and I know I would love to wear it this season, so no time to waste!

So I cast on anew (with double the stitches) and began again.... (see right side, approx 2+ balls of yarn used)

Here's one I made earlier...

The reason I kept the first version was that I could do a sort of try out in front of the mirror to get an idea how large it might be when finished. Obviously it had to be unravelled so I can use the yarn for further knitting!

Oh, and look at that! No chance of photographing the knitting, Cleo my cat got in on the act!

Cleo inspects my knitting!

What do you mean - selfie?

 (We all know that cats own the internet!!!)

Here's a quick peek at the Harlequin Blanket today before I went to the knitting cafe this afternoon!

Harlequin Blanket 30.09.14

Adding green yarn...

Well done! You arrived at the end of this post. Thank you for reading this, I hope you found it worth your while. Hopefully you might feel refreshed and inspired (a little bit) and take this feeling with you whatever you will be doing next!

And if you want to comment, then please do so! I love reading your comments, it's like getting postcards from all over the world! :)