Return to crochet - Rowan Denim Granny Stitch Shawl, Tahiti Bubblegum Shawl, a book, Granny Square Day 2016

Hello my lovely blog friends,


Thanks so much for your kind comments and patience! And welcome to my latest followers!


I can tell you that my plaster cast came off last Tuesday and that I got a wrist brace now so that is a great help. I'm also doing physiotherapy and I still got a long way to go to regain full movement and strength in both my wrist and elbow.

Still, the good news is that I started back with doing crochet, hooray!!


Return to crochet

The day before I broke my arm, I had actually started a new project - a granny stitch shawl.

Last week I picked up where I left off and I have been working on it since.


My Rowan Denim granny stitch shawl


Can you believe it that I never made an actual granny stitch shawl before? I had some wonderful Rowan Denim yarn (made from cotton) that will fade when washed, just like actual denim fabric.



Starting my Denim Granny stitch shawl on 15.07.16

back to work on 23.08.16



3 different shades of Denim yarn



Crocheting on the balcony with Jasper last night

It is such an easy and soothing pattern to follow. As you can see from the photos, I had started with the slightly darker shade of Denim (6 balls), then I had only 1 ball that was called original Denim which was a tiny shade lighter and now I got some even lighter Denim, all from Rowan. I love that it gives an ombre effect! I'm using a 4mm hook.



A second Bubblegum Shawl - Tahiti Bubblegum Shawl

Does this surprise you that I also had to start a new Bubblegum shawl ? The pattern by Katia Loeffler (see Ravelry) is brilliant, and I knew that I wanted to make another.

Here you can see the new beginnings:

3 different shades of Tahiti yarn by Schachenmayr

Yarn cakes!



Started 28.08.16

What else has been going on? Well, I ordered some crochet and knitting books. This one deserves a mention:

Agnieszka Strycharska - Crochet Blocks (60 east to make motifs and 15 stunning projects)

As you can see from the cover image, Agnieszka also loves colour and is a crochetgirl after my own heart. The photography in this book is beautiful, each motif is given a large colour photo with written and graph pattern! As I prefer graphs, I can skip straight to them and get started.

The yarn she uses is Natura cotton which is a lovely yarn to work with.

On Saturday morning I just picked a motif and tried it out!

In the third photo you can see some of the book, and the two blocks that I made with the cotton I had at hand! It shows how versatile these motifs are, they look great in different colours!

I want to play about with more of these motifs!


Oh, and something else happened - International Granny Square Day!!!


As before, on instagram crocheters all over the world could contribute by photographing one or more of their granny squares under the tag #grannysquareday2016.


Foolishly, I didn't want to miss out despite my painful broken wrist/arm/elbow and so I made just one square! For me it was a real achievement at the time.

My granny square made on 15.08.16

Here is a collage made just from a small number of all the contributions, isn't it amazing?

You can find more images here on instagram under #grannysquareday2016







Ok, I can see you starting to look a bit tired over there, 4 subjects are quite enough for one blog post!!!

Don't worry, there is still more to come and you can look forward to some interesting posts! I'm hoping to write up a pattern tutorial and I am thinking about doing a give away!

Meanwhile, take good care of yourselves and your loved ones, enjoy the little things wherever they find you and love life!

I hope you found a tiny bit of inspiration and would love it if you manage to leave me a comment, I enjoy reading them all. And hopefully I can manage to type some comments to leave on your pages now that my arm is slowly healing.

Rhododendron flowering in August!!

(Crochet) Flowers in my Garden - Book review of 100 Lace Flowers to Crochet

Welcome back!


Thank you so much for all your great comments on my latest posts, I enjoyed reading them!

Last week I was busy with having fun making some crochet flowers.



Crochet Flowers


Since there are not too many flowers in my (balcony) garden, I decided to help nature along a bit by making some colourful crochet flowers!

This is the result!

All together now: Smile!!! :)

 

Crocodile Stitch Flower Brooch with Beads

A little Book review: 100 Bloemen om te haken (100 Lace Flowers to Crochet)

The above flowers (with exception of the Crocodile Stitch Flower) can all be found in this useful crochet book:




Caitlin Sainio - 100 Lace Flowers to Crochet (in Dutch)

The cover of the English version looks slightly different.


There are general sections which show a number of flowers next to each other over 2 pages (grouped by colour).

Then each of the flowers have their own page where you can find a photo, a crochet chart and written instructions how to make the flowers. There is an index at the back, listing all the flowers.

Near the end, there is a small section which shows some nice examples of what you could do with the flower motifs.

Here are some of my flowers next to their pages.

What I like is that these are realistic looking flowers! Some are more complicated than others, but this book suits all levels of crochet experience. You could start with the easier models and then progress through the book, choosing your own challenges!

Disclaimer: This review is my own, based on a book that I bought myself.

I had bought this book a while back for reference, but the reason I dug it out now was that I will be holding a little Crochet Workshop next week for the Adult students who study Dutch at our School. I'm looking forward to it!

What would you decorate with crochet flowers such as these? Have you already made something using flowers? I'd love to hear your suggestions and ideas!

Bookazine review: Simply Haekeln - Fantastische Haekelmode Sonderheft April 2016 plus get a free Crochet eBook

Hello my dear Blog Friends,


Thanks for all your lovely recent comments and encouragement. I'm so glad you like to visit here!


Fantastische Haekelmode

Today I want to give you a little review about one of my recent book and magazine purchases.

Disclaimer: I bought this bookazine myself whilst in Germany, nobody is sponsoring me to write this review! (I wish!)

I realise that not all of you are German speaking, so I have researched the patterns and found you relevant links. (Also I might be interested to know whether there is an equivalent English edition of the Simply crochet bookazines, you might find some of the identical patterns perhaps. Can you help?)

I have taken some photos of the summary pages and also a few of the patterns that I like best and might want to make!

The cover shows a woman wearing a triangle shawl (more later), plus 6 further photos of different patterns. They are all patterns suitable for Spring.

In total there are 33 patterns inside this bookazine, which is very good value for money. The price of the magazine is Euro 9.95 (approx. £7-8). I noticed on the Ravelry site that some of the individual patterns cost around $5 or so, which makes me happy that I followed my impulse to get this magazine!

Inside the magazine are sections for each type of pattern. The First one is Fashion for both children/babies and Women.

The next section is callers Accessories and shows a number of shawls, bags, hats, socks and ear rings.

There is another section for Home accessories, such as a table cloth, a motif for applique, a pretty granny square, hacky sacks and a bike basket.

Here I will share with you some of my absolute favourites from this magazine. There are plenty to choose from!

I have added the designers' names under each picture, you might recognise some of them, they are pretty well known.

Take Robyn Chachula, for example. Check out her amazing designs here on her Ravelry page.

Likewise, Kristin Ohmdahl, Ravelry link here!

And here is Kathy Merrick.

Warning: Once you look at these Ravelry links of each designer, you will start to swoon and want to add practically everything to your making wish list!!! They are brilliant!

I recently bought a book by Robyn Chachula, I must share that with you another time.....

So you see, buying such a bookazine might be a great idea to find out about designers you didn't know before and Ravelry can help you find further designs by them.

Also a magazine is pretty portable to carry around with your project.

The funkycrochet Round-up of favourite patterns!

 

 This first jacket is called Ventura Vest.

Robyn Chachula

This sleeveless cardigan is named Winkle Vest

Tracy St John

The next one is called Petal pullover, Ravelry link here.

Robyn Chachula

This beautiful shawl is Corona Borealis

Kathy Merrick

Here is the Honeycomb shawl

Kathy Merrick

A beautiful and colourful granny square: Ripples on a Coral Reef. Read more about it below!!!

Victoria Hewerdine Thornton

This lovely shawl is called Foxglove Wrap.

Robyn Chachula

And this Cover star is called Wisteria Shawl

Kristin Ohmdahl

How to get a free eBook of 20 granny square patterns for FREE!

As for the Granny Square above, I have just found out (good job I was looking up each link for you!) that this motif is available as a FREE DOWNLOAD! How is that for you?

Not only that, but if you follow the link (which leads you to the Crochet Me website where you need to register for free, but trust me, this is a great website for discovering lots of fantastic pattern, I was already subscribed to them before this) - you will find that not only can you download this lovely granny square pattern, no, you will get a fantastic eBook (32 pages) with a total of 20 granny square patterns which can be made into a blanket called the Chain Reaction Afghan. I just downloaded my copy!

This is the free eBook and all the 20 different crochet squares shown on the cover are included
(Photo copyright Interweave Crochet and Crochet Me website)

A special Thank you to my friend Jodie from Lupey Loops who urged me to write something about the books and magazines I showed you recently! I'm so happy to do this and I finally found the time to share this with you!

So, what would be your favourite pattern of the ones shown above and why? Please leave your comments, I would be very interested to hear which ones you like best.

And the second question to you all is this: which one do you think I have already started to make last Friday??? (it was love at first sight! I was hooked, hahaha!!!)