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..... ;)

Crochet updates: My Scheepjes LinenSoft Shawl, Fortune's Shawlette, Autumn Cowl and a Granny Square Blanket

Hello my dear blog friends,

A warm welcome to you all, time has just flown by recently. There are so many things I want to share with you.... Where do I start?

My Scheepjes Linen Soft Flight of Fancy Shawl (from the Summer CAL 2015)


First off, here is my finished Flight of Fancy Shawl!!!!

You can find the pattern and useful instructions here on the Scheepjes website!

The pattern is by Annelies Baes (who lives in Antwerp which is not far from where I am). She is a very talented designer. You can find her website and blog here.

Her designs are listed on her ravelry page. You might recognise some of her designs from crochet magazines, take a look next time you buy one!

You can check back to this previous blog page where you find how I got started on both this shawl and the Granny Square Blanket.

Here you can see how I continued further until it was finished.

After each motif had been crocheted around in contrasting colour blue, it was time to joint them to one another, all 75 pieces, laid out in 5 rows.

 

 

After joining, it was necessary to crochet picots all around the outer edges to finish off. This took quite some time!!! The finished length is around 170 cm (without blocking!)

Here are some more photos of the finished Shawl, I am very pleased with the result. Since these photos were taken in the evening, the colours look a bit darker.

I picked these colours myself, they are different from the intended colours in the pattern. I wanted something brighter and more colourful which reflects how I am.

Fortune's Shawlette


Recently I came across an intriguing pattern which I just had to try out!!! It's a bit like a corner to corner pattern I'm told (I've never tried one).

Here it is! 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 here is my first foray into lace crochet. The lilac yarn is fine lace wool yarn and I used my 4mm hook. The olive green yarn is soft merino wool by Schachenmayer which produces a far thicker result.... but I went with the orchid lilac wool.

I blocked the shawl and added the border from the pattern. Despite this, the result was less lacy than I had expected. But I still liked it, the shawl was so light and fine and the stitches produced an interesting surface pattern. I gave it as a gift to a good friend!



My Autumn Cowl

For a while now I had been thinking of making a nice cowl in Autumn colours. When we went on a little vacation to Germany in October, I took my yarn along and got started!

It took 48 squares with 2 rounds. These mini Granny Squares were then joined up to make a cosy cowl! I chose Black as a border colour which really brings all the colours to life!

The yarn I used was Apilou by VERITAS.

And another Fortune's Shawlette!

I couldn't resist getting started on a second Shawlette as soon as the first one was ready. This one is made with 100% Merino wool from Araucania. It is so soft and fine. I love the colour changes! I just started the second 100g skein.....

My Granny Square Blanket for a Boy

As mentioned above, I also started making these Granny squares with 4 rounds, on and off. Last week I finally had 100 squares together and I thought that is enough for a blanket! I laid them out, then made the design more random and now I am busy crocheting them all together, 10 x 10. I will show you the finished blanket once it's done.

I hope you enjoyed reading this (long) post. Hopefully you will find some inspiration here! I urge you to try the Shawlette, do not be put off by the chart, there is a brilliant video which shows it all. Once you got started, you will find it quite easy really and very addictive!!!

Happy crocheting!!!

What did you like? Fancy leaving me a little note? I love to hear from you..... yes, that includes you!!! ;)

(PS: I left out my knitting adventures, soon more about that..)