Haak-en-stekie

One day I was still contemplating the next topic for Blog Week and the next day it was the (end of ) the next month.

How does that happen?

Where did the days go???

The Summer Throw aka Projek Bohemia has long been finished - except for the ends...which is way I can really boast about it :-P
(where it started, and proof that it is actually finished)

So I did what I always do and that is Something Else. In this instance, I made beanies:

First off, one for Sensei Lilian:

It was her birthday and she wanted something in black and white and "that green you're working with". I said I refuse to do those colours but I'll do it in charcoal and she will like it. So I used Elle Classic Wool Blend for the charcoal, Drops Cotton Light in natural (frustration, frustration, the SPLITting!) and a little bit of lefover Vinnis Nikkim in Khaki.

I just recently made my first popcorns, so popcorns it had to have and I love making those!

And she loved the beanie.

A Boy Beanie

Completed at last was a beanie for little boy Michal whom I have promised something crocheted so long ago that I'm positively ashamed of myself. So he gets this blue number in unlabelled handspun merino from either cowgirl blues of Karoo Moon.

A Girl Beanie

Mich has a sister Lize who has been waiting even longer. Mom said a slouchie would do, and stripey with pink (and I'm also not so fond of sugary pink), so it's more of a cerise with whatever matched.
And popcorns :-)

And while I'm procrastinating, a twistie:

Anneke had half the country making twisties last winter, so I had to catch up. 1 ball of King Cole Riot was enough, and I decided to make it in granny stripes instead of dc's. I also made it a bit narrower, but higher, and quite like that.

So now all of those are out of the way, I can go back to ~~working away the ends~~ working on the Cheap & Cheerful blanket start a new poncho knit something frog that knit something new...

But first, a hunting weekend. It's school holidays! I promised myself I'd finish something during the holiday, so as also, the hooky will go along and be worked on next to the fire.

My sis and I share a Hanlie Kotzé print with the subscript "Today I took a walk around the block. It felt like a holiday in a far off land".

Today I took a drive down the highway to the town on the bay. It was a long overdue visit and it certainly felt like a holiday!!

I joined Yuliya Nilssen's regular crochet class/group at The Blue Shed Coffee Roastery in Mossel Bay. It is literally a converted old shed overlooking the harbour and inside you find the best of coffee, quiche en other baked goods. Plus it has the best atmosphere ever - which makes it a good thing that it's a good 35 min drive from home, otherwise I'd hang there every day.

It really is an old shed :-)

The inside is old and threadbare and I don't think there's one superflat surface of real corner or two pieces of furniture matching and i really love that it's not sleek and styled beyond submission.

Suffice to say that it was like a homecoming.

I've loved the venue already and it was great meeting like-minded ladies who produce such beautiful work that I actually just wanted to sit and look. It really reminded me of our Pretoria Craft Shares!

At long last I met Yuliya who was sporting a spur of the moment new winter dress:

Love it! Isn't it clever?
Can you see this in steely-grey and it becomes...chain mail?!

We talked hooks and Yuli took out her Addis that I just had to test:

I'm working on her Thank You-scarf

The Addi is perfect for a Knife-gripper like me, more so if you like/need to take a very firm hold. I would like to see what sizes it is available in and how it would work with T-yarn.
(Yeehaaa, and I learnt that it IS available in South Africa at www.skapie.co.za)

And look some of the beautiful work on the table...

The start of an Elle Gold Aran ripple

Towards a Road Trip Scarf that will be slightly different

Annemarie also made this handbag:

Love the snowflakes

...but look at the bottom of the bag!

Minda is starting an epic project:

Some Katia becoming tiny squares

...but she also finished this one!

This is seriously one of the most beautiful blankets I have ever, ever seen. I literally sat there, stroking it, square after square.

The "join" was actually an "after-treatment", but I can't imagine the blanket without it.

Ah, beautiful.

Black clouds and a howling wind brought my visit to an early end, as I still had to get back for school pick-up through the heavy rain, but this is a trip that I most definitely will make on a regular basis. I already have a project in mind that Yuliya's creative brain can help me figure out!

We're a week into the new school term after three weeks of a super-lazy winter holiday. The season has already turned here, the first blossoms have appeared on the fruit trees, but we have also just seen the first light dusting of winter snow on the mountains and suddenly it's the coldest it has been the past couple of months!

Winter = beanie time, so I set myself a target of a beanie a day for one week, which would then be delivered to one of the many Madiba Day projects country-wide. The idea was to work quickly, with thicker yarn, so I tried out this Kartopu Cotton Spray yarn, a beautiful, smooth cotton/acrylic blend.

Although the yarn was lovely to work with, it didn't really deliver on the colour promise
and looked like vanilla ice cream with 100's & 1000's that melted :-0

See ? Oh well, it is soft and snuggly and will keep someone warm.

While I had my tidy little plan of 7 beanies, my dear darling husband promised his associate office in Cape Town a BAGfull of beanies for their Madiba Day contribution to a home for disabled children in Gugulethu...and he juuust remember to tell me with a few days to go. Luckily, the helpful hooky ladies of George and some in Cape Town heard my sudden, hysterical plea for help, and after the weekend I had these to send off:

To this was added a bag from my CT friends and together we delivered more than
the hastily-made promise :-D

Holidays also means roadtrippin' time, and we went down the N2 to a farm stall complex (comprising La Bella Deli, Die Rooi Aalwyn, Bali Trading and a couple more) outside Riversdale, where I spotted these beauties:

A cotton pouch/purse

I totally loved this beanie, but the yarn -though beautiful - is quite hard and scratchy

Granny throw for your chair?

Beautiful cushion covers (and a clever plan for all those loose motifs)

While my boys were off hunting (we had one family hunting weekend and one only for The Men - that is the dads and cousins) - I worked on the Cheap & Cheerful blanket.

All of us had success! My two boys and their cousins shot their first blesbok - very proud of their contribution to the deep freeze - and I at last finished with the blanket, with only a few ends still staring me in the eye.

Early morning hooking in bed

I must confess that I really had to motivate myself to complete this one! For all that I do understand people preferring or being limited to this type of acrylic, it really isn't a joy to work with. That said, I do hope to show with this little challenge that cheap yarn does not have to be nasty looking.

I was also treated to a sample of Moya Yarn's new Bulky Plush, a thick, soft cotton!

These came in the mail - the soft, muted colours perfect for a prezzie that I need to hook up quickly
for MIL's birthday one of these days.

Of course I had to try it out immediately. I love to sit and hook over a coffee, and took my hooky with me to this tea garden in the mountains. When my boys took off with the proprietor to chase away baboons at a nearby house, I took my chance to get in a few rows :-)

Hooky with a view at Over the Mountain

I might have halfway caught up with my laziness at posting now...

I fell smack bang into the trap of Instagram, when I KNEW that it would be an abyss of utterly beautiful images on the one hand, and the ease and convenience of a quick upload plus three words and a couple of hashtags on the other (but have you seen the lists of hashtags getting longer and longer? It looks more like advertisements that anything else). So after 7, 8 months there I decided to drastically cut the accounts I follow and clear my feed a bit (and the blog feed!) and I must follow up my own posts there with a blogpost here, because that's the other thing I realised - I miss writing about the process, the idea and the progress and the mistakes made and lessons learnt until the end.* I also miss reading about other bloggers' processes**, because more and more we see beautiful images, styled beyond belief, but less about the how and the why. And that is why I, for one, started to blog - to document my own, and read and learn from others.

*And as I write and want to add labels, I realise there are no labels because I forgot to write about the Cheap and Cheerful Blanket's progress! A next post then.

**Sandra of Cherry Heart wrote a recent post about her first project - and she thinks of it as a failure :-) and that's what I really liked about Blogland from the beginning - to see how and what others learnt, because that's how I then learnt. That might be what got me thinking.

So there. Off to the couch I go to end with the ends of ends of the C&C. I'm still not saying anything about the Summer Throw, notice? It will come :-D Ends an'all.

At last I'm finished with a blanket that shouldn't have taken me more than a few days!

(But alas, I don't have the attention span).

A couple of months ago I launched a Cheap & Cheerful Challenge on my FB group and explained a bit more in this post.

Basically, it boiled down to showing that you can use dirt cheap acrylic yarn, but still hook something pretty; that cheap yarn doesn't have to equate to shrill, ugly colour combinations. This challenge was not about the quality of the yarn, but about using the cheap supermarket variety, or worst case - that only yarn which is available to you.

So off I skipped to my local Checkers where they just unpacked the winter's load of Chick yarn. This is typically the colour ranges for this cheapie, a 100g DK @ R20 (roughly £1, €1.43 or $1.58 today. Toldya it was cheap).

Stop street red or maroon?
(No, this is not marsala)

Dusky pink or sugary baby pink (this is a hot favourite at church bazaars)

Blues: cobalt, denimish, baby

Also available were brilliant white, pitch black, lemony yellow, light minty green, emerald and primary green, and some variegated combinations of the above. And grey.

I took the grey (let's be fancy and call it silvery grey), plus denim(ish) blue, a ball of emerald, plus the blue, emerald and something else variegated. The variegated was dismissed to the donation bag after 2 or 3 rows of trying it out, and with it went the emerald. So that left me with the silver-grey and denim, which suited me well, as I was after a simple look, simple colours, and something suitable or a man (the idea was to donate these blankets to the Maak 'n Verskil group who will distribute to various charities again).

Starting out my C&C, trusty Prym nr 4.5 to get it done swiftly.

I decided to wing it, aiming for a basic stripey blanket that I made up as I went along. One silver-grey between blues became two, became four and so on, until I'd reach a midway point and reverse back.

Starting out and it's looking fine.

Oh wait, here:
*dragging photo from bottom of post*

There's the pattern repeat - add another 8 of silver-grey, and then three of 16 before I turned back

As this was a simple blanket to hook, I could easily tag it along and it was particularly useful during cold road trips!

A pit stop at a local favourite pizza place in the mountain.

It was also useful during cold nights in front of the tv!

Tommie cat also took a liking to it

And then, after taking on and finishing numerous other projects, it was done. Even so, it took me another bloody week to just sit down and get to the ends!

I didn't make it too big, only suitable for a lap blanket (useful for wheelchair users or to use while sitting), or then for a baby.

This photo might be upside down.
But
It's fine. The blanket measures 105 x 118 cm.

Done!

A manly grey and blue granny stripe.

I haven't worked with Chick ever, before this challenge, but have used other acrylics numerous times. Truth be told - it wasn't that bad to work with this yarn, in the sense that it produces a neat, tight stitch and it didn't split (which is a common occurence with the nicest cotton yarns... :-( and I could live with the squeak as I knew it was coming.

That said - I won't work with it again. Not for any of the above reasons...but that's a story for another day ;-)

But here'a a useful blanket that someone who needs it can use, and it won't hurt your eyes. And that was the purpose of the exercise.

Next post: some of the blankets that came in .

Our Tommie-cat has died.

Suffice to say that ~~there are currently very hostile feelings between us and~~ that I'm counting the weeks until my kids can again safely ride their bikes in our (usually) very quiet, single-lane street in our (usually) very quiet residential estate.

Tommie was my (okay, my son's) very first kitten.

We got her as a rescue from the local SPCA for his 7th birthday after he's been pleading for months. Although she was his, she was also mine, my constant companion during the mornings at home, following me and calling me if she didn't immediately see me, fighting with my hands when I folded laundry until I had to cage her with the laundry basket, walking round and round the edge of the bath, waiting for me to get out of the water (she fell in twice :-) ).

She was such a bloody oulike cat.

But.

The Unveiling of the Tombstone (it's a Thing in South Africa)
We planted a katjiepiering (gardenia) and catnip in the zinc bath.
He wrote a letter that was cellotaped to a stick and planted in there as well.

So last week terrible Friday I started sorting my Vinnis and other cotton and bamboo yarn stash, putting together colours to use in a month or so when I would start working on summer blankets for the boys. I decided to make a simple Granny Stripe for the Little One, as he already has a smallish Granny Square blanket. As it is when sorting yarn and making Big Decisions like this, I thought I'd just start with a row or two, just to get an idea...you know...

And then the Horrible Afternoon happened, and we had a Cat Funeral, and took the boys to the beach to get them away, and I diverted my Little One's attention by telling him about his new blanket that I started that morning, and that he could remember Tommie when he cuddled under it and by the end of the day I was ten rows away and made promises of a crocheted kitty appliquéd on the blanket.

SO here I am, hooking away on this one, shoving other plans and projects to the side. As usual, there is a Formula to my colour sequencing :-P

Meanwhile, I'll be scouring the universe for crochet kitty patterns to appliqué - feel free to point me in the right direction!

Tearfully,

Stel

Being married to an after-hours endurance athlete, means a lot of road tripping to nice places, of which my South Africa has no shortage. So this weekend we went off galavanting to the Trans-Baviaans 24hr Mountain Bike Marathon where our team of four rode into the mountains, following dirt roads, single tracks, orienteering through the kloofs and slipping down snot-like mud downhill towards thick gravel and potholes. They started at 10h00 in the Karoo town of Willowmore and had 24 hrs to make to to Jeffreys Bay. They're allowed only a 1-person logistical support and the checkpoints, and none on the road. Our novices did quite well, considering one broke his chain in three places, and another had to be medevacked (but is now fine), and they're happy with their finish time of 14:40.

That was at 00h40 in the morning .
#imstillblearyeyed

We, the Wives of Cyclists, did what the support team does and that is to take a long, slow drive, and pitstop at nice places along the route :-)

First stop was at The Heath, a favourite for good coffee on the the N2 and a nice spot to find some community project hooky:

Mmm...an idea for that basket or straw bag where the bottom corners are getting a bit...worn?

Pretty clutches

Onwards to Old Nick's Village, where I walked with my hands firmly tucked behind my back at Mungo's and just had time for a quick dash through on or two doors...

...where I spotted the lady at Indalo working on these squares!

By that time our boys' support vehicle reported a pitstop at a local church bazaar (fête) and lo and behold, it was just up the highway and 8 km off behind the mountain, so there we went!

The community of the tiny hamlet of Kareedouw hosts a Fietsfees (Bicycle Festival) during TransBaviaans weekend in the form of a bazaar on the church grounds:

How beautiful are these sandstone churches?

Ja...we had to pose...me lurking in the back with the red scarf.

As church bazaars go, there was some craft to be found, and spotted this beauty of a baby blanket:

Love the sandstone colours. I might be right in thinking this was done in Elle Premier Cotton DK, a beautiful mercerised cotton yarn.

And again, beautiful work from a community craft project, and I walked away with new washpeg bag and these potholders for me and my sisi:

Some shwe-shwe brightness for my kitchen, with crochet in Elle Premier Cotton

These hand-embroidered proteas will be making their way to Ireland

A most enjoyable, tiring weekend, with very little of my own hooky being done!
Will catch up, hoping for a quiet morning :-)

Our Cheap & Cheerful Challenge has finished!

What a joy to see what these ladies came up with, to show that even some of the cheapest yarns around CAN be used to produce a beautiful blanket.

Here's the info on the background of Cheap & Cheerful, and my own contribution

and these were the three winners:

Helen's snowflake blanket

Helen chose to work with Chick, the very cheap supermarket acrylic that I also chose, in two blues, grey and white. Upon finishing the blue and grey motifs, she realised that gaps between these were too large for her liking and - given the restricted colour choices of Chick - came up with the plan to dye some her acrylic yarn (easier said than done!!). Google and YouTube came to her aid and she added the brownish motif with white center - and it was as if the blanket was designed to look like that.

I love the unusual colour combination and the handdyed effect on the brown. Plus the snowflakes brighten everything up.

A beautiful blanket and clever solution.

Brilliant Mommy's stripey C2C

Everybody's seen the Corner to Corner blanket, and many have been making it, right? There have been some beautiful variations, but you haven't seen it all until Helene's came along.

Three colourways of variegated Pullskein scream at each other...until you work it together, alternating after each row. Then it absolutely work, and blend in, the one with the next, into a harmonious, pastel rainbow.

These colours had Ons Hekel swooning.

Lara's chevron

Lara used the same almost shock tactic with her chevron blanket. Who would put red and pink together with ...brownish and greyish? And yet the colours and stitch patterns mellow together, making the photo jump out from the rest.

See what can be done?

There's no reason to think you can't make a beautiful item because you don't have great yarn. Sure, working with Vinnis, I Love Yarn, Malabrigo, Rowan makes it a lot easier, but you can also get by with what you can find at the local co-op or supermarket.

I was so happy to see these three and the other entries. And all 20 will make a difference as part of the Make A Difference charity, to be distributed come Winter 2016.

Well done ladies, be proud! And enjoy your gifts packs :-)

(Thank you to Yarn in a Barn, Dalena White of Cape Wools SA, Brilliant Mommy for sponsoring some prices, as well as yarn donors!)

Ooooh, I can sometimes fly right away with an idea, just to burn out five minutes later or get lazy, which is not a good thing.

So I was watching the Rustic Lace frenzy, finding most of the squares utterly beautiful, but in no real need to make one myself (just finished my summer throw in a large lacy square). But then...then Charlotta (Instagram: intheyarngarden) accidentally made a triangle and when THAT turned up in my Instagram feed, I could feel gears in my head shifting and clicking and in a mad rush (FOMO, anyone? :-D ) I proceeded to dig out the natural Moya that was earmarked for clothes hangers and let rip, hook flying.

Until I had two or so complete. First the squares.

Totally different look in one colour!

It's still very pretty, but looks totally different. And I might have been a bit irritated by the little piece of yarn that was super twisted (look, there at half past six in the photo), but couldn't be bothered to cut, frog, join up again, or start from scratch. Noooo.

Looking beautiful in the early morning light.

To divert the quickly waning attention span, I diverted to triangles. (Did I mention that I made the exact same mistake at my first take on the square? But that mistake doesn't give you a relaxed, flat triangle, so I wanted to plan it properly. )

Out with the pen and paper.

Frogging and scribbling

I have no intentions of ever coming up with a new crochet pattern for anything, so I literally just wrote the whole pattern out, and estimated possible changes, which would include a cluster or two less here, and some chains extra there, then tried it out and tried again and again and again and again until I got a reasonably flat triangle.

There.

Two triangles on the block.

I figured I'd need three squares and 3 triangles to make up a little mock curtain for one window in our bathroom. To my dismay, it might have had to be four of each. So I was getting a bit impatient with myself, as I still had to figure out how to join these, and then how to hang it!

It was around this time that I did a quick, exploratory stroll through a new favourite second had shop and lo and behold, there it was! A crochet piece, by the look of it the perfect size (to the millimeter it was!), just ready for me to hang in the window.

It was a no-brainer.

Up it went! Sommer with cup hooks onto the wooden frame.

Since I was so far with the Rustic Laces (3 each, then) I had to come up with a Plan A for Alternative, which I thought would be the little window in the guest loo.

Helloooo - there's a Roman blind already :-0

I promptly diverted again and started on a long-anticipated shawl. Then it came to me...Plan B for Buggered...the window in my little craft storage nook upstairs...but I would need 5 of each.

Stay tuned.

There's a Google-pot full of info on and versions of the Rustic Lace Square, but here's the beautiful blanket that Magda Pigtails made, and she in turn got the idea from Cornel's blanket at HalloHart.

On Instagram, there are 1210 posts of #rusticlacesquare as I write.

Moya Yarns was so kind to send me another sample pack - this time the supersoft Bulky Plush.

Did I mention that it is soft?

Baby-bottom-cotton-ball-supersoft.

I had to make something small (because of the thickness, there are not too many meters on a cake!). The softness would most likely indicate something for a baby - a beanie, soft blanket or playmat, what about lounging slippers for myself?

But

There was a project lurking in the depths of my cupboard, wooden hangers waiting oh, so patiently to be covered, and I thought that this new bulky yarn would do that in a jiffy.

With a yarn this thick, I thought a plain and simple cover would be best. It wouldn't even need padding underneath!

Ten stitches would do it

It was an easy-peasy project, superquick if you wanted to throw in into MIL's birthbay parcel in a few days!

First one done

I was a bit undecided about the joining - the first one was simply crochet together with SC. Then I didn't like the ridge so much and thought I'd sew the rest together.

Yeah.

I don't possess a needle thick enough to carry that yarn.

Plus, I didn't leave a tail long enough to do that!
#whatwasIthinking

But in some or other way the covers were fitted and joined, embroidery yarn might have been involved. I decided to leave the metal hooks uncovered - haven't had much joy with the plastic piping available and didn't want to faff with twisting and glueing yarn around the hook. Simpler is anyways better, don'tya think?

Happy birthday, MIL!

I really enjoyed working with the Moya Bulky Plush. Bear with my limited knowledge of yarn characteristics - but the brushed cotton-like texture makes it a joy, no slipping of yarn! It worked up really quick. My nr 6 hook might not have been the best though - I wanted a dense finish, but in retrospect the nr 7 would have look better.

All in all, I'm a happy hooker and found this yarn absolutely perfect for clothes hangers. No slipping of blouses off these babies, and no funny marks on a thin cardigan! There are some ladies who started out on blankets with the bulky plush and I really look forward to see those.

Thank you Hester and Team Moya :-)

The last couple of years I've been snapping away on our hunting trips, on the beach, in the veld, and noticed a recurring theme...

...starting with this rock rose in the Free State

The next year when we visited, I noticed it on the aloe as well:

And the thorny cactus thingey on the stoep

(sorry...not into the cactus trend, I don't know the name :-D

But it's not a new thing. Remember my Klein Karoo stool cover from this photo?

Can you see it now?

The soft greyish green tipped with pinks?

I kept seeing it everywhere.

Outside a beach house at Gourits:

In the Montagu Pass:

My best ever favourite flower in the Garden Route Botanical Garden:

(look at the stem as well!)

These tiny flowers in the Groot Swartberg near De Rust:

There's no better place for a workshop in colour combination than your nearest outdoors.

So. I wanted to make a shawl (having never ever before worn or made a triangular shawl). It would be greenish and the only colour it could ever be is Vinnis Nikkim Khaki. Nothing else. As for the pink tips, I was thinking about a hot pink lacy or tiny tiny edge...then various other pinks came to mind when I started looking through my stash. In the end I used a softer pink from Elle Premier Cotton.

As for the pattern, I wanted to hook up a lacy shawl, not too difficult, not too holey and the Elise shawl was the obvious one that ticked all the boxes.

I had a whole pile of Khaki squares from trying out patterns for my summer throw and I re-used most of these, so I have no idea of how much yarn went into it!

Done!

I love how the green comes alive due to the hand dyeing.

I started the lacy edge off a diagram from a website in a language that I can't even decipher; it's not Russian, it could be anything. After the first row I winged it on my own.

Unblocked I thought it might be too dense:
(hanging off the kitchen counter, held in place by salt & pepper, sugar pots :-D )

It could have done with a severe block, buuuuut the "neckline" part pulled too tight. Aaaaand I realised almost 75% of the way through that I not making the tr in the middle of the cluster, but a dc...

So. After a light block, it came out really pretty, but I would love to see it more opened up.

I was surprised by how comfortable a triangle sits, and would love a wider one, with longer wings. Therefor, I'm already onto V.2, with the correct cluster, and a slight modification to try and get the wings longer! This green one is now off to Maak 'n Verskil who also runs a project with Prayer Shawls for cancer patients. I though this would be quite fitting, as I completed the shawl during Breast Cancer Awareness month, and the pink ties in with that, while the green would refer to my mom, a Klein Karoo girl, whom we lost to breast cancer 16 years ago.

All the while I'm thinking what I would name this shawl - it should be my Dolly shawl then.

For her :-)

And yeay! V.2 of the Elise Shawl is done.

It is huge. It is half a blanket. It is a triangular blanket.

Which is what I wanted - something to permanently leave in the car for those days when you spend 2-3 hours between school and judo, hurrying up and waiting for the half-hours between the beginnings and endings of the boys' extra-murals and suddenly, as it does here, it turns cold.

And you have nothing.

But now, now I can get my huge Elise Shawl in the car and wrap myself in it.

This thing gobbled up 626 g of Lollipop Vezuvo Aran (a very, very nice acrylic. I am a total sucker for natural yarns, but when I have something i the colour thath I want , and it is manmade, but the similar in wool/tweed costs almost 9 times that much...and you have to factor in the 626g...then I happily use the acrylic. If and when a real wool in this colour with this one black fibre rocks up, and it doesn't cost R92/50g, then we can talk).

It also really hurt my arm. I'm using an obscene amount of Reparil gel on from the shoulder right past my elbow, and I go to sleep while Mr Diclofenac does its thing :-0

That happens when I work too much, too long over a short period of time!

On Instagram I shared some photos of Where I Worked, because it went Everywhere with me:

Starting life at the dojo

Growing a bit at the wheel-alignment center

(And here Blogger is doing That Thing it sometimes does, hence the huge space...)

It went on a road trip to Oudtshoorn, where it spent some time on the dashboard of the car, on a very hot day...

...resulting in a custom grip on my Prym 6

My MIL took one look at the pattern and said she has something similar.

Wouldyabelieveit?!

Made by my husband's grandmother when MIL was a young 17, sometime around the early '60s

There's a tiny difference - 6DCs in the cluster where the Elise has 5, but that is about all.

And guess what? Just a couple of days later, I spotted this lady at the entrance to the veggie shop. I chatted her up right there to take a look and showed her photos of mine.

She said she would really like a purple one

As it is acrylic, I couldn't really block, plus it is too big to try and steam block, so I just rinsed the shawl and hung it out to dry, pegged in a straight line.

There were so many questions about "what is it there at the bottom point of the shawl??"
It's my supersize pegs, bought at the R5 shop and usually used to peg jeans :-) Here it added weight to pull the point down, without stretching it too much.

I can't wait to try this shawl out. It's ready, in the car. But, as luck would have it, we've just come through the hottest October ever recorded in South Africa - and on the rainy days this week, we weren't out in the cold.

PS - Behind the scenes - this is what it really looked like :-D

-0-

-0-

-0-

It's already dark outside when my son takes a quick shot so I can show my sis!

I take my pose in front of the stationary cupboard in the homework corner, still sporting my beach shorts of earlier that afternoon.

:-)

Ha ha!!

Ahem

Yeees, it had to happen, I can pretend all I want BUT.

I was Very Happy with my Elise Shawl V2.

Even though acrylic, the Lollipop worked very nicely, it looked great, I was so happy with the result and i already had a short opportunity to wear it as intended.

Buuuut somewhere deep inside, I was still conjuring up pictures...wow, it would have been lovely if I could have made it with Rowan Tweed. That was even before I saw Gotland yarn, and then WYS's Bluefaced Leicester...I stopped surfing right there (birthday lists...birthday angels...). Locally we have Nurturing Fibers, of which I ordered, but the colour Driftwood was a bit different than I expected - I will use it for another long-since-earmarked pattern).

In the end, the answer was right here all the time (can you here Survivor belting it out in the background??).

An ooooold favourite.

Right here, in the stash.

Not one or two balls...

16.

SIXTEEN.

16 x 50g = 800g

Easily more than I have used. Easily enough for another go at this pattern.

Perfect colour and texture for this pattern.

Of course! What else? Colour Clouds.

I've already started working.

We're not talking about any other WIPS, noooo, especially not the two that have to be finished within two weeks...

MIL claimed Elise V2 :-)

It's the end of the school year (Yeayyyy!!) and I like giving a small gift to my son's teachers in their Foundation Phase years. Last year I went a bit wild and crocheted SEVEN gifts - but then we were leaving the preschool after six beautiful years.

My youngest started gr 1 and he had a lovely teacher. Mrs S is the old-fashioned type you want your child to have in their first year of schooling, properly teaching them their ABC's and counting, bonds and phonics, and he's learnt and grown really well under her guidance.

I took note through the year that she is a scarf-wearing women.

You know, the type we hookers like.

And blue is her colour.

And luckily I met Yuli this year, and got to know her very beautiful pattern named the Thank You Scarf...so it was just the matter of finding the right blue, which came in the form of Vinnis Colours Serina in Pale Sky.

Bought the Pale Sky beauties en route to our Get Hooked! get-together atThe Blue Shed

With all the beautiful blues available in Vinni's range, I don't think there's a prettier one than Pale Sky! It is just darn difficult to photograph, because just as with the real sky, the colour seems to keep changing.

The Thank You Scarf is a pretty, easy pattern, and came out perfectly with my nr 4 hook.

I could easily sit and hook while watching the fun of learning-to-sail

My yarn ran out just one row short of a full repeat, but I left it at that as it was also a natural end.

The yarn's softness and my loose tension resulted in a light, softer-that-soft scarf that I would have loved to keep!

Trying it on quickly

The motif blocked our beautifully. I would love to have one myself! I think I might make a five motif repeat then.

And then it was done and time to wrap it up.

(I posted this photo on my IG feed - where I took my photos of Anything On A Hanger :-)
I remove the bottom portrait, hang my item from the nail, get as close as possible while still keep the top portrait and door out of the frame - and that's my backdrop!)

My little one proudly delivered, together with the five roses and packet of Marie biscuits he insisted on ;-)

Aaaaaw

Happy Christmas, mam!

After nine long weeks of enforced hooky rest, the result of intense Elise Shawl-hooking, there are small signs of a recovering shoulder/elbow. Let me not count my yarn balls too quickly, though!

So I'm slowly picking up work again, and first priority is my little one's Tommie-blanket, a summer throw for his bedroom. Just a few rows at a time, so as not to overwork the fragile right arm ;-)

One row, and another...

Immediately I was asked about my random colours, and as usual, it is not random. This Gemini mos wants randomised order (see the Project Bohemia summer throw).

First off, I'm using all my summery yarn stash: Vinnis Nikkim/Bambi/Serina, I Love yarn - Imagine, Sublime Egyptian Cotton, Rico Baby Cotton, Unlabeled Yarn That I Can't Identify etc...

The base colour is Vinnis Bambi "Blue-Gray", which you'll see in every third row. Now...

I started with Base.

Then

Warm - Neutral - Cool
Base
Cool - Navy - Warm

Base
Warm - Neutral - Cool
Base
Cool - Navy - Warm

...ad infinitum until The End.

(I might have switched some around resulting in Warm - Navy - Cool, but it's not the end of the world)

But...Red is obvious, so it must be balanced and every 8th row is thus Red.

Navy is also semi-obvious and therefor every 8th row...balancing with the Neutral, you see :-)

And although Yellow is not strictly every 8th, it is more or less.

I'm not losing my mind, I'm keeping it together and furiously counting rows and colours! And the randomness will be balanced and keep my colour-OCDness happy.

Off I go, I hear a cocktail being mixed in the kitchen ;-)

It is a very well known fact in my crochet group that I Absolutely Do Not Like any form of toilet crochet.

Not toilet seat covers, not lid covers, not matching sets covering each and every object in the bathroom, not those dolls with their Spanish dresses covering a toilet roll, nothing. I do not promote it, when it appears I cower in a corner until it has moved down the Timeline, and otherwise I try to promote beautiful, modern crochet.
(Yes...I know, but - my group, my taste etc.)

But then I made this:

Seems there's an elf about...

I know!! Bless my soul, a toilet roll cover In My Own Guest Loo!!

Okay, so I saw similar somewhere on the web, browsed past, but obviously it stuck in the back of my mind although I never went back, and I was putting up Christmas decorations all over the house, inside and out, and I thought, what the heck, let me ride this idea and make Prettier Toilet Crochet.

Start with...a starting chain

Didn't have the pattern link, so I had to wing it. Starting out with a base chain that would ensure a semi-snug fit around my roll of toilet paper. Single crochet from there. I hooked quite a wide band of white, as I want to fold it over resembling a furry edge to the hat.

Onwards with the hat

Once I though it would be wide enough to double over, I continued with red, until as least a few rows taller than the toilet roll.

Now I had to shape this thing, with no idea how. Some decreasing of stitches had to be done, and the first attempt (reducing one stitch every second row) left me with a veeeeeeery long, pointy hat - no good. A decrease in every row resulted in a hat too short. So in the end...it was every one-and-three-quarters of a row. #exasperated

As I was going in the round as per amigurumi and not really counting, I marked the last spot with white, more or less went one and three quarters around before decreasing again...

White yarn marks the last spot

...until it was done and I folded over the white and then had to do something to the pointy bit, and I didn't want to make a pompom, when happily these appeared in a kitchen drawer of all places:

Jingle Bells :-)

And off the hat went, to spend Christmas in the guest loo, with all kinds of funny and quirky and pretty, Anneke's doily rug and my mom's potty (for used hand towels), my poetry collection and cartoons, a 1994 voter's letter and some pretty pictures, my gran's frame repainted and a Moroccan wire shelf.

That's a beaded wire scorpion on the floor.

Toilet crochet, but prettier

Until the next project!

Which might be green and orange...roll on Paddy Day?

I was whining a bit today, and contemplating how to justify the purchase of yet another crochet book, when I already have a good twenty or so on the shelf and a WIP list of a mile. So I went back to the bookstore, for a Proper Second Look, after yesterday's Quick First Browse ... and before I knew, I was already in the coffee shop (WIP to hand) and reading it like a novel.

Behold - Hooked on Mandalas by Haafner Linnsen:
(this is the South African title. In the UK and US it was published as "Mandalas to Crochet"

I was testing another mandala - beautiful - and that's my Ilona Heritage Hook from Yarn in a Barn :-)
And my cappo got cold

Doilies and mandalas have had a tremendous increase in popularity over the last couple of years. it is being coloured in and crocheted and turned into rugs and is currently the topic of a large project #MandalasforMarinke, by Kathryn Vercillo in remembrance of crochet blogger Wink. This book ties in perfectly with the current trend.

If you crochet and you are online, you know about Haafner, author of the blog By Haafner, she of the beautiful retro pastel colours, the popcorn blanket and the doilie installations on the wall. Thirty of those doilies have now made it into this utterly beautiful book.

Haafner was trained in cultural history and art and this is evident in her introduction where she gives a short background to her crochet approach as well as the history and origin of mandalas.

The books starts off with a very useful "Before you begin" section. This includes doubles pages of

* Yarns*

Comparing the same pattern in different yarns and hook sizes with the photos in 50% of actual size and the hooks at full size. How useful is that?

*Colour me happy*

Some advice on colour schemes and combinations, again comparing different versions of the same pattern.

*Read this first*

DO. Because that's what grabbed me. This section covers some tips on starting, joining and reading the charts, including that only a section of each chart is coloured - meaning that you don't have to keep your wits together as the Where You Are in this diagram...you only need to focus on the coloured section that makes up the main motif, while against the context of the whole circle. Clever!

*How to crochet the perfect mandala*

Starting seamlessly and joining invisibly. Increasing rows and how to keep your circles flat. Blocking.

*Crochet refresher course*

A couple of pages with very clear illustrations on the basics of crochet stitches, how to make those front and double posts, and then...so, so useful: standing stitches, joining with a needle, and weaving in ends...clever tips to make starts, joins and ends invisible.

By now I was sold, but then the colour photos started. Beautiful, clear pictures of her work.
I want to make all the mandalas. Okay, I probably won't, but I could see placemats, hot pads, a rug or two, cushion covers ...(and that was before I got to the project pages).

I see a protea, or a pebble dropping in a pond

Each pattern stands alone with a large, clear photo and the diagram and instructions on a white page with no embellishments or distractions (very important, book authors and layout artists!). On the pattern page you'll find a sentence or two about the pattern, a recommended hook size and final size (I assume when done with DK according to the yarns used).

After the pattern section, Haafner included five beautiful border patterns that could suit each of the mandalas in the book.

The Grace border which I'm immediately going to use on a beanie!

And as a bonus - some projects to make with your mandala. Choose from a boho bag, hotpad, tablemat, summer scarf, flowery lap blanket, rug and a hexagon blanket.

The book ends with a list of symbols and abbreviations, as well as a comparison between UK and US stitches.

This is Haafner's first book and I really hope for another. It is pretty, well laid out, the patterns are written clearly and simply and the look is crisp and clean. I love it, easily bought it and happily recommend it.

Also find Haafner on Instagram and Ravelry.

Hooked on Mandalas is a Quarto book, published by Struik Lifestyle 2016 with ISBN 978-1-43230-657-1

So how did I justify it?
I love books. I have a lot of them. I read and re-read them. And one day, when the bookshelves really spill over, I'll clear out and again donate some to the library. But first I want to make all the mandalas :-D

Instead of completing my own Winter Blanket, or my boy's Summer Throw, or any of the 5/6/7 various shawls/cowls/tryouts currently on the hook elsewhere in the house, I have been playing around on Moldiv, mosaic'ing my new Tiles Blanket WIP...oh ja, another new one :-D

There's been quite a few posts by Ons Hekel members the last couple of weeks, of beautiful tile floors, and similar comes by on Instagram almost on a daily basis (oh my soul, Anneke alerted me to THIS: I Have This Thing With Floors)and even on my dusty, sadly neglected Pinterest board there were tiles, mosaics, floors, rags...so I snapped to attention and declared it Time To Crochet A Tile Floor and luckily there's enough stash, I didn't even have to buy more.

I looked at many, many photos - on Ons Hekel, on IG, on my Pinterest, on Pinterest in general, in magazines (it's a dark vortex, I tell ya) and then just printed these two to come up with a basis for colour choices. I didn't even try to come up with exact matches, but I thought something lacy-ish would work. Quickly it was a mad rush through through possible patterns, and goodness knows, there's enough books here and in the end I decided on Jan Eaton's Croydon Square, yeehaaa which is working fine! (Although the well-known Rustic Lace Square should work beautifully, as well as the Sorbet & Lace Square).

Match this. Colourwise. And cross fingers it will work out.

I started out with 6 or 7 colours in different sequences and combinations - believe me, I hooked and frogged and hooked and frogged this square so many times, discarding and adding and simplifying until I ended up with four colours.

Here's my yarn (and an unblocked square):

Mist (light blue), Pepper (greenish grey), Ivory (white) and Ruby (red)

All four of these colours have been tried out in all possible positions, but this one looked best:

This be the tile

Blocking acrylic is at best not a real option, but I did block it on a frame and steamed it quite thoroughly, relaxing those strands and getting it more or less flat and square.

And then I wondered "but will it work???", hence the above mosaic, and since it prove to be a hit on Ons Hekel, I took that same mosaic'd photo and mosaic'd it further to see a possible blanket...

Aaaah...gotta love cellphone apps!

Does it look like a tiled floor?

So this will be my blankie, albeit it a bit smaller. I'll be making a lapghan to donate again to the Maak 'n Verskil group (Make A Difference) who distributes blankets to the elderly, children, disabled or general people in need.

Edge. What edging should I use?

But first, at least 29 more squares.

Time flies, eh, when...

a) you're having fun

b) but actually get busier with the boys at school

c) and really shut down most everything while the sisi is visiting here from Eire

d) and then it's crunch time when the man of the house does Ironman (2h20min improvement!) and a week later the 361 MTB Challenge (finished in 27h30min) so we all just crash for a while

e) but actually after 18 months you're still not totally in love with the Mac (So I don't work on it every day0

:-P

f) AND: Inflamed labrum. Tennis elbow. Pinched nerve. Trigger finger. All On The Same Arm.

So everything is happening very slowly here. And the attention span is also prone to jumping all over the place, therefor some crossing to the Dark Side happened (that helped while nursing all the injuries).

Some WIP's, longer and shorter term...

The first ever meant-to-be-a-blanket!

When I first learnt to crochet, way back in 2012 (2011?), I immediately wanted to make the Vintage Stripe Blanket. Having no idea of yarn type, thickness, quality, hook sizes, stitches, nothing. The only Known here, is that I used some Elle Rustica, and started with a chain. Whatever combination of stitches I thought was making, no one will know. And then I realised the edge was so uneven that ragged did not really describe it :-D

SO - swiftly abandoned, but not destroyed. I firmly believed that it could be saved in the form of a cushion cover, or wrap (for a while) or poncho (for a while) and it wil now be transformed into the final version of...a poncho! And might get an extra edge. Can't get rid of it.

#memories

Tiles Blanket

This is a recent starter - blanket inspired by tiles...ooh, haven't done a thing since my previous post.

#horror

Baerenwolle Linus Scarf

This is actually my third Linus! My sis gave me this beautiful Baerenwolle red yarn and it's all rolled and ready, but I'm stopping and starting and stopping and starting while I should be doing this with my eyes closed.
#alwayshopeful

A cycle beanie

Black yarn. Black yarn should be banned. One should have to apply in triplicate before starting anything in black yarn! This is for a cycling friend who needs something thin underneath her helmet for those cold days, hence Thin Black Sock Yarn.

I've been working on/avoiding this for Almost A Year.

#willifinishthis

A Japanese Scarf

Beautiful yarn (Nurturing Fibres in Driftwood), beautiful pattern...fussy pattern.
#yarnmightgointoblanket

Malabrigo Linus Scarf

Oh, what a JOY it is to work with Malabrigo, even in sock yarn, and this colourway (Zarzamora) might just be one of the most beautiful I've set eyes on! This Linus Scarf took a long time, because of the thin yarn, but I love, love love it. Just needs a small crochet border, and then I'm ready for the cold weather that just descended.

#absolutefavourite

Sampler Shawl

It's upside down. Nothing in this world will rotate the photo. This is al beautiful, simple pattern, and in Vinnis Nikkim and some I Love Yarn, it will feel like a hug around my shoulders. it's also my current WIP, whilst ignoring the others :-D
#workingreallyhardonitthough

There were/are others.

There's an Elise Shawl V3 (don't know where!). But that's where the injuries started, with V1. And there's been a cowl, and a bunny beanie that became a Yoda beanie (for that matter, some more beanies), another Linus Scarf, ah, a Graceful Shells Cowl that was finished (photos still downloading).

I'll catch up. It's winter holidays soon. Let's just get through the Gr 6 test cycle, eh?

At last, at last, a final post about the Summer Throw, that has actually been completed so long ago and is in use on the bed, even as a winter throw, but oh, the shame...because there was still more than a few ffffrafels* to work away...

But luckily I have a wonderful aunt, who came to visit, and she loves helping out with predicaments like these, and she Sat Down and Worked All The Ends Away.

I have shown most of the blanket before, but here's some more :-)

Sometimes it's folded on my trousseau kist, and Chloe Cat** wil curl himself up on the softness.

Most often it lies in a crumpled pile on the bed, after one or both of the boys came through our room

I've long stopped trying to straighten it.

It's just easier leaving it on a friendly, crumpled heap.

...because this lasts only a few second for the purpose of this photo.

...then I fold it back to start folding laundry, and the boys come in, and start jumping/playing...and off we go again :-)

Here's some of the history, since this throw has been coming a loooong time:

First, I did it the proper way and made a mock-up, a trial version, to get the colour patterns right.

Then, over some months, I hooked furiously, then let it lie, then planned a house, then moved across the country, hooking in between, and at some stage when it was begin enough, started using it, with fffrafels all over the place and no edge.

Here I explained my colour placement.

And now it's done, with unedited photos (I forgot) at various light levels and what not, but at least it's on the bed.

The pattern was the Sorbet & Lace Square in the Ideas Crochet magazine available on Zinio.

The yarn was the lovely 10 ply Colours of Grace Magdalene, sadly discontinued, but soon to be followed with something new...

I think I used a 4.5 hook...but there might have been a 4 and 5 appearing sporadically...

The edge - Edge nr 22 from Around the Corner - Crochet Borders by Edie Eckman

*fffrafels = those ends. Or where you joined yarn. Anything that needs to be worked away. "Frays", in Afrikaans it's "rafels",, but then one becomes a bit bit agitated and adjectives are added...

***Chloe Cat = Chloe is actually a male, but when he arrived at the mine where he worked as a Mouse Catcher, it was thought that he was a she. Which he wasn't. When the mine closed, all the cats had to be re-homed, and my resident geologist chose Chloe, whom then flew 1500 km to his new home, and might forever still be address as "she", even thought Chloe O'Reilly is "he".

This whole winter I longed for a cowl around my neck.

Polo-necked sweaters just don't work anymore, and although there's a neat basket full of various types of scarves, I. Wanted. A. Cowl.

A twistie cowl, almost à la Crochet in Paternoster.

A double cowl to go around my neck twice.

A snug enough cowl that would not sag down to my breastbone, but actually cover my neck and throat.

Obviously there were many starts and stops and hiccups , but then I found the Kartopu Ketenli in the yarn shop...

20% wool, 10% linen, 70% acrylic

I totally love the look of this yarn, that is also available in a handful of other colours, but the black, oh, the black is mine, with the specks of whitish yarn, and it is soft enough to go near one's neck...

Clearly the Ninja likes it as well. No knitting on the bed while the cat's also snuggling there.

Ah - make that "both cats".

Chloe is just too cool to pretend to want to play with yarn

Okay so, when knitting, I actually only like moss stitch. Stockinette is beautiful, especially with a variegated yarn, but the sides curl. And garter is easy peasy (and would actually also have worked with this), but. Moss is my favourite. Totally love the texture.

Here's my moss.

The knitting is straight forward. I cast on stitches until I thought it was wide enough, knitted until it was long enough to wrap double around my neck, twisted in and slipstitched the ends together. Then I thought I'd like to try a lacy pattern around the edge, just to see what it would look like...a small one.

All done and edged

Here's the lacy border - #115 from "Around the Corner - Crochet Borders" by Edie Eckman. I did make a slight change and used SC instead of DC in the first round.

The border is small enough not to be bothersome, but you can see it :-)

Happiness!

It looks quite snug, but it's not tight, and relaxes through the day. Lessons learnt from cowls past ;-)

And it still is cold enough that I could wear it this week, and there's a promise of a cold weekend coming.

Lacy twisty cowl

Meanwhile, beanies

A visit down the road

More beanies, blanket work and new yarn

Done! A Cheap & Cheerful Blanket

A Tommie Blanket

Roadtrippin' and small things spotted

Cheap & Cheerful Winners

RusticLazyDaisie

What I made with Moya Bulky Plush

My take on the Elise-shawl

Elise shawl V.2

Elise Shawl V2.1...yeaaaaah

A "Thank You" Scarf for Mrs S

On the hook, at last, and randomising stripes

When Santa's helper left his hat

Get this book - Hooked on Mandalas/Mandalas to Crochet

Playing with my Tiles-WIP

Catching up and taking stock

At last, a Summer Throw Completed

A dark-side cowl