Are you feeling that anticipation of a fresh, new year starting?  I’d love to say I was but I just can’t get it.  Maybe it will come, maybe not.  I’ve never been the biggest fan of new year.  I tend to think if things are to change then why wait until a landmark date.  The last few months have been pretty tough for me and my family, and will be for a few months yet, so maybe our fresh start will be later in the year.

But until then there is still plenty to do.  There’s always crochet and now that I have more time on my hands I will have more time to do the things I enjoy, which can’t be a bad thing, can it?

So what will I be doing with that time:

• I have signed up and paid up to be in Jane Crowfoot’s Crochet Club, starting later in January.  I am really excited about this and can’t wait to get started!

• I am going to finish the granny stripe blanket from which I took an unplanned sabbatical for several months.

• I want to get more involved in the crochet ‘community’ online.  I already read a lot of sites and blogs but intend to get more active and talkative.

• Speaking of blogging, I fully intend to have a more regular presence right here.  It’s my place in the crochet community after all, so I plan to use it!

• I have a Folksy shop account, and I might just open for business.  Being unemployed now I will be glad of any extra funds I can bring in.

• Oh, I will see if I can find time to get myself a job too!

I hope I see you somewhere along the way!   X X

So the snow continues!!!  I’m resigned now to just sitting this out at my sisters and enjoying the break.  Nothing’s going to happen fast and when the snow does stop falling it will probably take a while to get the local roads clear enough to get out.

In the meantime I am starting to put my time to good use.  As I showed briefly last time, I have started crocheting here.  I never travel far without some sort of crochet and a few days away from home usually involves lots of options so I’m not forced to work on something I don’t feel like.  So I have rustled up a pair of wristwarmer mittens!  Just the thing for this weather obviously!  Pity they are not thermal, but hey, who needs thermal when there’s pretty!!!

The snowball is an optional extra!

I used Austerman Step sock yarn (shade 133) that I bought a month or two ago for just this job!  I did start with a 3.5mm hook but just didn’t like it so frogged it and used a 4mm which I’m much happier with.  Isn’t it funny how 0.5mm makes all the difference!  There’s no pattern, just a rectangle of crochet to fit the length and width of your hand / wrist, slip stitch up the sides leaving a gap for your thumb, then add a picot edge!

This morning the kids wanted to bake so my sister rooted around in the storecupboard and improvised a little and we made choc chip cookies.  The main improvisation was that the chocolate chips came from a left over Halloween lollipop and come Christmas chocolate coins.  They went down a treat with a cuppa when the job was done.  Happy kids, happy grown ups: and well fed too!!

From this:

… to this!  All in the space of 30 minutes!

Now don’t say I’m not good to you!!!

Whenever I have posted about the circles scarf, I’ve had messages and emails asking how to get hold of the pattern since the magazine is no longer in the shops.  At first I really didn’t know: I hadn’t even considered it to be honest!  But having had the requests I have endeavoured to find out.

I hope everyone has understood that I can’t share the pattern here as it’s not mine to share!  And I wouldn’t be naughty with someone else’s copyright!

The pattern was originally published in Inside Crochet magazine, Issue 11, in the UK.  Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) this is now published monthly, which means that it is in the shops for a shorter time than when it was every 2 months.

The design and pattern for the Circles Scarf are by Linda Permann and she has written a post about it on her own blog found here!  Linda has said that in a few months she will be able to offer the pattern for sale as a pdf file, but in the meantime it is available in a digital copy of Inside Crochet magazine on Yudu.  It will cost £4.99 on Yudu, which is the same price as the paper copy of the magazine when it was published, so no loss buying it that way.

Just for info too, if you use the King Cole Riot yarn that I have use for two of these scarves now (in the picture above in shade 401) if you make the pattern up to 40 circles long, you should be able to complete one scarf with one ball of yarn using a 4mm hook.  This yarn has a lovely long colour change making it ideal for a striped effect along the length of this scarf.

I hope this is useful to anyone who has not been able to get a copy of the magazine while it was still in the shops.  If you love the pattern as much as I do then your £4.99 will be very well spent!

Good morning!  I’ve been up quite early this morning, which is reallynot like me!  I’m rather good at sleeping and particularly with everything that’s been going on lately my sleep has been quite disturbed so I have been catching up a bit during the day.  I am a great believer in sleep as a healer!

I just realised that my last few posts haven’t even mentioned crochet!  I still find it a little odd when I write about other things going on on my life and not primarily crafty things.  I’m not sure anyone’s interested in them either, but I do quite like sharing the odd random other bits and pieces.

So time to get back to the crochet!  I’ve not been sitting here twiddling my thumbs without having a crochet hook in them. 

I have been making some more apple coasters, in green this time:

I’ve also started another circle scarf.  This is really an amazing pattern, I love it so much!  This one is again in King Cole Riot, this time shade number 400 which is blue, grey, green shades and is destined for a present!

Now don’t be alarmed by the word I’m about to use!!!  I IRONED the first circles scarf!  Have you noticed in the picture of the new blue one that each little circle curls in on itself?  The first finished scarf curled up like this along its whole length which looked funny and meant the lovely circles couldn’t be seen properly. 

Ok, maybe I could have blocked it properly, but I’m very naughty and impatient.  I pressed it very lightly with the iron on wool setting, so it wasn’t too hot.  It worked a treat!  The circles have flattened and overall it has a lovely more lacy feel, which I really like.  Here are a couple of pics of the very final finished result:

After seeing the beginnings of this, my second, circle scarf, my friend suggested it should be the ‘Party Ring’  Scarf.  She’s so right!!!  Do you know what Party Rings are?  Those brightly coloured round biscuits?

This scarf is for my 6 year old niece for Christmas and the candy colours are so bright and jolly, I just love them.  And yes, they are like yummy party rings!

For this scarf instead of continuing at the end of each row and working the next half of the circle, I changed colour completely, giving really quite dramatic colour mixes.

Does it make you hungry?  My sister has asked me if I can make a hat to match it.  Thank goodness for Ravelry!!

I’ll be honest!  I’m not dancing a jig.  In fact, I’m quite sad and I left a little bit of my heart in Yorkshire this morning.

We did most of the packing and organising last night so this morning it was easier to just get up, have breakfast and enjoy our last few hours in the cottage.

I think even the sheep were sad to see us go as they didn’t even come near to say bon voyage!

So, home now!  I always have a monent of nerves before getting back home but everything was fine, thankfully.  We’ve just had a lazy afternoon and a snooze since getting home, not even put any washing on yet.

However, I thought some crochet would help cheer me up (doesn’t it always?).  I had an idea for a change to my new favourite circles scarf.  The way the pattern works you crochet one half of each circle in a row then the other half.  I thought of changing yarn for that second half, and here is the result!  I think it looks great and I plan to make it up overall of all different colours for each half of each row.

What do you think?