I was woken from my beauty sleep very early today!  7.50am!!  It was still dark!  A very jolly post man arrived on my doorstep with this box for me:

While I was very excited, it was very early for me and I was barely awake.  I was very good and put it down and went back to bed.  But when I got up again I had a real treat!

This box contains all the yarn for the Jane Crowfoot Crochet Club 2011 (from now on called the Crochet Club or CC as its too much to type every time!).  Want to see what’s inside?  Look away now if you’re in the Club, so to speak, and don’t want to spoil the surprise if you haven’t received your box yet…

How gorgeous is all that yummy, scrummy yarn?  What gorgeous colours?  How much crochet?  What have I taken on? 

I’ll post more pictures of the yarn as things go along, but was just so excited about opening the box and sharing the contents!

Yarn Monster from toddtreece on Vimeo.

The knitters and crocheteers amongst us could probably be called yarn monsters at the rate we can get through it!  But this is a true yarn monster.  The good thing about it though is that the yarn goes in one end and out the other in a lovely ball!!  Now that’s a monster that there’s no need to be scared of! 
I first saw this on Union Bridge via Craftzine

I have now completed 5 full rounds of each colour in the growing big happy granny stripe blanket!  I knew the first bundle of yarn I had wouldn’t be enough for the size of blanket I wanted so ages ago I bought a second set!

I still have a little of each colour left from each ball but don’t want to change yarn half way through the next 19 rows, so I am starting the new balls of yarn at the start of each row when I would normally change colour.  The remainders of some of the balls have already been used for the Party Ring Scarf I made for my niece.

The blanket is going to have 7 sets of each colourrepeat overall and with the border I intend to put on I expect to have used about one and a half balls of each colour. 

Now that I’m stuck into this big project again I am really, really enjoying it.  I’ve spent all the run up to Christmas working on small projects and gifts which was lovely but I do think there’s a lot to be said for something so big and its somehow even more rewarding, particularly because it is for me to keep and use when it’s finished.

I have really enjoyed seeing the blankets like this that others have made on flickr and how the different colour orders used make such a difference.  There are lots of fantastic colourful crochet groups on there.  Here’s a couple to get you started – go have a look!

Attic 24 Granny Stripe Group

Vintage Stripe Blanket Group

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: