My ball of Noro yarn

A few months ago, my Mum found a beautiful yarn store in Hobart, down in Tasmania. She bought me this lovely ball of Noro:

Isn't it pretty? I don't have the label anymore (I'm sure it's around here somewhere in a box, but I moved since I got given the ball and I have NO idea where it is!) but it's a ball of Noro with silk and cotton. It feels sturdy but a little silky.

And I have no idea what to do with it.

I thought I'd make a pair of gloves, since it's quite a fine ply (4ply). But I've been working on that other pair of gloves. Then I saw this post:

Japanese flowers and tutorial by Claire from My Craft Little Moments.

She points out how she loves the work by Sophie Digard:

And saw scarves like these in Selfridges:

Lovely, huh.

Anyway, Claire has written (and photographed) out a little tutorial for us to make our own Japanese Flowers and that's what I'm currently doing with my Noro. Making Japanese Flowers that I'll join together and make into a nice little scarf. I'll throw you an update later in the week after I've completed some of the flowers and have something to show you :)

Some Flowers...

My Mum likes sending my things she finds in magazines. I like getting letters, so she's always sending across articles about the town I live in (becoming quite a little foodie town & it's a popular town to write articles about), and every now and then something arty. This week she sent me something great: it's a single page from a Better Homes & Garden magazine. I've since discovered it's from June 2009, and it's a "Field of Flowers" crocheted rug, made up of, you guessed it, flowers. No, really!

SarahLondon talked about it on her blog: "Field of Crocheted Flowers" back in 2009.

(picture from http://sarahlondon.wordpress.com/ )

Anyway, I worked up two different versions of the flower pattern in two different yarns.

Cute, huh.

This one's using Moda Vera Snuggle, 8ply, with a 4mm hook. 

This on'e using Moda Vera Marvel, 5ply I believe, with a 4mm hook.

The flowers themselves do curl slightly, which actually really works with a decorative flower.

I'd like to make a few more and cover a cushion. Don't think I could do a whole rug. The rug needs 480 flowers, which uses 60 balls of the yarn she uses in the project. O.O That's a LOT of flowers. 

Flower to go with your cowl

Remember the cowl I made on the weekend?

I made a flower to go with it :)

 

Cute, huh :)

Block #64: Marigold v3

Another Marigold from Jan Eaton's 200 Blocks..

A cute little garden square!

It really is kinda cute, isn't it :)

Block #63: Marigold v2

From Jan Eaton's 200 Squares...

Block #210: Marigold v2

Well, this is nice too :) Finished this up on the train trip home. Think I might like the centre of the flower with the deeper blue, and migrate the other colours around a little bit.

Block #62: Marigold

From Jan Eaton's 200 Crochet Blocks...

Block #209: Marigold (first version)

Well this was a surprise. I was halfway through the cream border around the flower when I began to think the pattern was a bit familiar. And sure enough, it's very similar to Block 13 of the Krista Spot-Sampler rug! I haven't actually gotten to week 13's square yet, which is why it took me until I'd just about finished it before I realised how similar it was. Check out Kim's version:

Are you can see, it's missing one of the dc border rounds, and the middle flower has a centre, is one round of petals less, and the flowers are made up out of 6 petals, not 8.

But anyway, the cream border around the flower is the same, which is what made me think "Hmmm.

Not too bad a square to work up actually.

Oh flower why have you five petals...

Yesterday, I made a flower.




I really really like making three dimensional crochet patterns.




I'm thinking on day I'll be brave enough to try an Amigurumi! But not today.




Why not today? Well this cute little flower, is meant to have six petals. So why, oh gorgeous little flower, do you have only five???

It's the start of the Week 3 square for the Spotlight rug. Apparently it's caused quite a kerfuffle. Spotlight aren't putting up any helpful instructions, so it's up to the crocheter to figure out how the pattern goes. Which is fine for experienced hookers (haha, get your mind out of the gutter people!) but for those of us who don't have that much success in reading patterns and translating them immediately to how they're supposed to look, it's a challenge. This pattern, is a challenge. However, I love making flowers, so I was excited.

It took until round 3 for me to understand how it was supposed to start.

Round 1: make the chain loop to start.
Round 2: make 12 treble crochet stitches
Round 3: ch 2, htr, (dec2htr) 5 times, join with first stitch.

HA! Holy schamole, it's been so long since I've decreased a stitch, I had to go look it up. It's actually quite easy: you're turning two stitches into one, so for a row with 12 stitches in it, and you create two new ones at the start (with the ch 2, htr), it makes sense that you'd need to join together 2 htr into one to decrease down into around 6 stitches. BUT the pattern DOESN'T TELL YOU that's what you're trying to do.

And it turns out, I decreased apparently one too many times. Or maybe I didn't. I'm not quite sure what went wrong, except that I didn't make six petals a turn: I only made five.

So. I'm going to attempt, at some point this week, so demonstrate how each step looks at the end of it. I'm going to need luck!

For those who gave up at this block, pick it back up. What you need to understand to get through Round 3, is that you're drawing the little circle up, to make a dome :)

I also worked it back to front, which I'm not sure is right either. See how my petals seem to bend outwards, like a normal flowers' petals would? I think they're supposed to turn inwards instead, like a flower just beginning to bloom, instead of in full bloom.

When things don't go as expected

I picked up a magazine from the UK called "making", that had a crochet supplement free. Five crochet projects, one of which is called "Lily's Blanket". It is made up of many many separate star-flowers, and last night I decided to crochet one up.

I started with a type of yarn that is recommended - sock yarn - and an appropriate crochet hook - a 2.5mm. Waaayy too small to work this pattern with. Went to a bigger 8-ply yarn with a 4mm hook. This is the result.













I have put the star aside. The pattern was too compact for this yarn and the hook, just like the thinner yarn. It is curling up at the edges, and looks lumpy. Instead of getting overly frustrated with it, I just put it aside. I'll go back to it, but sometimes projects stumble, and it's better to have a res and work on something else for a while. It gives you time to think about how to tackle the stumling block. In this case, I'm going to continue with this yarn, but go to a size 5mm hook. The yarn might be the issue: it might be too big a ply, but with a bigger hook it should work in the star's favour. I could also go back to the thinner 2-ply sock yarn and try a 3.25/3.5/3.75mm hook.