Block #70: Lemon Peel

So.. it's December 30th and there's only 1 more day in the year, so I think I can comfortably say that this is the last block for the year. And it's only #70. Still!

Block #70!
From Jan Eaton's 200 Crochet Blocks, # 52: Lemon Peel.

Ta da! It's worked up in Morris & Sons Avalon 4ply Pima cotton in "Granite". Which was BEAUTIFUL to work in. (So it should be at $8 pop! Available here through the Morris & Sons website  where it's currently on sale till tomorrow!)

It really is lovely to work in, which is why I bought a bit for an xmas gift to myself a few weeks ago.

The Lemon Peel pattern (simply a repeat of dc, tr, dr, tr) is actually really soothing to make up, and it works up very quickly.

Xmas stash!

Got some stash for xmas!

Got two - TWO!! - Crazy Zauberball's from my Aunt Lorraine, and at the same time I got myself the two balls of Morris & Sons variegated cotton, the stitch markers (with soft pointed ends, good for using in close work) and the measuring tape. (We had all met down in Melbourne, so yay!) Bought my grandma a ball of the Luxury wool yarn from Bendigo Woollen Mills, and it was such a good price I got myself one as well! And look at those BEAUTIFUL scissors!! My partner got me those :) So excited!!

I love the measuring tape. It's got the little hold button in the middle so whilst it's all kept neat and tidy in the little container, you can pull it out, push the button and the tape is held out of the container as far as you've kept it. I love it! I've had an old one for years now and the button doesn't work anymore. Is very frustrating, since I love the way it's a neat-and-tidy measuring tape, so I'm thrilled to have a new one :)

I have NO IDEA what to use the Crazy Zauberballs for though! They're magical as sock yarn, but I don't make socks!! I'm thinking a matching hat & scarf, to be honest. At least with one of them :) Any suggestions?

And how was YOUR Christmas?

Dishcloth yarn of choice

So, this weekend's Dishcloth Yarn of Choice is...

Panda Cotton Blend 8ply

Comes in such a nice variety of colours.

(you'll have to excuse the anemic look of the turquoise ball in the top right hand corner: I'm afraid it had already been sacrificed to the dishcloth!)

hmmmm yarn

Oh dear.

I dropped by Lincraft yesterday evening on the way home from work and bought MORE YARN.

I think I must admit I have a yarn buying problem. Then again, maybe not so much of a big problem: I don't buy 30 balls at once for a project, then go out a month later and buy another 30. That would be bad - I have NO WHERE to store all that!!

I bought three balls of an acrylic to work up the amigurumi I'm working on in a different ply & hook size. Then I bought a ball of CHUNKY yarn to experiment with (hoping to share the results later in the week). I also bought my first ball of Panda Magnum in a delicious plum colour. NO idea what I'll use it for, but it's just looooovely.

Zpagetti Yarn Review

So, I worked up the Zpagetti yarn that I showed you yesterday.

This was the HARDEST yarn I have EVER worked up. It was tough on my hands and tough to work.

I wanted to make a basket for my current project/s, which seem to take over the little table I have sitting next to the couch. It drives me nuts when I have all my crochet taking up the entire table space. I looked around for a pattern, then went to the Better Homes & Gardens magazine that I picked up at the library last weekend. Sure enough, they had a little table topper basket.

As you can see from the top picture, my basket didn't really work out like any of these. Perhaps the bigger one, but in the smaller size?

I wasn't impressed with the pattern either, but I'll talk about that later. Let's talk about the yarn.

OK so it's a material yarn, so it's going to be harder to work with than a traditional spun/acrylic yarn. But it was just so TOUGH! I wouldn't recommend this yarn to ANYONE who crochets with arthritis or 'sore hands'. It's just too hard to work. Perhaps if one could use the hook and then do more of the work as finger crochet?

This is my basket. For all the difficulty that I had working the basket, I actually really like it. It's a quick method to create a basket in a limited amount of time. It's very very sturdy.

 As you can see, it's holding two balls of cotton yarn (and my work, which is hiding!). At the moment, I have another full ball in there and another small remnant, and it's containing it all well.

I have this much yarn left over:

I could have gone around again and made the basket taller, but this is high enough for my purposes.

One of the real gripes I had with the Zpagetti yarn was where it was JOINED.

Look at that. This is a DARK BLUE yarn and they've joined it with white thread. Not impressed At ALL.

The pattern I was unhappy with as well.

They've constructed it in rounds, and it should be in spirals. Look at that ridge on the outside of the basket.





So, despite being relatively happy with the end result, I didn't enjoy working with the yarn, and I wasn't happy with the pattern. I'm glad that I bought some of the yarn at the show, since now that I've worked with it, I know that I wont be getting more to make a bigger project any time soon. Which is a shame, because I liked the look of the floor pebbles that were in the magazine that used this yarn, and I was interested in making this Cat Cave with it. It's sturdy enough, but I'd want it to be a bit softer.

Sorry Zpagetti :( It was lovely to meet you on Friday, but I didn't really enjoy working your yarn.

And that was the Craft Fair!

So, yesterday I went off to the Melbourne Quilt & Craft Fair.

I worked at the fair a few years ago for a friend and I really enjoyed myself. The fair, not so much, but helping out my friend and seeing all the excited women coming through - that was good.

I really wanted to enjoy the fair this year. I hadn't been in a few years, and I'm being super crafty this year. The fair's motto is: "Come and be inspired". Yeah, not so much.

It was good to see my friend Joan, and have a look at all the gorgeous quilts that were on display. Then we walked around the fair and poked around the stalls. Not so much for a crochet girl with only about 5-6 stalls that had yarn, and I have to say some of the yarn was GORGEOUS. But there were a lot of quilt stores, and quilting isn't something I'm doing at the moment (although I have lots of material for it, and learned how to hand-patchwork a few years ago).

The fair did provide me an opportunity to check out Hooked Zpagetti yarn. I spied some designs in a Better Homes & Gardens magazine earlier in the week that I grabbed from the library and this is the yarn that was used. It seemed like a "t-shirt yarn" made of material, so I was pretty thrilled to be able to have a good look at what it was like. Hooked Zpagetti don't retail their yarn and only sell it through their website.

See? Really thick yarn. This is one of their medium cones, and it was $9.50, which was a real bargain I've discovered, since they usually sell it for $16.95! The hook in the picture is a 12mm!!! It's now the biggest hook I own. O.O







I also grabbed some more fine lace cotton, which is something I can pick up in Spotlight, but not this brand!! And the colours that were available! I couldn't not pick up some #12 cotton so I can keep trying out my smaller crochet patterns in my efforts towards learning to make doileys.

Look at those colours!! It's "Valdani" cotton, which I haven't seen before, and it was a real struggle to limit myself only to these three!! I just wanted to buy a box of it :)

Working up the Zpagetti yarn today so I'll post about it tomorrow!

Yarn Yarn and more Yarn..

Soo.....

My yarn stash grew today.

*head/wall*

Completely SPOTLIGHT'S FAULT. Apparently someone decided it was World Wide Knit In Public Day and Spotlight had 20-50% off ALL their yarn.

I couldn't help myself!! I've been missing doing bigger projects, since I'm so focused on trying to produce single, different squares for the blog. So, this weekend I'm focused on producing as many squares as I can so I can put together a rug I've been working on (I showed it in.. February? and yes, it's STILL not finished, to my horror), but I've got somewhat distracted after my yarn purchase today... I'm working on a cowl with the yarn on the right hand side there. *shifty look* Not sure it's going to work out...

Anyway, then I hit Bendigo Woollen Mills...

I bought a 2nd's ball of this in 10ply earlier in the year, and it has COMPLETELY defeated me. But, I love the type of yarn it is (100% pure wool, and it is sooooo soft. I have no idea how they've woven it...) so I went back to get a ball of it in 8ply. I think this might end up being the cowl that I'm trying to work out with the rainbow yarn above, as this is much more yarn to work with, and the other one... yeah, I'm going to run out of it.

Block #31: Diamond in the Square

From Eaton's 200...

#83 Diamond in the Square.

I saw one of the girls over on the Block of the Week group put up a great version of this, done in white, yellow/orange & red. Mine's not as good, but it's still done right. I'd like to take a better photo, on my normal background, to show up the longer stitches in the centre better.

This is some new yarn as well! 70% cotton 30% wool, from Bendigo Woollen Mills. I'm fortunate enough that I live close enough to Bendigo so I can go up to the factory store and have a good poke around at what they've got for sale. And BOY are their yarns absolutely FANTASTIC!!! And they sell them in MASSIVE balls of 200gms! Anyway I poked my head in their seconds rooms and picked up a couple of great 50gm balls of cotton mix (the yarn is all the same but some of the packets say "cotton" some say "70% wool 30% cotton" and some say "70% cotton 30% wool". It feels mostly like cotton, so I'm going with that :D It's a really nice sturdy 4ply, and this square is smaller than I'd usually do, worked in one of my NEW Addi hooks! It's a 3mm, which is one of the smallest I own. Very nice neat & tidy :)

Anyway, better photo tomorrow ;-)

Spot-Sampler yarn choice!

So, yesterday Spotlight put up the first block for the Spot-Sampler rug!






It's a traditional granny square! It's a good first block, and as they point out, it's a good square to make sure your others match it's size.

But before we get going, we need to sort out what yarn to use.

I did a research trip to Spotlight yesterday (need to get yarn, duh, but I also needed to decide whether I could be stupid enough to try and make an outfit for a Black Tie wedding I'm going to in 2 weeks. Apparently I am :D) and compared yarns. The 'Moda Vera' Pure Wool is a good choice. It's only $3/ball & Spotlight have a 20% off yarns special, so the $75 it was worth you could pick up for $60, which is pretty good. I decided to go for something else, since I needed to buy material for a tea-length skirt as well, so had a look around. I found this:





This is the 'Moda Vera' Marvel range, which is 100% acrylic. It's VERY soft in this 5ply version that I bought. It also comes in an 8ply & 12ply, and in at least 8 different colours. I'd almost say between 10-12 colours, but I didn't actually count!






Now, it's a 5ply, which you can see. What's the difference?






The green yarn is an 8ply & the blue is the Marvel 5ply. Both as worked with a 4mm hook. Can you see the difference?






Just the ply makes a difference in the size, even using the same hook.






The top left square is worked with a 4mm hook, the bottom right with a 5mm hook, and the right square with a 6mm hook. (For the record here, the 6mm is just about the closest to correct sizing for this project, if that's what I was aiming for.)






BIG size difference bewteen the 5mm & 6mm hook, isn't there. It's more than likely proportional, but it looks a lot different.

The pattern calls for 3 different hooks, which at first glance (the list of equipment & supplies we needed towork the project) looked like it was just a personal decision on what size you wanted to use. But apparently some of the blocks are going to be worked in a different hook, which will be interesting.

So, what have I ended up deciding on? Well, I bought 5 balls of the Marvel in a really nice light denim (looks more aqua in the photos), which at $3.50/ball was only $17.50 all up, with 20% went down to $14, which worked into my budget. Since it's a 5ply, I had to go down in my hook size. Using a 6mm as the smallest out of the three wasn't really an option, since it's already a pretty loose weave. I don't actually HAVE a 5.5mm hook *gasp!!* so I've gone down to a 4mm, a 4,5mm and a 5mm hook for my choices.

We'll see how it works tomorrow!

This weekend I...

Looked at my box of yarn & bits, and tipped it upside down...






Help!






Oh goodness me...






Back to this one. This is an ENTIRE pile of worked squares. Finished, & unfinished. No one project is finished out of this ENTIRE pile!

This is one of the reasons for this blog. I need to find a way to make sure that when I start a project, I finish it!






This is a lot of yarn. I am 100% positive there are other people out there with FAR more yarn, but this doesn't show you the other, smaller, pile of the other side of the "bucket drawer" where it's all kept. Or the big basket that is on the floor that holds... this amount again. SIGH. I love it all! Some are remnants left over from other projects. Some have been bought to practice different squares on, like the squares I'm showing you in this blog. Most of this will be used for that. Other have been bought with a project in mind, but which never came to fruition.

In other news, we moved around the furniture in our tiny flat today, which makes it feel yet better! It always does :) and joy of joys, I FOUND MY 5mm HOOK! Haha two days after I caved and bought another. Oh well! I have my favourite back, and a new one :)

Some new yarn

Picked up a few new lots of yarn whilst I was out and about today.






You can see I picked up three different types of yarn. There are two that are pretty similar, and one nice big ball of 8ply acrylic.






This is a big ball of yarn: 100g, 100% acrylic. Not as big as a ball of sock wool can be (which can be as much as 400mtrs), but still there's 283mtrs in this 100g ball. Yarn like this is a good, very affordable way to make a big throw. You'll get LOTS of squares with a few balls of these ;) I picked up four colours, and I'll show them off over the weekend. These were $3.50 (Australian dollars) each.






Picked up an extra ball of this yarn. I found it on special ($2.50) last year & got a bunch. Not on sale today ($5) but I was running low on this colour. This yarn is much pricier for what you get, but that's due to the fact it's a bamboo/cotton blend, so natural fibres, versus the totally acrylic ball previous shown. This ball is 50g and only 70mtrs. So if I'm using just one colour of this yarn in a square (see Block #3: "Sunshine Lace") I tend to use more than 50% of it up. It's good for baby jumpers/sweaters & face washers: it puts up with a lot of washing, but is a gentle, softer yarn as well.






I was absolutely thrilled to find a single ball of this yarn in this colour at the store today. It's like an urban myth! I bought one about 3.5 years ago over the other side of the country, and have never seen it again. Had several conversations with different people & we'd all come to the conclusion that the store had stopped carrying it. Again, it's a smaller ball of yarn (50g/85mtrs) so I'd only got a single dishcloth in a tight stitch out of it, and I gave it away!! I wanted to however, since it was to an old friend and she admired the bright colour of the yarn :) It is 100% cotton and it's a good solid yarn. Good for dishcloths!! Or coasters ;)