Jacob's Ladder

When I was at school, I was a committed doodler.  I was forever drawing little pictures on the back of my exercise books instead of concentrating.  This was especially true in Maths, but instead I used to doodle patterns by colouring in the squares of my exercise book.

A few weeks ago, I bought a pad of squared paper with the intention of working on some filet crochet shawls, and the first one I came up with is Jacob's Ladder.  I named it after a quilt block I used for a quilt I made for my eldest son when he was a baby and it's also a song by one of my favourite bands.  It's currently being tested on ravelry and I'm planning on having it ready and available on 1st July.

I'm on twitter and etsy!

Today I signed up for Twitter.  I have pretty much no clue what goes on there but please follow me while I figure it all out!  My twitter ID thing is CrochetMills and I'm trying to add a widget to the blog... wish me luck!

The other big news is that I've opened an etsy store!  I've already listed a couple of shawls, some longies and some flower pins and I'm hoping to add patterns for sale in the not too distant future.  My shop can be found here: redclover crochet please drop by and have a look around!

Urban Shawl & New Forest Shawl

So I have been busy with the children's birthdays (all three are in April!), but I've still found the time to write up and test 2 new shawl patterns!  The first is Urban Shawl:

which will go on sale as a Ravelry download at the beginning of May for the princely sum of £1 :)  It's a nice simple pattern using a single skein of sock weight yarn and is the first of a pair following a challenge I set myself:  to create a shawl out of one skein of hand painted sock yarn.  I have a lot of sock yarn.  In single skeins.  And as much as I love making socks it is always a huge disappointment to discover a hole in your hard work :(  So the single skein shawl challenge commenced and was completed in a matter of days!  Both of the shawls could be worked up in a weekend each and are good to go without blocking, although you could always block if you wished!
The second shawl is New Forest Shawl:

which was supposed to be semi circular but by a huge miscalculation ended up more of a square.  To compensate I added a loopy border.  I considered naming it Spongebob for a while but ended up with the name New Forest after a long trip out for treatment for my son's Aspergers on the forest.  This shawl will go on sale on Ravelry on 1st May for £1.50 and is already in a lot of people's queues!

Lunasadh Fires shawl

I've been working on a number of shawl patterns and this one is the first to be finished.  I've had this Elvincraft yarn in my stash for a loooong time and it has been started off as a number of projects but I've never been happy with how the colours worked with the pattern so it was high time I came up with my own pattern.
Lunasadh Fires shawl is made using a 4mm hook and 800m of laceweight yarn.  It's a nice simple pattern, perfect for working on when you need a mindless project that can easily be picked up and put down at a moment's notice. (US terms in pattern)
1. Ch3, 3 hdc in 3rd ch from hook, ch1, 4hdc in same space, turn
2. Ch2, 2 hdc in first, hdc in next 3, in centre ch sp work *hdc, ch1, hdc*, hdc in next 3, 2hdc in top of ch2, turn
3-9: Ch2, 2hdc in first, hdc across to centre ch sp, *hdc, ch1, hdc* in ch sp, hdc across to last st, work 2hdc in last st, turn
10: Ch3 (counts as hdc, ch1), hdc in first (beginning v st made), *ch1, sk1, hdc* across to centre ch sp, work *hdc, ch1, hdc, ch1, hdc* in ch sp, *ch1, sk1, hdc across, in last st work *hdc, ch1, hdc* (v st), turn.
11-24: Work as rows 3-9
25: Repeat row 10

Continue with 14 rows of solid hdc and every 15th row as an eyelet row.  My shawl had 5 eyelet rows and 6 solid hdc sections.  Block as needed.

This pattern would be good to experiment with adding a lace border but I didn't feel that would work with this yarn as it is too busy.

This pattern is for personal use only.  Enjoy :)

busy busy busy!

From late Autumn until the end of Winter I can usually be found making hats for a local company, this year I have made nearly 200 hence my lack of blog posts!  However, hat making season is nearly at an end and I have managed to steal some time to update my blog.
I have now submitted my  shawl pattern to p-hop and I'm waiting to hear when it will go up on their site for download.  I ended up renaming the shawl as October Leaves shawl after discovering a multitude of patterns using the original name!

My testers creatingincanyon, knotanother1 and hookedonhook all tested in solid/semi solid colours and I have to say I think it looks very striking in a single colour yarn!

Back in the Summer we welcomed a new addition to the family, a young rescue greyhound called Marcus.  He made himself at home very quickly an unfortunately got hold of one of my shawls and chewed it so I ended up having to frog it back more than halfway!  I quickly forgave him though - one look at that pointy face and I knew he was sorry!  As Summer came to an end I turned my attention to making him a snood that would actually stay put after having to retrieve a knitted acrylic cowl out of a muddy puddle - not nice!  I decided that a pure wool snood would be perfect, it would stay dry and not soak up water like the acrylic version and if I made it in a ribbed stitch it should stay put as he raced around the park.  I'm pleased to say after months of wear it is still staying on although it has gone a little baggy now but I'm still pleased as it has been worn almost daily!  The pattern will go up on Ravelry for sale soon with £1 from each sale going to GRWE where we were lucky enough to find Marcus.

p/hop and MSF

So a while ago I set (and blogged about) an intention to donate a pattern to p/hop to raise money for MSF.  As I have been in the 12 shawls in 2012 challenge on Ravelry it made sense to write a shawl pattern, and here is a dodgy picture of the finished article being blocked:

 

I still haven't managed to get a decent picture of the shawl, it has been a miserable mix of rain and fog for the last week or so and my photography skills are pretty basic so I've left 'final pictures of fabulous shawl' on the to-do list for the time being!  Besides, over the next week I plan to offer the shawl on the free pattern testers forum on ravelry so I'm hoping if all else fails at least there will be some decent pictures available to me there!

The pattern itself is just about written up and is inspired by Aoibhe Ni's tunisian shawls, although it uses shorter linked stitches so I could get around the corners.

Hopefully it'll raise some much appreciated funds for an amazing organisation.

 

Hopscotch cowl

Well it's been a while since I posted on my blog but I have been busy creating in real life!  First things first I have written and published my first pattern for sale.  For the princely sum of £2 you can purchase the pattern for hopscotch cowl on Ravelry.  I'm quite proud of myself and did a slightly embarrasing little dance round the room when I sold the first copy!
It uses post stitches, chevrons and a slightly lacy middle section as well as chunky buttons to give it a solid textured feel without being too heavy.