Last August, when my friend and I went to Loughrea for the middle ages festival we popped into a wool shop. While there, we found some beautiful King Cole Riot chunky yarn in the color moors. I bought the wool, and then started on a project for her as a “souvenir”.
The wrap took me months to make – but I think the colors and pattern turned out beautiful. One of my favorites (I didn’t add the fringe from the pattern) and it’s turned out huge – enough to wear almost as a small blanket… but it folds up nicely into a wrap/scarf or otherwise.
N and V are pregnant, and expecting a baby boy in April 2016. It’s an exciting time for them, as this is their first. My friend Steph organized a really great baby shower for them, and everything was themed “Out of this world”. There were rockets, stars, planets, NASA and even some posters from the Jet Propulsion Lab.
There was a cake with the baby astronaut in marzipan, a diaper cake with stars and a rocket on top…
and plenty of games – including one where we had to taste baby food and identify it, another where we had to write on diapers (late night messages for the parents), and plenty of laughs at the “pacifier straws”.
There were also plenty of gifts for the little bundle and the new parents.
For me, because I can crochet, I do my best to make sure that the gift is handmade because it’s always a nice gift to get something where the time is spent making it -just the same as the ‘mom’ has been spending time making the baby. 🙂 This time, I made a baby blanket in a ridged vine pattern that reminded me of the rockets taking off into the sky. It’s in James C Brett Marble DK in blues / greens shade. It took me about a week after work to make the whole thing including the edges.
I think it was a hit – and I can’t wait to see little V using it!
About 3 weeks ago, I bought some weaving sticks after seeing a little video on how they worked on one of the crochet websites. I love yarn, and have been feeling that my crochet “mo jo” as it’s nicknamed has been kind of going to the wayside. No patterns inspired me, no stitches were kicking up my interest. And oh so many Works in Progress (WIPs) that just weren’t taking my fancy.
I thought a change of technique might be just the thing, and it turns out, it was. What are weaving sticks? Well, they’re basically a series of dowels which have a hole in one end. You put a weft string through the hole, and then you weave in and out and out and in around the dowels. You push down the weaving as you go, and eventually, it ends up on the weft string you had put through the hole. Maybe this will help tutorial wise?
Anyhow, after getting the sticks, I decided to try my hand at it and experiment. My first attempt was with some chunky yarn in red and grey. I wasn’t sure how long the actual “weft” needed to be, so I started out with 5 strands at arm length. From there, the chunky yarn was added. I learned that the weft strands could have been a bit longer, but this made an ear warmer that ties at the back of the head in chunky acrylic yarn.
I like how fast it went – about an hour – and am liking the difference in texture and feel. It looks a bit rustic I think.
Close up on the texture and the end. I’m not exactly happy with the “end” on this first attempt, but I’ll keep trying – because I think this is more down to me and how I did it, rather than the sticks themselves. I think it will be neater on a second attempt.
