A couple of weeks ago I had a lovely day out in Beeston. Boyf left me alone in the house and the sun was shining for the first time in weeks so I went for a wander to the Sewing and Knitting Centre (or maybe it's the other way around) at the opposite end of the High Street to Yarn. It's definitely more of a sewing shop - lots of machines and embroidery kits, buttons and zips and those weird motif things you sew on stuff (I don't think I've ever seen one of those in the wild but somebody must buy them...). There's a tiny bit of yarn - mostly acrylic dk which has it's place but it's not what I'm looking for when I take a special trip to a yarn shop, know what I mean?
Near the till they had a stash of 400g aran balls and the James C Brett Marble Chunky that comes in 200g balls. I'm a big fan of James C Brett's Marble range (we hopefully will get it in when we've got a bigger shop). I bought a ball a few years ago at a shop in Wollaton that's since closed down but I had in mind to knit something for my nan that I never got round to but it was a kinda yucky orangy and beige concoction. Ugh. The ball that I bought this time though was beautiful! Basically black with peacock and oil colours running through it. The only photo I have is from York when boyf took a terrible photo of me outside of Ramshambles and because I lurve you lot I'm going to show you...
Haha. What a photo! It's the cowl by the way.
I've been in the Creative Crochet Group on facebook for a while now. It's essentially a group where members post project photos and ideas and patterns for crochet and it's really positive and lovely. There's a lot of stuff on there that isn't my cup of tea, to say the least... and one of those things was the corner to corner blanket that everybody's doing. Literally. Everybody. It spread like wildfire through this group and mostly it's being done in horrendous pastel pink/blue/lemon/mint and white combo's that make me want to barf. But when I got home with my big ball of Marble Chunky, placed and filled the cupboard that I'd bought for boyf's (hundreds of!!!!!!) Doctor Who dvd's and made the bolognese with the pork from an actual butcher (told you it was a lovely day), I knew that it had to be something a bit special. I wanted to learn a new stitch and I wanted the stitch to be something that showed off the striped effect of the yarn. Corner to corner it was. I had in my head that I might make a proper oversized scarf out of it but actually 200g of chunky doesn't really go that far so when I was coming to the end of my yarn I decided to join it up to make one of them there infinity scarves. And I bloody love it! It's the only bit of knitting or crochet that boyf's ever commented on without me having to suggest that he does. Wow!
I really do hate calling it an infinity scarf but it's definitely
different to a cowl. In my head a cowl is fairly tight to the neck -
something like this:
Another brill photo!
And then an infinity scarf is more like a scarf that's sewn together at the ends so you loop it round twice or three times or just leave it hanging or whatevs and I do believe that the Marble infinity scarf is the first one I've ever made so you have the only ever photo of me wearing one above.
The thing is, it doesn't go on infinitely, does it? It's a scarf with a beginning and an end that's sewn together. Were it crocheted in the round it would be an infinity scarf wouldn't it? As in, no beginning and no end. But then you had to start somewhere and end somewhere (and sew the bloody ends in). Hmm. Which leads me to my newest and shiniest pattern for your delectation - it is the Finite Cowl. And I am dead pleased!!!!
I tried to make a version in the Fab DK a few weeks ago but it was just a bit mental, then I tried in a plain colour on my way to York and it was just a bit boring so eventually I had to admit defeat and work it in the Riot Chunky. I have no idea why I was so reluctant to work it in this - it's a similar weight, stripe effect and deep, rich colourway to my Marble infinity scarf so it's obvious but maybe I thought I was copying myself. Or maybe I thought I'd get bored? I am terrible for not knitting or crocheting the same thing twice - such a low boredom threshold. But I am so glad that I did and it got worked in a few hours really on a nice big 6mm hook.
It's a really repetitive pattern once you get going. It starts a little weirdly but from row three you repeat until you get to the width that you want, then you repeat two rows until you have the length that you want and then you do a decrease row until all of the shells have disappeared. Like this:
Yeah? Then it gets sewn up together at the end and bish bash bosh.
It's another one of those patterns that I haven't tested though, and I actually realised last night that I hadn't put a stitchionary in which makes me quite a lot of a tit so I'm going to get that changed and then get ready for the lesson tomorrow. That involves printing some bits so I might get a few of those printed out too and have the printed version for buying in the shop. Organisation! This is my game!
Now, I also wanted to mention that I'm going to do a shop sample for everything that we stock in both knitting and crochet. This is where the spreadsheets come into play that I talked about on facebook a couple of days ago. At the moment I'm feeling quite energised about this but give me time and it'll trail off I'm sure. Hopefully I'll have a blog on Monday or Tuesday about the thing that I started last night and I've almost finished crocheting and writing up a pattern for a hat inspired by Beyonce (what a woman!) so you've got that to look forward to too. AND! I've had an idea for another chunky infinity scarf but this time knitted! So watch this space - lots of inspiration to come.
That's it. I'm off.
Love Eleanor.
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