Sunshine motif and cushion - a tutorial

It's been a while since I have had time to make a new tutorial, but as I've had, I think, a few requests for a tutorial for the sunshine cushion which I made at the end of last summer, I thought I'd better try and get on with it! So here's the finished article, as a little reminder. The tutorial follows below for the motif, with some brief instructions for making the cushion cover, because once you know how to make the motif, the rest is really pretty simple.

So, here we go with the motif instructions!

I'm using Rowan Siena cotton 4 ply and a 3mm hook, but any suitable hook and yarn combination will suffice

Step 1: Foundations

Chain 4 and join into a ring by slip stitching into the first chain.

Round 1: Work 12 trebles into the ring.

Step 2: Pretty fillet round

In this round you will be working into the tops of the trebles from the previous round. 

Start by chaining 5. This counts as your first treble, plus another 2 chain. Work *1 treble into the next stitch, followed by another 2 chain. Repeat from * another 10 times, so that every stitch from the previous round has been worked into. Finish the round by slip stitching into the 3rd of the 5 chain you worked at the start of the round.

 You should now have something looking like this:

Step 3: sunshine clusters

In this round you will be working into the 2 chain spaces between trebles created in the last round. You need to work a cluster stitch into each space. Start by slip stitching into the first space next to your hook to move your hook and yarn into position. 

Work a 4 treble cluster as follows:

*Yarn round hook, put hook through chain space, yarn round hook, pull yarn through chain space, yarn round hook, pull through first two loops on hook** (one loop remaining on hook). Repeat from * to ** noting that with each repeat you will have gained an extra loop on your hook at the end. Work 5 repeats in total for a 5 treble cluster. You should now have 5 loops on your hook. To finish the cluster, wrap yarn around hook, and pull through all 5 loops on hook. Chain 3 and create another treble cluster in the next chain space. Continue in this way until a 5 treble cluster has been worked into each 2 chain space from last round, noting that you will chain 3 between each cluster.

Finish the round with a 3 chain, and slip stitch into top of the first treble cluster in the round.

 Step 4: Squaring off

Phew, the scary treble cluster stuff is done!

To position your yarn and hook correctly, start by slip stitching into the first of the 3 chain spaces created in the last round. Now, work 4 chain (counts as first double treble), followed by 2 double trebles, 2 chain and 3 double trebles into the same 3 chain space. This forms the first corner of your square. *Work 3 trebles into the next 3 chain space. Repeat from * once more. Into the next 3 chain space work 3 double trebles, 2 chain, 3 double trebles**. Repeat from * to ** 2 times more. Work 3 trebles into each of the next 2 3 chain spaces. Complete round by slip stitching into 4th of 4 chain made at start of round.

That's it! Hopefully you now have something like this:

To make a cushion cover to fit a 16 inch square cushion pad, made 50 motifs (25 for each side). Stitch motifs together into rows of 5 by oversewing the edges of the squares together. Stitch 5 rows of 5 together to form a square for each side. Work 1 round of double crochet around the entire edge of each side. Fasten off loose ends. Holding the two sides with wrong sides facing together and right facing out, double crochet around 3 sides of square, ensuring that your stitches are joining the two sides of the cover. Insert cushion pad. If liked, seal cushion by continuing to double crochet across the fourth side of the cover. Alternatively, for a removable cover, work a series of short 3 chain loops, evenly space along either side of your cover. Use these loops as button holes. and stitch buttons to the other side of the cover to form a closure.

That's all! Hope it works out - please let me know if you have any problems!

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Colour wheel

Thank heavens it February at last! I don't know about you, but for me, it felt like January was going on forever! I do and I don't like January. I like the post-Christmas feel of a fresh start at the beginning of the month, but by the end I am definitely ready for spring. And this year the weather has been so awful here - even by January standards. Heaps of rain and really cold, though not cold enough for snow.

I'm still working on my crochet blanket - the same one that I've been working on for months. The last couple of weeks have made me desperate to finish it. I don't know if I have mentioned this before, but my flat does not have central heating - just those little electric fan heaters in the living and bedrooms. So, the last week or so, it has been freezing, and especially fridge like in the bedroom! So I really want my new blanket finished so that I have a nice big blanket for my bed. 

I've had a lot of fun playing with the colours for this blanket - each square has 3 different colours in it, plus the white that I'm using for the borders. Sometimes I struggle to come up with different combinations of colours that don't use the same colours over and over again. So, I've been trying to mentally match the colours I have in my stash to the colour wheel to help me see combinations that work well together. You can see my colour wheel above - it has just about all the colours I've been using for this blanket.

I probably don't have those colours arranged in exactly the right order, but that's how they flow to me.

Here are a few of the colour combinations that I've found and really liked. I think these are all variants of split-complementary colour combinations. This is where you have two complementary colours (opposite each other on the colour wheel) and then have a second, analogous shade for one of the colours.

You can find some great tips about colour combinations on this blog.

This last colour combination below is an analogous scheme really I think.

 

Well, apart from that the waiting for spring continues! I've been buying flowers to try and cheer myself up during the grim-ness of these final months of winter. Roses again!

I've also treated myself to two pots of hyacinths - one pink and one white, though now I taken the tags out I can't remember which is which. It'll be a nice surprise! All I have to do now is wait for them to bloom, while I carry on waiting for spring!

 

Waiting and wishing for spring...

...with roses

......bright yarn

 

....cosy moss stitch...

..............and crochet!

Seeing in 2014 with bright colours

It's nearly two weeks into the New Year already. This time of the year can be a little....dark. I mean that literally, not philosophically! It's difficult when there's not much daylight, or sunshine for that matter! At the moment here it gets light at about 7.30 am and dark again at about 4.30. Still, I like to think it's a hopeful time of the year. Every day we gain about 4 minutes of daylight, so we're creeping a little closer to spring all the time. One way to try and brighten the days is colourful flowers! Like these gerberas which I've had on my window ledge the last couple of weeks.

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This winter has been a little different for me, as I'm living on my own for the first time. It's been exciting and scary all at the same time, but overall it's been a good experience so far. I find the winter months are good months to plan and think about what you want from the year ahead. Traditionally in the Northern Hemisphere autumn and winter are introspective months. They kind of have to be since the weather here doesn't make you feel like doing much outside!

So, with a new home I've been doing a lot of planning and thinking about how to make my little nest as snug and happy as possible. Of course for me that means a lot of thinking about what I want to crochet and knit for my living room and bedroom.

So that's what I've been doing since Christmas! 

One of the first things I found I needed to make (almost as soon as I got hold of a coffee table for my living room!), were some table mats and coasters. The sofa which I have in my living room is a lovely teal colour, and I'd already decided I wanted to try use that as a basis for a colour scheme in that room. Two other colours which I think work well with teal are turquoise and bright pink. As it happens I had some turquoise and teal cotton yarn in may stash so I decided to use that to make some mats. The bright pink will follow later in some other way!

I had a request for a pattern for these mats when I posted the pictures on Instagram the other week. I just made these up as I went along really, and I haven't had a chance to try and write down a pattern yet. However, I will try at some point soon. The problem is, I think a chart would be by far the best way for making a pattern for these, but I'm not sure I can write a neat enough chart by hand for anyone else to follow! I'll keep you posted anyway.

Stay warm until next time!

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Mrs Moon prize draw goodies!

I said I would share the details of the goodies I was lucky enough to win in the Mrs Moon prize draw, so here we go! I think I've just got all of it, though I may have missed a few things - there was so much!

There was some skeins of Scrumptious DK, Sweet Georgia and Rowan Art Sock Yarn....

Some skeins of cream coloured lace weight yarn, some Blue Sky Alpaca yarn and metalico yarn.

...10 balls of Jeanette Sloan alapaca silk mix...

...10 balls of Louisa Harding Mila....

and some Royal Petites yarn with a pattern for the Windsor Mitts (I think that was Blue Sky Alpaca yarn too).

Also, a gorgeous set of double pointed needles. Phew, it's going to take me a while to work out what to do with all of this! I'll keep you posted though - I feel so lucky to be starting this year with such a fabulous stash of yarn to work my way through. If you want to get hold of these yarns yourself, check out Mrs Moon!

Mammoth crafty update part III

Hello everyone, I hope 2014 is going well for you so far!

This post just about completes my update of crafty goings on in December. I managed to finish two other projects at the end of 2013.

Firstly this Kim Hargreaves sweater, called Longing, from the book Enchanted.

Sorry about the slightly rubbish quality of the photo - this was a really difficult garment to photograph. Perhaps it's because its cream, or perhaps it just the really awful lack of daylight here at this time of year!

Anyway, I hope you can see the picture well enough to be able to make out the stitch work and overall idea. I'm quite pleased with how this came out. I tried to make this sweater last winter, but had trouble because the sleeves on the finished garment were waaay waaaay too long! This time around, I decided to shorten the sleeves from the length specified in the pattern by about 5cm. It was a little nerve wracking as this was a bit of a guess based on other things I have made where the sleeve length has been ok, but I seem to have guessed well because the sleeve length is perfect this time around!

The other make I completed, on the very last day of the year was this little scarf.

Again, I'm sorry for the awful light in these pictures - it was really overcast when I took these, so the colours are all wrong.

The yarn I used for this was Madeline Tosh sock yarn, in shade Olivia. I used a basic leaf lace pattern that you can find in most stitch dictionaries of knitted lace. This post, from when I started this scarf waaay back in June last year will give you a better idea of the actual colour of the yarn! Now that I've looked back through this blog to find when I started this project, I can't believe that it was so long ago and that six months has gone so fast!

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Well, I'll be back to normal posting with my next post, we're pretty well caught up now! I have to share one very exciting thing though, which I'll go into more detail on in my next post. I think I have mentioned before, one of my very favourite independent yarn and haberdashery shops is called Mrs Moon, in St Margarets, near Richmond upon Thames. Well, Mrs Moon have an annual Christmas prize draw, and guess who won this year! Yes, it was me! I am such a lucky, lucky girl, and prize is an absolutely amazing haul of yarn-y goodies! I will share full details in my next post!

Mammoth crafty update part II

Hello again everyone! As promised, here is part II of the mammoth crafty update, a little later than planned. I've been delayed by a chest infection, among other things. I wouldn't be here, blogging, on New Year's Eve (not that there's anything wrong with that), but having asthma and then getting a chest infection is pretty bad news, so I've had to cancel my plans for the evening.

Never mind, at least it gives me time to catch up on my blogging!

One other project I've finished in December was my purple vintage flower cushion.

Here you can see it getting cost with the original cream cushion I made using this pattern.

If you look closely, you'll see a slight difference between the purple and the cream cushions. The purple cushion has several rows of treble crochet bordering each side. This was because I used a 4 ply weight yarn instead of the dk weight used for the cream cushion. I couldn't quite get the shade of pastel lilac I wanted in Rowan Cotton Glace, so I decided to use Rowan Siena instead, and simply modified the pattern slightly. I'm still happy with the result!

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Well, 2013 is drawing to a close. I have to say it has been a heck of a year for me. Good things and bad, stresses and strains and moments of joy and celebration too. I guess that's like any year, but somehow things have seemed magnified this year. I've finally been able to sort out some long carried personal baggage, with some help from some very supportive people. I have to say that has made a huge difference to me, and I feel I am ending the year as a much stronger person than the person that started the year! Here's just a few of the positives that I've been lucky enough to experience in my personal life in 2013:

1. Finding out that I had passed the Postgraduate Diploma I took in 2011-12, with merit!
2. Getting a place on, and starting a PhD course (so far, so good)
3. Getting my flat! My own space at last - it feels so extravagant to have all this space to myself, and it's only a 1 bedroom flat!
4. My wonderful, wonderful boyfriend S, who has given me another year full of happy memories and laughter.
5. My fantastic family (and S again) who have all pitched in and helped me with moving, hefting boxes, doing DIY jobs, providing advice, stopping my tearing my hair out with stress over it all and generally standing on my own 2 feet!
6. Of course all you fellow bloggers and crafters out there who take the time to read and visit this blog, and leave such kind and supportive comments. Every comment is valued and it's so great to feel part of a community here.

Well, that's all for now folks, the sun has set on 2013, and now we await 2014. I hope to see you all here and on your own blogs in the coming year. Very best wishes and a Happy New Year to you all!

p.s. I have received several requests for patterns recently - I'm not able to respond to them at the moment, but please believe I will do my best to share my makes with you as soon as I can.

Mammoth crafty update part I

Hello everyone! This is the first time for about a month that I have had access to a proper pc and working internet connection on which to blog, or do anything web related. Regular readers might remember that I was about to move house at the end of November. The move went smoothly, but sadly setting up an internet connection is taking a ridiculously long time, so I'm taking advantage of being back at my family home for Christmas, where there is a working internet connection!

I promised a mammoth crafty update, but I think there is too much for one post, so I think I will split it into parts - it may take me a while to catch up with myself. To be honest December has just been completely knackering in a lot of ways, so I haven't done as much crafting as I normally would, due to my routine being knocked sideways by the move. Still, the enforced blog-absence this month has meant that I have a lot to share!

So, to begin! Firstly there is the granny stripe throw.

I spent the last couple of weeks frantically trying to finish this so that it could be a Christmas present. I actually started this project in July - right around the time that I found my flat - so it seems appropriate that it should be the first project I finished after moving in!

This project owes a lot to other bloggers actually - I'm sure you will recognise the original idea as being from Lucy at Attic 24, and you may also recognise the colour scheme as being heavily inspired by Annie's Place.

I'm very pleased to have finished this in time, and I hope it will be a thing of beauty to the recipients tomorrow!

Sorry about the bad light in these pictures - it dark and rainy all day yesterday, and who knows when daylight will return! At this time of year in England, it can feel like the sun is never coming back!

Ok, I think that will have to be all for this crafty update, as it's getting ridiculously late on Christmas Eve to be up blogging! Hope you all have a happy, cosy Christmas with your loved ones. I hope to be back for the next update on Boxing Day!

Merry Christmas! 

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Back soon I hope....

Hi everyone,  just wanted to drop in and say that normal service will hopefully be resumed here very soon, and also say hi to my new followers- thanks for stopping by!

Back very soon with a mammoth crafty update!