Catherine's Crochet Corner

I hope you all had a great Christmas 😀 mine was mostly quiet and peaceful, with lots of lovely yarn and lots of lovely food.

And now that’s over, I can share some of the projects I’ve been working on over the autumn, because everyone now has their gift 🙂

This is Esther Chandler’s Summer Sprigs Lace Scarf, which I’ve made before in other yarns. The yarn is the hand-dyed yarn I blogged about earlier in the autumn. I was so amused; the friend for whom I’d bought this yarn commented on that post that she really loved the colours. In fact, since opening it, she’s told me that she’d hoped the yarn was for her. I love knowing you’ve bought the perfect yarn for somebody! I used a 3.5mm hook, and I added small silver beads on for the picots in the border, which helps give the scarf a lovely drape.

I had a whole load of yarn leftover from my two seasonal projects earlier this year (The Four Seasons embroidery hoops and seasonal wreaths), particularly a lot of blues. And I have a friend who loves blue, so that worked out okay! This is Tamara Kelly’s Chevron Lace Infinity Scarf, worked in Stylecraft Classique DK. I used denim, greek blue, teal, lapis, nocturne, peppermint, and sky blue. I was a little short on peppermint and sky blue, so there are fewer of those stripes, but I’m pleased with how it came out. It’s such a lovely yarn to work with, too – it makes such lovely defined chevrons. I used a 4.5mm hook for this.

I’ve lost track of how many of these I’ve made. Seriously, seriously addictive pattern! It’s the Owl Key Chain pattern by Yarn Artists. Quick, easy, and a lovely stocking filler type gift. I’m still trying to use up odds and ends of yarn; all of these were made with Stylecraft Classisque DK, with a 3mm hook (so it would be a denser fabric, to stop the stuffing from showing). I bought a bag of keyrings from ebay, used white buttons for the eyes, and hooked away. Many people got an owl for Christmas this year 😀

I actually plan to keep making these, using other bits and pieces of cotton yarn I have squirreled away (I love the stitch definition with cotton, and it makes a nice, hard-wearing keyring). My plan is to make a decent quantity of them and then donate them to the local hospice charity, which often sells little handmade items on their front desk. It’s the hospice where my grandma was at the end of her life, and it’s a lovely place and fills an important function. They ought to be able make a few pounds from little owl keyrings, and every little helps.

As ever for Christmas, I made a few geeky bits and pieces for friends too:

A mini Hulk keyring for my Hulk-loving friend, another set of Ross, Demelza and Garrick dolls, a Daenerys Targaeryan Christmas tree topper for my brother’s work Christmas tree (okay, not an actual Christmas present, but I forgot to blog about it before Christmas, heh) and a Demelza keyring. All the details of these are on my Ravelry projects page, though the Hulk has no pattern, I just worked it up freehand.

I did make one other Christmas present this year – and it’s a big one. It absolutely deserves its own post, though, and it’s going to take me a few days to assemble all the pictures and write it up properly. I’ll aim to blog about it by the middle of next week. So keep an eye out 😀