Star Blanket Love

Hihi!

How are you doing today? Guess what? I was down with a nasty cold again. Nothing new I know. Ugh, I feel like I can't catch a breath this year (or rather the last three years?). If any of you knows a great trick on how to avoid these colds, any advice is greatly appreciated!!

Since I have been feeling unwell, I haven't crocheted quite as much as I wanted to but still there was some good hooking time! I wish we had an open fire oven - that would make the crochet time so much more cozy, don't you think? My parents always had fireplace so I kinda miss it. Someday we shall have one too - I will make sure of this! :)

Lately I have been addicted to the star blanket pattern! It is so relaxing and the end result is stunning. This blanket is still a work in progress because I ran out of yarn. I sure wasn't expecting for one color to take more than 100gr of yarn but the last two colors do! I put in my order with Deramores some days back and it finally arrived after over three weeks. The parcels were sent to Sweden first (no idea why!), plus one of the parcels ripped and killed a skein. I am not to happy with the delivery and the packing - not sure I will order with them in the foreseeable future. It kind of depends on how long the replacement skein takes to get here...

Oh in case you are wondering: I am using Stylecraft Special DK and the blanket will have 8 colors in total. It will be a gift to a little boy/girl who will be born in April.

Oh and look at this adorable pic! The little boy was born in November and his mum send me this picture (which I am allowed to share). :) I love, love getting pics of my blankets in use!

I also finished this little charmer. The pattern is from Isabelle Kessedjian and very well written. I changed bit though as I hate to sew the head onto the body. Instead I worked the head pattern backwards, so I could continue crocheting from the body part. 

I hope you have a wonderful advent time!

Take care

Anne

Ta-dah! My First African Flower Kitty!

I absolutely love the African Flower animals, and expanding my repertoire - and this week I got to make my first African Flower Kitty!

There was no HeidiBears cat pattern available (sadly), but Jo's Crocheteria helped me out with Luna the African Flower Cat. 

My talented mother dyed this stunning purple yarn - it almost glows! I am happy with the way it came out, although there are always things to do better next time :P 

The pattern was quite challenging to decipher, especially without any photos of what the body looked like without the hind legs attached. So, if you want to make this kitty for yourself, here's a legless picture to help you out! 

I ended up having to talk through the instructions with my mum who is much more spatially talented than me, but we got there in the end!

I made a few little changes - I added a mini African Flower triangle nose, some whiskers (just black cotton knotted on each side of the nose) and did something different for the eyes. Rather than the closed eyelashes specified in the pattern, I used Repeat Crafter Me's Black Cat Hat eye pattern! I do like an awake kitty better than a sleeping one ;)

It's now off to its new home, and I already have another order lined up! The rest of this week is going to be sanding down the WIP list - and next weekend we are off to Yass for a baby shower. I'm so excited!!! 

To finish, this is the most common cat angle we get to see around our house... :P

Ta-Dah! Carousel CAL!

Ta-dah! Our Carousels come to an end! 

You can download the final Part Six of the Carousel Crochet-Along, designed by Sue Pinner and hosted by Stylecraft Yarns from the Stylecraft website NOW, in English (US and UK), German and Dutch.

Only one tip this week - you'll need about 40g/110m of yarn for the last row, so consider starting a new ball if you have less than that available in the ball you've already started. Enjoy finishing your masterpieces! 

I took lots of photos of my Batik DK and Special DK Carousels - I am so happy with the end product!

  

  

For the Special DK Carousel, I finished with a round of crab stitch (or reverse sc) instead of the edging pattern. 

And then I had some fun with my HeidiBears animals - it's Circus Time!

Thank you all so much for coming with us on this journey :) We hope we've helped smooth the way on your Carousel, and you enjoyed it as much as we did! 

Villigst Ghost on Tour

Hello Hello!

In May I made a amigurumi ghost as a prize in a raffle. The ghost was a huge hit and since then I have been asked to make many more! In return for a ghost I ask for a donation for the Ev. Studienwerk. You can read more about it in this blog post.

The ghost has its own hashtag: #geistreichmitvilligst and man, the little ghost has seen lots of the world already! To show you where the little one (in different crocheted bodies ;)) has traveled so far, I have collected the pictures and they will be shown below. Note: The pictures aren't mine - they were taken by the people who traveled with the ghost.

Villigster Geist on Tour - Stops

Stop 1: North Pole

 Picture by Martin H.

Stop 2: Norway

Picture by Martin H.

Stop 3: South Korea

Picture by Martin H.

Stop 4: Barcelona/Spain

Picture by Annika H.

Stop 5: Yale University/USA

Picture by Anca M.

Stop 6: Tummelhaus/Germany

Picture by Sofie M.

Carousel CAL - Part 5

Nearly there! Our Carousel blankets are getting huge now :D Good for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, but here in Australia summer is getting started, and working these gorgeous blankets is a bit hot!

Part Five of the Carousel Crochet-Along, designed by Sue Pinner and hosted by Stylecraft Yarns has just been posted, and is available to download NOW from the Stylecraft website, in English (US and UK), German and Dutch.

If you haven't set up a Ravelry project yet, the pattern page can be found here: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/carousel-cal  

We are working the CAL along with you all, and will post our tips and tricks for each part at the same time as the pattern is published over at the Stylecraft website. 

Please feel free to ask any questions in the comments or on our Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/crochetbetweenworlds/) - we are here to help you. Anne is doing the German translations for the CAL again, so ask away in German too!

Part Five, the Ripple Border:

Our top tips for the Ripple Border are:

1. Colour charts! I've created them again for the Ripple Border to make the colour lists easier to read and follow. Download your required colour chart from these links:

Part 5 - Ripple Border - Special DK 

Part 5 - Ripple Border - Batik DK

Part 5 - Ripple Border - Word doc 

(to use find/replace if you are using different colours) 

NOTE: For each row, you follow the column down; so the first colour of row 1 is in the top left corner, the second colour is below, etc. 

2. Standing dc at the start of each round! 

Standing dc (US) or tr (UK) tutorial by Moogly

3. Yes, it looks like a big gap when you skip stitches in round 1! But count and you'll see that you're only skipping two dc :) 

4. I did a different colour change method for each blanket - in the Batik I followed Sue's instructions to the letter, and in the Special DK I completed the last dc, and then changed colour. They sit slightly differently to each other; maybe do a test and see which you like better? 

We hope these tips help you! 

Check back here in two weeks on Tuesday 15 November for Part 6 - the Edging :D

Wedding Bliss

Hi!

We had our religious wedding last week and man, it was bliss!! As you might remember, my husband and I got married last November but there was no big party and only our closest family as guests. This time, we had 60 guests + children and it was just wonderful.

 We don't have the photos from our photographer yet but I sparkled this post with some pictures taken by my uncle, my cousin and some mobile phone photos. :)

My wedding dress was a spur-of-the-moment buy... My husband and I were in Bremen in May and we weren't looking for dresses - in fact we were looking for coffee because we were tired. Well and then this dress popped into our vision (it was in the display window). We couldn't walk past it and went in. The ladies there weren't too willing to get it out of the window at first (I guess we didn't look like the kind of people who could afford a dress?!) but did it in the end. I tried the dress on and guess what... we bought it right away! 

You know what I loved best about the dress? The fact that my mum and sister had to use a crochet hook to close the dress. How cool is that??

T

The ceremony was in a small, very modern chapel at Haus Villigst - we fell in love with the chapel when we saw it and of course we had to get married there. :) The party was in an old industrial hall turned restaurant (Rohrmeisterei Schwerte). The food was amazing - my, good food is one of the most important things in weddings, isn't it? I wish I could have eaten more but as some point my stomach informed be there wasn't one little space left (not even for more dessert!)...

My mum and sister fabricated the most amazing candy bar. They baked all the cake pops and cakes themselves, there were m&m with our faces on it and all of our favorite sweets were included! YumYumYum! My mum also organized lots of toys for the kids (and the grown ups as it turned out :P) which were greatly enjoyed.

Unfortunately Michelle couldn't come due to the horrible CFS but all my Australian family and friends were there in spirit! We even got a letter signed from Lena (my... eh, Michelle's parents' cat)!! :D

It was a wonderful, wonderful day and I am so thankful for everyone involved! I will add pics from the photographer when they arrive to a later post!

Take care

Anne

FREE PATTERN: The Fiesta Clutch!

I had time last weekend to play with an idea that had been bumping around in my head for a while - a freeform slipstitch fabric, folded in three to make a little clutch purse. If you read this blog regularly you'll know that I am a stickler for precision, organisation, structure, patterns... all of which I had to pretty much ignore in order to get this idea out of my head. 

It went bananas on Instagram and Facebook as I posted project pictures over the weekend. So, by request, here is the "pattern" to make your very own Fiesta Clutch :) 

Please keep in mind that this is an inherently random and personalised pattern - no two (even made by the same person) will be exactly alike. So, consider the following a set of guidelines and supports to help you rather than a strict pattern!

Queue or Favourite this pattern on Ravelry here: 
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/fiesta-clutch

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PATTERN: FIESTA CLUTCH
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Materials:
- base colour 4 ply cotton - ~50g (I used Red Heart Miami in White)
- mixed coloured 4 ply cottons - ~50-80g all up (I used Red Hear Miami in blue, purple, pink, orange, yellow and green - use as many or as few as you like).
- Vilene or other iron on interfacing 
- 2.75mm hook and 3 or 3.25mm hook
- scissors
- yarn needle
- iron (with a steam setting) and ironing board
- press studs
- sewing needle and thread

Stitches:
This pattern uses all US terminology

ch - chain stitch
sc - single crochet
slst - slip stitch

Notes:

- Use 100% cotton or bamboo yarn! The surface slip stitching will stretch and warp your fabric base, and you need to be able to apply heat and steam with an iron to get it flat again, as well as ironing on the interfacing. If you use acrylic, the fabric will go really strange and droopy when you iron it.


PATTERN

Part 1 - Base Fabric

Use 2.75mm hook

The first thing to do is decide how big you want your Fiesta to be - coin purse? clutch? laptop cover? The height of the base fabric should be 3 times the height of your finished bag, but you can play around with how long each fold is.

For example, my white Fiesta Clutch fabric pictured above is 19cm wide and 33cm high, which was 40sc and 72 rows for me. Your tension may be different. 

Once you have your measurements, make a chain a bit longer than you want the width of the bag. The length will depend on your tension; if you want to be 100% sure of a snug fit, a tension swatch is helpful. 

ch1 extra at the end, and turn. sc into the second chain from your hook, and sc in each ch to the end. 

*ch1, turn, sc in each sc to end of row* 

Repeat * to * until your base fabric is the height you want. Next, we will do an sc border around with an extra sc in each corner to give a clean edge for joining later. 

sc border:
ch1, turn, 2sc first sc, then sc in each stitch to end of row, 2sc in last stitch. Turn your fabric 90 degrees, sc in the end of the last row (this is probably the same space that you did the 2sc in). Continue sc in the side of each row until you reach the next corner. Turn your fabric 90 degrees, 2sc in the first ch of starting chain (same space as the last sc of the side edge). sc in each ch to the end of the row, 2sc in the last ch. Turn your fabric 90 degrees, and sc in the first row of sc. sc in each row to the end, slst join to first sc. Finish off. 

(for the first Fiesta I made, I did the sc border after the freeform slip stitching and it was much more difficult at that stage!)

Part 2 - Free Form Slip Stitch

Use 3 or 3.25mm hook.

This is the part where you get to make your own artwork! 

Start a thread by pulling a loop through from back to front with your hook. Don't tie a knot, just keep a long starting tail and we'll sort those out later. 

To finish a thread, cut a long-ish tail and pull through your last loop, then pull the little knot and tail to the back of your fabric. 

Some guidelines for your crochet drawing:

1. Don't cross the stitches over - it'll make the fabric lumpy and it won't sit nicely at the end.

2. Don't make your slipstitching too dense. Making spirals and circles and diagonals will tug your base fabric in all sorts of strange directions, and if the decoration is too dense then we won't be able to make it sit flat at the end. 

You can see in this first picture that I had wayyy too many stitches in the space, and it was stretching the base fabric completely out of shape. Your fabric will get a bit lumpy and bumpy, but you should be able to mostly flatten it out with your fingers. 

3. Don't be afraid of letting the base fabric show! It's part of the art!

4. Let your creative spirit fly! There is no right or wrong way to do this :D 

Part 3 - The Ends

Once you've created your one-of-a-kind masterpiece, it's time to deal with all those ends.

With a yarn needle, run each end under 4 or 5 stitches at the back, away from the edges, then snip off leaving a 1cm-ish tail.

The next task is to iron your fabric flat. With a fairly hot iron and the maximum steam setting, gently press the fabric. You might need to do a bit of tugging and stretching to get the piece back to rectangular and deal with the edges. Take your time ironing, and don't forget to iron both the front and back. 

To secure all those ends and make a workable bag, we are going to cheat!! Get yourself some Vilene (iron-on interfacing, usually used in dressmaking and applique to give structure and firmness), and cut out a rectangle that is the same size as your fabric INSIDE THE SC BORDER. It's really important that you can still access the sc border as you'll need it to join up your bag. 

Place your Vilene piece on the back of your fabric (sticky side down please) and iron on gently. It will take about 5 minutes of ironing for everything to glue together, so be patient. It's still faster than figuring out how to secure all those ends separately! Give it some time to cool down and set the glue - maybe 10-15 minutes - before you move onto assembly. 

Part 4 - Assembly

Now let's make your flat fabric into a bag! 

First step is to play around, folding your fabric until you're happy with the overlap on the front and the pocket inside. Turn it over so you're looking at the front and back, and the pocket is on the underside.

Pick up your larger hook (3 or 3.25mm) and pull a loop of your favourite colour through the sc border at the bottom right corner (marked with a green arrow on the picture above). slipstitch the two layers of fabric together. Once you run out of pocket, continue slipstitching around the sc border until you come back to the other side of the pocket. Then, slipstitch together the final section, finish off, and use your yarn needle to poke the ends in between the fabric and Vilene. You might want to give it another quick iron to make sure everything is solidly glued down! 

Sew your press studs on securely with a sewing needle and thread (I put mine in the corners of the front flap to give extra protection to the Vilene corners).

Ta-dah! Your very own one-of-a-kind, useful artwork :D