Ta-Dah! JulieAnny's Summer Mosaic Mystery CAL

It's done! It's finished! And I absolutely love it :D We took advantage of the glorious spring sunshine and went downstairs to our apartment courtyard to get some photos :)

I've been having such a wonderful time with JulieAnny's Summer Mosaic Mystery CAL - it's my first big project using 100% cotton yarn, and the Moda Vera Portsea Cotton from Spotlight has worked up excellently! The finished afghan is quite light weight, and I can see it being just perfect for when the breeze comes up on the balcony at the lake on summer evenings. 

I joined the pieces using slip stitch in the back loops, from the reverse side. This made nice even joined with the little front loop ridges on the front, and only low ridges on the back (as opposed to chunky single crochet ridges, which I don't like the feel of). It came together pretty quickly!

I chose to leave the corner pieces off - they were "optional" in the pattern, and I quite like the octagonal shape without them :) The border took a little bit of adaptation, but really it was very simple and straightforward.

And, it really does look like a tiled mosaic! Such a talented designer - if you haven't checked out Julie Yeager's designs on Ravelry yet, I thoroughly recommend her work :) 

Have you made any of Julie Yeager's patterns before? Link to your photos/blog/Ravelry project page in the comments and we can all have a look!!

Summer Mosaic & Around the Bases CALs

Hi everyone! 

For at least the next couple of weeks, you're mostly going to get CAL updates from me - I hope that's ok! I'm so excited about the two CALs I'm currently working on :)

JulieAnny's Summer Mosaic Mystery CAL

Clue 2 of Julie Yeager's enticing Summer Mosaic Mystery CAL came out on Saturday, Australian time. This week we made our circles bigger, and added more overlay stitches. They kind of look like clocks at the moment!

I love the colours - it just looks like a tumble of summer to me :) 

Around the Bases CAL by ChiChi Allen

I've written about this one before, a few weeks ago, when I was figuring out which square to use in the centre. There's a round up of lovely big afghan square patterns in that post if you want to have a look! 

This Monday (Australian time), the "First Innings" pattern was released. It was pretty straightforward, and I've already used up almost a whole scrap piece of one colour! Stashbusting for the win :D

So bright and cheerful, and I can't wait to see how it ends up! 

I hope you are all managing to keep up with your projects and WIPs! 

JulieAnny's Summer Mosaic Mystery Afghan CAL - Part 1

Hi everyone!

Just because I don't have enough things to do, I've picked up another CrochetALong from one of my very favourite crochet designers, Julie Yeager. I made her Stained Glass Afghan last year, and loved the design! It's still on the couch being used to keep us cosy (and fabulous!) during this stupidly cold winter.

The new CAL is the Summer Mosaic Mystery Afghan. The pattern calls for Scheepejeswol Stonewashed XL which is so pretty, but so expensive to buy here in Australia. I have substituted Moda Vera Portsea Cotton - still 100% cotton, but only 8 ply, and only $2.20/50g on sale at Spotlight! One day, when we win the lottery or Kiah becomes a rich and famous nurse, I'll splurge on some Scheepjeswol yarns :) 

I love the stonewashed look of this yarn - and such pretty colours! I'm using the Camel as the main colour, with Turquoise, Purple, Green, Navy and Burgundy as accent colours. 

The first clue came out last Friday. I wasn't going to do this CAL, I was going to just collect the patterns and get to it when I could. But then Mum was at Spotlight, and she rang to say that the Portsea Cotton was 50% off and she had an extra 15% off voucher... I can't deny those sorts of signs from the universe! 

I've decided to have Purple as my accent colour A, and I'll decide which letter the rest of the accent colours correspond to when I see the next clue :P 

The pattern is very straightforward so far - very clear wording, and stitch counts after every row! 

I'm glad to have had some overlay crochet experience before, both with Sophie's Universe, the Stained Glass Afghan and of course our very own Flame motif :) There hasn't been much overlay crochet yet, but looking at the teaser photos there's a bit more to come!

The ruffle in the centre is made using fpsc and chain stitches - quite effective! It's going to need some careful blocking though because cotton has very little natural stretch, so where I have sewn the ends in looks a bit wonky at the moment.

I guess at least with all these CALs and projects humming along at the same time, I'm never going to have to wonder what to blog about! :)

Love these colours :)  

How many WIPs do you have going at the moment? 

Hugs,

Michelle xx

PATTERN: Tension Finger Saver

I am usually a pretty loose crocheter. My sister and I can both make exactly the same pattern, and mine is usually much much bigger than hers! 

But, for some projects, I find that tight tension is essential for the correct look or size. Maintaining that sort of tight tension is difficult, especially when I start to get serious dents and burn marks across my middle finger where the yarn runs across! 

I came up with this little tension finger saver using hardy 4 ply cotton, and it has done wonders for my poor hands when crocheting with tight tension :) 

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PATTERN: TENSION FINGER SAVER
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This pattern uses all US terminology. It is worked in a spiral rather than joining each row and then moving up.

Materials
Small amount of 4 ply cotton
2.25mm/B hook 
Scissors
Yarn needle

Instructions

Row 1: Using foundation single crochet stitch (fsc), 15fsc (or however many you need to fit snugly around your problem finger). It needs to be quite a firm fit, so that it doesn't spin around your finger with the yarn, but not so firm that it cuts off the blood supply!

Row 2: Insert your hook back through the first fsc and do a normal sc. sc in each stitch around (15sc)

Rows 3-9: sc in each stitch around (15 sc) 

To finish: Slip stitch into the next stitch. Fasten off and cut yarn. With starting end, slip stitch into final fsc and fasten off. Weave in ends.

There you have it! I ended up making two - one for my middle finger and one for my little finger to save them from dents and burns making the cutest happypotami :) 

Ta-dah! Overlay Crochet Mandala No.1!

Hello everyone! I hope you've all had a good week :) 

Anne and I have not had such a good week - we have both been hit really hard by the fatigue monster. Stupid monster. When Anne comes to visit me in December we are going to crochet ourselves a Fatigue Monster so we can stick pins in it and hit it with a hammer!!! 

To cheer ourselves up we are having a little giveaway on Instagram, to celebrate reaching 500 followers! If you are on Instagram and haven't found us yet, we are @crochetbetweenworlds :) Go find us and enter the giveaway!! 

You might remember that last week, on a rainy and cold day here in Sydney, I posted about my crochet wishlist. This week I really needed some bright colour and quick satisfaction, so I decided to have a go at CAROcreated's Crochet Overlay Mandala No.1. Here are lots of photos of it, because I love it so much :D

Even the back is pretty!

Have you made mandalas before? 

What are your favourite mandala patterns? 

PATTERN: Woven Hot Pad / Trivet

About a month ago I was looking for patterns to make pretty, functional heat protection for our brand new, beautiful blackwood dining table at the lake house.  I was settling in my mind on finding something that was double layered for extra heat protection, and possibly some kind of woven pattern. 

A lovely friend linked to Atty's blog where she makes a braided/woven crochet stool cover, and in a later post a pattern for an afghan square using the same technique. I was hooked! So, I took inspiration from Atty's ideas, and changed it (of course) to suit my, er, more quick and dirty method of crocheting. Here is my pattern for a Woven Heat Pad / Trivet, with due credit to Atty for the inspiration :) 

You can also visit the Ravelry page for this pattern to save it to your queue or favourites for later!

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PATTERN : WOVEN HEAT PAD / TRIVET

Inspired by Atty of http://atty-s.blogspot.nl/

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MATERIALS:

50g each of two colours 8 ply cotton (or a double strand of 4 ply cotton)

3.5mm hook

Darning needle

In the photo tutorial below, Colour A is Pink, and Colour B is Black.

STRIPS:

Start with 30 Chainless Foundation dc. 

If you're not confident with chainless foundations, either check out my tutorial (for hdc, but you can easily do dc instead) or do 32 chain, dc into 3rd chain from hook, dc into each chain (30 dc).

3 ch, turn. dc into each dc (30 dc). Make sure your first dc is in your last dc from the previous row - the 3ch does not count as a dc. Pull through end and cut yarn. 

Repeats Steps 1 and 2 until you have 12 strips - 6 in colour A and 6 in Colour B. Weave in all your ends.

JOINING

Now to start putting it together! First, have a look at the ends of each strip. You need to get 5 sc into the end of each strip, and these arrows show you where you should be sticking your hook in :P 

Pick up a strip of colour A, and one of colour B. Place them perpendicular to one another, crossing over in the corner. sc through the corner of both strips.

Now, continue on, making sure you get 5sc (matching up with the first 5 dc of colour A and the 5 spots at the end of strip in colour B as shown above). 

See how colour B strip is on the front of your colour A strip? The next colour B strip is going to be attached to the BACK of the colour A strip.

Keep working along, 5sc in each strip, alternating your colour B strips from front to back. At each corner, do 3 sc into the corner stitch instead of 1 :) 

When you get around the corner, continue adding strips, this time of colour A. Make sure you alternate attaching them on the front or back. Don't worry about weaving the strips together at this point - just get them all joined!

Now is when the weaving comes in. 

As you work your way along the long edge of colour A (on the left hand side of the above picture), continue using the same method - 5sc in each added strip, alternating front and back.

Turn the corner again with 3sc and work your way along the bottom, locking the colour A strips into position. In the final corner, do two more sc where you did your sc to start. Slip stitch into that first sc, and it should look like this:

Now, you just need to add whatever border you like! The sky is the limit for borders, do whatever you like :) I did a simple *hdc, ch1, sk1* border on this one, to match the boxy shapes of the woven trivet.

But, you could do shells!

Or even just another row of sc all the way around to finish it off :)

I really enjoyed making these heat pads, and I think they will be VERY useful for the new house at the lake! 

As always, if anything doesn't make sense just leave a comment or message me through our Facebook page. I am here to help you, and this pattern hasn't been tested by anyone other than me!

Let me know if you try making it - I'd love to see your creations and post them on our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/crochetbetweenworlds