Category Archives: own pattern

I am done

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No more knitting. I am done with it.

Vase 09sOk, ok, there might me the occasional addition to my window display in the future, maybe a hungry caterpillar maybe another flower but for now I am done.

After the octopus flowers I was a bit unproductive and only managed to make a few more flowers and a few lovely mini beasts.

The improvised bee, as requested by my daughter:

bee 02

And two butterflies.

butterfly both sI was looking for patterns and could not quite decide which one of these two I prefer. The small and simple knitted one from Spud and Chloe or the crochet one following a video tutorial by nadelspiel.

I think the simple knitted one corresponds maybe more to my generally rather childish style and I have already gotten a firm request to make one of these to be fixed on a hair clip 🙂

The crochet one is beautiful (just as butterflies are) and it was another good crochet experience for me.

From a linguists point of view it is really interesting how much easier it is for me to refresh my almost inexisting crochet skills in German rather than English. Even though I do not remember how to make the different stitches, hearing the familiar words Staebchen and feste Masche has a very comforting effect. And I guess, following a very clear video tutorial is helpful too.

I decided to arrange two of the mini beasts rather close to the flowers.

bee and flowers s

butterfly knit window sThey might not be spotted from far away or from people just passing but they will be the fun little surprise for those who actually look at it properly. I really think having them there makes a lot of difference. The flowers are nice and people might even admire the knitting skills (if they can not knit at all) but discovering bee and butterfly will hopefully make them smile. Especially if they are on their way to the dentist next door 🙂

And just for those who think that I am always overcritical with myself: I think I should have planned the arrangement in advance rather than just putting them up when knitted up. They are not very well mixed colourwise nor specieswise. And as all tulips and roses are rather high up it is difficult to actually see the difference between them when standing on the pavement which is a bit of a shame because they are both made from very good and accurate patterns. But don’t worry, I am very pleased with the finished display. I just don’t know what to knit next… HELP!!!!

 

 

How to crochet an octopus

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Yes, I said “crochet”.

I thought my flower window display is the perfect opportunity to brush up my crochet skills dating from primary school days. And since I was unable to knit the beautiful Gerbera on oddknit I looked for a crochet pattern and found lovely flower patterns on the Meli Bondre blog and because of the rather deadly combination of crochet skills dating from primary school and trying to understand a pattern in a foreign language, I looked up all the strange letter combinations in Cherry Hearts Crochet Corner, an incredibly useful and also pretty site for anybody who wants to know about crochet with great tutorials to all sort of crochet stitches.

But back the Octopus – tutorial:

Choose a Gerbera pattern, ignore completely yarn and hook suggestions, take the one hook that you have and ideally too thick yarn for that hook.

Don’t bother counting the stitches when creating the inner circle. It is late and the yarn is dark. It will be roughly enough.

Continue until there is no more space to add any more petals legs. I know, from a marine biologist point of view, an octopus should have rather 8 legs (and probably that same marine biologist would not necessarily call them legs) rather than a good 30 but the crocheted octopus looks good with that many legs or arms or whatever.

Gerbera A1

(As my daughter has pointed out, it clearly isn’t an octopus because it doesn’t have eyes.)

If you like it but still want to crochet a Gerbera, just do the same again, maybe with different yarn, but don’t be surprised to get another octopus.

Gerbera B1

The octopus tutorial finishes here.

After a bit of ironing the seafood actually turns into something more flowery

Gerbera C2but size wise they are not quite at the same scale than my lovely knitted roses and tulips.

Vase 07A little overpowering I guess and not recognisable as Gerberas next to the smaller flowers, maybe weirdly dyed sunflowers? But then it helped a lot to make the bouquet much fuller quickly. And they work well to attract views from further away which was the point of the whole window display anyway.

IMG_1980

 

 

 

on the other side…

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Just a quick picturesque update on the window yarn bombing. Somehow I am not as quick as I thought, slowed down by all sorts of things, visitors staying, possible bronchitis in combination with stiff neck, children refusing both to cook or going to nursery by themselves,….

Anyway, there is still lots to do but this is how far I got:Vase 01

Vase 02

Vase 03

Vase 04

Vase 05

I put the vase up first and left it empty for a couple of days so people passing and eventually noticing it could wonder what on earth that thing would mean.

The initial plan was to add one or two flowers each day but as I said, I am producing them much slower and I am nowhere near the end. There is still lots of space for more….

And as my daughter suggested, there should also be a bee and maybe a butterfly. I really like that idea and will definitely add them.

Some of the flower pattern I found at oddknits, others are variations of something that I had seen in a book ages ago.

I also want to pick up crochet again and add some crocheted flowers, so far only some of the stems and leaves are. I kind of used the tutorial at the twisted yarn but without actually knowing English crochet vocabulary … so I might have gotten it totally wrong. They still look like leaves though.

I am very pleased with it so far, and I hope it cheers up people who pass, especially those who continuously mistake our house for the dentist next door 🙂

but considering the slow pace I wonder if I will ever get to do the two other, much bigger, windows.

Chloe

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I have quite a few things lined up but Chloe has jumped the queue.

In my knitting classes I always suggest several mini projects and a little bag for children was one of the ideas. Something like this:

But one of my students, Aksana, was not happy with this. So she kept asking “what if I do this, what if I add that” and I kept replying “you are the designer of your bag, go for it”

So, she made these two for her girls:

Aksanas bag1This is clearly much more exciting so I decided to steal her idea (don’t worry I did ask for her permission 🙂 ) and designed Chloe – a shoulder bag for children. I made two versions, one very simple and one with a few more skills required. I am hoping that this will help not only my students to finish an easy yet fun project which they can adapt to their level of knitting.

I have decided to include a few explications of knitting techniques with would be new to a beginner but no proper tutorials. There are so many good ones out already, I don’t think I could do that any better.

In the meantime you can download Chloe and start knitting 🙂