Forever Autumn lap blanket

My favourite season is here again and to celebrate it s return, yet another autumn blanket. This is my fourth homage to the season of misty mornings and crisp golden leaves. Just a little lap blanket this time only 56 squares, so you can hook it up in no time.

I used a ball each of nine shades of Stylecraft Special DK were used bottle, khaki, meadow, lime, mustard, gold, copper, gingerbread and claret to capture that perfect autumnal morning in a colour wash layout.

You can use any type of five round granny square to make this. I chose a simple circle into square this time, but a regular granny or a starburst would look just as good.

I used a 3.5mm hook as I like that denser feel you get when using DK, but a 4mm will work just as well too and give you a slightly bigger blanket.

You can find the pattern and colour layout on Ravelry here . 

I know not everyone is happy with the new design of Ravelry so I am happy to email the PDF direct to you, just contact me on craftycatknittybits@gmail.com.

Also chicken tested.

I popped it in my saddle bag of my bike and took it for a photo shoot around the Gloucestershire countryside where I live one misty morning. So it can be properly of its season.

 

 

 

Starburst Autumn blanket

 I have been planning and musing over this blanket for just over a year now and finally it has come to fruition. I was totally inspired by Karen @insomniacrochet and her amazing interpretations of Lucy Attic24 blankets by turning them into colour wash harmony square blankets. 

The actual premise seems rather easy. Just make sure no two colours are ever  next to each other and have a good balance of light and dark. But actually starting this seems rather scary and it a leap of faith to just start putting those colours together and hoping you get the right balance.

I think I did ok and there are squares I adore and some that are just OK (said in small voice). I think it is the sort of thing you can just keep making and tweaking but hey other blanket plans are afoot and there is only so much time.

So in the community spirit I freely give my pattern and layout to the world, to make if you so wish, your own blanket of Autumn, for those chilly dark nights. You can find it here on my Ravelry page.

UK. Terms  

I used a 4mm hook and 15 shades of Stylecraft special DK in

Camel, mustard, gold, spice, tomato, copper, claret, burgundy,  walnut, bottle, khaki, cypress, lime, meadow, and pistachio .

Granny square is the standard starburst and the pattern details can be found here Starburst Tutorial  as Jenny explains it with beautiful photos far better than I can.
 
90 squares in total.

For the border I did a triple treble in khaki, lime, mustard, gold, copper and claret and then did a further round of scallops (5 trebles in each space ch1 SC ch1...) and 7 trebles on the corners.

I would suggest joining as you go as the project just moves that much faster and I always sewed my ends in at the end of each row. 

Wash, grab coffee, cat or dog and biscuits, snuggle under and enjoy.

Spinning

I think I have finally found my place in the world..........fibre. I'd never understood fibre other than being in  bought yarn. I knew what home spun looked like but those ladies quite clearly did it by their magic wheels and a talent that escaped me. I'd stood by them at wool shows as they turned straw into gold, admired their jumpers, bags and weavings all made from what they had made. I dreamed of doing the same and despite actually owning a wheel and being gifted several bags of fibre I had never really given it a chance. I'd made the mistake of starting with alpaca which has too short as staple and is difficult to spin. Fed up with it being tugged from my hands the wheel had gone into hibernation.

 BFL my new passion

 Luckily my dear friend Jo had booked herself a half day spinning lesson and bought a wheel. One dreary February day we sat down together and started spinning. Oh my. How did I live before this? Once you get the muscle memory locked in your brain your hands, feet and brain all work together to produce yarn...lots of yarn. Brightly coloured yarn, soft yarn, striped yarn....the possibilities are simply endless.

 After much studying of images on Pinterest you get the idea of what kind of yarns you would like to produce. this is a whole new way of crafting as you really have to start with the imagining the finished object and work backwards from there. Sounds mad but it's true. How you divide the fibre for spinning will dictate the finished yarn. Leave it whole and work your way down and use a chain ply to create gradient yarns. Or repeatedly divide to created a barber pole striping yarns. My little brain can't actually take in all the permutations there are.

 Variegated sprinkled merino top

 Repeat dyed BFL tussah silk combed wool top

 Merino and tencel repeating dyeway

White & grey Corridale which is a dream to both dye and spin.

 Plus all this new found desire for fibre has led to dyeing fibre....oh woe is me. I love my washing line looking like this! I'm still continuing my learning journey of dyeing yarns and now fibres. Completely different in that fibre is not usually super wash so even greater care has to be taken handling them. Dye take ups are different on different bases and in some cases it's harder not to muddy colours. I've been busy experimenting to find the nicest fibres to dye and spin. I currently love both Corriedale and BFL and anything with silk in it too.

 Toms' magic paws in now available in fibre too!

 This is a scarf knitted for a friend in home spun yarn. What a treat to know you have dyed, spun and knitted an item. The sense of achievement  is without comparison. Quite how the 2ply yarn knows how to stripe is a mystery but I just adore it's rustic homely look.

 Sheep wagon shawl all my own work...she says smugly!

 Wool tops dyeing in the cauldron of doom

Being the old hippy I am, I used to dream of spinning and wearing items made from your own yarn. Finally  years down the line it's finally happening and I can't get enough of it. I feel like I have come home to where I belong. My hands seem to spin as if they are drawing on ancestral memories. No matter how awful the dyed top looks, it seems to spin up into a pretty yarn. I am dyeing fibres, feeding my imagination with a thousand colours and possibilities and I firmly believe there is some magic involved in spinning. Look at all the fairy tales concerning wheels......it must be old magic indeed.

The Autumn months

It's been hard to find the time to write on here, lazy as that sounds. Sometimes you just don't have it in you to share the nonsense that makes up your life. It's hard to find the right words or life just doesn't seem to have been interesting at all. From the start of September I start preparing work wise for the festive season that will arrive ever so quickly. I had an awful backlog of accounts to deal with before I even started that so it was with a hurrah that they were finished and sent off to the accountant. 

Then it was time to make lists of packaging supplies and beads that I would hopefully need in the coming months. I do like to have the cupboard full of the essentials. It's hard to anticipate how busy the festive season will be, you can only go on previous years sales.This year I introduced a new rule that will hopefully make it less stressful for me. I used to list more items that I had made, so each day was a catch up to make and pack orders. This year I'm only listing what is already made and have told myself it's OK to be out of stock for a day or so. We'll see how this works out, but it already feels less stressful in my head!

So the Autumn months are my absolute favourite. Misty mornings, the colour of leaves and berries, that nip in the air along with the caramel, earthy, spicy leaf smell. An abundance of free foods from the hedgerows was an added bonus. Lots of blackberry crumbles and some hedgerow jam that tastes of the season. Now for lots of Autumnal photos which sum it all up much better than words can........

It was a truly stunning Autumn. The leaves seemed to stay on the trees much longer as  we had none of the usual October storms. The colour change was more gradual and vibrant and so many berries of all descriptions. Each morning was a delight, whether misty or frosty and there were few grey dull days to be seen at all. It was an intense colour parade to get us through the next through months I think.


We also had the chimney swept, so it was ready for the much anticipated roaring fires. 

 

I still enjoy going outside and watching the brush pop out of the chimney, takes me back to being a girl in the cottage I grew up in.

Of course this year there was new addition to the household in the form of little Tom. He was so very poorly to start with and so small, my heart went out to this bundle of warm fur. I really did have every intention of re-homing him, we have more than enough cats, but just as he reached the ten week mark he would not stop sneezing. I know it's only a part of the chlamydia he came with working its way out of his system, but I also couldn't re-home a poorly cat. Even at the vets he had gone under the generic 'kitten' we use for all my waifs and strays as I said he wasn't staying. But here he is attacking my pen on the desk and inspecting everything else as I write. He is a very good chap and has a lot of ladies worldwide on Instagram who love him, even a fairy godmother Maxine @dorothysparkleshoes, how could I part with him! He seems to be finding his place in what we call the 'general pop' and is friends with some and gets a bop on the head with others.

He was really bad at washing his face.

He thinks he is an expert at making markers

He has far too much of an interest in the fire for my liking, hence the guard is up.

He has done so well from such a poor start, it makes me so happy to see him grow up into such a content little cat.

On the project front I finished my first crochet project Lucy's harmony blanket. I was so chuffed as I had fell in love with this a while ago and just knew I had to make one. It was excellent practice all those squares to get the right tension and her tutorials are so good with the step by baby steps, even a novice can follow. I've already started on another blanket a mixture of the harmony square and her cosy stripe as I've gifted the harmony to my sister. I was asked if I felt sad giving away such a large item, but the truth is that its a double enjoyment. Firstly you get the fun of making it and then again giving it to someone who knows just how much hard work you put into it and who will love it. 

Nothing else has been on my needles, I seem to have lost my knitting Mojo and found a crochet one. That's not to say I'm not planning lots of knitted things, but I just want to crochet the world for now which seems to be how it goes once you learn. In actual fact there is yet another blanket quietly emerging in the happy flower granny square as it seems one blanket clearly is not enough!