In progress….

Hello my Fellow Fibre Fantics! I hope this post finds you well. I want to talk today about what I’m working on at the moment.

Around about this time last year, I started to crochet a blanket for my brother and his girlfriend. I am calling it Peacock Kaleidoscope because the pattern I am using is called Kaleidoscope by Tammy Hildebrand and is from Unexpected Afghans by Robyn Chachula and I am using a peacock kind of colourway. I had intended this to be a Christmas present, but alas my poor hands could not cope with sewing in all the hundreds of ends. Just so you know, I have quadrupled the size given in the book so that it will fit a king-size bed. I think they have a double, but I’m not sure so thought I’d better err on the side of caution and make it bigger. If it is a double, then the blanket will swamp their bed and will have the effect of a weighted blanket.

Alas, soon after I started to make it, I had to stop crocheting all together to rest my thumbs. I picked it up again in October and finished all the motifs. I even got about a quarter of the way through the filler motifs before I had to stop because I had forgotten to sew in the ends from the joining rounds of the main motifs and when I tried to sew them in after working some of the filler motifs, it hurt my hands (particularly my thumbs) more than sewing ends usually does.

I really want to finish this blanket for my brother, but the sewing in of the ends is killing me! I keep texting him to let him know I haven’t forgotten and I’m not being lazy, just trying to cope with painful hands, and he’s been really nice about it, but he mentions the blanket to our Mum from time to time with comments like, “I thought Shelly was supposed to be crocheting me a blanket, but I haven’t heard anything for a while”. What to do!!!

While having a break from the horrendous ends, I have started to work on a new shawl. I have been in love with this pattern for a long time, but have not been able to get the tension quite right. However, after working on Shayron’s Lace recently (photos will follow – she’s still being blocked), I found that I could manage lace-weight mercerised cotton with a 4mm hook, so I thought I’d give size 10 crochet cotton (practically the same) a try with the 3.5mm hook, as required for this pattern.

I have had a few false starts that involved ripping out and restarting (hence the photo above), but now it all seems to be going well. I am happy, but I am not looking forward to going back to the ends on the Peacock Kaleidoscope. Wish me luck?!

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Welcome

New post on String for Brains:

Hello and welcome to String for Brains, a crochet journal of sorts. I have started reading Kathryn Vercillo‘s book, Hook to Heal and have decided to blog about my progress with the book and my journey through self-healing and finding my inner artist. I know she’s in there somewhere, but as I have “string for brains”, this may take some time!

I thought it might be fun to share a little background before I start working on the exercises in Kathryn’s book, so I will start with my crochet journey. I used to do a lot of cross stitch – I mean a lot of cross stitch. I was quite accomplished at the craft and took pride in my work. However, in 2010 we had to move house and I needed to do something a little more portable than cross stitch to cope with the stress. Yes, I know small cross stitch projects are indeed portable, but I was only working on large projects at the time and found small projects (the portable-sized small projects) irritating and pointless. I mean, I found my inner peace while crocheting large projects and it could take me a while to find it. With a much smaller project, I would probably finish it before I felt the relaxing calm that usually came with hours upon hours of work.

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