Pierrot Yarns

Just skipping in here in an excited manner to share with you a website I just happened upon whilst looking for a pattern for an oval rug.  I found this pattern which is just what I was looking for....

...then I got drawn into the site as they have some simply amazing patterns.  Pierrot Yarns is a Japanese site with loads of free patterns translated into English (by using slightly scary looking crochet charts).  The patterns are just luv-er-ly!

Here are just some that I have to make immediately, though of course I don't have the time to make them immediately so I shall just have to dream of having the time....

The Newsboy Cap, which would look cute as a pudding on Lillia...and the Carnival Hat for me...

Don't get me started on the bags! Oh the bags! 

The Ribbon Accent Bag, oh my!

 

And the Striped Bag makes me want to grab my hook right now...

The Floral Pouch would be excellent to make for gifts...

And for the home, among all the cute blankets and rugs there's this gorgeous Pillow pattern...

Lastly how about these cosy Blossom Slippers now that the nights are getting cooler?

So now I need to teach myself how to properly read crochet charts (I am a little rusty) so I can get on and start ploughing through all these tempting patterns.

All pictures and patterns are from Pierrot Yarns and are copyright of Gosyo Co. Ltd, who kindly agreed to let me use them so I could share them with you :)  They also have a rather lovely online yarn shop, head over there if you dare!  My debit card is twitching in my purse already....eek.

Happy Hooker Backwards Project #38 Completed!

I finished my blanket on Monday afternoon during what turned out to be a rather stressful 24 hours.  So in the midst of running backwards and forwards to various hospitals, having Big Discussions, and dealing with a vomiting 4-year-old we had a new soft blanket to snuggle down with.

Very handy it was too as when the sickness bug hit Lillia's own pink ripple blanket took most of the mess!  So while that was washed and dried she was able to recover on the sofa quite warm and cosy under the new Colour Bar blanket.

Do excuse the rather bad and wonky "voila!" photo!  The light has been terrible and space to lay it out is fairly limited so you'll have to make do...

All in all in took just under a month to do and it was really good fun working through each little coloured pile of granny squares, then laying them all out and crocheting them together.  I used grey yarn and a single crochet stitch to join them, I like the contrast and the pattern it creates...

The yarn, despite being relatively cheap and cheerful, is incredibly soft and the colours are soooo earthy and warm.  Hubby calls it his "man blanket" as it is one of very few things in the house at the moment that doesn't contain an element of pink.

The pattern didn't call for any edging to finish off the blanket but I felt it needed a finishing edge, so I added four rows of single crochet in taupe and green...

It fits in beautifully in the bedroom as I hoped, the colours are perfect.

But for now it has taken up residence with the family on the sofa, which is where I suspect it may stay for a while :)

So here's the lowdown on Happy Hooker Backwards Project #38!

• Cost - about £15 - I bought one ball of each of the ten colours and I haven't used any of them up entirely so there's plenty of left for more projects.
• Yarn - 100% acrylic - various brands.
• Hook - 6mm
• Difficulty - Easy!  In fact this project almost made me enjoy doing granny squares!  Each square is only three rounds so they are easy to work up quickly, which is just as well as there are 140 in total!  I enjoy joining granny squares so I didn't find that much of a chore, but I am guessing others would disagree :)
• Overall happiness with finished object - as usual I am delighted!  But not as delighted as hubby is with his "man blanket"!

So another project is completed, that's 3 out of 40 so far!  Two weeks until my due date, can I squeeze another one in do you think? 

xx

PS - thanks for all the lovely positive vibes and comments on my Giveaway post, and don't forget you have until Friday to enter if you haven't already!

Yummy wool!

Just dashing in as I am too excited not to share this with you...

I have chosen my ten colours for Happy Hooker Backwards project #38!  For my Colour Bay blanket I will be using a mix of greens, browns and creams, with a small hint of blue.  These colours match our beachy bedroom and I can't wait to get started! 

More from me in a day or two, hopefully with pictures of great progress!  Much excitement here in the Snipsnaphappy household!  Well for me anyway, can't seem to get Mr S and the little person that enthused about my pile of yarn, they don't know what they're missing...

Happy Hooker Backwards Project 39 - Li'l Monkey

Well after a slight setback whilst I waited for a further supply of grey Wendy Serenity yarn I have finally managed to finish my second Happy Hooker Backwards project!  And I have to say I am delighted.  I love the yarn, I love the colours, I love the look of the whole thing. 

Here it is...

The original pattern called for the traditional sock monkey colours of red, tan and cream - a combination I love - but I wanted a much girlier version.

This yarn is super soft - it's a mix of wool, alpaca and acrylic, so very washable too.  In fact I am not going to bother with blocking as I suspect this blanket, which is destined for use as a kind of floor blanket for the new addition to roll about on, faces a lot of washing in its future!  Plenty of time for shaping and drying flat and straight then :)

Those monkey faces were quite a challenge though, more on those below.  But first lets sum up Project 39:

• Cost - about £35.00 - I used about 10 balls in total, more than double what the pattern recommends.  But I did use a different yarn as I couldn't get the required Bernat Softeee Chunkee here in the UK.
• Yarn - Wendy Serenity Super Chunky in grey, pink and cream.  I used more grey than any other colour and ended up having to track down more having made the classic mistake of not buying enough in the first place!
• Hook - 9mm and 5mm
• Difficulty - Easy!  The granny squares are easy to do and the special stitiches are really well explained in the pattern.  The hat was really quick and simple.  The monkey faces were a total pain though!  In fact I totally gave up on the pattern instructions and worked it out myself, I have written my alterations below.
• Overall happiness with finished object - absolutely delighted! It is soft, it is chunky, it is unusual, fun and girly.  There's not a member of the household who hasn't happily buried their toes into it :)

 

Now onto those darned monkey faces.  I got pretty stuck on these and looking at Ravelry I see I'm not the only one.  So here's my revisions to the pattern - basically a list of what I did to more or less make it work ok for me.  These are just me notes, I am no pattern writer!  But if they help another frustrated Happy Hooker somewhere in the world then it's worth posting them:

Rounds 1 and 2 - work to pattern

Round 3 - with colour D
Ch1, sc in same st
2 sc in nxt sc
1 sc in nxt 6 sc
2 sc in next 3 sc
1 sc in nxt 8 sc
2 sc in last sc
Sl st in first sc to join

Round 4
Ch1, sc in same st
2 sc in nxt sc
1 sc in nxt 11 sc
2 sc in nxt 3 sc
1 sc in nxt 9 sc
2 sc in last sc
Sl st in first sc to join

Round 5
Ch 1, 2 sc in same st
2 sc in next sc
1 sc in next 10 sc
2 sc in next 2 sc

Then return to pattern for the ears.

  

Two down, just 38 to go!  Next project is another blanket but this time a big one for us grown ups!  Perfect for the coming winter, more soon!

x

Guilty confession

I have a terrible admission to make.

I don't like making granny squares.

I know I know, a crochet-addict who doesn't like granny squares, like an alchoholic who doesn't like cocktails (mmmm, cocktails...)

I just find them a little tedious, all that going round and round in circles..ok..squares...the same stitches over and over and over again. to create lots of little identical, or very similar, componant parts.

*sigh*

You know what I really like?  Crocheting them all together...

...seeing them come together to create the whole...



...finally seeing the fruits of my labour...



And it's always handy to have a little helper on hand to test the softness...

Every cloud...

Ok so I may be unwell and in a slight limbo while I decide which route to take to, hopefully, better health...but being stuck at home with a few child-free hours a day has its advantages.

Like having the time to make some of my favourite lemon cookies...

And of course having the time to eat them :)

I've also had a bit of sofa time to complete my "background" crochet project, the one I keep for when I'm between "proper" projects, like now whilst I am waiting for a stock of yarn to come in to finish my Li'l Monkey blanket.

This bag came about for two reasons - firstly as I needed a yarn bag, and secondly because I need to use up my stash of acrylic wool to free up space before the baby arrives.

This was made up as I went along - a continuous round of double crochet, handles worked in single crochet (I'm talking US terms here) and then edged with some bobbly picot edging.

I'm rather pleased with the edging as I had to apply a little of my crochet experience to figure out the best way to space it out and how to do this.    It's the perfect size for all my yarn...

Now I just need to work out what my next project should be!  Better head off to Ravelry for more baby hat patterns I think :)

Happy Hooker Backwards Project #39 in progress

It's time to start the next project in my plan to work through the Happy Hooker backwards.  After a bit of a delay whilst I tried to overcome the problem of not being able to buy the required Barnat Softee Chunky yarn here in the UK, I eventually took action (rather than repeatedly doing the same Google searches and coming up with nothing) and headed down to a local yarn store to get some advice. 

Yes!  Excitingly I actually now have not one but TWO local yarn shops!  When I went to buy our 4 year-old's school jumper at a specialist uniform shop in a nearby village I discovered that they are also a yarn shop complete with a resident old lady knitting expert.  Then I discovered Yarnia in Belvedere in Kent, just a ten minute drive away, and it was here I finally managed to find myself some alternative wool with the help of one of the owners.  Phew.

I went for these colours rather than the suggested red and tan combination...

I want everything to be baby-girly so of course it had to be pink and soft.  This stuff was *gasp* £3.35 a ball, three times the amount I usually spend on yarn.  It's 10% wool, 20% alpaca and 70% acrylic, so it's fairly posh for a baby blanket.  But I can still shove it in the machine on a wool wash so all is well.

The brand is Wendy "Serenity"...

The irony of using a wool called "serenity" for making a blanket for a newborn is not lost on me :)

Coming home clutching my new stash I had to get started straight away of course and prepared myself to quickly work up one of the monkey faces essential to the whole project.  In the end it took me about four hours - no matter how I looked at the patten it just didn't add up the way it should have - and after many unravelled attempts I finally started again and just did it my own way...

And you know what?  It actually does look like the picture in the book!  I will post my amendments to this part of the pattern after I've hooked up a few more and perfected it.

I then moved on to the hat part of the project, which I am pleased to report was easy as pie and took about an hour to do in between bouts of working from home...

The idea is now to attach the monkey face to the hat in order to elevate its cuteness to heart-melting proportions.  I haven't done this yet, but here it is placed together...

Gah!  Too too too cute!  My eyes my eyes!

So now I am off to work on the afghan part of the project.  I am very much enjoying this chunky way of crocheting, everything seems so quick, apart from the blasted monkey faces of course :)

The Happy Hooker Backwards Project

I had an exciting delivery this morning! 

I ordered some 100% acrylic yarn in this lovely combination of colours in order to make a buggy blanket and matching hat using the pattern on page 281 of the Happy Hooker book...

You will notice pink features...Yes, we found out last Friday that we are having another little girl!  The current little lady of the house is very pleased indeed, she had said she didn't mind either way but I think she really wanted a sister.  For me it's great, I already have everything I need and I won't have to learn a new way of nappy changing!  Plus hubby will be outnumbered entirely which amuses me greatly :)

So now I know what colour blankets I need to be crocheting, what fabrics I will use for toys, and what names I need to narrow down.

The pattern I started with my new yarn today is the "Seija Set" Baby Hat and Stroller Blanket (buggy blanket to us in the UK!)  Within 20 minutes of the postie delivering the parcel I had made a start...

I am very excited to get started on a crochet project, it seems like ages since I last picked up my hooks. I think this one is going to be a lot of fun. How fortunate we are to be having a winter baby! It will be the snuggliest winter baby ever.

Coincidentally this pattern happens to be the very last pattern in the Happy Hooker book which, in the words of the fictional Cary Bradshaw, got me to thinking – what if I just kept going? 

So an idea formed in the messy crafty recesses of my mind – a project! Why don’t I just make it all, pattern by pattern, from back to front? It so happens that the next (or rather, previous) few projects contain some rather nice baby things, like the monkey hat and blanket, and the softies, which at the time the idea formed seemed to make a hell of a lot of sense.  And so the Happy Hooker Backwards project is born! It will take me a while of course, I am not made of yarn for start, nor money, nor time. Plus there’s the small matter of having a baby at some point in the next three months or so, that might slow things down slightly. But darn it I shall keep going until I have made every pattern in that book! Even if I am hooking away in the birthing pool…ok maybe not but you get the idea.

I will of course be keeping you updated every step of the way.  Now do excuse me, I have a hat to finish off...

Alpacas

When I first started to crochet I bought a load of cheap acrylic wool to work my way through.  It's great stuff- soft, colourful, easy to work up, and best of all you can bung it in the washing machine when it gets covered in strawberry milk.

But it's time for me to start branching out to the real stuff, proper wool.  I mentioned in my last post that I love natural things so I started googling different types of wool, looking at what shops are around for me to visit and have a poke around, when I came across alpaca wool.  A few searches later and I found Quarterhouse Alpacas.  Their website said they sold wool from their own alpacas and when I emailed them to ask about how to purchase some they suggested we visit and see the alpacas at the same time.  Just outside Wittersham and near to Tenterden it is situated in one of the most beautiful parts of Kent so how could we refuse?

The alpacas were beautiful creatures, all big eyes, eye lashes and inquisitive sniffing.  They were newly shorn and looked like they had been hoovered!

The wool was soft and gorgeous and beautifully natural.  The colours were the natural colours of the alpacas, no dyes.  At £10 per 100g ball though it ain't cheap.  I bought three balls to play with.  Considering I get twitchy about spending a tenner on new clothes or more than a fiver on a bottle of wine 30 quid on wool is pure extravagance!

And what does one make with super soft alpaca wool at the beginning of summmer time?  Why, cosy snuggly arm-warmers of course! 

It works up beautifully, making a simple staggered double crochet stitch look like luxurious cable knit.  It is soft and drapey and I can't wait for winter so I can waddle about fat and pregnant and very very warm. 

xx