Monday, March 21, 2016

Summer of crochet

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I've done a lot of exploring crochet in the past couple of months. Nothing very complex - I'm not up to lace doileys yet - but I did go in a few different directions.

Crocheted toppers for hanging handtowels:

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Surprisingly, a standard face washer turns out to be just the right size.

Crochet edging for pillowcases:

Emma's pillowslips

Demelza's pillowslip detail

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This all started with the variegated yellow and white cotton I found at the Green Shed. It really spoke to me of my sisters, who both had birthdays coming. I had an idea about finding some pillow slips in a nice print and using this for a crochet trim. I mentioned this idea to my mum and she had the great idea that we could make it a collaborative project and she would sew the pillowslips instead. We do love a collaboration! I bought a couple of contrasting prints in nice cotton, she found a few more in her stash and then made up four coordinating, but all different, pillow slips.
Demelza's pillowslip detail

And she did them with these handy contrasting flaps for the trim to be crocheted onto - I just like this placement a bit better than crochet on the very edge of the pillowslip. I used a few different people's instructions and examples to work out how I wanted to do this (see the links in the Ravelry project page).

Emma's pillowslips

Emma's pillowslips

I did consider using pink for two of them, but decided the yarn was too thick.

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Then there were some more washcloths and dishcloths for my sister's birthday package (including a couple of knitted ones with crochet edging - can't find the pics of those!):

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Sunburst Granny Heart - pattern by Bunny Mummy

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Pretty Petals Dishcloth by Julee Fort.

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And finally these little pods with crocheted collars, which made an appearance as part of my stall at the Canberra Suitcase Rummage last weekend, as part of the Art Not Apart festival. This was the second time I've participated in the rummage with friends. It's a really pleasant and easy way to get into market selling - low fee, casual format and a really nice location to spend a day. We sold about enough to make it worthwhile (in a hobby sense, not a really viable business) and had various friends and family visiting through the afternoon as we sat beside the lake on a beautiful sunny day.

The blue 'collar' below was actually dyed - when I first did it in white it looked far too twee, like a lacy Peter Pan collar. As I was also in the middle of a dyeing adventure (that'll be another post) it was easy to sit it upside down in a shallow tray of blue and grey dye for a while and fix that problem. So happy with how it turned out.

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