ColourSpun Colourways - Lilac Breasted Roller

A post from Zoe Etches on the Official CCC Social Group popped up on my FB news feed this morning. She is looking for a colour pallette for a photo of a Lilace Breasted Roller that was taken by Sharifa Jinnah in the Kruger National Park in South Africa.

Here is my colour pallette in ColourSpun Pure Cotton:

From Left to right

top row 162 057 434 322 310

bottom row 148 154 423 066 041

ColourSpun Colourways

I am often asked by my customers to help put together colourways for their projects. I love doing this and so I thought it would be fun to share them. I aim to post a colourway as often as possible and will  give my yarn/fabric/embroidery thread colours with each one so they will be easy to find on my website - www.colourspun.com

Today's colourway was put together for the Playing Hooky crochet group for a blanket CAL. It's lovely and bright and summery and pictured here in ColourSpun Pure Cotton.

Clockwise from the top left, the colours are: 004 017 029 036 402 152 160 424 165 172 183 454

ColourSpun Happies

Creative knitting and crochet, modular knitting, Fairisle, Intarsia, stripes, granny squares, embroidery, tapestry, needlepoint, embellishment …. all require lots of colour and texture so -  we made less so that you can have more!  Delicious little bites of happiness filled with the natural goodness of ColourSpun yarn. All those wonderful colours and textures packed into 10g skeins, perfect for all your creative pursuits.

Happy 2015!

How to Join Fabric Strips Together

Ever wanted to join fabric strips together for knitting or crochet or anything else without having big knots that are difficult to hide in your work or that can come undone. Here’s an easy method of joining those strips that won’t undo or make big bumps.

 

Join the strips of fabric together as follows: fold each short side of each strip over about 1.5cm and cut a slit about 1cm long from the fold into the fabric, being careful not to cut through the fabric edge. Slip the end of one piece of fabric (call it the top end) through the slit of another piece of fabric and then take the opposite end of the first piece of fabric and slip it through the slit in the top end of the same piece, pull tight to knot them together. For wider strips of fabric, just make the folded section longer and cut the strips longer to accommodate the width of your fabric. Keep joining new strips to your “rope” until it is as long as you want it to be.

 

Knitted ICord

I- Cord is tubular knitting done on 2 double pointed needles or on one circular needle. This gives the same result as knitting on a french knitting dolly but with the added benefit of being able to increase and decrease the number of stitches and also of being able to vary the thickness of the yarn used. It is very useful for jewellery, cords, straps ....

C/on between 4 and 8 Stitches

**knit across

Slide the stitches back across to the other end of the needle without turning and pull the yarn firmly across the back of your work

Repeat from ** until your cord is the required length.

Cut yarn, leaving a 20cm tail. Thread through stitches and fasten off.  

This will give you a stocking stitch cord – smooth side out.

For a reverse stocking stitch cord – pull the yarn across the front of your work to begin knitting the next row.

 

 

I-cord cast off

This is a wonderful way to finish edges as you cast off. You can vary the number of stitches as you please.

Cast on 5 sts

*K4; K2tog; Slip 5 sts from right hand needle back to left needle

Repeat from *

Crochetnit

Double hook needles or double end crochet hooks – are long afghan crochet hooks with the same size hook on each end designed to produce a firm, double faced fabric usually in 2 different colours. Cro-hooking, cro-knitting, double hook crochet, crochet on the double are all names given to this technique. You will notice that if worked in 2 colours one side will be predominately colour A and the other side will be predominately colour B.

 Maria Olma was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1920 and learned to crochet at a very young age. She immigrated to the US in 1943 and became Mary Middleton. In 1970 a friend showed her a baby afghan she had made with a double hook needle. Mary was intrigued and realised the technique was similar to the afghan stitch she learnt as a girl. She showed a number of others; who wanted to learn the technique. A craft shop asked her to give lessons and booked the classes – one lady cancelled because she didn’t want to buy a hook and pay for a lesson to learn just one stitch. This prompted Mary to develop more stitches and start a company called Crochenit. This is now the popular term for work done on a double hook needle.

 This block is worked in basic Crochenit stitch. You will notice that the technique is very similar to Tunisian Crochet.

Start with a foundation chain using colour A.
The first row will be a pick up row – still using colour A.
Turn your work and slide along to end – join new colour (you will now have yarn on both ends of your work)
The second row will be a cast off row – using colour B
The third row will be a pick up row – using colour B
Turn your work and cast off with colour A.

 You will need:

2 balls of yarn in different colours –colour A and colour B
1 double hook needle in a size to suit your yarn (Note- you will need a bigger size hook than knitting needle to produce a soft fabric)

Start with a crochet foundation chain of 20 + 1 – 21 chain using colour A

Row 1:
Cast on row: Insert hook into the second chain from the hook, *wrap the yarn (from back to front) over the hook and pull through leaving the new loop on the hook; insert the hook into the next chain* repeat from *to* to end
Turn work and slide to end of needle, using colour B make a slip knot and place on needle
Cast off row: pull the slip knot through the first loop on the hook;* wrap the yarn over the hook and pull through the first 2 loops on the hook* repeat from *to* until there is only one loop left on the hook.

Row 2:

Cast on row: Insert the hook into the second vertical bar of the previous row, *wrap the yarn over the hook and pull the loop through leaving the new loop on the hook; insert the hook into the next vertical bar* repeat from *to* to end
Turn work and slide to the end of needle; take up colour A
Cast off row: wrap the yarn over the hook and pull through the first loop on the hook;* wrap the yarn over the hook and pull through the first 2 loops on the hook* repeat from *to* until there is only one loop left on the hook.

Row 3:

Cast on row: Insert the hook into the second vertical bar of the previous row, *wrap the yarn over the hook and pull the loop through leaving the new loop on the hook; insert the hook into the next vertical bar* repeat from *to* to end
Turn work and slide to the end of needle; take up colour B
Cast off row: wrap the yarn over the hook and pull through the first loop on the hook;* wrap the yarn over the hook and pull through the first 2 loops on the hook* repeat from *to* until there is only one loop left on the hook.

 Repeating Rows 2 and 3; work 16 more rows then work a row of single crochet and end off.

 

 

Darn in ends.

 

There is nothing stopping you from using only one colour or a different colour at every turn or even for each cast on and each cast off row – use your imagination and have fun!