Spotty crocheted cotton cloths

3rd March 

Narcissi in flower for St David's day,
the sun shone too!

March already, the days are flying by despite the amazing amount of rain we have seen here in the south of the UK.  However even now and then we are shown a glimmer of hope and blue sky pops back into our lives and the sun shines gloriously, but not for long...  A belated Happy St David's Day to all my Welsh friends and family, my little yellow flowers of sunshine just for you...

In crafting terms I have really enjoyed myself but to the detriment of my mood blanket (will rectify that this week and crack on again with it!)  I have been hooking with quite thin yarn in cotton, so very different to the chunky projects of late.

 

 Want to see what I have been doing...


Face cloths made for my son and daughter,
both were delighted with them

This was a new crochet technique for me and I must say I could become addicted.  The result is more like knitting Scandinavain style, whereby you can play with pattern and create pictures.  Now that I have made two of these I feel quite confident to have a play and come up with some fun designs of my own, watch this space!

This is called tapestry crochet, I had not heard of it before but came across it on a fantastic blog written by Jules, link below.  I followed her very easy to follow instructions and made the spotted facecloths that she made, she also has the pattern for a harlequin face cloth and more recently a heart face cloth, I LOVE that one and just may have to make that for myself.  Mr H will only contemplate one if it has a boat on, that may stretch my crocheting and designing skills, but may well end up trying.  On goggling tapestry crochet, as with anything nowadays, there is a whole new world to be discovered and I am quite excited.  So if you do not hear from me for a while, I will be trawling the Internet looking at tapestry crochet; sad that I am!

Below is a photo journal of the face cloths that I have made, again as with most things I undertake, they are relatively quick.  I work almost full time, have two children with a busy schedule of me chauffeuring them around, but I managed to hook these both up within the last week.  You could too.  Link to Jules' blog and pattern below, pay her a visit, her blog is lovely.

 

Tapestry crochet means that the colour you are not using gets caught between the thread that is in use and so becomes hidden within.  This creates a thicker than normal piece of crochet.  Stitch used throughout was treble stitch (UK).

The design began to grow quickly and in seeing it grow made it difficult to put it down!

Excuse the photograph, difficult to take a picture and crochet at the same time whilst sitting on a train!  Having unexpectedly needed to dash to London this week, what better time than to begin the second face cloth!

As I have a girl and a boy, I decided to have slightly gender orientated colours, but pulled them together with the red dots, after all they will be hanging next to each other in the bathroom, need some cohesion!

The sun began to shine a little this week so I dashed outside to photograph my work to date, not the best photography in the world though.

But soon both were finished with a chain stitch hook made up of both yarns to give a plaited look.  I think they are quite charming and I really like them.  Even my son said he was looking forward to using his!  Result!

 

What is so great about tapestry crochet is that in catching the unused thread between the thread that is in use, makes it totally reversible!!! How great is that!



Whilst making these face cloths the weather has been such a mixed bag in the last seven days, but when the sun  has shone I have taken every opportunity that I could to be outside.  Here is just a little piece of my week away from crafting...

The sky when it has been blue has been such a striking deep dark shade and look blossom too!

 



The long brick wall in our village, many a child has walked along on the way to and from school touching the tactile feel of the bricks.

 



Locally known as the glass brick, my children could never not search for it and we could not continue our walk until they found it.

 



Over grown moss and grass between the cobbles, everything looks so much better in the sunshine.

 



We even had our first meal outside this week, oh, to do this more often...

 



 

In between the good weather of course, we naturally had to have some rainbows.  This past week has given us the most vibrant rainbows I have ever seen.  Such deep colours that were almost aglow, it was quite magical.

...and lastly the village green with typical white picket fences and Spring flowers bursting through by the walnut tree.

 



To find the pattern for the facecloths and have a jolly good read of a great blog, follow the link below.
http://littlewoollie.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/crochet-washcloths-so-hip.html

Let me know if you try the tapestry crochet!  Enjoy!