Where did you get that that?

We are always making hats, beanies and berets. Everyone loves a good hat or beanie. We make them for ourselves, our friends, family , for competitions and sale. We make them for charity and then just for fun. They always find their home and head! We like trying  new patterns or making up our own. The ones featured give you (and us) ideas. You can use up scraps and make fair isle or striped beanies. You can mix yarns and use something fancy like spun camel hair and silk or a really nice alpaca. You can make a difference with crochet or knitting the edge . You can do something as simple as a purl row after a number of stocking stitch rows. You can crochet the top of a beret and finish it off with knitting. You can make a nice little scarf or cowl to go with your hat. What you need is a good, basic pattern and then you can vary it with fancy stitches or a mix of crochet and knitting or you can vary the colours and yarns. It’s all up to you and your imagination.

There’s a good, basic beanie pattern on allfreeknitting.

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Crochet neck wrap

Depending on the weather or climate you may just need a bit of warmth around your neck. You don’t want a big , thick scarf or cowl. Just something easy and light. Smaller cowls and neck wraps can be fun to make and if you crochet them they are really quick. Good way to use up oddments, too. Christine made a lovely, lavender neck wrap and it looks visually appealing. It’s the colour and then the lacy effect. She made it up herself. Why not? Just get your hook and yarn out and crochet whatever you want and the way you feel like it. It’s a nice creative exercise and also a way of freeing up your mind. No pressure.

Marina crocheted a  cowl  from her spun fleece which Alexis had dyed. She added some beads and a lacy edge. That’s another thing you can play around with when you are making a smaller neck wrap. Look at ways of edging or embellishing it. You get to see the effect without committing yourself to a big project.

The Happy Unraveller shows you how to make an easy cowl and then you can use your skills and ideas to make it visually more interesting if you want to.

Grannie squares galore

Maria never fails to inspire and teach us. She knows many of us have been excited by making different sorts of grannie squares this year. She had had a big sort through her things and came on Monday with a bag of grannie squares which she had left over from different blankets she had made. True to form she was making a whole heap of flower grannie squares on Monday and we are looking forward to seeing how they turn out and what they look like. We were thinking she could put all these grannie squares together to make another blanket. Maria is not so sure. She is full of creative surprises so we’ll see. Meanwhile we just loved looking at all these colours, combinations and creative grannie squares. We loved the owl and the butterflies but we loved the flower ones too.

Show and tell

It wasn’t warm. It wasn’t cold either. Bit of an odd day but it was good to look out over the ocean and inside the club rooms there were so many conversations, discussions and ideas which kept us very cheerful and enthused.  It was good to see so much colour.

Show and tell

Janette: a pair of very colourful slippers, a jumper to match in colourful stripes and a ball of spun wool in similar colours.

Margaret: ribbed beanie in mohair dyed with variegated dark red.

Jan (2): 4 spun skeins,1 beautiful white silky fibre made from OPTIM™ fibres , a CSIRO project, 2 natural light grey wool/rabbit, 1 natural light grey 100% alpaca.

Christine: a small shaped scarf crochet in pale mauve.

Cathy :2 spun wool balls 1 dark green Alexis’ tops, 1 grey with coloured flecks made from Alexis’ dyed alpaca fleece.

Marjorie: a jacket in turquoise blue with various coloured short stripes.

Wendy :a beautiful finely spun scarf in pale fawn baby camel/silk in a feather & fan design.

Peter: latest project on the loom.