Hello and welcome to Patchwork House . . . . .
my little corner of the world in England, where you will find me addicted to colour and playing with yarn!


30 July 2014

Hexie love


Oh how wonderful summer holidays are for us teachers!
It is fantastic to have time to play
 to be me
 to indulge in yarny hooky pleasures!

I as you know am a Mathematician and get so much pleasure from crochet.
The shapes tessellate so perfectly and this gives me an immense sense of satisfaction!

Now the regular hexagon is a 6 sided polygon with equal sides and angles.
It is perfect for hooky creations yet is one I haven't used much at all.
So time to experiment ...

What better on a lazy sunny afternoon than sitting in the sun hooking daisies!
So my hexie making began.
 I didn't have a pattern so set about playing and came up with this!
As a small project a few of these hexies can be hooked up in no time
 and will make a lovely little table mat or runner.
I do love to fill my home with pretties!


 which has fabulous stitch definition
 and is
available in lovely bright summery colours.
 Its is a DK yarn but
 for mats I work with a 3mm hook to give a firmer texture


I must admit that I wasn't sure if I liked my table mat at this point


but it's amazing what a difference a good edging makes!


So yes the table mat stays
 and now has pride of place in Patchwork House!


As I know you will all be asking for the pattern
I have dug out a suitable suggestion from
magazine issue 5 on page 63


I am loving having time to peruse my stash of Simply Crochet magazines. Each time I look I find new patterns that tempt me. I would highly recommend it at £4.99 it is packed with patterns and lovely articles, features inspiration from our favourite hooky writers and bloggers and is always a total joy.
If you are not already hooked on the mag why not take advantage of this special offer which is open to my readers for the month of July, but
 HURRY HURRY HURRY
 it ends tomorrow!
You can take a trial offer of 3 issues for £5
WOW
isn't that fab!!!
Follow the link
and I'm sure you will not be disappointed!

In future I plan to write more patterns and tutorials and provide links for you all to find these easily on my blog. Thank you all so much for your encouraging comments and emails that help inspire me to continue with my work. The Patchwork Heart is moving forward in a new direction this new academic year. As I work full time it does not leave me as much time as I would like for making orders. I will be blogging more to share my work with the aim of encouraging and inspiring. Rather than taking orders I am now moving onto creating for my own pleasure, trying new ideas and patterns and writing and I will be reopening my Etsy shop in 2015.

Have a wonderful hooky summer

Heather
 XXX









26 July 2014

Emily's Garden ~ a blanket of flowers

 This blanket has caused quite a stir
 amongst my followers on Instagram and Facebook, 
so here as promised are some details of how I made 
Emily's Garden.

The blanket is a gift for my mother's 80th birthday.
She loves flowers and is also a crocheter
 so I wanted to create something really special for her.

I used my favourite Stylecraft Special DK
this is so beautiful for blankets.
 It is soft warm and snugly,
 can be machine washed and tumble dried
 and is excellent value
It comes in a wonderful choice of over 80 shades
and you can buy it

I used
 soft peach, candy floss and pale rose
 lavender, wisteria and clematis
aspen, sherbet and spring green
cloud blue and parchment.


To create a garden
 I decided to use many different types of flowers

the first type was my frequent favourite
the starburst or sunburst flower
I use the starburst pattern by Jane Brocket
 which was in Mollie Makes issue 2
but there are many patterns for the sunburst available on the Internet 
  




next I wanted to add depth to give the blanket a 3D texture
so  I chose these popcorn flowers
you can find the pattern 






there had to be roses in the garden
and these were such fun to make

this pattern is by Nicki Trench in the book



for more texture I wanted petals
and these little pretties came from
a pattern by Nicki Trench in
Simply Crochet magazine issue 5


so with 80 flowers made for 10 rows of 8
 I was all set to join them into a rectangular throw


and I decided on a random arrangement 
as would be found in a cottage garden.


My favourite method for joining is using the
join as you go technique.
I originally learnt this using the fantastic tutorial from


and developed my own method
 for continuous join as you go
joining the whole blanket without cutting the yarn.
You will notice
 that some are of my flowers are circles and others are squares,
 so to cope with this just make double trebles instead of trebles
 in the corners when joining the circles.


The continuous join method is so fast and easy 
and has the fantastic bonus of no ends to sew in!


I am really pleased with the 3D flowers
and the continuous join as you go
adds another lovely texture to the squares.


Finally a deep border to set off the flowers
 made using block stitch to incorporate some seeds of colour
you can find some instructions


Tadaa!
Emily's Garden is complete
 and I cannot wait to gift it to my mother Emily
on her 80th birthday


I'm sorry this is not a complete pattern
 but I am not yet a pattern writer and do not pretend to be!
 However I am happy to share
 my inspiration and the links to the patterns I chose
 so that you too
 may have a go at creating a garden of love.

Happy hookin!

Heather

 X X X

















13 July 2014

The amazing V Stitch



This week I have made a new discovery
 and am delighted to share it with you!

V Stitch

surprisingly simple
extremely fast growing
addictive pleasure


over on Instagram there is a wave sweeping the nation
and one by one all my hooky friends have been making v stitch blankets


so eventually I caught the bug
and dived into my Stylecraft Special DK stash
coming out with this gorgeous range of autumn colours


It is an amazingly fast growing blanket
so simple to hook
and totally addictive


at the end
 I sew each end into its own coloured stripe using a darning needle
 thinking of it as embroidery
to obtain a neat professional finish



Simple Edging
in UK terms

To complete the blanket make a simple edging.
1 rounds of dc (UK)
followed by a 2nd round of
dc 3 chain dc in the same stitch miss a stitch repeat


these baby blankets are such quick fun 


 I have made 2 and started a 3rd in 1 week!



If you Google Vstitch you will find many free patterns
and there is plenty available on Pinterest Ravelry and You Tube

but basically you need a starting chain in muliples of 3 +2 +2
you start with a treble (UK) in the 5th chain stitch from the hook
and make 1 treble 1 chain 1 treble for the first v all in the same stitch
miss 2 chain and repeat
at the end miss 1 chain and end with 1 treble
the rest is easy
just make 1 v stitch in each previous v
and a single treble at the start and end of each row

go on you know you want to ...
join the v stitch party!

If you have enjoyed this post and my pattern advice
please consider supporting my crochet business

support my crochet business

have a wonderful relaxing Sunday my hooky friends
Happy Hookin!

Heather

xxx









Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...