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!


7 November 2016

Stylecraft Blog Tour Giveaway Winner


Good morning my hooky friends,
 happy Monday to you all!

Today I am delighted to announce
 that the winner of the Stylecraft Blog Tour giveaway is
Anna Phillips

she will be receiving this fabulous pack of Special Chunky
from Stylecraft Yarns



Well done Anna and thank you all for entering

have a happy hooky day
Heather
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4 November 2016

Stylecraft Blog Tour 2016 ~ The Chunky Cowl


Cold autumn mornings are upon us, as I write.
That nip in the air and frost on the grass, fills me with excitement,
 at the thought of layering up in warm scarves and gloves!

I am delighted once more to be taking part in the 2016 Stylecraft Blog Tour.
The wonderful people at Stylecraft are offering a giveaway,
 to celebrate the release of the new shades in the Special Chunky range!
Today's give away is just for you, yes just for the readers of my blog!
I will tell you later how to take part ... keep reading.

Welcome to my blog if you are a visitor for the first time!
 Please stay a while and have a good look round.
Welcome also to old friends, I have a cosy treat for you here!
If you have missed the previous posts on the blog tour,
 you can read yesterdays post here at
then follow the tour backward using the links provided each day!

To help launch the new shades in the Stylecraft Special Chunky range,
I chose to work with the silver Chunky pack
 and have created for you a simple cowl using


I have used the simple corner to corner stitch
 which always makes a perfect square or rectangle
 with delightful straight edges and perfect 90 degree corners.
It is a wonderful stitch which I love to make blankets with,
 as it creates a really thick fabric
 with the added bonus of a gorgeous 3D texture.
(You can see a blanket HERE)

In this post I will be using UK crochet terms.
You can find a conversion to US terms

If you have used this stitch before
 you will immediately see how quick and easy this project is going to be.
 If you have not used this stitch before, fear not, it is easy,
 being made up of only trebles and chains.
 I first learnt this stitch using an excellent tutorial by
It is a free pattern on Ravelry, you can read how to do it
 HERE.


To make my cowl I used 3 x 100g balls of
in
the fresh vibrant colours pistachio, aster and empire
 with a 5mm hook.

Work begins at the corner and I make 2 rows in each colour.
I finish my row as shown below,
 then start with the next colour to make the final loop of the last treble.


I leave good length tails of about 4 inches / 10 cm and make a reef knot.
These tails will be used at the end for sewing up the seam in the cowl,
 so do not crochet over them or weave them in now!


At the beginning of my new row I have made a slight alteration to the pattern.
I begin with 5 chain (rather than 6) and make the 3 trebles into the last 3 chain.


This make a closer fabric with less holes.
 I do this as I use 2 chain to replace 1 treble rather than 3.


So now you should be happily striping away
 making 2 rows with each colour and repeating the colour order.


Continue until you have made 10 stripes (20 rows).
This is now deep enough for the cowl so we will begin to decrease at 1 end.
The cowl is made from a rectangle, so we will now keep increasing
 at the other end until the desired width is achieved.


To decrease, flip the work over. 


Now slip stitch along the tops of the trebles till you get to where my needle is pointing.


You will begin work here, so for the last slip stitch use the new colour.


Knot the ends, 


make 2 to replace the first treble and away yo go.
So you can see in the picture below that  corner has been formed.


Keep going making stripes until you have 18 stripes on the long side.
This is now long enough to fold to make the cowl.
Start to decrease at both ends now.


You will end up with a rectangle which has
 10 stripes on the left and 18 stripes at the bottom.

Note that on the right side the pattern makes 9 full stripes
 and a 1/2 stripe at each end.
 This is fine and will complete the pattern perfectly.


The next task is ends.
LEAVE the ends on the SHORT SIDE for sewing up the cowl.
Use a needle and sew in the ends from the long side
 into their own colour stripe.


Fold the rectangle over so that the 2 short edges meet.
You will see that the stripes match up exactly.


Using a needle and small stitches,
sew up the seam to form a tube.
 Use the ends to join up the 2 short edges of the cowl.


I used the pistachio end for the pistachio stripe,
 then the aster end for the aster stripe etc.
Fasten the ends off securely and run ends into their own coloured stripe.


I found I only needed 1 end for each stripe,
 so the final task is to sew in the remaining ends into their own coloured stripe.


Turn it outside in
 and tadaa
 you have your lovely thick warm soft snuggly cowl!


It can be folded in half to wear
 or wrinkled around your neck as suits.


Try some other colour combinations for different outfits!
Here I have combined silver, storm blue and pale rose for a chic look,


and denim, sage and meadow for a subtle casual look.


A perfect project to treat yourself for autumn,


or ideal as a quick make for Christmas gifts!


If you have enjoyed seeing what I made with these colours
 then visit the previous posts in the blog tour for some more inspiration!

This is the final post of the blog tour, but you can follow it backwards by going to
and then follow the next link given there.



GIVEAWAY
you can enter today's giveaway
 to win the silver pack of Stylecraft Special Chunky
HERE 
only open today, 4th November, do it NOW!

I hope I am leaving you
 inspired, to create and play with these gorgeous new colours
 in the Stylecraft Special Chunky range!
Good luck in the give away competition,
 I will announce the winner on Monday 7th November!
Happy Hookin

Heather
X X X































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