Crocheting Through Life

Plan: two new colours of this braided scarf pattern . This isn't a new pattern for me; I've made these before. However, the two in-stock ones I had have now both sold out of my Etsy shop, and it's been on my "list of things I want to make more of" for a while. Last time I use a combination of Cascade 220 and Lang Yarns Merino+ Colour, because those were what I had available on my shelves. This time, however, I bought yarn in specifically, and I decided to use Lang Yarns for everything. I absolutely love the colour changes on the Merino+ Colour, and it's so deliciously soft I wanted to use the same brand for the other strands of the braids as well. I bought yarn for two colour combinations, red/grey: And dark blue/grey: I love the combination of three different colours; I think it produces a really striking effect!

I wanted to create something autumnal, kind of halloweeny, but something that could be easily made to order, and I settled on pumpkins, because really... is there any more perfectly embodiment of autumn and halloween? I wasn't sure exactly how the pumpkins were going to turn out, but I have some lovely thick orange yarn that I'm slowly reclaiming from an unfinished and abandoned project, so I decided that would be perfect to use. Combined with a large scrap of brown sock yarn that is big enough to keep but not big enough to use by itself, and I had everything I needed. I chose headbands, because they're nice and quick to make in-between my current larger projects, and also because it's getting colder at this time of year, but it's not necessarily cold enough for a full on hat. I don't know about you, but my ears really suffer in cold winds and a headband is often just what I need to cover my ears just enough to stop me from getting earache. Originally I...

At the beginning of day 3, I took a picture of the work I did late on day 2, which I couldn't photograph due to low light. Tallulah proudly displaying the Embossed Leaves Cardi, completed up to Row 25! This was the first time I'd used my new mannequin to model a garment. Admittedly only part of a garment, but still. I've been planning on buying a mannequin for a good couple of years, but it has rarely seemed like a good use of funds. However, I am making plans for a big craft fair in a few weeks and a mannequin to help me display clothing seemed like a good investment at this point. And how lovely does she look?! Anyway, day 3 involved separating off the armholes and beginning work on the main body of the cardigan. As you can see, I've now started on the second cake of yarn - this time from the middle so as to continue the lime green colour before switching back through turquoise to brown. The new embossed bits in these last two pictures are ...

I finished my last post almost at the end of day 1. By the end of day 1 it was clear there were some issues. I found some mathematical errors in rows 12-15 and it took a bit of toing and froing over the next couple of days with the pattern editor, designer and some of the other crafters for us to get to the bottom of it. I had to frog a couple of times and then I decided to have a break until the issues had been resolved. Once an update had been sent out, I continued, and this is the picture for half way through my second day of working on it (technically not day 2, but definitely day 2 of actual work!): The centre leaf lines up perfectly with the stitch marker denoting the centre of the back Here is almost the end of day 2: The first row of leaves is nearly finished and the second row has been started, in-between the first leaves. By this point the lime green colour had also been introduced. I had thought that there would be a section of pure turquoise betw...

(Before I start, please ignore the terribly long time it's been since I wrote a post. I did say when I started this blog that I was not good at blogging, and I really wasn't lying! *cough*not posted since April*cough*) Let me start by saying that I've never done a craft-a-long before. Never even been tempted. Honestly, it's always just felt like a terrible idea - holding myself back to keep in time with other people! I crochet FAST. And I'm impatient. And then THIS dropped into my inbox, and I had a bit of a squee!-love-at-first-sight moment... and my never-done-a-craft-a-long phase ended abruptly.

Alternative title: why Google Translate is Not Great, but is also hilarious. I wanted this year to make some more clothing-y type things, particularly summer based items. Everyone knows that knitted and crocheted stuff can keep you warm during the winter. Not many people think of knitted and crocheted stuff during the summer, do they? Look at this cute crocheted sunhat! But in an effort to expand my range and include a fair amount of summery suitable things, I went trawling through Ravelry for patterns, and I found a really lovely one: boleros ! I was really excited...until I opened the page and it was in Spanish. Which is fine. Spanish is great. Except I don't read Spanish. My experience of Spanish consists of moving to a school that did Spanish lessons from one that didn't, spending a term with free periods while my classmates did their Spanish lessons, blagging my way onto the Spanish trip by saying that I wanted to learn Spanish and immersing myse...

I owe you all an apology. When I started this blog I was intending on writing at least one post a month, hopefully more, and I had every intention of doing so. I even got ahead of myself and wrote three posts in December, because that's the kind of person that I am. But then February was tough - I was waiting on writing a post about hats until I had pictures, for which I had to complete a set and it took much longer than I expected. (Actually, it still isn't finished - I've dealt with my frustration about this by hiding it in one of my WIP boxes with a blanket on top of it. Because I'm an adult like that.) Then I didn't crochet for several weeks due to having pain in my right wrist that was stopping me from working. I've now figured out what the cause of that pain was: the hooks with shaped handles that I was using. This is a sad state of affairs as I really love the hooks with handles - they're so pretty. As you can see, they're lovely. The m...

Here's a pattern for some dinky Christmas lights, made in the round with cotton yarn :) If you want the backstory, do continue to read this next bit, but if not feel free to skip on directly to the pattern further down; I shan't hold it against you! Be sure to check back in a few months for instructions on joining them all together! Backstory (aka, I talk a lot, even when I'm typing...) One of the things I've done this year which is totally new for me is subscribed to a yarn club (actually, I subscribed to two!). If you're unfamiliar with a yarn club, it's literally a subscription box which shows up on your doorstep once a month (or bi-monthly, or quarterly) filled with yummy yarn (and sometimes other goodies too). As I said, I subscribed to two: a little monthly one and a bigger quarterly one. The little one is a cotton paper chain club from Three Violet Buttons, and will, over the year, build up to make a long paper (cotton) chain to decorate th...

Hello and a very happy new year to everyone! 😄 Today marks the official start of (I hope) regular posts about what's going on here at StarfishHQ, including new items for sale, side projects I have going on, new services etc. I say official because I intended to start these posts now, but then I ended up making a post at the end of last month about a custom colourway/baby booties because of unexpected new blog enthusiasm. It doesn't matter really, but today is officially the first official blog post, so.. I dunno, imagine me waving some pom poms while you read or something! New year Last year I made an overly sappy social media post about how I had had a good 2016 from a business perspective, and was looking forward to a great 2017. If you feel so inclined you can read it here . Now that 2017 is done I can reveal how it was. It was meh. My Etsy shop stats are a slight improvement over 2016, but otherwise it was meh. I made a business decision in May which resulted in ...

Hand dyed yarn. It's one of my favourites. There's so many base options, but mostly, there so many colour options! I love the idea of having a skein of yarn made bespoke for you, although of course, the creativity of indy dyers is unlimited and they manage to come up with so many beautiful colourways by themselves that there really is something for everyone. But it's the bespoke ones that are my topic today, specifically this rainbow. I approached Felt Fusion to ask if she could dye me a rainbow based on a picture provided by a customer. The picture was of a knitted cardigan, made with an unidentifiable yarn. As it turned out, there is a bit of difference between the original picture and the finished colourway, but the changes were approved by the customer and the end result is brilliant in my opinion. The customer wanted 300g so that whatever remained, after I made her a pair of Koyun booties, could be knitted into another cardigan by a family member. I think t...

Last year I decided I would make the kids soft toys for Yule. I don't make soft toys often because we already have mountains of soft toys (!!) but handmade ones are rather different to shop bought ones. Squish chose a phantom, phantoms being antagonist creatures from Animal Jam  that she is rather fond of, and Lumpy chose a dinosaur pattern which I had already made and he really liked. At the time, Giraffe didn't pick a soft toy and we agreed that I would make her fairy wings. However, the fairy wings really didn't pan out the way I hoped and eventually I abandoned them as a bad idea. Fast forward several months and Giraffe still doesn't have a soft toy, but while looking at armwarmer patterns on Ravelry I found this ammonite pattern , and showed it to her. As a fossil lover, she immediately decided it was amazing, so I bought it and the yarn - "greyish for the shell, with peachy tentacles and really cute eyes!" - and got to work. Once into the swin...

Hello and welcome! Here at StarfishHQ I've been trying to think of ways of improving the service that I provide, and one of my ideas was to start using a blog to tell you all about the things I'm busy with. I used to blog a few years back, but it was personal and not business related, and I fell out of the habit of doing it in that way that you tend to do. I'm hoping, with this being business based rather than personal, that that won't happen here, and as part of my improved organisation for 2018 I have included writing regular blog posts. For now, I'll be adding a few pages and making the page look how I would like, and then the posts will start in earnest in the new year. Wishing everyone a wonderful festive season (however you choose to celebrate) and I'll see you all in 2018! Caz