Lucky, lucky me, I am still vacationing in paradise! Just because I am away from home though doesn’t mean that I don’t still have the bug to create. I lasted about three days before I brought out the knitting.
I always try to bring small projects when I am away. Knitting or crocheting something large in the heat is just not my cup of tea. I packed a few, okay six, balls of cotton blend yarn that I had purchased to make soft dollies for my craft store. I am working on number five of the expected six that I hoped to make and may be able to squeeze a couple of more out of the yarn that I brought to fill in the few days that we have left.
I will happily craft anywhere. As long as there is enough light and a clean bag to hold the yarn, I am content. I was knitting on the beach a couple of days ago and was getting some looks from the lady a short space over. She got up and left her lounger returning ten minutes later with a bag from which she pulled out her knitting! We didn’t speak the same language, but I believe that crafting is universal and we share the same need to create. She was knitting a beautiful aran sweater with a honeycomb and cable pattern. The yarn she was using looked like alpaca or a similar blend, just lovely but it must have been hot to work with in the 29C heat.
I wrote a few posts ago about a cake of Twister from Hobbii that I was crocheting into a poncho and how unhappy I was with the abrupt colour changes that were happening instead of the gradient that I expected. I put the project aside until I stopped being mad at it and went ahead and finished a child size poncho without using the whole cake in order to minimize the striped effect. Here is what I ended up with and, although I still don’t like the colour changes, it looks better than I expected.
This is a free pattern that I found on Ravelry called 123 Shawl and Poncho. It is really hard to follow if you have never worked with C2C but Youtube came to the rescue for me. I used a 3.5mm hook to accommodate the finer yarn that I used and added a button and buttonhole band. I would like to try this one again in a thick and fuzzy yarn as it really is an easy and pretty make.
Have restful week and may all of your Christmas knitting and crocheting be done before the big day!