Summer Berries Lacy Crochet Scarf

I love this crochet scarf pattern so much that I am going to stick with it for a while and make a few of these in different colours.  So, I've picked up the left overs of the Colinette Mohair Summer Berries from the broomstick lace scarf I made and paired it with some vintage Lister Lee Tahiti in a lilac colour, which looks like it will work with the Summer Berries.

78% Mohair, 13% Wool, 9% Nylon

81% Mohair (including 9% Kid Mohair), 14% Wool, 5% Nylon

I've not used the vintage Tahiti before, I have some of this in other colours, and it is very soft, much softer than the Colinette Mohair, probably the Kid Mohair element has something to do with it.  The overall fibre content shifts slightly to be 79% Mohair, 13% Wool, 8% Nylon. With the differences in colour of the Colinette Mohair skeins, due to it being "hand-dyed", I used up some of the darker left overs for the middle section and then switched to the lightest skein for outer edge sections.  This does show up on the scarf and gives and interesting effect.

Once again, no work-in-progress photos, so straight to the finished product.

Storm and White Lacy Crochet Scarf

Carrying on with scarf making but switching to a different pattern.  I already had some old, but not yet vintage, Jarol Rambler Aran in white in my stash and I had recently gone to my local craft shop to find something use with it and purchased some Stylecraft Special Aran in shade Storm Blue.  Both yarns are 100% Acrylic.

This one is worked sideways from the centre working outwards then re-join on the other side of the centre chain and work the other side.  Interesting construction which is a little fiddly to begin with but once you have one row worked on either side of the chain it is easy.

No work-in-progress photos so straight to the finished item.

Design LF433 - Pretty in Baby Pink & Purple

I started making this as soon as I finished making the last one, on 25th April 2023.

All of the threads used on this project are taken from one dye lot per colour. I didn't take any work-in-progress photos at all and I have no idea how I forgot to do that, other than the fact that my father-in-law passed away the first week of May and I was busy helping my mother-in-law and husband with all that that entails.

Design LF433 - Pretty in Purple and Cerise

I started making this back in September 2023, using this project as something to work on when I had to sit in a café and while away an hour or so when my youngest first started college and was only in for 2 hours on a Friday morning and it wasn't worth driving home to turn around and come back again.  He was in for longer the rest of the week and also at times when I had to sit and wait at appointments and such.  I don't have to sit and wait now so I've decided to finish making it a bit quicker.

As what often happens on these projects using the vintage Twilley's Goldfingering, specifically with the thread for the flower centres and/or the flower petals, I ended up having to use two different dye lots for the pale gold centres so I made sure to checkerboard them across the entire shawl so that if there is any noticeable difference it then becomes a design feature. If I have to use more than one dye lot for the main colour, I tend to use one for the crochet and the other dye lot for the fringing or a mix of both in the fringing.

Design LF433 - Pretty in Orange and Lime

The day after I finished the last shawl, I started making this one.  Unfortunately, I didn't calculate things correctly, and I ran out of lime green before I was able to make enough flowers.  I put in a lot of effort, searching the internet and trying a couple of alternatives, but there was nothing around that was even close in colour to this particular shade of lime.  That's what happens when you create things using vintage materials.  Twilley's stopped making this thread in all but seven standard colours: white, black, silver, light gold, gold, bright red, and bright green, years ago. The company went out of business entirely in February 2020, after operating for approximately 100 years.

The upshot is that I have made one of my usual shawls, but this one is a little smaller, one entire row of motifs less than normal, and therefore at a lower price point.

Design LF433 - Kingfisher Blue

For my next shawl I have picked one of the project boxes that has been in a cupboard for some time.  I have a small stack of small boxes that contains Twilley's Goldfingering that I have put together to work into shawls.  This one is pale gold, light pink and kingfisher blue.

I've not been taking work in progress photos lately but I did get a couple, one of the project box, one of the flower, one as I was sewing in the ends and some as the sun bounced on my work and I couldn't resist as its really difficult to show off how sparkly these shawls are, to capture the sparkle is almost impossible usually.

This one is similar in colour combination to another shawl that I made but it is different, that one was silver, pink mix and teal.

Design A447 - Pinks, Blues and Black

For my final shawl using the Aran weight cotton I have chosen to use a range of pinks, a range of blues and all tied together with black, which is why I didn't want very dark blues in this shawl, as I doubt navy blue motifs would show up very well against the black.

In terms of how many motifs of each colour I was able to make from the leftovers and how many I made from the slightly larger amounts are as follows, in order from top left to the bottom right: 

Light wash = 4 motifs, Candyfloss pink = 4 motifs,  Light Ice Blue = 6 motifs

Medium pink = 12 motifs, Black = main, Rose = 11 motifs 

Light Jeans = 6 motifs, Petrol = 8 motifs, Plum = 13 motifs

Where possible I tried to match a similar shade/tone of blue to that in the pink range.

Its starting to look really effective but with the additional of the central motifs it is even more striking.

It reminds me a little like stained glass windows.

So now that I have made this one, I have just very very small oddments leftover, not even enough of anything to make a flower and so my kids have had what is leftover so they can add stripes or something to whatever they knit.

Design A447 - Blues and White

Another of these shawls made to an updated vintage pattern and this time I have chosen blue and white.  All of the darkest blues will go into this shawl along with a mix of medium and light blue as I have already planned my next shawl as well so I know what colours I need.

In terms of how many motifs of each colour I was able to make from the leftovers and how many I made from the slightly larger amounts are as follows, in order from top right to the bottom left: 

Spray Blue = 11 motifs, Light wash = 5 motifs, Light jeans = 3 motifs

                                     Jeans blue = 8 motifs, Navy blue = 4 motifs

White =  main, Light Ice Blue = 7 motifs, Light Blue = 10 motifs 

Petrol = 4 motifs, Navy = 12 motifs                                               

I have reverted back to having a central strip with mirrored layout on either side as I think it works better than totally random and then having to try and make sure the colours don't pool too much in one place.

I like this one, a lot, but then I do like blue, not that you can tell with the blue rug in the lounge and the fences outside are all painted blue...

Design A447 - Grey and White

For this one, I am doing it more simply.  There really are only two shades of grey cotton available but that is OK because I will checkerboard the motifs across the shawl and use white as the main colour to make a classic looking shawl.  I had to buy the light grey to go with the larger amount of darker grey that I already had.

In terms of how many motifs of each colour I was able to make from the leftovers and how many I made from the slightly larger amounts are as follows, in order from left to right: 

White = main, Light Grey = 36 motifs,  Dark grey = 28 motifs

I did make a little mistake that I didn't notice until after I took this photograph and I quickly rectified the mistake and carried on.

Not colourful but still pretty.

Design A447 - Various shades of green with off-white

On my continuation of using up the Aran weight cotton yarn I have made a second of the vintage shawl design that I finished in early December.  I started focusing on working on motifs made using the green cotton just before Christmas and then stopped so that I could make the moss green shawl but then I got back onto it after Christmas.

Some of the green shades are very close in colour and one of them is the left overs of another shawl that I made where I overdyed some bright yellow cotton to make green.

In terms of how many motifs of each colour I was able to make from the leftovers and how many I made from the slightly larger amounts are as follows, in order from top left to the bottom right: 

Light Mint Green = 12 motifs, Moss Green = 1 motif,  Off White = main

Spearmint = 12 motifs, Green = 3 motifs, Forest = 9 motifs 

Lemon overdyed Green = 10 motifs, Green Beryl = 12 motifs, Bottle = 5 motifs

 

When I worked out the positioning of each of the colours I decided that I would mirror the left side to the right side and this left me with a central strip made up of the what was left.  It's a little bit like a butterfly - the central strip would be the body with the mirrored wings on either side.

I'm really happy with how this one turned out, even better than the first one.

Design A447 - Pinks, purples and white

I'm carrying on with my mission to use up as much of the Aran weight cotton yarn as I possibly can and this is the best time of year to do it because it's cooler weather and heading into even cooler weather.

I've picked another vintage pattern, this time it was published in the USA in 1976.  The photos in the book are not the best but it does look like it could be visually stunning.  I started to follow the instructions but I was finding it awkward to get "inch length loops" or for what I was able to do to look equal and neat and I didn't like the massive "hole" in the middle of what would be a flower.  I decided to start with a magic loop for a smaller "hole" and instead of having a number of long loops of yarn which formed the petals of the flowers I changed these to clusters of double crochet (US)/triple crochet (UK), which meant working 5 of those stitches up to, but not completing the last pull through, and keeping them on the hook until all 5 were done and then just pull through all 5 loops on the hook to make the cluster.

To get them all to be equal in size, I popped the non-working end of the crochet hook into the hole and pulled up against that and secured the ends.  I guess a biro pen or something similar would also do that job.

I had no solid colour plan when I first started, but I knew that I would not be following the colour plan of the pattern, which is rows of colours that form the V's of the triangular shape.  I did know that the main colours would be white, ecru or black as I have large amounts in each of those colours, and just to make as many flowers as possible from each colour that I have left in my stash and see how things go based on how many flowers I get from the left overs.

Because I am using different yarn to the original pattern and the fact that I have altered how the pattern is worked my motifs are coming out a tad smaller than the measurements on the pattern so having done some figuring out I need to work enough motifs to have 15 of them across the shoulders, not the original 13, and this then works to the original measurements of 60 inches across the shoulders.  It does, however, mean that I need to make 64 motifs as opposed to 49.

I've decided that the first one will be a random mix of pinks and purples with the main colour being white and so I focused on working just those colours for a while.

In terms of how many motifs of each colour I was able to make from the leftovers and how many I made from the slightly larger amounts are as follows, in order from top left to the bottom right: 

white = main colour, light purple = 4 motifs, powder pink = 1 motif, medium pink = 3 motifs 

light old pink = 3 motifs, heather = 8 motifs, dark purple = 9 motifs, medium purple = 2 motifs 

red wine = 1 motif, candyfloss pink = 11 motifs, cherry = 11 motifs, rose = 11 motifs

Two of the pinks and the two reds are very similar in colour but are slightly different.  I laid the motifs out in the shape of the pattern in a random order and then spent a long time playing about moving them around so that not only were two of the same colour not next to each other but also so that the colours were as evenly spread out as I could get them because at point I had all the dark purples loitering together on the left and the reds were all huddled up together too and that just won't do so I made sure they were as mixed as I could get them.

At the point in the photo above, where the motifs have one row of he main colour around them and are joined together I only had 38g left to do the small motifs that fit in the spaces and the fringing. This was not enough so I had to order more of the white yarn because although I started with 200g my yarn has slightly fewer metres per 50g than the original pattern yarn plus the fact that I have made a mine bigger. 

When the yarn arrived and I started to make the little motifs I wasn't happy, they looked messy so once again I had to figure out a better way to work them so that they are neater and more even whilst keeping the original style of the pattern. 

I also increased the fringing lengths from 10inch to 15inch, looped through, pulled each one tight and trimmed the lengths straight. 

I think the finished shawl is very visually stunning and I will be making many more of these in an array of colours.

Design LF433 - Pretty in Red (or the Ladybird shawl)

I started making this back in January and then I must have put it to one side after completing the flowers for some reason before picking it up again last week and joining them all together with the main colour. 

I have used Twilley's Goldfingering in shades WG4/004 light gold, WG31/031 black and a couple of different dye lots of WG38/038 red.

I didn't make any notes nor did I seem to take any work-in-progress photos other than a couple where I am preparing to add the fringing.  My eldest daughter said that I had made the sofa look like a Christmas candy cane.  I did run out of space and so I used the back of a couple of cushions on the floor.  The reason I laid them out like this was because whilst I was able to use one dye lot for the shawl I had to use a couple of different dye lots of red when I got to the fringing part and so I cut the lengths and divided them across the number of tassels and then the other dye lots were cut and added in equal amounts to each tassel.  This means that all of the tassels are made from mixed dye lots but it won't be obvious because they all contain mixed dye lots.

I think the final shawl looks a bit like a ladybird.

Design A444 - In Green Cotton

I am still ploughing on with using up the aran weight cotton yarn, I'm getting there but not there yet.  I have some very bright yellow that I have used as flower centres but it's not really the colour that I hoped for when I ordered "lemon".  I was expecting a nice pale yellow and I got this "lemon rind yellow" colour.  That'll teach me for shopping and ordering when I am tired, I obviously wasn't paying full attention. 

So, now that I just have a whole load of bright yellow doing nothing I decided to over-dye it to make it more usuable and a more appealing colour cos it's going to take someone really special to pull that bright yellow off.  Pass the sunglasses.  I bought some dye for cotton, Dylon handwash dye in shade "Ocean Blue".  I wound the balls of cotton onto my niddy-noddy and tied each one off loosely so I had 7 and a half skeins.  You have to make the ties loose when you dye otherwise you can get a tie-dye effect, I don't want this at this time. This dye is a "cold water" dye, you don't actually use cold water per se, it is warm but only hand-warm, not really hot to boiling like my other dyes that I use.  I made it up in my dye pot as per the instructions and lowered the skeins of yarn in and followed the instructions for timings etc.

All dyes that I have used, no matter what kind, react with the base colour of the yarn or fabric that you are dyeing so you have to take that into account and so "standard colour mixing rules" apply i.e yellow + blue = green, yellow + red = orange, blue + red = purple, blue + red + green = brown, you get the idea.  So I know that blue dye on a yellow yarn is going to make green, but what shade of green.  I am hoping, based on the shade of blue dye I've picked, that it might come out leaning toward the olive green tones but I am not familiar with Dylon dyes so I don't really know what their shades are like.

So, its not come out Olive green but its decent but if you look closely its not totally even, a few flecks of yellowy-greeny bits still exist, not bright yellow but not fully green either.  Not what I'd hoped for but it does add interest that I can live with.

Once dry I decided to make the same design shawl I made earlier in the year.  Due to the fact that this one is cotton and smooth and more dense it looks different to the white fluffy acrylic version, its not as cuddly, but that's different fibres for you, they all have their own look and different properties

Another new design - A444 in white acrylic

With the colder weather and a need to create more storage space quickly I've decided to work on items made with the thicker range of yarns.  I've had this pattern earmarked to have a go at for quite some time.  It's a vintage pattern, from a 1976 publication to be precise, printed in the USA and the specified yarns for this haven't been made in years so I've found an alternative in my stash.  

I will be using Jarol Baby Rambler Aran, a 100% acrylic yarn that I've had in my stash for a number of years.  I rarely use Acrylic yarn these days due to the fact that, whilst it is relatively cheap to buy, comes in a whole range of colours, textures and weights, is easy to care for and fairly hardwearing, it's production is not particularly environmentally friendly as the main chemical used in its creation is a fossil-fuel based substance and so has a fairly large carbon footprint.  Also, when you wash Acrylic fibres tiny microplastic particles are released into the water and eventually end up in the Ocean and when you are done with the item it is not biodegradable and so goes to landfill, where it will stay for hundreds of years.

The issues surrounding the use Acrylic yarn have plagued knitters and crocheters for years.  You will always have people who don't care about the environmental impact of manufacturing and using these yarns, you will have people who will categorically not use these yarns under any circumstances and then you have people like me who are torn about its use, some will use it because it's the only type of yarn in their budget range and that's OK.  For me, personally, whilst in my younger and teenage years I used Acrylic yarn all of the time as I've grown older, wiser and more experienced in life in general my views have changed and I don't particularly like using Acrylic yarn.  

My way of looking at it now is that I feel that it is OK to use if I already have it in my stash, as it will have been there for a number of years, having being manufactured years ago and there is nothing I can do to change history.  If I just bin it it will go into landfill straight away.  If I sell it on, donate it to a charity shop for them to sell on or knit/crochet with it at least it has a chance of being a useful item for a number of years but regardless it will eventually end up in landfill at some point in the future.  That is a given so I may as well use it to make something pretty and useful.  What I can do though is not to add to the environmental impact going forward by not buying newly manufactured Acrylic yarn and help in a tiny way to reduce the demand for new.  In general, I don't buy any new yarns at all as I have a vast stash already and I also spin my own yarns but if I do buy new yarns it is usually 100% Cotton, because I can't spin that myself or its a really fine laceweight yarn, usually pure wool, again because I can't spin that myself either, it's a specialist skill that I've not yet mastered. Sometimes it's hard to avoid it in blends and a yarn that contains 20% Acrylic is better than 100% Acrylic but I still try to avoid it if possible and these purchases are rare and only occur in exceptional circumstances for custom made items, but again I will try to avoid new and look for yarns on the second hand market to reduce the demand for new.

Right, now that I've got that off my chest, shall I show you what I've made?

With this pattern, you start at the widest part of the triangle and reduce down each row until you reach the top.  Oh great, I just love counting hundreds of chain stitches.  Quiet everyone, I'm counting!

It's actually a really easy pattern once you get going and yet it creates a stunning shawl.  I will definitely make more in this pattern in the future.

Design LF433 - Pretty in Brown

It seems that I started making this sometime ago, possibly at the end of 2020, as it's been a while since I made anything and I can't remember starting to make this.  I've really been loosing track of time these past couple of years what with menopausal foggy brain and Covid-19, I really haven't known whether I've been coming or going at times.  Making dated notes is a must and looking back on social media posts helps a lot at times too. 

Since the last time I made one of these shawls, I have discovered that Thomas B Ramsden, the parent company that owns yarn brands such as Twilleys, Robin, Wendy and a couple of others, did actually go into Administration after dwindling profits over the past 15 years or so and they had already sold off a lot of the old buildings and sites that they once owned in a bid to streamline the business and the business has now closed down after over 100 years.  Very sad.

The colours for this one are WG10 Pale Orange (Twilley's Goldfingering), 313 Orange (Anchor Artiste Metallic), 064 Burnt Orange and 065 Chocolate (both Twilley's Goldfingering).  The Anchor Artiste Metallic is almost identical to the Twilley's Goldfingering.

When I picked this project up to work on earlier this month I discovered that all of the flower centres were finished and some of them had petals on.

As I worked on adding the rest of the petals I did notice that about half of the centres were a tad lighter than the others so I put them into two piles so that when I assemble them into a shawl that I can space them out equally across the finished item, like a checkerboard.

All finished, including all the many many ends all sewn in and fringing cut and added.

I finally got around to taking photos of the finished shawl over the first weekend of October 2022.  Better late than never I suppose.