A new bolero in cotton-cashmere – and new works in progress

Posted on February 4, 2012 by fats

Yesterday, I gave the cotton-cashmere motif bolero a roadtest and here are some photos of the finished product. I made this with a 3mm hook and sport weight yarn from Lotus Yarns (Autumn Wind Yarn).

The finished bolero in cotton-cashmere yarn.

At the last moment, I decided to crochet the front of the bolero together since it easily fits over my head anyway. I also didn’t fancy an open front bolero and also didn’t want the bother of making ties (as I’ve done earlier with the modified “Glitter Girl Bolero” here and here) or using a pin.

The back of the bolero is something that I particularly like with its uneven hemline. I did about 3 rows for the sleeves working the last two rows in treble stitches at the cap (just over the shoulders). The seams are sewn with silky camel 2-ply yarn.

Cotton-cashmere yarn is smooth and tends to slip off easily thus weaving in ends took extra work. Also, as with most crochet garments, don't store on hanger like this! This could stretch and ruin the garment! This is just for photo purposes only!

The bolero – worked entirely with a schematic / pattern drawn on paper – fits very well, thank goodness! Now I am using the same paper drawing for the blue silky cashmere bolero that I started earlier. By putting the piece over the drawing, I could easily see how I should be shaping the garment. I think the paper drawing also helps in creating new shapes and designs particularly for the neckline and sleeves.

Work continues on the sliky cashmere bolero. Still using the drawing on newspaper. My newspaper doesn't smudge, but yours might so use craft or Manila paper if you have one!

A new work in progress in the meantime is a (hopefully) bridal purse, taking after the Motifs on a Mesh Purse. I have been thinking of doing some items for weddings but never really got around to working on anything – well, now is the best time, thanks to reminder from Michelle!

Bridal purse a work in progress. Pattern to follow ...

My plan is a little purse that has a satin (or organza) handle, no zipper but rather a drawstring – plus matching crochet jewellery. It is just unfortunate that I wasn’t able to get those beautiful silk and silk blend yarns in my last order with Lotus Yarns! Silk would’ve been perfect! But for now, I must settle for cotton.

And finally, on the drawing board is a crocheted dragon amigurumi for my 10-year old nephew. My inspiration is this amazing dragon I saw in Chungli, Taiwan some seven years ago.

Dragons in Chung Li, Taiwan

February 4 is supposedly the start of the Dragon Year in the Chinese Lunar Calendar. So … Welcome the Dragon Year!

Some of the pleasures of Crocheting with acrylic yarn

Posted on December 16, 2011 by fats

The coin purses are now labelled and ready to go. I made enough for family in Manila and here’s a photo of some of the purses. Two are already on their way to Amsterdam for my husband’s grandchildren.

The funny farm is ready!

All these purses are worked in acrylic yarn of worsted weight although some feel like they are fingering weight yarn. In these cases I usually work with two hook sizes, aluminum 3/0 (2.2mm) and 4/0 (2.5mm). For closure, I just use velcro.

A velcro for enclosure.

The only problem with velcro and yarn is that the velcro can felt the yarn through use. To minimize this problem, a fabric backing can be sewn around the area where the velcro will be sewn on or – as in my case – one can just try to use a small amount of velcro that fit each other and to apply the hooked portion of the velcro in that part of the crocheted item where there is less tendency to stick to other bare part of the crochet. For the purse, the hooked part of the velcro is sewn onto the body of the purse.

Apart from these coin purses, I plan to send other stuff to family in Manila. I have been trying to design some hairbands the past several weeks now and last night I thought about using acrylic yarn instead of thread.

Duplet crochet fashion magazine in Russian language.

This issue 76 of Duplet magazine has Irish crochet patterns and the leaves caught my attention. All worked in thread and by crocheting over padding yarn, I didn’t follow the patterns exactly but rather just took the general idea of how the leaves were made.

I stuck with the basic leaf and made them in two sizes – the larger one starts with 14+1 chains and the smaller one starts with 8+1 chains. The corrugated surface of the leaf comes from back-loop single crochet.

A page from Duplet Issue 76 showing Irish crochet patterns in symbol and Russian language.

I arranged the leaves into the desired layout and then sewed them together at the back. It is this process of arranging and sewing that is the most difficult. The leaves need to be arranged in such a way that they will keep their shape when worn – that is, when they get stretched. The leaves also need to be sewn in such a way that they get reinforced.

The garter for the hairband is this black 1 inch wide garter. I got this garter especially for the purpose of making hairbands.

I used a 1 inch wide garter for the hairband.

Trying on the hairband it seems to work well. The typical problem with crocheted hairbands is that they fold near the back of the head under the hair or near the ears. They also tend to stretch and loose their shape and elasticity. Garters can also look unsightly.

The leaves and garter work well for hairband.

Anyway, I really like how the acrylic yarn leaves turned out. I tried them on as a scarf and it feels soft and warm around the neck, perhaps better if worked in wool or mohair. The crocheted leaves also have a shape that is quite easy to work with when joining together, and they have a very attractive texture.

I guess acrylic yarn is also a good way to experiment with new stitches, motifs and techniques. They are easy to work with, don’t demand too much detail like thread, and they’re inexpensive. They also seem to be a good substitute for thread in certain Irish crochet patterns that exploit bulk and padding rather than fine detail.

I’m not yet ready to turn back to thread at the moment so I think I will spend a bit more time working in yarn and wool.

Motifs on a mesh

Posted on December 2, 2011 by fats

Two weeks ago, I started working on a purse and left it in this state (photo below).

Start with a zipper and a lace edging.

My intention was to sew the two lace edgings onto the zipper and then build up the body of the purse by joining flower motifs of various sizes either by crocheting or by sewing.

When I returned home from Manila four days ago, I took some time browsing the two other Duplet Magazines that I ordered and had shipped in Manila several months earlier.

Duplet Crochet Magazine Issue #127

From one of the magazines, I found several wonderful mesh patterns and decided to use one. On page 47 of the magazine is some photos and charts for bruge lace. I am experimenting with bruge lace now but for the purse, I decided to use one of the mesh patterns used with bruge lace.

Page 47 of Duplet Crochet Magazine Issue #127

And here is my finished purse!

The finished purse.

I am very happy with the result of this experiment. Although I intended to crochet the motifs together, the shift to sewing the motifs onto a mesh worked very well.

The finished purse.

The hardest part in completing this purse had to do with design decisions – the arrangement of the motifs on both sides of the purse.

The zipper is sewn by hand.

Technically, I also had difficulty sewing on the zipper. I don’t have a sewing machine (which will definitely make life easier) and so I do all of the sewing by hand. I have been thinking of getting a sewing machine but perhaps later when there is much greater need for such.

The purse holds a small notebook and a mobile phone.

Here I use the purse to hold a small notebook and a mobile phone.

The purse is not lined. I couldn’t find the suitable lining for it. Nevertheless, the purse is to be used for keeping larger objects and not for tiny things that can fall through the lacy holes.

Here is one side of the purse.

One side of the purse showing the motifs.

The other side has a different arrangement of motifs.

The other side of the purse showing an arrangement of flowers with leaves.

I enjoyed sewing the motifs onto the mesh. It can be a bit hard and the mesh needs to be blocked into shape before sewing.

Also, how the motifs are sewn determine the appearance and texture of the fabric. If sewn too flat, the fabric can look dull and uninteresting.

I was tempted to cover the entire purse with motifs since that would also cover the holes of the mesh, but I decided not to do this for now. I wanted the mesh to show through since it has a very pretty pattern.

I will try to make another one later, this time maybe with color.

Lace dress – a study in motifs

Posted on November 21, 2011 by fats

Amidst hectic preparations for a short visit to Manila, the crocheted dress is now finished. At a certain point in the process – where I have completed motifs in an inverted triangle shape at the front and back of the dress – I decided to use the various large motifs completed earlier, to occupy areas at the sides of the dress, in free-form technique.

The dress before attaching the large motifs.

The large flower motifs are based on patterns found in two Duplet magazines: The Swimsuit Edition #3 and Duplet Issue #112. The crochet symbol chart in the Swimsuit Edition was easier to understand, thanks to the use of shading to identify rounds in the pattern.

Flower motifs following Duplet patterns

Attaching the motifs to the dress proved difficult. I used a combination of crochet stitches and needlework. I used the 5-chain mesh and in certain areas, a join consisting of dc, ch 3, dc. Two motifs on each side of the dress were attached first (one is shown here) with the chain mesh. After 3 rows of chain meshes, I completed the edging with a simple “(ch 3, 3 dc) in loop, sc in next loop” pattern repeat.

Attaching one of the motifs to one side of the dress

Attaching the motifs - work in progress

Smaller and larger motifs follow, some overlapping the mesh. Most of the work in this case were done on each side of the dress.

Detail of one side of the dress using motifs in natural and lavender colors

One side of the dress uses motifs tinged with lavender thread, and the other side I decided to keep on the natural color.

Detail of the other side of the dress using motifs in natural cotton

And here is the finished dress, showing ether front or back. I have not decided which should be the front or back of the dress. Either way the dress can be worn

The finished dress

The dress is rather short, just above the knee, and thus can also be worn as a top over jeans or a skirt. I was hoping to wear this to my mom;s birthday, but there isn’t enough time left to block and dry it.

The finished dress

Making this dress wasn’t easy. A lot of design decisions had to be made and errors weren’t easy to rectify. Near the waist of the dress I used an alternating row of motifs with 3D flowers. That was a decision that proved wrong when I finished the dress because the flowers appeared oddly asymmetrical across the waist. I like asymmetry but this was a bit off, looking like funny unbalanced buttons on the dress. Removing those motifs would’ve ruined the dress so I had to rectify the problem by attaching similar 3D flowers arranged at an angle in between the motifs. The intention was to break the uncomfortable asymmetry.

I learned a lot of new things completing this dress and I feel relatively happy with it – not very happy but enough. I think that there is still something lacking because I feel that I could’ve done this dress differently. Perhaps after some time I will see it.

Letting Go with Irish Crochet

Posted on October 31, 2011 by fats

Yesterday, I decided to move on to the next Duplet Magazine with the determination to learn the technique of joining motifs as is done in Irish Crochet work. Being bull-headed, I was also determined to do it without the customary basting board.

I read in Complete Encyclopedia of Needlework the section on Irish Crochet that one needs to baste the motifs on a board with the tracing of the design on it. Usually the board is covered in silk. I was thinking of such a board covered in linen or other cheap fabric.

For making a dress in Irish Crochet, I thought that maybe I can use an old lining for a dress as tracing board where I can baste the motifs. At least that already has the shape of the dress/top that I want to make.

However, yesterday, I decided to take less control of how I work and develop a more “free-form” method of work.

My reference is this Duplet Magazine issue (below) which has numerous photographs and illustrations employing Irish crochet for clothing and jewelllery.

Duplet 112 Crochet Magazine

This particular page (below) seemed the easiest and provided the basis for several motifs that went into my first work. From the examples given in the magazine, I was also able to make new motifs usually just by omitting the last steps in the pattern.

A page in the magazine showing the motif patterns.

These are the motifs that I used in my first work. Joining them is the tricky part. What I usually do is lay out the motifs and arrange them in such a way that they took on the shape that I wanted to make. Here I arranged the motifs into a leaf-life shape.

Laying out the motifs and planning the direction of joining them together.

Joining the motifs starts on the outer edges and is based on the pattern: dc in st, ch 3, dc in same st, dc in next st, ch 3, dc in same st … and modifying as I go along. Here is the result.

Two of these make up the collar.

I made a second mirror-image shape this time employing a different way of joining. Instead of joining all the motifs along the outer edges alttogther, I joined half the set of motifs together resulting to two smaller shapes which I then joined into the larger whole. The result was a shape similar but not exactly the same as the first.

The edging is based on a pattern in the magazine (below) which was perfect because it easily “wove” into the [dc, ch 3, dc] mesh along the edges of the shape.

From this page of Duplet I found a pattern for edging the collar.

And here is the finished work – an Irish Crochet collar. The collar is made of two parts which are laced together at one end. To wear it, I made a flower with a braid for tying. The flower is decorated with a shell and a glass bead. I am extremely happy with the result of this exploration.

Irish Crochet Collar in pale lavender color available at The Crochetology Shop

I made another work in Irish Crochet using the same motifs. This time it is a single shape attached to a crocheted strap. Here’s the finished work, a necklace (of choker length) with a hook-and-eye enclosure.

Irish Crochet necklace in Natural Cotton Thread available at The Crochetology Shop.

For me, learning Irish Crochet techniques has been impossible until I saw the numerous photos and illustrations in Duplet. Somehow, seeing images of the motifs joined together created in my mind a generalized set of principles. Another important thing in learning is courage. The images look daunting and at times I felt that it was just impossible to join irregular shape motifs through crochet.

Also, quite important is not to take too much control. The method of Irish Crochet establishes the principles of free-form crochet, and that requires spontaneity and a certain level of freedom. My two shapes look different – not exactly alike – because they were made without a specific pre-determined pattern and that is what makes them beautiful.

The Irish Crochet Collar and Necklace may be found at The Crochetology Shop.