Hi Friends!
Happy T Day! Well are having a little bit of weather today, a small storm, heavy rain and 40mph winds – a mere breeze after last week lol. Before I get started, I wanted to answer some questions from last week:
Someone (Erika?) also asked if I knitted as well as crocheted. I have knitted since I was a kid, used to be quite obsessed with it, making up my own patterns, some fair isle, lots of jumpers etc, but I could never understand how to crochet and all the books were for right-handed people – this was pre-Youtube of course! One day I found a really old “how to crochet – left-handed edition” book in a craft shop and that made everything clear. It was a terrible book full of things like crocheted toilet roll holders that looked like dolls etc but the basics were there and that was enough to get me started. (I did not make the toilet roll holder!) LOL
The first thing I made was a tartan blanket from a magazine that I had been dying to make. There were two versions, a Stewart tartan (red) and a Black Watch tartan (green/blue/black) and my friend at work had made the red one to take to the footie with her and it looked so gorgeous and warm. She even brought it into work with her while she was doing it and let me watch from various angles and I still couldn’t understand what she was doing because she was right-handed and it all looked wrong to me! After finding the book, I made the Black Watch tartan blanket (I still have it and I have photos somewhere).
I have made more blankets, cushions, scarves, hats, bags, baskets, flowers, socks, and now a cardigan but I still feel like I’m a beginner. I am definitely NOT an expert. The last thing I knitted was some wrist warmers last winter and I found afterwards that I couldn’t move my shoulder or right arm for a couple of days but with crochet there is less movement and that seems better for my joints. So short answer is I like and can do both but I do far more crochet. I went off looking for old photos of that blanket I mentioned but didn’t find any, all I found was this meme which made me giggle.
Someone (Lisca?) asked if I would stick to not buying anything new this year. That is my plan but I did buy some things in the Jan sales before my resolution! The things I bought haven’t even arrived yet so I keep forgetting that I even bought anything. I might share a couple of photos of them when they do arrive as I am quite excited about them (when I remember that I bought them, it seems so long ago!)
Today’s art . . . is crochet?
Today’s art (if I can call it that) is all about this current crochet project I am making and the problems I had getting started, that made me think I was losing my marbles. Here above is Miss Lily checking out the yarn. Last year I bought an older (2019) Scheepjes Yarn Bookazine called Tea Room, Scheepjes is a Dutch yarn brand and their patterns come in Dutch and English.
BTW did you know that UK and US crochet terms are different? Just to keep us on our toes, we crocheters need to make sure what “language” the designer is using for their patterns as the stitches have the same names but mean different things. This pattern book is written in UK crochet terms and the last thing I made was in US crochet terms, and I probably do more US than UK crochet patterns, so I have to keep reminding myself of that. For example the pattern I am following now uses a lot of double (dc) and treble (tr) crochet stitches but in the US this would translate to be single (sc) and double (dc) crochet stitches. A treble (tr) crochet stitch in a US pattern would be a Double Treble (dtr) in a UK pattern. Confused yet? So if I had thought that this was a US pattern I would be making all my stitches longer/taller than they should have been, so it’s always important to check. (Australian patterns generally follow UK terms).
| UK term | US term | AU term |
|---|---|---|
| chain (ch) | chain (ch) | chain (ch) |
| Slip stitch (sl st) | Slip stitch (sl st) | Slip stitch (sl st) |
| Magic loop/magic ring | Magic loop | Magic loop/magic ring |
| Double crochet (dc) | Single crochet (sc) | Double crochet (dc) |
| Half treble (htr) | Half double (tdc) | Half treble (htr) |
| Treble | Double crochet (dc) | Treble |
| Half double treble (hdtr) | Half treble (htr) | Half double treble (hdtr) |
| Double treble (dtr) | Treble (tr) / Triple crochet (tc) | Double treble (dtr) |
These bookazines have a mix of knitting and crochet patterns, this one is heavy on the crochet so I bought that one. it has a beautiful pattern for a tea cosy (something to keep your teapot warm) and those colours! Yum! (ticket to tea #1 teapot and tea cosy)
It also has these gorgeous Ginger Root gloves that are knitted so I probably won’t do these but I do love them so maybe one day… (ticket to tea #2 cup of ginger tea on the right)
These Earl Grey socks, also knitted and I love but probably won’t do…but also maybe one day…or convince my wonderful Dutch knitting friend to make them for me. 🙂 (ticket to tea #3 the sock pattern is called Earl Grey socks)
So I decided to start with this shawl which is crocheted and I really love it, especially the colours…
This was about a year ago, BC (before crutches) and so I bought the pattern book, and tried to find this yarn without success. I should say this yarn is super expensive, about Euro$70-90 per cake but it is about 1000 metres of yarn so you do get a lot of yarn. Anyway, I found one yarn cake on amazon for £30 which was an incredible price, so I bought it before they changed the price (which they do all the time). I ended up with the mustard to grey ombre colourway – I should say that I don’t really like yellow or any warm colours, but I do like grey. Fast forward to last week, a year later, and I decided to finally start this pattern, I haven’t completely finished the cardigan I showed last week (not happy with the sleeves) but I wanted a change and this seemed simple. Even if you don’t crochet I’m sure you can probably tell that this looks wonky.
Here’s another look at it after doing another row. It’s a disaster! I frogged (ripped it out) and started over so many times and still couldn’t get it right. This is where I started to think I had lost my marbles or at least my ability to follow a (simple) pattern.
Here is a look at the pattern in the book, as you can see the page is in two columns and the pattern only uses two different stitches for most of it. I *think* my main problem was that I kept losing my place as many lines started the same either with a “skip” or with a “tr”. Plus also following along over multiple lines to read just one pattern row was really putting me off. So what to do? First I tried photocopying and enlarging the page but I still had the same problem so it wasn’t due to the size of the print. But then I had a brainwave! I used my (smarter than me) phone to OCR scan the page (OCR stands for optical character recognition) which basically means it scans it as readable text and not a photo-copy. I emailed it to myself and then opened it on the PC, dumped it in a word document (landscape mode) and edited the pattern to give line breaks in sensible places and less of them.
Now that I was feeling less stupid and could actually follow the pattern it actually started to take shape…
And now as of last night, it looks like this after 37 rows…
This is an ombre yarn so the colour change is gradual from this darker mustard to the dark grey you can see on the outside of the yarn cake. I have just reached almost the middle of the cake, and the yarn has just started to change to blend some grey in with the yellow. Also in the photo is my huge “cup” of tea. I sometimes use this blender cup which is for my stick (immersion) blender when I want a really big cup of tea as it really holds about two mugs worth. (ticket to tea #4 my blender cup of tea)
Kitty update . . .
I mentioned last week that it was Miss P’s birthday but I forgot to say that we think she is 11. We don’t know for sure as she just turned up one November day in the garden but the vet decided that she was about 10 months at that point so we gave her a January birthday decided she was one at that point.
And her she is sitting on the couch beside me yesterday like a normal kitty! However that was short lived when she discovered there were two other kitties in the room. Then came the hissing, the growling and then she ran away back into the other room where she has been sleeping. She is still indoors, for six weeks now, and I wonder if she is mellowing slightly and getting more used to the indoor life. I think she would like it a lot better if she didn’t have to share. Yesterday morning, she came into the living room again, everything seemed fine until Miss Lily came up behind her and tried to sniff her back, she turned on her, hissing and swatted at her, and then ran away again. I checked Miss Lily for damage, she seemed unscathed but a little shocked. I, on the other hand, got bitten for my trouble. Really, Miss P has no manners and doesn’t know how to behave in polite society where one simply doesn’t bite the literal hand that feeds her!
Miss Lily on the other hand is a sweet little kitty who likes chicken lollipops. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly they learn a word if it is something they want. I now just need to say “Pop” and both Miss Lily and her brother, Mr G, come running. These are relatively new treats that I shared in some Christmas photos, and they are called Purr Pops. It’s a bit gimmicky but basically freeze-dried chicken made into a lollipop. There are also salmon and tuna versions but they seem to like the chicken ones best. I know have to be really careful not to say words like pop, yogurt, dreamies or anything that sounds similar, out loud or they appear expecting treats! Yoga sounds too similar to yogurt in Mr G’s opinion, so I have to be careful with that one too LOL.
Garden birds update . . .
I’ve been trying for weeks to get a photo of these little birds. They have the most unfortunate name and I had to stop myself from putting it in the post title or I might attract the wrong kind of comments. These are Blue Tits, there’s a whole family of Tits, Great Tits, Blue Tits, Coal Tits, Crested Tits, Long-tailed Tits, Marsh Tits and Willow Tits. They seem to be part of the same family as North American “chickadees” though we don’t get those here. They are so fast and flighty that it’s hard to get them to stay still long enough for a photo but I eventually managed to get a couple yesterday. They are small birds, about the same size as a sparrow but the most colourful birds that we see in the garden here with blue heads and yellow breasts, and other black, grey and white feathers.
And finally . . .
As I mentioned last week, my hospital appointment got cancelled because of the Storm, and so my appointment was rescheduled to this Friday!!! I am really hoping for some good news as it will soon be a YEAR of crutches when I was told 12 weeks initially. Maybe they meant 12 months? LOL (BTW I am wearing some hand knitted socks not made by me, and Nightmare Before Christmas leggings even though it’s February, but they are really warm so I don’t care!)
I think that’s about it for today – it’s taken me over two hours to put this together so thanks for reading to the end! I need to have breakfast before it’s lunchtime! I hope you enjoyed the post and my tickets to tea this week which included my giant blender cup of tea and some of the tea related patterns from the Yarn book. Let me know what you think in the comments below. As always, thanks for reading and Happy T Day!
Ingredients
as above
Challenges
T Stands for – Tuesday
I love substituting avocado and other veggies in baked goods. Your brownies look amazing. Your yarn work, what ever method is always so beautiful. I hope the hospital appt brings good news for you.
I can crochet. Knit I can not Fun socks.
Dear Elle, even though it’s late, I would really like some of your brownies now!
I never thought about left-handed people having difficulty crocheting – but it’s logical. It’s great that you were finally able to learn it – you crochet beautiful pieces! I’m also working on a triangular scarf – I used to hate crocheting, but now it relaxes me.
Thanks for your kitty update. It’s not easy when a cat rejects all other cats out of fear or simply because it’s a loner. Unfortunately, our Nina was never able to really accept our Maxwell either. Poor guy, he got hit so many times and was hissed at so often by her, even though he was the kindest, sweetest cat ever. (And of course we loved Nina, too!)
You have chicken lollipops!?!?! Oh, that’s a gap in the market here! But our guest cat Samia knows the word Dreamies…
Give your cats lots of cuddles from me! (If the cats want that…)
I had to laugh out loud at “…I might attract the wrong kind of comments” ? Fortunately, we call these birds “Blaumeisen”, so not much can go wrong ?
Hopefully you’ll be rid of the crutches soon!
All the best from Austria, Traude
https://rostrose.blogspot.com/2025/01/4-tage-in-wien-ruckblick-2024-teil-3.htm
Raising hand, yes, it was me that asked what the avocado was substitute for. Those brownies looked delicious! I would eat them with avocado in them before I would tofu! Interesting.
I love that ombre yarn. I have to tell you; we had a craft day at church Saturday. The lady next to me was counting the initial stitches for the starting chain. I don’t know how many times she lost count or started over again. I was talking to her too much! LOL Great post. Happy belated t day.
How interesting to learn about left-handed crochet. I’m right-handed and never gave it much thought. Yes, I know Scheepjes yarns (being Dutch). Scheepjes means ‘little ships’.
That yarn cake is enormous. I have never seen one like that. Beautiful colours. I knit socks and I tend to use yarn that changes colour.
I’ve not heard of Chicken pops. I assume you buy them ready made (Or did you make them?)
How did your appointment go? Can you ditch the crutches?
Happy belated T-Day,
Lisca
Yesterday I scratched my retina and was unable to see out of either eye because they both teared up. And it is even harder reading and writing here because the type is so light.
My Aunt Betty taught me to crochet. She was left handed and sat across from me. It was easy to do what she did, but right handed. What a lovely ombre scarf that will be when it is finished.
So glad Miss P is staying indoors. I hope the day comes when she can acclimate to the other two. I was in awe of those chicken pops. I wonder if they sell them in the states.
We don’t get Tits in the sates, but I was impressed with your photos.
I love all your tea references you shared. Lots to choose from this week. Thanks for the updates and the tea you shared for T this week, dear Elle.
Elle, lovely post discussing one of your hobbies/loves and your darling kitty. I am so impressed with your crochet work. One day, I am going to take it back up again. I tried 2 years ago but found I had lost my ability to stay consistent in my loops/tightness. I guess I need to watch some videos and try again. Lovely yarn and I am also impressed you aren’t buying new things. Wow. Happy T-day and hugz
Boy, those crochet descriptions look complicated, I would be afraid to lose the line as well. When I knit from a charted pattern I usually put a metal ruler under the row I’m knitting. I had no idea that there are different crochet terms in US English and UK English. Your scarf looks very beautiful so far and I like the ombre yarn. When you knit, do you do it the Continental or the English way? I learned and still knit the Continental way and find it less tiring on shoulders, arms and wrists, but maybe that’s just because I’m so used to it. It’s also quicker, but again, that might be because I’m used to it.
Your bird is what we call “Meise” in German and “titmouse” here in the US. Here in California we have the Oak Titmouse and there are a lot of them in my garden. They are super cute, but by far not as colorful as yours. They’re mainly grey and have this lovely crest. I love them. The tits are much smaller birds like the Bushtit who usually appear in flocks. They like to hang out in my olive trees and are very chatty birds.
I’ve never seen this kind of lollipop here. I wonder whether Kibeau would like it. Better not start with it… Thanks for this great post, Elle! Happy T day and good luck with the doc appointment on Friday. Big hugs – Carola
Your crochet looks beautiful and I love your new yarn, the colours are lovely ?. I loved reading about your kitty cats too, such different personalities but all very loveable. Those brownies look just the thing to have with my cuppa today – Happy T Day! ?. Sorry for not visiting last month, we’ve just got back from Tenerife; I hope you had a wonderful January! Happy February ??. Hugs, Jo x
I am also a Southpaw. Ma tried to teach me to knit right-handed, but I never could get the hang of it. Some friends at work were big into crochet and one of the girls taught me how to crochet right-handed so that’s what I do. I did know that there was a difference between UK and US instructions. Your shawl is turning out quite pretty. Poor Miss P. Sometime I think Quill would like to be an only as he pesters poor Calli. I’ll have to keep an eye out for Purr Pops I bet they would enjoy them. Happy T Day