Hello my dear readers! How is 2015 treating you? Life has been quiet around here, it was hard to get back to work and the routine after the holidays but I think I am finally settling in again.
I did a bit of yarn shopping in December so wanted to share my latest buys with you. I have decided not to buy any more yarn until the Edinburgh Yarn Festival (EYF), the vendors have been announced and there are so many stalls (so exciting!!!) so I want to save some money to get some lovely things there. Now, I won’t buy more yarn but I will use a gift voucher for a local yarn shop that my lovely boyfriend gave me for Christmas. I think that now that yarn is taking over the flat he finally realised that really all I want in life is yarn 🙂
If you are planning to go to the Edinburgh Yarn Festival let me know if you would like to meet up, we can do some yarn shopping together, wouldn’t that be lovely 🙂 I am also thinking to take one of the crochet classes so give me a shout if you are thinking the same, a class buddy is always necessary!
Now, about my latest yarn buys, I will begin with this beautiful Madelinetosh yarn, is Merino Light 4ply in a lovely greyish colour. I bought this at Be Inspired Fibres, there are so many beautiful yarns from all over the world in this shop and they will be at the EYF as well. It is already being worked into a cowl and I am loving how this looks with tunisian crochet. The cowl is inspired in the beautiful cobbled streets in Edinburgh, will post pictures and pattern soon!
At Be Inspired I also got a bit of Artesano Alpaca and Alpaca Silk in 4ply, I believe this will become that honeycomb cowl that sparked the idea to start my tunisian crochet tutorials, the colours are the same as my tunisian vest and of course only realised once I got home… 😛
As part of a yarn exchange we did at my knitting group Christmas party I got this lovely Noro yarn, I see some tunisian fingerless gloves in the future! I think tunisian simple stitch would look great with the colour changes in this yarn.
I also got this lovely Brigantia yarn in DK weight at Ginger Twist Studio, I have been eyeing this yarn for some time so happy to finally get to work with it. I am doing a sample for a class project, this New Year may bring some teaching opportunities so will keep you updated but it is all so very exciting!
Finally I also got this from Jess at Ginger Twist: an adorable crochet for my keys! I love it, for me it is only decorative but you could actually use it in those times of crochet emergency 😛
I’ve been hooking away these days and loving every minute of it. It has given me a lot of time to think about what I hope for this year, do you think a New Year resolutions post is too late? I think getting it in writing will help and one of my resolutions is to expand this blog and talk a bit more about life in my corner of the world. I think I will just start working on it and hope you will forgive me for being a little late to the party (or boarding the bus using the back door as we would say where I come from).
I have enjoyed every minute of this blog journey and want it to grow (and me alongside it), I hope to continue to interest you with patterns, colours and yarn goodness if you allow me since it is an honour to have my blog be a small part of your day or of your own crafty journey. Will be back soon with those resolutions…
Hope you have a lovely day!
x
Sol
a crochet journey 
Lovely yarn stash and the crochet keychain! I wish to attend the yarn festivals like EYF & Unravel in the future.
That keychain is the best thing ever! If you do come this year let me know! It is going to be amazing 🙂
Oh, not this year. I will have to plan for one of the coming years so that it will be a mini-vacation to enjoy the sights & sounds of Edinburgh/Scotland but coinciding with EYF dates. For this year, I’ll be waiting to read your experiences & see photos you take there!
Oh I will surely be blogging about it! It is my first yarn festival so I think it will be a lot to take in. I am sure they will be doing it for years to come and Edinburgh is such a lovely city and so many beautiful places to visit from it that a mini-vacation is a must!
Noro yarns are fabulous and so is that keyring 🙂
I have never crocheted with them! I am not sure why since they have such beautiful colours, what kind of projects have you done with Noro yarns?
I have started (two years ago!) a sweater/coat using a Doris Chan pattern. I was going to mention it in my comment but didn’t because I have abandoned it, poor thing! I did this before with an item and I found when I returned to it that my tension/stitch gauge was different. Has this happened to you? And when does a project change from a WIP to a UFO? No need to answer that, it is defo a UFO after this long. But the yarn is lovely, mohair, silk, and wool–probably the nicest yarn I ever purchased. I grew up using cheap acrylics, or “dirty wool” as an elderly Aran knitter once described it to me. It was very expensive yarn and I really should get on it again or start something new. Fingerless gloves would be lovely. I made a pair out of a similar color as your Noro in a nice Donegal Irish wool. I also like the Noro because of the long color repeats, though that may not be so noticeable in gloves.
UFOs do haunt us! Especially if they use a nice yarn, you should pick it up again! Gauge is quite tricky, I just watched a video class by Lily Chin and she said that you shouldn’t crochet your gauge swatch at once but should leave it and pick it up another day since we are always crocheting at different tensions and your swatch should reflect this. I experienced this with the tunisian vest I am working on, I got different gauges ALL THE TIME, it was very annoying…!
If your crochet is not as loose I wouldn’t worry much since you should be able to block it to a slightly bigger size, why don’t you give it another try? You may realise your gauge is closer now. Let me know how it goes, gauge is always such a dilemma, best of luck!