Stickytapeandstring

Created with WordPress managed by 1&1

scarf

Hearts and Flowers Scarf

by Leave a Comment

Sharing with you my latest heart based pattern – Hearts and Flowers Scarf. This pattern is based on the new large heart pattern I shared a couple of weeks ago. The pattern uses three sizes of heart but they are actually all the same pattern. To make the different sizes you simply stop after the first, second or third rounds. There are also two sizes of flower 🙂

hearts and flowers scarf
hearts and flowers scarf

Materials

The scarf pictured here is made from Stylecraft Special Chunky yarn. The shades used are Lipstick – 1246, Saffron – 1081 and White – 1001. I buy all my yarn from woolwarehouse here in the UK. The flowers and hearts are made using a 6mm crochet hook. TIP – have a smaller sized hook available to use for fiddly bits – more later on this!

You could make this scarf using oddments of any weight of yarn. It would be a great stash busting pattern if you did just use up any scraps you have. You could use a complete mix of colours but I think it would be most effective if you keep one pallet of colours for the hearts and a different pallet of colours for the flowers.

This pattern is ‘free form’ rather than being a specific layout. This means you make lots of hearts and flowers then lay them out as you like them before joining them together to make the scarf.

Start your own Hearts and Flowers Scarf

‘Free Form’ is all very well but you have to know what you are aiming for! There are two options for this. The first option is very simple if you have a scarf you already like the length and width of. Lay that scarf out on a flat surface. Second option, if you don’t have a suitable scarf to base your hearts and flowers scarf on then as a rough guide, a scarf is normally between six and eight inches wide and about as long as you are tall. Cut a template out of newspaper or tape together scrap paper till you have something the size and shape of the scarf you are making.

Whichever your base, the next step is to place on the hearts and flowers in a design you like. Bear in mind that you will need to join them up with a couple of stitches so aim for each shape to touch another in a couple of places without being bent or forced to do so. If you have to bend or stretch a shape to make it fit then you will end up with unwanted bumps and lumps in your scarf.

You could make the hearts and flowers and build the design up as you make them. Or, you could use paper templates to design the scarf first which then tells you how many of each shape you need to make.

Here is a free download which contains outlines of the hearts and flowers in all sizes. You can cut these out and play with shapes until you get the design you want. Note these sizes are representative of the space required only and not accurate versions of the flowers. They are based on my own tension using Stylecraft Special chunky and a 6mm hook. If you are using scraps of different yarns you will need to use your own shapes to make templates.

Hearts and Flowers template (79 downloads)
hearts and flowers scarf layout
laying out the hearts and flowers to design the scarf

Heart and flower patterns

The heart pattern can be found here. To make the three sizes simply finish off after the first, second or third round!

Large flower pattern

First round – in first yarn, make a magic loop, Chain 2 and work six DC (SC in US terms) into the loop. Pull closed and slip stitch into the top of the two chains to form a small disc.

Second round – join a contrast yarn, Chain 2 work a round of DC (Sc in US terms) work 2Dc (Sc in US terms) into the second and 5th stitch and slip stitch to join back to the start point.

Third round – with the wrong side of the disc facing you work 12 Chain then slip stitch into the next stitch. Work 12 chain and slip stitch into the following stitch. Proceed like this until you get back to the start of the round. This should give you 10 ‘petals’ but to be honest, if it gives you 11 or 9 it really doesn’t matter!

Small flower pattern

First round – make a magic loop, Chain 2 and work six DC (SC in US terms) into the loop. Pull closed and slip stitch into the top of the two chains to form a small disc.

Second round – with wrong side facing, chain 9 then slip stitch into the next stitch. Work 9 chain and slip stitch into the following stitch. Proceed like this until you get back to the start of the round. This should give you 7 ‘petals’ but again, if it gives you 6 or 8 it really doesn’t matter!

Finish off all the ends on the flower centres. Leave the ends on the petals and hearts and use these to join the hearts and flowers.

Making up your Hearts and Flowers Scarf

You can start anywhere when you make this scarf up. I started at one end adding each element as I went. I think if I was making this with scraps, I would start in the middle and keep each side more or less even with the colours.

Pick up your first heart. Using one of the ends that you left without finishing, thread a wool needle and work the end through the heart to the point where it touches the next element in your layout. Join to this next element with a couple of stitches then continue to finish off the end by weaving it into the heart as normal.

Lay the two joined elements back into your design. Pick up the next element that touches these and again join using the other unfinished end. If you have too many joins and not enough unfinished ends then you can thread your needle with a yarn scrap to form the join but I tried to get away without doing this!

One final point on the layout. Pushing the hearts and flowers together closely to minimise the gaps and spaces, will make the scarf more substantial and warmer. Spreading the hearts and flowers out, leaving larger gaps, will make the scarf more decorative than warm!

If you use this pattern please share your results – it would be lovely to see them. I am happy for anyone to use these or any of my patterns to make things to sell or share but please include a link back to my blog if you do.

I have one more heart based pattern to come for this years Valentines day so watch this space. Hope to be posting that one in the coming week. Happy crocheting!

Annie 🙂

Yarn Salvage #2 – more tips

by Leave a Comment

Hello, In my last post I promised you another set of tips and ‘how to points’ on yarn salvage. The project is going very well here and I am drowning a bit in yarn!

With Autumn coming on, I have also started looking at the list of people I would like to make Christmas and Birthday presents for!   I plan to use some of this new yarn stash to create beautiful things for my friends and family.   I will post a list pattern links when I have it together but as a start point I am making my striped scarf up with some of the greens and greys.

Here is a link to the Striped Scarf pattern and you can see the scarf above in pink and in blue. This type of pattern is ideal for using recycled yarn as you can vary the design according to the yarn you have available and it is easier to mix yarn weights.   Anyway – I promised you tips….. here goes.   The last set of tips focussed on garment selection.  This list is more about what to do when you get your garments home and you need to do the unravelling!   If you missed the first set of tips you can see them here – Yarn Salvage #1

Yarn Salvage Tips#2 – where to start unravelling

1. Firstly spend some time getting to know the garment.   Look at every seam and pull the two joined edges as far apart as possible.   There should be a set of horizontal stitches visible between the two pieces of the garment.   If you are lucky these stitches will be in a slightly different thread but this is not always the case.

2. Side and sleeve seams are the easiest place to start.   Snip through 3 or 4 of those horizontal joining stitches, at one end of the seam but if you’ve chosen the bottom edge, avoid the welt/rib/border.  Instead, start a little higher up.

3. As well as the hole you have created by snipping the horizontal stitches you should be able to see a cut end of yarn.   Pull on this and it might magically unravel the whole seam.   If it doesn’t, go to the other end of the same seam and try again.

4. Most seams will unravel as described above if you persevere long enough.   Beware of fluffy yarns however.   Fluffy yarns need a lot of pulling and sometimes scissor work to prise them apart.

5. If all else fails, it might be necessary to snip all horizontal stitches but this is time taking and risky.    It is very easy to snip part of the knitting which would mean you end up with smaller balls of recovered yarn and more ends to deal with in your project!

6. Sometimes the tops of sleeves and neck areas, particularly on fronts of jumpers, call for the use of scissors.   There is no point in spending ages unpicking these areas just to finish up with very short lengths of yarn.    Just cut across the knitting so that you have a reasonably long raw edge to start from.

7. Welts/ribs/borders and underarm seam intersections on some garments can be huge time wasting areas to deal with.   No matter how long you take or how careful you are, there will be cuts to the knitting in those areas.   Consider just cutting those nasty lumpy seams away with out even trying to unravel them.

8. Beware the double ball knitting demon!!   There are some commercial machines that have two balls of yarn on the go in production.    The balls are used to knit alternate rows.   This means when you are unravelling you will have two balls of yarn to wind – swapping between them every row.    You cannot know this before you unravel, at least we haven’t worked out a way to detect it yet…. but be prepared to deal with it if it occurs.

9. Take a view on whether to unravel ribbing at the neck and elsewhere.   Sometimes it is worth the effort, sometimes not.

10. Finally, it is worth saving every scrap of cut away area or rib/welt/border until you have finished the project you are using the yarn for.    You never know whether you will run out of yarn and just need a tiny bit more.  If this happens, all the bits that were too time consuming to deal with suddenly become worthwhile!!

And that is it for now.    I have a final post in this series for you next week.   In that post I will cover what we do with the yarn we recover in order to prepare it for re-use.

Happy recycling!

Annie 🙂

Stripes Scarf – Blue

by 2 Comments

Here is a blue version of my Stash Buster Scarf.   I wrote up the pattern that I created when I made the pink/purple version and realised that I didn’t have yarn quantities so I made it up again in blue so I could get the weight of yarn required.    I also took photos during the making process so that I could add them to the pattern.

The pattern uses five colours and I happened to have four blue shades in my stash so went with those plus white to make five colours for this design.

I wanted to be able to explain in pictures the way that I finished the scarf off without needing to weave in ends.   I also wanted to show how I added in additional yarn to bulk out the fringing.    The finished pattern is up on my Etsy store which you can reach on the following link.

Stash Buster Scarf Pattern

This pattern is very easy so would suit a beginner and can be made up in whatever colours you choose.   Sounds dreadful to be thinking about Christmas as we are in May currently but I think this would make a lovely handmade gift and you can pick a colourway to suit the person it is for.

I have listed the pattern on Etsy but you can grab it here for free on this download. Stripes scarf (219 downloads)
Happy Crocheting!

Annie 🙂

 

Stripes scarf

by Leave a Comment

This project is made with the same yarns as my flower hats.    I had quite a bit of each colour left over but not enough to make any more hats in the same design.  I fancied a change anyway so decided to attempt a scarf.

I have collected a lot of images of scarves on my Pinterest boards.   The style I am working here is one of my favourites to wear.    It lends itself to using many colours and as such is perfect for a continuation of my stash busting hats project.  This yarn is a mix of cashmere and merino wool so is beautifully warm to wear.

I began by working a chain to the length of scarf I wanted to produce.    This seemed to go on for ever!    There are 330 stitches in one row of my scarf and the finished scarf measures   160 cm/64 inches long by 15 cm/6 inches.     I made up the stitch pattern and colour banding as I worked the piece but kept careful notes.     I will write up the pattern and put it up on my Etsy store.

This project did not work well on my commute as it grew quite quickly and used several balls of yarn at a time.   I have a separate project worked in parallel so that I could make use of my commuter time!

To finish off the scarf I considered adding more flowers but they didn’t stand out as well as I would like against the stripes so instead I went for fringing.    I have used up all my spare yarn of this type now and listed both the hats and this scarf on Etsy.  I hope you like them 🙂

Happy crocheting!

Annie 🙂