Proudly Presenting: Katherine the Great

I have just finished a wonderful scarf! I decided to call it Katherine the Great, since I completed the final stitches of this project at a lovely friend’s house and her name happens to be Katherine and yes, she is GREAT.

But something else occurred to me, whilst christening this wonderful new item in my wardrobe – this scarf is not just great, but also large… larger than it’s original, which I made a few months ago for my niece Rebecca. Moreover, I realised that I never posted a picture of the wonderful scarf that Rebecca took home to New York, duh!

First things first… the inspiration came from a pattern called Rusty Pearls. The yarn (2 ply baby alpaca) came from my knitting buddy, soul mate, chief adviser for all things important and trivial, Sue. And funnily enough, the silk used in the crotchet edges came from yarn I bought with Sue at the craft fair in Darling Harbour many years ago, at the very beginning of our friendship. Here we are, still loving each others’ company (and in this case, celebrating Sue’s birthday).

I loved the little scarf so much, I had to have my own, but a larger version. The playful edging is giving this scarf such a gorgeous finish, especially in a contrast color and texture. 

I have to admit, I never managed to uncurl the top edge of the scarf 😫, I tried and tried… I finished it with an I-cord and various hand and crotches stitches that according to various online resources promised to stabilise stockfinstre stitch fabric, but alas… nothing worked… and fortunately it did not worry Rebecca.

For Katherine the Great, I just kept adding stitches, and when I nearly ran out of the 100gr skein, I started introducing another one, stripe by stripe, to blend the slightly different shades of off white.

When I thought I had surely done enough knitting I loved working on the crotchet edge with my final bits of silk… but I thought the scarf was actually not big enough to snuggle up in. No problem – I just picked up more stitches and carried on knitting until I truly ran out of yarn and worked another silk edge, until I ran out of that, too.

I just LOVE this…

Did I say I can’t crotchet???

This is not too hard… soon there will be a proper show and tell…

A Pouffe

Sadly, I don’t have the reference photo at hand, of the pouffe that inspired me to take up crochet. I saw it at Vicky’s holiday house at the South Coast a few weekends ago. She also had millions of granny square blankets, which inspired me to dig out a book of granny squares from my craft library. They are easy enough to make!!!

So I started on a few granny squares and found them very addictive to make and could not stop. Then I found a crochet mandala tutorial on the web… And instead of making a pouffe with a plain side and a seperate granny square blanket, I put the two ideas together: a pouffe with granny square sides!

Two nights ago, I made a big cushion from calico. Stuffing the cushion with the beans from an old bean bag seemed to take longer than crocheting the cover, LOL! Last night I hand sewed the bottom of the side to the bottom of the cushion, and VOILA! A fabulous pouffe for our lounge room!

i have been working at Sydney Theatre Company for a few weeks. This is my view! Just stunning.