“pooling isn’t just for ducks!”

That was what Mike said when I first explained to him the idea of pool­ing when using var­ie­gat­ed yarn. I thought it would make a nice catchy blog title! :D 

I was mak­ing a hand tow­el for a rel­a­tive as a gift, and bought this var­ie­gat­ed yarn because I liked the colour com­bi­na­tion. I start­ed with a chain of 40, so there are 39 stitch­es across. I used a 5.5 mm hook, and cro­chet moss stitch, using Bernat Hand­i­crafter yarn in Queen Ann’s Lace (large skein). And look! It start­ed mak­ing a plaid pattern!

This was com­plete­ly unin­ten­tion­al. I was even feel­ing a bit bad about it because when I read about planned pool­ing, I saw that it often takes peo­ple 5–6 tries before get­ting the pat­tern to work (which kind of deterred me from try­ing at all…), and here I am, la-di-da, out comes a plaid pat­tern (which is not per­fect but good enough for me!).

Which is why I want­ed to share all the details of what I did, maybe it will save some­one some time if you’re try­ing to make a sim­i­lar thing? The fin­ished tow­el came out to be 9″ wide.

But then I also read that the suc­cess of planned pool­ing depends on one’s ten­sion, where in the colour sec­tion one starts and the skein of yarn, so even if I try to do the exact same thing I may not get the same result anyway.

Def­i­nite­ly a pleas­ant surprise! 

Hap­py crafting!

 

 

wicker

Made with sim­ple V‑stitch, the result­ing tex­ture reminds me of wick­er furniture. 

It’s an open front, light cardi­gan with a seam­less con­struc­tion. That’s right — no sewing, no sewing at all :)

Sim­ple stitch pat­tern means easy to cus­tomize. The size I made is 34″. I’ve added sug­ges­tions for increas­ing size in ital­ics.

I used one ball of Lion Brand Pound of Love and a 5.5 mm hook.

The cardi­gan is made top down.

Stitch pat­tern:

v‑stitch (v‑st): dc in stitch indi­cat­ed, ch 1, dc in same stitch

Back

ch 66

Add 6 ch to the begin­ning ch for every inch you’d like to increase.

Row 1: v‑st in 6th ch from hook, [sk 2 ch, v‑st in next ch] till last 3 ch, dc in last ch, turn.

Row 2: ch 3 (counts as a dc through­out), [v‑st in ch 1 sp] to end, dc in top of turn­ing ch.

Repeat row 2 eleven (11) more times. Fas­ten off. 13 rows altogether.

For larg­er size, work 2 more rows for every 6 ch added to the begin­ning ch.

Right front

Turn piece upside down, so that the begin­ning ch is at the top. Attach yarn to top right cor­ner of piece.

Row 1: ch 3, v‑st in the base of the v‑st from row 1 of back (it would be upside down), con­tin­ue to work one v‑st in the base of each of the next five v‑st from row 1 of back, dc in the base of next v‑st.

For larg­er size, work 1 more v‑st for every 6 ch added to the begin­ning ch.

Row 2: ch 3, [v‑st in ch 1 sp] to end, dc in top of turn­ing ch, turn.

Repeat row 2 eleven (11) more times. Fas­ten off. 13 rows altogether.

Left front

Re-posi­tion the piece so that the unworked side of the shoul­der is at top right. Attach yarn to top right corner.

Repeat rows 1–13 of left front. Don’t fas­ten off.

Join front and back

Join row: ch 3, v‑st in every ch 1 sp across left front, dc in last dc of left front, dc in first dc of back, v‑st in every ch 1 sp across back, dc in last dc of back, dc in first dc of right front, v‑st in every ch 1 sp across right front, dc in last dc of right front, turn.

Body

Row 1 after join­ing: ch 3, v‑st in every ch 1 sp until under arm, v‑st in between the last dc of front and first dc of back, mark v‑st just made, v‑st in every ch 1 sp until under arm, v‑st in between last dc of back and first dc of front, mark v‑st just made, v‑st in every ch 1 sp, dc in last dc, turn.

Row 2: ch 3, [v‑st in ch 1 sp] to end, dc in top of turn­ing ch, turn.

Repeat row 2 until piece is 19″ from shoul­der, or desired length. Fas­ten off.

Sleeve

Sleeve is made in the round, turn­ing at the end of every row. You will now be work­ing along the side or ends of the rows in the front and back pieces. You will be mak­ing v‑st around the dc (which I will call the hor­i­zon­tal bar below) and in the join­ing point between rows (which I will call join­ing point below — it is either the top of a dc or turn­ing ch, so you can just make a v‑st into it like you would usu­al­ly do into a dc or ch).

Row 1: Attach yarn to the base of marked v‑st in under­arm, ch 4, dc in same place. sk the first hor­i­zon­tal bar, [v‑st in next join­ing point, sk the next hor­i­zon­tal bar and the next join­ing point, v‑st in next hor­i­zon­tal bar, sk the next join­ing point and hor­i­zon­tal bar] to end of round, sl st in 3rd ch of turn­ing ch, turn.

This might help illus­trate where I’m putting the stitch­es. The cir­cles are the join­ing points, and the dash­es are the hor­i­zon­tal bars. The v’s are the v‑st.

Row 2: ch 3, [v‑st in ch 1 sp] around, sl st in top of begin­ning ch, turn.

Repeat row 2 until sleeve is 17.5″ long, or desired length. End on a wrong side row so next row begin with right side fac­ing. Don’t fas­ten off.

Cuff

Row 1: ch 1 (does not count as sc), [sc in next ch 1 sp, sc in between two v‑st] around, sl st in first sc, don’t turn.

Row 2: ch 1, in the back loop only, sc in every sc around, sl st in first sc, don’t turn.

Repeat row 2 two (2) more times. Fas­ten off. Weave in ends.

Repeat for the oth­er sleeve and cuff.

Front bor­der / collar

Row 1 (RS): Attach yarn to bot­tom cor­ner of right front, ch 2 (counts as hdc), 2 hdc around every hor­i­zon­tal row end (hor­i­zon­tal bar as described above in sleeve) up along front, across back of neck, and down front again, turn.

Row 2 (WS): ch 2, in front loop only, hdc in every hdc to end, turn.

Row 3 (RS): ch 2, in back loop only, hdc in every hdc to end, turn.

Repeat rows 2–3 once more (or until desired width), then work row 2 again once. Don’t fas­ten off.

Bot­tom edge

Row 1 (WS): ch 1, 1 sc in every row-end of the hdc rows in bor­der, 1 sc in every st across body of cardi­gan, then 1 sc in every row-end of bor­der, turn.

Row 2 (RS): ch 1, in back loop only 1 sc in every sc. Fas­ten off, weave in ends.

 

All fin­ished. No sewing, as promised :)

Please feel free to leave a com­ment below if you have any ques­tions! Hap­py crocheting :)

 

new york, new york

You might have noticed that I was MIA on the blog for a bit… some­times I’m MIA for no good rea­son, but this time, I was actu­al­ly in NYC! :D 20% of the trip was for work, but we sure did cram in as much sight­see­ing as pos­si­ble in the remain­ing 80% of our time there, since we’ve nev­er been!

Most­ly just mes­mer­ized and mild­ly intim­i­dat­ed by the street scenes. Also, fire escapes are such beau­ti­ful struc­tures! Espe­cial­ly the shad­ows they cast on the build­ing dur­ing cer­tain times of day. 

At the cor­ner of Lit­tle Italy and Chi­na­town :O

Made a bee­line to Purl Soho as soon as we had free time *heart eyes x 1000* It is such a nice shop! I got too over­whelmed by all the yarn choic­es and could­n’t decide on what to get. But I did get the gor­geous anniver­sary edi­tion of Pom Pom Quar­ter­ly, which I’ve been eye­ing for­ev­er but had­n’t been able to bring myself to get it because of the hefty ship­ping fees! Can’t wait to start work­ing on some of the pat­terns :D

My sec­ond favourite part of NYC is def­i­nite­ly Cen­tral Park. A close sec­ond. Or even equal­ly favourite. Such a mag­i­cal place. And we only cov­ered maybe a 10th of it!

Isn’t this like the scene in Spir­it­ed Away? :D Almost expect­ing to come out to a world full of strange things on the oth­er side…

Instead we found Alice and her toad­stools :D

This brings peo­ple together :)

Saw that the Muse­um of Nat­ur­al His­to­ry has a jel­ly dome, made a bee­line there as well! It was well worth the wait­ing in line. Wish I took a pic­ture of the out­side of the dome, it looked like an inflat­ed grey cozy igloo. And inside they played beau­ti­ful footage of all kinds of jel­ly­fish on the dome! It was like they were swim­ming all round you, with relax­ing music, quite mag­i­cal! I think it’s a great alter­na­tive to exhibit­ing live jel­ly­fish in a tank, and makes a bril­liant art instal­la­tion, and I think the won­der on all the vis­i­tors’ faces is just as mov­ing as the jel­ly­fish footage itself. 

And of course we vis­it­ed The Met! It is breath­tak­ing­ly grand.

I’m most mes­mer­ized by the light­ing of this room, orig­i­nal­ly from Venice, I believe.

We had one last morn­ing to spend in New York before head­ing home, and we made it to Brook­lyn! :D

It was so nice to be able to step into the Hud­son River.

Sou­venirs from our trip include 3 per­fect­ly round­ed stones from the riv­er (along with Cocokrispies squares — because we don’t have Cocokrispies in Cana­da any­more), now sit­ting with my glass bird :)

I also took some pic­tures with Diana, hop­ing that they will turn out! Will have to show them to you when I get the film devel­oped — stay tuned!

There were so many places we want­ed to vis­it­ed but just did­n’t have the time! Must return one day. Have you been to NYC, or do you live there? What’s your favourite place?

Have a good rest of the week, everyone!

 

 

 

this week’s awesome finds

Nev­er too ear­ly to start knit­ting hats! The seed stitch adds a nice tex­ture to this one. From Lion Brand Yarn (scroll down in post for link to hat pat­tern, free but reg­is­tra­tion required).

 

Sim­ple yet bold pop­pies to add a styl­ish touch to any jack­et. From Picot Pals.

 

Oh my good­ness, MUST MAKE! From Make & Do Crew.

 

Make space for zen. Sim­ple desk zen gar­den from Dwell Beau­ti­ful.

 

Nev­er heard of show­er melts before, but I think these vapour rub flavour ones would make a good prac­ti­cal gift! Would prob­a­bly be bet­ter used than bath fizzes I think. I for one had­n’t tak­en a bath since I was a kid, always pre­fer show­ers. From The Home­spun Hydrangea.

 

Macrame can be beau­ti­ful, hip­ster and not hip­pie. Neck­laces from Lia Grif­fith.

 

Also from Lia Grif­fith, these beau­ti­ful flower rings! I think they would also make gor­geous ear­rings, and no one will be able to tell that they’re made from shrink plastic. 

 

These fab­ric coil bowls are intrigu­ing, and made from t‑shirts! From We are Scout.

 

Great alter­na­tive to actu­al birth­day cake, or just for tea par­ty! From Tikki­do.

 

Looks super fan­cy but the recipe seems sim­ple enough for me to tack­le! And with crois­sants! From Make & Takes.

 

Hap­py sum­mer craft­ing! :D