Like wearing a fluffy blanket: my shawl-poncho

Last year at one of the regular craft days I attend, we had a swap day where we brought craft supplies from our stash that we no longer wanted. It was a fantastic idea and I got rid of a lot of paper crafting supplies and some fabric. Dangerously, I was the only person who wanted to take yarn. So I perhaps took a little more than I should have.

Most was one or at most two balls of the same yarn, but there was a lot of one slubby blue yarn (an acrylic/mohair blend). I thought there were 6 balls (turned out there were actually 8!)

Uneven size, fluffy texture... but that colour is perfect for me!
This is all that is now left of those 8 balls

Now usually with a textured yarn that does that slubby look where it is thin in places and large and fluffy in others, all I'd make is a scarf. Maybe. But unless I was planning on making the longest scarf ever, that would only take one or two balls and I certainly didn't want three matching scarves. I knew with that much to work with, I wanted to make a garment. I wasn't going to use such a textured yarn for a cardigan though. I pondered a shawl, but I've never managed to get a shawl to be of any use except when curled up on a couch reading. I kept pondering and worked on other projects, but I knew I had to do something with it because I adore that colour.

One day two months ago, doing a colour exercise where I was looking through all my pattern books looking at yarn colours, I came across this interesting pattern in my copy of Rustic Modern Crochet and immediately realised that it was the inspiration I'd been looking for.  

Sand and Shells pattern by Yukimo Alexander.
(I took this photo from my book copy because that seemed less dodgy than adding one from elsewhere;
 for better pics see the ravelry link above)

While this is made up in a totally different style and weight of yarn, the overall schematic of the garment was what I wanted - effectively a poncho. Crochet an arrangement of rectangles and sew together in two places to form armholes. And shawl-poncho is born. 

So cozy

I didn't use the stitch patterns given because the detail would have been wasted on such fluffy yarn. I did keep the contrast in density, making the upper side in a more open mesh, and I worked my dimensions from the detailed diagram for the project. 

You can see the division into the three areas more clearly in this photo.
Actually, this fluffy yarn disguises a lot of details. 

As I said, the construction is very simple, and once you've finished the actual crochet, all that is needed is to join 6-8cm at a point on each side to create the arm holes.

Rear view.

I get all the comfort and warmth of a fluffy shawl without having to worry about keeping it wrapped around me. It is the perfect garment for those days when I'm a bit chilly but don't want a full warm sweater (and in Sydney, we get more of those days than you'd think). I intended this to be an 'only around the house' piece, but I've now worn it out a few times on those intermediate weather days. So happy to have used some swap day yarn for a snuggly addition to my wardrobe.

Stash-busting for the baby

With my last week of work over, I'm turning my attention to a variety of things - getting Parlour Duck crafts underway, working on my assignment for the embroiderer's guild class, and crafting for the baby.
Since I've found out that the baby is almost certainly a boy (the doctor doing the scan said: "I could be wrong. But it would be one of those cases that we write up to use as an example of how we can be really wrong.")  I've had to readjust my crafting ideas - I'd been so sure I was going to have a girl. Oh well. I'm now totally besotted with the idea of my wriggly little boy, so all good. So I've been back through all my magazines and torn out patterns, I've been trawling through free patterns on Ravelry, I've been borrowing books from the library. But before I go crazy and buy a lot of new yarn and fabric, I want to use up what I can from my stash.

My sister sent me a link to a great blog post where the blogger has arranged her stash so seriously, she can make GRAPHS of what is left to use.  Awe-inspiring. For about ten minutes I was drifting in a 'huh, that wouldn't be too hard' daze but then I realised that I'd use organising the stash as another procrastination technique.  Anyway, I dumped out my yarn stash and made a pile of all the yarn I'd either bought to make baby gifts or had left over from previous baby gifts to work out what I had to use up. Turns out, not a great deal.

Baby-project yarns from my yarn stash. 

In fact, the more I handle the soft-spun mohair (the turquoise yarn) the less I'm happy that I ever used it for a baby poncho years ago. It has a slight underlying scratchiness. So that might be used for a grown up project. I made the decision that I didn't have enough of any one yarn - except maybe the very fine cream merino - to do a large project, so these won't make blankets. The cream merino and maybe the pale blue/white/yellow at the front will make cardigan-size projects. The others will go into socks/booties/hats/etc.

I'd forgotten that making baby things could be so quick! I made a hat last Thursday. Grabbed the pattern from my stack of 'torn from magazine' sheets. Grabbed yarn from stash and hook from roll. Started crocheting on the train to work. Continued during the evening minding the counter at the store. By the time my shift was over, the hat was complete apart from weaving in the end, as I hadn't brought a large tapestry needle with me.

Baby hat, made from stash, completed over the course of a day at work. 

Now I'm making some socks from the same yarn, using a pattern that I've made for other people's babies over the years and really liked.  It feels good to be able to add stuff to the baby drawer that I've made for this specific, known-about baby.