Stylecraft Blog Tour 2017

 

Hello my lovelies, and a very warm welcome to the Attic24 installment of the Stylecraft Blog Tour 2017!! This has been an exciting thing for me as it's the first Blog Tour I've ever been involved with (and I think this must be the 3rd year now). The idea is that each of the sixteen Stylecraft Blogstars takes a turn to host the tour for a day, designing a knit or crochet project that uses a chosen collection of Stylecraft yarns.

We are about half way through the tour, and my goodness there have been some amazing designs so far. It's been brilliant to see the diversity and creativity from each individual designer, and every project is truly unique. Very, very inspiring indeed. You can find patterns and blogs already out there from the following Blogstars :

♥ Emma Varnam ♥ Every Trick on the Hook ♥ Crochet Between Worlds ♥

♥ Cherry Heart ♥ Annaboo's House ♥ Lucia's Fig Tree ♥ Zooty Owl ♥

Tomorrow, it'll be the turn of Phil at The Twisted Yarn. So much yarny goodness to inspire!

The yarny focus for the 2017 Blog Tour is Stylecraft Batik  which had four new colours added this year, bringing the total to 20. As well as the existing Batik yarn, this summer Stylecraft introduced us to a new addition called Batik Elements which comes in 8 different colourways. Batik is really beautiful to work with - it's a mixed fibre double knit yarn (80% acrylic / 20% wool) and the thing I like the most about it is it's bounce. Oh, it's so deliciously springy and plump when it's worked up into stitches! I'm sure there's a technical yarny term for the springy bounce, but no matter, I'm sure you can get what I mean. The other things I love about it are it's softness and warmth - due to the wool content it feels warmer against the skin than Special DK, yet it's very soft too. 

So - these are the eight Elements ::

Top row, left to right  ♥ Krypton ♥ Bismuth ♥ Mercury  ♥Platinum ♥

Bottom row, left to right ♥ Iron ♥ Sulphur ♥ Copper ♥ Phosphorus ♥

As you can see, Stylecraft Elements is a variegated yarn, with each ball containing a blend of compatible shades. If you follow {this link} you can see how the Elements look when they are knitted up, and this gives you the best overall feel for all the colours in each ball. Now in all honesty I'm really not a fan of variegated yarn for crochet as I much prefer the look of clean, clear, solid colours. I find variegated yarn a bit "visually messy" which makes my Creative Mind do a little shudder of disapproval. This is my personal opinion mind you, and I know many designers who love that there are so many colours to go at all in one single ball. 

For the Blog Tour, Stylecraft created four yarn collections for us to choose from. Each collection contains one shade of Batik Elements (4 balls) and six shades of Batik DK ( 1 ball of each), making 10 x 50g balls in total.

I really struggled making my choice as truthfully none of them immediately made me swoon. Many of the colours are quite dark and moody, and quite different to the kind of happy-bright colours I would instinctively be drawn to. I pondered on it for quite a while before finally settling on the cool blues and greens of Lagoon. 

The Lagoon Yarn Pack contains 4 x Batik Elements Krypton, and 1 each of Batik Indigo, Teal, Sage, Storm, Lupin and Silver. 

The first thing I did was wind up some yarn pegs so that I could have a play, but also to give me easy reference to the colour names for my designing and pattern writing. 

The next thing I did was to wind off some of the Krypton Elements yarn onto a wide piece of card so that I could see the individual colours that make up this variegated yarn more clearly.

And then finally, I popped the ten balls of yarn into my chunky bag and waited for inspiration to come.

I waited.

And waited some more.

Yarndale came and went, and still the yarn sat in my bag waiting patiently. 

Finally, when I least expected it, an image of my Blooming Flower cushion popped into my mind, and I felt the first real buzz of creative excitement. I could picture a cushion looking really rather lovely, blooming in watery shades of blue and green.

It's always fun revisiting an old pattern as you can pretty much get stuck straight in with the making without any need to mess about with the design. The making process is all about how to use the colours rather than the mathematics of the stitches, and that makes me happy. 

I made the original Blooming Flower cushion six years ago now, and it really is a fab pattern. It's extremely satisfying to watch as those petals form, radiating the colours out from the centre and inviting you to stroke your hands back and forth over the  texture of the crochet. 

 

I can't say that I fell in love with these colours, although I really did try. I just found the busy-ness of it all a little to much for my brain, even though I ordered the colours in a way that made sense to me (dark to light, then back to dark). I guess I'm used to feeling a true passionate love affair with my crochet colours/projects, and this one felt like a really nice casual friendship.

I worked on this cushion quite a bit at Coopers Cafe, and I was surprised how much everyone else seemed to like it  - I think my friends would have told me the truth if they thought it was rubbish! So I took their word for it and kept going, hoping for the best.

About half way through making the cushion front, I found myself fixating on the centre of the blooming flower - there was quite a big hole there which had begun to bother me. I decided to find a button to stitch over the hole to cover it up and spent ages online looking for a large decorative button which matched the Lagoon colours. When I didn't manage to find anything suitable, I hit on the idea of making my own crochet button. 

I bought a couple of cheap 25 mm plastic buttons from a local shop and set about crocheting a little jacket for them....

It was ever so easy....

....and the finished yarny button just delighted me with it's simplicity and perfectness for the job....

.....ta-dah!!! (well, just a small little buttony ta-dah for now).

I made a second button for the back side of the cushion, which as you can see I made using just the Krypton yarn. I did contemplate changing colours and making stripes, but in the end I decided to take advantage of the variegated yarn and keep it simple.

The contrast between the busy, textured front and the simple, smooth back pleases me, although I'm really not sure about all that Krypton. It's taken on a bit of a camouflage look which doesn't really do it for me.

Incidentally, when I'd finished crocheting both these circles they were quite unshapely and didn't sit at all flat. This is definitely a pattern that needs blocking. So I very gently steamed them with a cool iron to ease up the tension and re-shape the circles until they lay beautifully flat. 

I would love to know what you think about the look of this yarn, do share your thoughts! Do you like variegated yarn? Do you like the mixed-colour effect? Or are you like me and prefer your colours simple, solid and separate?

Size wise, I bought a 40 cm cushion pad which was ridiculously fat and pouffy, but from previous experience I know how much these pads quickly flatten with use. So I made my cushion cover measure around 32 cm which gives a nice snug fit right now, and it won't get too baggy and saggy once the cushion inner settles down with use.

See what I mean about the pouffy-ness? It's possibly the plumpest cushion pad I've ever encountered!

So before I set about stuffing all this padding inside my crochet, I used a long darning needle and some white yarn, and made a couple of stitches at the very centre of the cushion pad. I stitched right through the whole thing, from one side to the other, pulling the yarn tight and knotting it securely so that it made an indentation in the centre of the cushion, a bit like a belly button. I've no idea why I like the idea of giving the cushion a belly button so much, but it really did make me chuckle to myself. It doesn't take much to please me, obviously.

Crocheting the front and back pieces together couldn't be easier. I just put the two pieces with right sides facing outwards, and worked slip stitches all around the edge, putting my hook through the inner/back loops of each outer round. 

Slip Stitching creates a really neat seam, with an almost invisible row of stitches. You just need to be mindful of your tension and keep it fairly loose (I went up a hook size to help with this), or else the seam will pucker and pull the circle out of shape.

So shall we take a little look at the finished cushion?

This is the reverse camouflage Krypton side....

.....and this is the beautiful Blooming front side.........Ta-dah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You can see that I attached the crochet buttons in the same belly-button fashion as I did for the cushion pad so that the centre of the cushion is pulled inwards on both sides. I love this effect so much! 

Whilst I was working on the final rounds of my cushion in the cafe on Friday, one of my friends remarked that the colours reminded her of a Monet water lily painting. I knew immediately that she was right as I remember falling in love with Monet's water lily paintings when I visited Paris in my student days, and for a while having a huuuge poster on my bedroom wall.

I searched out one of Monet's famous lily pond paintings with the bridge (shown above) and the colours are astoundingly close to those of the Krypton yarn - amazing eh?

So I've named this cushion the Water Lily, as both the colours and the blooming floral aspect seemed very appropriate. 

I've created a free pattern for the Water Lily Cushion that you can download and print....

♥ WATER LILY CUSHION PATTERN ♥

And remember that if you need more visual help with working the Blooming Flower pattern, there is a full tutorial on my blog with lots of pictures to help {Blooming Flower Tutorial}

Before I go, I'd like to tell you that Stylecraft are running a *competition where you can win one yarn pack every day of the Blog Tour. If you'd like to be in with a chance to win the yarn to make my Water Lily Cushion, you have 24 hours to enter - the competition runs from 10 am today (Monday 23rd) until 10 am tomorrow. ((*Competition now closed))

♥ THE WINNER OF THE LAGOON YARN PACK IS VERONIQUE GEORGE from BELGIUM ♥

 You can keep up to date with all the Blog Tour comings and goings over on the Stylecraft Facebook page.

If you want to buy the yarn to make my Water Lily Cushion, I used 2 x Batik Elements Krypton, and 1 each of Indigo, Teal, Sage, Storm, Lupin and Silver.

I hope you've enjoyed an insight into the makings of my cushion as part of the Blog Tour this year.....don't forget to go see what Phil has in store for you tomorrow over at The Twisted Yarn blog......happy blog trails!

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Comments

[Sadie Malin]

I love this pattern and was wondering where I could find a list of the different colours to make up the other colours sets for country garden, desert and rainforest please xx

[Susan Oliver]

Lucy can I order the lagoon pack from Wool ware house as I have looked and cannot find it.I noticed you pattern is for 8 balls of yarn and the lagoon pack is 10 balls I want to be sure I have the right amount as I am in Australia.

[Justine]

The back is not very nice but the front is not bad. Shane you were not inspired to try something completely new rather than going for a pattern that you used before.

[Colleen Donnelly]

I *love* variegated yarns, but I don't like how they pool in crochet. So I learned how to knit as well so that I could indulge that love. I hope that discovering the similarity to Monet's water lilies helped you love the colours of this project a little more. :)

[Anna]

Thank you for your nice Idaers.
Kind Regards from Germany

[Sarah]

Wow that is so beautiful and tthose colours are wonderful too. Sarah x

[Verobel]

Gooood morning Lucy! I'm so glad I won the giveaway entering from your blog. Now I have to go and work but I'll be back here later in the day. Greetings from Belgium:-)

[gail]

This is stunning - love the colours - I always admire your work but hate the bright colours which give you so much pleasure, horses for course-

[Sasha]

I have to agree with you Lucy, so well done for being able to work with it and create something lovely :) I prefer the flower side to the plain, it just looks more....more. I was surprised when you revealed the colours you chose, I tried to guess before reading on, and felt sure you'd go for Desert as it seems the brightest and most varied. I've wondered about using a variegated to make a "lazy" blanket but like you, I prefer more defined colours where I have the control. Some people do seem to make lovely things but there's just something about it that niggles at me and I think I'd get so far and then give up because it was just niggling at me so much! It is amazing how colour affects the mood.

[Louise]

I do like variegated yarn but it tends to look better with knitting as crochet is often clumsy by comparison. It needs more skill for it to look good in crochet but it can look amazing. Alice by Day uses variegated yarn and it looks very beautiful in her exquisite crochet.

Cherry heart has been my favourite blog hop so far as the design is really pretty while I enjoy the colours most but I also love Lucia's Fig Tree scarf as the design is so beautifully done and really captures the narrative behind the design. Looking forward to the other stylecraft promotional posts. Quite varied so far.

[Shaon The Reiki Cat Lady]

I have made your blooming cushion cover before in lovely vibrant colours and it has pride of place and looks amazing, I have on my to do list ( and have had for quite some time lol) another one in monochrome colouring so black, white and several greys but I also have a gorgeous bling button for the centre of the flower, you have inspired me to put it further to the top of my list lol. I love variegated yarn and am using some at the moment King cole Riot in rainbow colours and it looks fab in this dragon tail scarf. Thanks for all your inspiration Lucy x

[creativemummybear.blogspot.co.uk]

Having seen the front of the cushion in person, so to speak, I can attest to its tactileness and yes, the resemblance to the Monet is startling! You did a really great job with yarn that wouldn't normally be your first choice. Xxxx

[Elizabeth Sawyer]

I love it! It is gorgeous! I like the variegated look for a change although clear colours are nice too. Well done Lucy!

[Kelliinkc]

I am with you. I try to like variegated yarns. They are so pretty in their skeins but just a mess of color when knitted up, or as in this case, when crocheted up. I have pretty much stopped buying variegated yarn. I agree that the back of the cushion in that color way and stitch pattern do look like camouflage. I think you did a great job given the product. Love your blog. Think I will check out what some of your fellow blog stars have done with the yarn as I am curious to know if there might be one that might be a good use of this yarn.

[Carol]

I too am not really a fan of variegated yarn. You did a brilliant job incorporating it into your Waterlily cushion. The amazing texture of the “bloom” side of the cushion more than makes up for, as you say, the absence of the “eye-popping” colors you normally use. I just love your work and have made a few of your blankets using the Stylecraft yarn you recommended. Looks like I have another project on my list!

[victoria]

Further proof that you are a genius! I am not a fan of variegated yarn either, except maybe for socks, but you have made this work beautifully - it is a thing of joy, which is what I associate with you and your designs. And Lagoon is my favourite of the yarn packs. Well done!

[Denise]

No I would not have been inspired to learn to crochet or make anything using these colours Lucy, but as always you have created a thing of beauty that many will enjoy.

[Alison Smith]

Your Blooming Flower cushion was the first Attic24 project I made! I may give this version a go as well!

[Crafty Cath]

I'm sure Claude would have approved :) It's a fab cushion!

[Jessica Wyke]

Well done on working hard and also for being so honest.
I love your blog and your designs and your colours and looking forward to more of what we all love from you. These colours are just not you!! Or me. X

[Heidi Overgaauw]

O Lucy, i couldnt agree with you more, this aren't your typical, sparkling, joyful colours. But how you have turned this into a beautiful cushion strikes me. Although the results pleases almost everyone, I doubt if you yourself are really as happy as usual when you have finished a work choosen and designed yourself. But there's nothing wrong with trying something outside your comfortzone, isn't it? Thumbs up for your persevering...

[Peita]

Oops, on second look I see that you used dbl crochet (US) on the back.

[Peita]

I love this beautiful cushion! Yes, on first glance, it's not your normal cheerful colors but these colors are very calming and serene which are pluses in my book. And I'm so glad you were able to connect the Monet painting you love with this cushion, I think it has made you like the cushion more. And I love all the other details that went along with the crochet: making the button jacket, adding a belly button to the cushion pad and crocheted cover. Genius! I actually like variegated yarns, depending on what I'm knitting or crocheting. The lengths of the color repeats need to match the pattern. Your single crocheted backing circle made the colors pool and gave the unappealing, to you, camo look. I'm currently crocheting a C2C Moss Stitch blanket using a yarn with fairly long color repeats and I quite like the stripes it produces.

[Rae]

Well I love your Water Lily Cushion Lucy x .....variegated does not always come out as you would expect just look at some sock yarns to see that but this looks lovely. X

[Ginney]

I think it turned out beautifully. I love your button!