Autumn colours come round again
Autumn is a welcome relief
Autumn is finally here, thank goodness. The summer was so hot that I rarely felt like knitting. Lily my dog found it all too much too, and spent lots of time lazing in front of the fan dreaming about the park!
Lily is bored with all the sunshine
So, now that autumn is in the air again, Lily’s enjoying finding sticks in the park, and it’s time to get back into knitting and crocheting with a vengeance!
Noticing that the leaves were changing colour gave me a burst of inspiration. I soon came up with some new leaves and flowers to create an autumn wreath. Here’s the original inspiration…
And here’s what I came up with: a special sunflower, acorns and three different types of leaves. I particularly love the oak leaves I created eventually.
I used Stylecraft Special DK as there’s such a huge choice of colours. Then I decided to add some Michaelmas daisy-type flowers, too, and crocheted a jade background. I made the background in Deramores Studio DK to fit a 17cm polystyrene wreath. The technique I used, I found on the Attic24 blog. I love this blog and the wreaths Lucy makes on there.
Positioning and sewing the items on the wreath took as long as crocheting some of the motifs. Eventually it was all in place, though. I love the result. So much so that I’m going to run classes on how to make one in Crouch End in October. I’m running an autumn wreath class at The Village Haberdashery West Hampstead mid October too. But, this September, I’m teaching simple autumn leaf and flower classes here in North London.
Here’s the finished wreath…
Keep the coffee cozy
This month, I discovered some Sirdar yarn I’d forgotten in my stash, and it was perfect autumnal colours. (Sadly, it’s now discontinued, otherwise I’d have bought some more). I used it to crochet some autumn takeaway coffee cup cozies, which were popular at last month’s Makers Market…
For knitters, I’ve come up with a basic knitted cup cozy and coaster which I’m teaching at my beginners knitting classes throughout autumn in Crouch End. In October. I’m also teaching them at an afternoon course at Fringe in Muswell Hill.
Not wanting to leave out the crocheters, I’ve also designed a couple of simple crochet mug cozies too. Don’t worry, I’ll put the pattern up on the website very soon! Classes for these this autumn too!
Be prepared for autumn winds
Realising that it’s soon going to be gloves and hats season, I decided to knit a new hat. I chose a WoollyWormhead pattern called Toph which is a really interesting to make.
This is me modelling my finished hat. You may notice that I used the rest of that Deramores Jade DK for the motifs.
It’s knitted from side to side and uses a technique called German short rows, for which I’ll be adding a ‘How to’ section soon. By the way, I’m going to be putting up a lot of knitting video and pictorial tutorials as well over the next few weeks, as lots of people are coming along to my knitting classes at the moment.
Happy again!
And finally, just in case you were wondering, here’s a picture of our Lily looking a lot happier with the temperature!
They’re either made in 
Any ideas what I should call them?
There’ll be some pictorial how-to help up here on the website very soon.
Another nostalgic moment – I suddenly remembered how, as a child, I used to help my grandmother wind hanks of wool into balls.
Nothing was wasted in those days, and any jumpers that we’d grown out of were unravelled and the yarn washed in hanks to remove the kinks, then wound into balls and knitted again. When there was no-one to hold the yarn on our outstretched hands, we used the back of a chair. And that’s exactly what I did.
Another WIP (work in progress, that is) but then again, I have finished something…
Just like her skull coat I made the other year!
