Autumn All Wrapped Up

So they say that the cold weather is coming by the end of the week...and I'm not a big fan of the cold.  I've been working on a new scarf design - well I think my grandma would have called it a muffler.  Its shorter than many of the scarves around and works by simply crossing at the neck.  It is made with a combination of crochet and knitting with the crochet providing extra thickness at each end to keep the wind out.

I've chosen to make this first one in shades of brown, to reflect the autumnal mood.  Choosing the right wool is always challenging, but when I make something, I want it to be both attractive and practical.  So I think it is important that for most things I use yarn that is easily washable.  Both of these yarns are machine washable at 30 degrees.

For those of you that enjoy crochet, the stitch I've used is called The Squares and can be created as follows:


The Squares

This pattern is worked over an even number of stitches
Row 1: 3 chain * ^ wool round hook (wrh), insert hook,  wrh, draw through a loop,  wrh, draw through 2 loops ^, repeat from ^ to ^ 3 times into the 2nd stitch,  wrh, draw through 4 loops, 1 chain, miss one stitch*.  Finish row with one treble.

Row 2: 1 chain, * 1 double into space, one double into motif *, 1 double in last chain.

Repeat from Row 1

The resulting panel produced in this pattern is thick, stable and warm!

Once I have sorted out some photos, this scarf will be joining the other makes in my Etsy Shop.
Happy crocheting!

Just Starting

After years of making things for pleasure, as presents or for friends, I have set out on the adventure of starting an Etsy shop, and at the same time I'm back to blogging.  I'm told it helps people find your Etsy shop by creating spaghetti links out there in the cyber-ether...
I have sold a variety of my products at craft fairs  over the last few months, but have yet to make any inroads on the internet.

So what I've found is that there is quite a bit to this Etsy business.  Making things is just the start.  You have of course, to set up your Etsy account, and start constructing your shop.  You have to get the things you've made up on the site, which means decent photos, and that is a whole other art. Finally you have to decide what you will charge and where you will ship.  That's really hard, when basically you have only ever given things away.  That's the basic set up, but then something a little more scary has to happen.  People have to find you, and like your work, and buy it... and you have to do things like blog to help get you shop further up the google search engine lists...I think!

For my first post I'm going to  share a page from my creative journal.  It's just ideas and a diary in one really.  I have been working on some christmas stuff recently and this page tells some of that story.

In some ways it's just arty doodles, but it helps me to keep ideas together.  I wanted to draw my own christmas tree to use on some of my paper craft products this year.  I printed three copies of it  to use on the page.   I ended up folding two, trimming them a little, and sticking them one on top of the other to give a 3D effect.

Any way I thought it might be fun to give away a download of my tree.  You can then print it and use it to make your own cards, tags etc. It is a JPEG file, so it should be easy to use with most software.

Well that seemed  such a simple idea! But then I realised that blogger does not really support  downloads very well.  So I've loaded the image up to a cloud, and linked the download button to it...and hope it works!  Lots of other blogs do it this way, so it should be fine...but let me know if you have any problems! The Download Button will take you to a Wikisend page, and the file should download from there. 

 I hope my crafting journey encourages you to make things too.  I'm sure it's in us all, just looking for different way to find expression!!