Craft Corner

Hello Again :) It's time for the fist post in the Craft Corner.  This corner is not going to be a weekly corner because making stuff takes quite some time, but every now and again I shall be updating you with my current Work In Progress (WIPs) and finishes.  For the first post in this section, I decided to give you a small tutorial on how to work with Ruffle Yarn and share with you two scarves that I have completed in the past few days and which I mentioned in the Fashion Friday section.

Before starting off with how to work with Ruffle Yarn, I want to explain what this novelty yarn is.  In reality is is noting like the traditional yarn that we are used to, but it is more like a wide fabric kind of yarn.  It comes in various shades and structures, but most of them have a kind of ladder on the top part where you are supposed to insert your knitting needles. When worked it creates ruffles and the way the ruffles turn on themselves is determined by how you pick up the stitches.

I will explain two ways of creating scarves using this yarn below but first let me show you the basics of working with it.

 

This is how the yarn is packed. This particular variety has different shades of grey and pompoms at its end.

 This is how it looks when you unwind it from the yarn ball. It doesn't look anything like a ruffle.

 And this is how it looks when you open it up. You can see the perforated ladder at the top part and the pompoms at the bottom of the ruffle.

 6mm Needles are the ideal size to work with these yarns.

 In order to pick up the stitches all you have to do is insert the needle from the front of your work into the ladder part.  I decided to work in between the first diamond block such that I have two threads on the needles in order to avoid it unravelling. Below is how the picked up stitches look.

When working with this yarn, you must always insert the needle from the front. To knit, all you have to do is insert the needle in the next hole on the ruffle and draw it in the loop on your needle as if kniting. Always turn your work when you get at the end of your row and turn the ruffle yarn accordingly such that there are no twists at the end but it looks more like a fold. Just like when folding a ribbon. When you are done, all you have to do is bind off normally. You will find that the last stitch will be hard to secure. I tied it up with the loose ends in the ruffle at the end, making sure that the knots were strong and tight enough.  If you don't have loose ends, you will have to sew it in the fabric of the ruffle with some matching thread and make sure that it is secured.

When you run out of yarn, don't worry! You either work all the yarn in one ball and work the next stitch with the new ball or else if you want to secure your work a little more, overlap the first two stitches of the new ball with the last two stitches of the last ball. There is no need to make any knots or join yarn :)

Scarf 1

The first scarf is made with shades of blue with yarn which was prepared by Lidl for their craft section.  The instructions that came with the pack require that the scarf is worked along the whole lenght of the scarf and advises that 200grams are necessary to finish it to a decent lenght.  It also explained that 80 stitches are what is needed to cover the entire lenght of the scarf.  I worked according to these instructions and the result is a nice ruffled scarf that when hung from the tip, the ruffles kind of circle in on themselves to form waves.  Here are some pictures:

  The picture is a little sideways but you can see the wavy ruffles.

 Scarf 2

The second scarf is worked differently. I decided to deviate from the instructions and instead of working along the lenght of the scarf, work along the width.  I decided that 10 stitches would be enough for a decent width and then worked all the yarn in the 4 bundles. The result was a slightly longer scarf that the blue one with ruffles overlaid on top of each other.

Here are some pictures:

Sorry about the picture being a litte sideways. You can see the ruffles are different from the blue one.

I hope you found this tutorial useful and if you wish to check out on some ideas on how to style these scarves, you can visit last week's Fashion Friday here.  I shall be featuring these two in other Fashion Friday posts and create new looks so look forward to that.  If you have no idea how to knit and don't know where to begin, if you live in Malta I would be more than glad to knit your scarf for just 5Euros, provided that you buy the yarn of your choice yourself :)  All you have to do is drop me a message below or on Facebook  here :)

Till next post,
Saranghae,
Pauline

Fashion Friday

Welcome to another Fashion Friday and today I am going to talk about scarfs :) These scarfs that I want to share with you today are completely hand made and knitted with the latest novelty yarn on the market called ruffle yarn.  I bought two pack from Lidl and they had instructions on how to do them inside the packet so being the crafter that I am, I gave them a shot.

That is one of the packs in shades of grey. It came with four 50gram bundles and the instructions said that with 200grams you can complete a full scarf.  Along with this I purchased another pack in shades of blue and green.  I followed the instructions using the bluish pack and then decided to try out a different way of doing it with the grey ones.  Here is the result:

The blue one is worked sideways, where you pick up the stitches according to the length you want the scarf to be, whereas the grey one was worked in the traditional way, from top to bottom, where the first row determines the width of the scarf.

I will post a tutorial on how to work with ruffle yarn in the coming days, for all the knitters out there :)

I tried out the scarfs with a purple top and I must say that both colours matched in. I don't intend to pair them with purple (at least not the blue one) but here are some pictures on how they look:

  

As you can see, the blue one ruffles differently from the grey one :)

I am going to pair these scarves with light coloured clothes, for example white or cream tops or dresses that are so in fashion this autumn, and am thinking of tying them with a coloured brooch or maybe a ribbon.  They will look great without the brooch when worn with blouses or blazers too.  You can really be creative with these kind of scarves, even when choosing the material with which to work them as the ruffle yarn comes in an endless variety, some even have glittering thread in them.

Please look out for other Fashion Fridays where I shall be incorporating these two scarves in the looks :) And for my local followers who are not into knitting and would like to have these kind of scarves, all you have to do is go to a craft store and purchase enough ruffle yarn and make contact with me, I will be glad to knit them up for you for a very small fee (for the time taken to knit them). 

Well, that's it for now, see you again next Friday with another Fashion post :)

Saranghae,

Pauline

DIY - Knitted Peg Bag

Hi Everyone!  This is the first post of its nature. I am going to be sharing with you all my Do It Yourself Projects that I finish every now and then, even though time to work on such projects is rather limited with the new lifestyle. Today I am going to show you my newly finished Knitted Peg Bag which I made from scratch.  For those of you who are familiar with knitting and basic crochet, this piece is going to be a piece of cake to create.

The idea for this peg bag came with the first laundry that I had to make. I didn't have anywhere to hold the pegs and it was a nightmare running around with the things and throwing them everywhere in the washroom. I bought myself some plastic baskets to carry the laundrey in and I got myself a rather big basket with handles and everything, to keep the pegs in but it was nowhere close to handy. Then I remembered that my mum hand a peg bag that was bought ages ago featuring owls and was made of canvas. The first time I went to visit I got a good look at it and decided to imitate the pattern but using knitting rather than canvas fabric and here is what I made!

So for those who with to make their own version of this, you will need the following:

A hanger, possibly straight. I used one that is made to hold skirts and removed it's clips to make it straight. Knitting needles, knitting yarn of choice, ribbon (if you wish), crochet hook, sewing needle and thread matching your knitting yarn, scissors and patience.

There you can see the knitted fabric that I worked. I used various patterns to identify the parts and also incorporated a pattern with eyelets so that I can thread a ribbon through them.

First thing you need to cast on enough stitches to cover the whole length of the hanger and a little extra. Then decide on the pattern you are going to knit, you can do anything from a basic purl stitch all over or a knit stitch all over. A little search online will give you a vast library of stitches. I started off with popcorn stitch and worked enough to cover the height of the hanger. Then I worked an eyelet pattern for the ribbon to go through it and went back to the popcorn stitch all the way to match the height that was already worked. This will eventually form the pouch holding the hanger.  I used another pattern, the wavy one that can be seen on the right hand side of the picture above, to cover the length from the hanger pouch to the eventual opening of the bag and then changed again to a triangle pattern made with knit stitch and popcorn stitch as you can see on the left hand side above.  After that I changed again to a few edging rows in popcorn stitch with an eyelet pattern so that they match the patterns of the hanger pouch.  It was all worked using the same right side all over. The trick is in remembering where to fold and sew.

When I finished all the knitting, I threaded in the ribbon through both eyelet patterns, making sure to keep the ends on the wrong side of the work. I secured these ends with a matching thread and gave them a few sewing stitches.  Here is a close up of the ribbon:

The next thing I did was to find the centre where I wanted to fold in order to create a pouch for the hanger and inserted the hook of the said hanger in the middle. I then started crocheting from  one end to the other enclosing the hanger in beetween. Here is how it looks when done:

Next I looked for all the knots and threaded the loose ends so that they don't show.  Finally I worked out the fold for the actual bag and crocheted the side ends together to form the bag. It is important to not crochet the horizontal end otherwise you won't be able to put anything in!

This is the final product. For a little extra touch I tied up a ribbon to the hanger like this:

That was the first Project that is useful for the house chores :) All in pink because I love pink and girly stuff and knitted because I love to play with yarn.

I hope you enjoyed this post and please let me know what you think. I am sorry if my explaining wasn't so good but if anyone has a difficulty, please feel free to ask, I will be more than happy to help! If anyone wants the patterns to the stitches I used, I will post them in another post for everyone to be able to follow and adapt them to their own projects. They are very simple in fact and you only need to know a few basic things.

Well, that's it for now, I have to go prepare hubby's lunch for tomorrow!

See you soon,

Saranghae,

Pauline