one time see you laughing

I'm so happy this project is done! More details once it has reached its destination.

There's no black and no white

On a recent lunch date, my friend showed me some knitted tea cosies in a shop window. She *strongly admired* one in particular - and her birthday was coming up.

I took a quick dodgey picture through the window and used that as my reference. And after the cosy was given and duly admired, we strolled back to that shop to see it again. Turns out I chose a much brighter blue (which luckily she likes), Shepherd Colour4Me 8 ply. It's hard to tell in these photos, but the shop one was quite a pale blue, and the pink was actually fluorescent. Mine is just a strong hot pink, leftover from this blanket.

I looked at a couple of patterns to get the general idea and customised it to fit a standard 2-cup teapot. At first I wanted to knit in the round, but I realised that so much of the side has to be open that it makes more sense to knit it in two pieces, basically just rectangular, narrowing a bit at the top before the eyelets.

I was pleased to learn that I can whip up a tea cosy in a day. (A useful life skill, right?) This included making the flowers, though I did the sewing up later.

Finally, this is how the crochet flowers looked before I steam blocked them. I'm actually wondering if part of the reason I've given up too easily on crochet attempts is that it looked like a chaotic tangled mess, but actually just needed blocking. Though the bigger problem tends to be following the instructions while looking up what every stitch means, one by one.

It finally happened

I successfully followed a set of crochet instructions!

Til now I've really only managed basic crochet in straight lines or around in a circle. The few times I've tried something more complex I gave up in frustration.

Now I need to stop trying to get a good photo of this one little flower, and make the rest.

Do you have it in black?

This was a request for a friend who wanted a necklace like the black ones, but in these reddish and purple colours. She hasn't seen it yet, so I hope I got the colours right. If not, I wouldn't mind wearing this one myself - I find the black one pretty heavy-looking and don't wear it that often.

The backing is the same as before, but I don't think I have described it. It is black fabric stuck on with double sided fusible interfacing, trimmed to shaped and then blanket stitched around the edge. This time I improved the way the jump rings are attached. On the previous necklaces I just forced the jump ring through the felt before adding the backing. For the red necklace, I sewed a loop of black ribbon into the back of the felt circle, then placed the backing over it, leaving just enough loop to attach the jump ring. I think this might be a bit more secure - not that it has been a problem so far - and also looks a bit more polished.