more crochet

I had put my mind to a bit of Sophie Digard.

I do not intend to copy her

(couldn't, even if I wanted to)

but her art sure had triggered something in me !

All the squares I started with, were to go as in-betweens

for a bigger pattern with flowers.

It took me through a lot of Ravelry pages

before a Stitch'nBitch friend from Rotterdam

kindly send me the "Japanese flower" pattern

she uses for a shawl herself, thanks Elly !

But it just isn't me to go the easy way :

instead of the original 12 petals, I only made 8.

(better to connect with the squares)

So far, so good ...

(I thought) 

But when you look close up the first few finished rows,

it's clear that only the squares and flowers are connected ...

it was all too loose and sloppy !
(and making a connection between the squares didn't work either)

So :

I took a lot of my squares and frogged the outer (light coloured) round

of double crochet and made it into single crochet.

... NOT a very fun task ...

but it had to be done !

(ha, and most of the leftovers, were long enough to make new flower centers)

The also non-fun task was 

to start all over again with the whole shawl

(because : everything is connected as-you-go !!!)

... and here it is ... !

Now all the little parts are connected !

Oh but look :

there are more flowers in my summer garden !!!

Mmmmmm : Filipendula rubra 

("queen of the prairie" ... some queen, isn't she ?)

knitting again ...

The last day of  October  already

and although actually we are not into Halloween over here

I thought this lady is suited for this day

*

I'm knitting again !

But first I frogged a try-out with the lovely coloured

Rowan kidsilk haze stripe and some Drops alpaca,

the two didn't work well together.

I bought some new light blue Drops kidsilk to go with the Rowan.

Then I picked up the mitered vest,

that was kind of hibernating for a long time,

and started knitting ...

At least, that's what I wanted

but I had to do some serious reading

before I remembered again

how to do the pattern

I think it must be old age:

because I didn't know with how many stitches to start with,

what to do with the first and the last stitch on the row ...

and I had done already quite a bit ! 

And I have done a vest just like that before !!!

But luckily the magazine was still there  ;-)

( yes, from  looooong ago )

I remember people asking when I was wearing the blue vest

( that I did before ... but gave away to a friend ) 

if I sewed all the little parts together ?

NO

you don't have to

and this clever way to do it, was all in the magazine !

( Nowadays you can also find similar patterns

for mitered knitting on "Ravelry" )

HA ... and the fun part is

that you never have more than 25 stitches on your needle

(or 49 stitches when I make the bigger squares) 

The back and side pieces are finished so I could start on the front

*

Our two housemates

enjoyed a lot of autumn sunshine !

*

The last fun thing for today was brought by the post

a huge bag "mit Liebe verpackt" with wool I ordered in Germany

( I'll probably take part in a Christmas fair in the village

so there has to be done some serious felting ! )

Ohhh, we had a very clear sky last night

so there was still the beautiful moon