Pattern of the Week - Cornucopia week 5

This is going to be a very quick blog post, as I have to take Loki to the vet to have the bandage on his foot replaced. I promise I will tell you more about Loki's foot and some other very exciting news later.

Anyway here is Cornucopia Pattern of the Week 5

 

Cornucopia is the lovely sunny throw that I made last summer, lots of little squares in bright fruity colours. 

If you buy the pattern from my Ravelry store HERE and use the code at checkout you will be able to buy my Cornucopia pattern for £2, the code is Cornucopiaweek5

    

I'll be back later (probably tomorrow) to write a bigger more exciting blog post :-)

love Amanda

Hibernation & week 4

Good morning

January is always a deep dark month

 

I seem to have spent the last few weeks hiding in my house cuddled up crocheting my newest design in front of the fire.
This is a week's worth of crochet on Sagittarius A, the design is beginning to build and I hope by the next round of motifs you will be able to see what it is.
You might know already or maybe you can guess, but I'm not telling you yet as I like to keep you guessing :-)

So as its so miserable I thought I'd edit Posy for this week's pattern of the week.

Posy is one of my oldest designs and was originally created for a CAL on Ravelry.

Its a small shoulder wrap/shawl made with a very simple 2 round motif, the sample was made in alpaca which makes it perfect for cool summer evenings.

The pattern is HERE on Ravelry

And if you add the code at checkout you will receive a discount, the code is Posyweek4

      

love amanda

Pattern of the week - Week 3

Week 3's pattern is my Myrtle Crochet Scarf

Myrtle is another one of my circle designs, Myrtle is named after the Myrtleberries which grow on the moor and are locally known as Whortleberries, but they are also sometimes called blueberries or bilberries (there's a awful lot of berries in this sentence :-)
Its all a bit confusing as to which berry is which, but I can tell you that myrtleberry/whortleberry jam is delicious :-)

My Myrtle is in wild berry colours made with lots of different 4 ply yarns, so it is a perfect stash buster/scrap project.

The code is Myrtleweek3 and you can find the pattern HERE in my Ravelry store

Incidentally if you fancy a trip to Exmoor to search for the berries, you can stay at Myrtleberry Lodge in the East Lyn gorge. The setting is amazing on the banks of the river and only a short walk from the famous Watersmeet.
You can find out all the information and photo's HERE

Stargazer

Tah Dah!!!!!

I've published my Stargazer crochet blanket pattern :-)
If you follow me on Instagram or my FB page you will have been able to watch its progress from the very first few motifs in November to the finished blanket last week.

     

Stargazer is the follow on sister blanket to Zodiac, I started designing Zodiac about 18 months ago

Zodiac was designed for the 2015 NDS crochet blanket club.
The design took nearly 6 months to work out, as not only did I have to get the stars in roughly the right layout and position I also was restricted to exact quantities of yarn.
The club blanket the previous year (2014) was Kaleidoscope, I allowed myself full artist license and used whatever colour I felt like in whatever quantity, but it became a major headache dyeing and re-winding the yarn.
Poor Phil spent weeks rewinding 20 or 30 or 50 gm skeins for Kaleidoscope, so to save him another winding nightmare it was essential I designed Zodiac so it used full 100 gm skeins of colours in the NDS range.
As you can imagine the Zodiac maths was a nightmare.
Although I'm really happy with the finished Zodiac as I made it I became more and more frustrated that I couldn't tweak the colours and design  as I crocheted.
So I promised myself that when I had finished the book and Zodiac club I would allow myself to remake the blanket allowing myself the freedom to do what I wanted.

The result is Stargazer

The star theme and constellation layout for both blankets is inspired by the fact that Exmoor is one of the first International Dark Sky Reserves.

I have recently realised that a lot of my blankets have inspired by stars, amongst others Twinkle, twinkle and Supernova.

    

So I've decided to work on an Exmoor Stars book to be self published sometime this year or maybe next. 

All the projects will be based on stars and the night sky that can be seen on the moor.

Stargazer is the first and I've already stared work on the second Sagittarius A.

Sagittarius A already has its own Instagram hash tag so if you want to follow its progress you can find it HERE

I'll leave you with a couple more Stargazer photo's.

If you want to buy it you can find Stargazer HERE on Ravelry, incidentally if you add the Zodiac to your basket you will receive it for free as a special introductory offer that lasts from now until the end of January.