Sagittarius A Crochet Blanket

 I published my Sagittarius A pattern yesterday.

You can find it HERE on Ravelry

Here are the details.....

I live on Exmoor which is a designated international dark sky reserve; the reserves are classified as public or private areas that possess an exceptional quality of starry nights
Sagittarius A is the second blanket of my Exmoor Stars series, which celebrates our very dark night skies
It is inspired by the black hole in the middle of the Milky Way, which is situated in the Sagittarius constellation, the Milky Way can clearly be seen from the moor.

YARN
Sagittarius A is made with 1170 x gms of 4 ply/fingering weight Yarn, 360/400 metre’s per 100 gms
Sagittarius A is a scrap blanket; you will need assortments of very similar colours in colour collections.
Yarns used in the sample blanket include …
Stars - Assorted scraps of indie hand dyed and commercial yarns.
Background – The essential ingredient is at least 1 skein of John Arbon Exmoor Sock (Midnight), John’s Exmoor sock is made with Exmoor Blueface sheep which live on the moor.
I’ve also used Cascade 220 fingering (In the Navy) Drops Alpaca (Blue/Turquoise mix). Knitpicks Palette Yarn (Navy) Artesano 4 ply pure alpaca (Uruguay), King Cole Merino Blend 4 ply (French Navy), and assorted indie hand dyed yarn.

Sagittarius A measures 55 x 55 inches.

This pattern contains the following…..
Detailed colour and yarn recommendations
Written and charted Motif instructions
Step by step construction charts
Full coloured layout chart.

Pattern of the Week - Icarus Crochet Shawl

Well yesterday's "Testing" blog post seemed to work, so you can expect lots more to come :-)

Onto today's post...
Its about Icarus, one of the crochet shawls that featured in my Madder Triangles book, it originally started out as a design for a NDS crochet club I ran back in the spring of 2013.
It was inspired by the Greek myth of Icarus and his father Daedalus.
Daedalus and Icarus were exiled to Crete after they had fallen into disfavour with king Minos.
Daedalus constructed wings made of feathers and wax for them both to escape, he warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sun, but Icarus was so amazed by flying that he forgot his father’s warning, flew too close to the sun, his wings melted and he tragically fell into the sea and drowned.
It was also inspired by flying and wing's, the colours are very subtle, but if you look closely you can see darker shades which  represent a backbone, with two wing bones either side and paler shades which represent wing feathers.

The original sample is made with NDS's Phoenix 4 ply, which was Merino/Silk 4 ply and is now discontinued.
But the shawl can be made with the following yarns, they all contain a little bit of silk which give the shawl a lovely drape.
Easyknits - Splendour, Cherish,
Skein Queen – Selkino, Lustrous, Luminosity, Oasis Grande
Cascade - Heritage Silk

You can find Icarus HERE, don't forget to use the code in the photo at checkout so you can buy Icarus for £2.

    

 

Testing...

This post is a test post.

I post a daily photo diary via Instagram, I try and post at least one photo a day.

By the time I get round to my weekly blog post I've forgotten what I've done in the week and sometimes struggle to find a topic.

I've always thought it would be lovely to be able to blog my daily photos as most of them document my design processes and the making of my blankets.

I've had the blogger app on my phone for ages, but never used it, but over the weekend had a thought that maybe I could use it to do a daily blog post.

So here's my test run.....

The text that goes with the above photo is as follows....

YAY - my Perseids crochet scarf is finished and I've started playing with my next blanket.

So far, so good I love the colours and fingers crossed the design will work 😃

The Crochet Express Blog Tour 2016

My second piece of news is that I am taking part in the CROCHETVILLE 2016 BLOG TOUR (click on the link for more info)
Or join the Crochetville Facebook group - HERE
Its all very exciting and as you can see I have a special ticket to my destination :-)

To celebrate the US national/international crochet month I have decided to run a "Buy one, get one free" discount for the whole of the tour duration (1st to 31st of March 2016).
The discount is already up and running, so simply go to my Ravelry Pattern Store HERE add 2 patterns to your basket, add the following code - Crochetexpress2016 and you will only need to pay for one of the patterns.
Incidently the offer also applies to the e-books in my store.

I will be publishing a special blog post on the 19th of March, I still haven't decided what its going to be about, but I suspect it will be Exmoor Star related as I'm completely obsessed with stars and outer space at the moment.


Have fun :-)
Love Amanda