Exmoor Stars, Catalina & Geminds

Good morning from slightly sunny Exmoor

I've finally published my Exmoor Stars blanket pattern booklet, its taken me longer than I thought because I've been dithering about how many patterns to include, originally I had planned 3 blankets & 2 scarves, but I struggle to make any else but blankets, so the scarves have been a problem. I've only designed one.
So rather than wait until inspiration strikes I decided to just include the blankets and publish the scarf separately.

So here is Exmoor Stars.......

 

Exmoor Stars contains patterns for my Stargazer Zodiac blanket, Sagittarius A Black Hole blanket and Catalina Comet blanket. The blankets are all inspired by the stars seen over the moor on dark nights.

You can find it HERE on Ravelry.

The blankets are also available as single patterns, just follow the links below to take you to the individual blanket's page.

 

Catalina Comet - HERE

Sagittarius A Black Hole - HERE

 

Stargazer Zodiac - HERE

 All the patterns contain ....

Detailed yarn and colour recommendations

Written and charted motif patterns, in both UK and US terms.

A colour chart and layout key.

And step by step charts, which hopefully make it easier to construct the blanket.

And this is the Geminids Meteor scarf, beautifully modelled by my son on Woolacombe beach.

Geminids is inspired by a meteor shower that can be seen over the moor every December.

It was designed to be a unisex scarf, I have made it using EASYKNITS Smoke and Big Boy wool heavy 4 ply yarn (300 metres per 100 gms)  

As I intended the scarf to be unisex I thought it was appropriate to use Jon's yarns as he is my only male dyer friend, his colours are heavily saturated, big and bold, perfect for such a structured design.

However if you prefer you can make it in softer girly colours or in a lighter weight 4 ply (400 metres per 100 gms)

You can find Geminids Meteor scarf - HERE

The pattern also contains the same list of instructions/information, as the blanket patterns above.

Happy crocheting 

Amanda

Pinterest quilt/crochet art inspiration

I wrote a long waffly pretentious blog post about being a crochet artist, but decided to delete it and just show you these photo's of quilt art that inspire and excite me instead.
If you want to see more have a look at my "quilts" board on Pinterest.
I use tend to use Pinterest for inspiration, so my boards are full of random images of the colours and shapes that I feature in my designs.

What do you think?
Wouldn't it be amazing if the crochet world had artists such as these to inspire us?

 

Betty Busby

 

Karen Kamenetzky

 

Alicia Merrett

Kathy York

Kathy's quilt could almost be crochet, but I have included it because I love the way she has used colour.

Monthly "Buy one, get one free"

Sadly I haven't had time to prepare my Ravelry "Pattern of the week" this week.
I've been busy working on the last few edits of the book and trying to finish the last Exmoor Star's blanket, so I have something new to publish.
So rather than abandoning my pattern collector's completely and disappoint you again I've decided to turn "Pattern of the week" into a monthly "Buy one, get one free" offer.
It means if you are not keen on the weekly pattern or you have already bought it you can still take advantage of the discount.
The discount can be used for all my patterns including the books.
There will be a new code each month, this month's is ....
rainbowapril16
The code is active now and will run out on the 30th of April, just add 2 patterns to your shopping cart, go to checkout, add the code and you will only be charged for one.
I will post a new code each month, so check in on the first of May to find out May's code

You can find my Ravelry store HERE

Happy crocheting
Love Amanda

Ermintrude - Pattern of the week & pattern editing

This week's Pattern of the Week is my Ermintrude crochet blanket.

Ermintrude has always been one of my favourite blankets, even though its slightly lacy, its also warm and cuddly and I love the way the flowers stick out above the surface.
Ermintrude was sold earlier this year and although I was sad to she her go, I was delighted she was going to a loving new home :-)
You can find the Ermintrude pattern on Ravelry -  HERE

Ermintrude is named after the cow that starred in the BBC children’s television programme The Magic Roundabout in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Ermintrude always had a flower sticking out the side of her mouth; the flowers on my blanket remind me of hers.
Size
Ermintrude measures approx. 70 x 50 ins.
Yarn
Fyberspates – Scrumptious DK or Vivacious DK (you can find your nearest stockist HERE)
Alternative Yarns
Easyknits – Deeply Wicked DK, Splendour DK. Skein Queen – Desire, Blissful Plum, Voluptuous
John Arbon Textiles - Knit by Numbers, Viola. The Little Grey Sheep - DK - Gotland DK
Cascade - Cascade 220 Sport. Knitpicks - Wool of the Andes. King Cole - Merino Blend DK
Hook
Crochet hook size 4.5 mm if you have a loose tension, 5 mm if you have a tight tension
The pattern contains the following…..
Detailed colour and yarn recommendations
Written and charted Motif instructions in UK and US terms.
Full coloured layout chart.

And pattern editing, always pattern editing, endless endless pattern editing.

When I closed NDS a year ago one of the things to do at the top of my to-do list was to re-edit all my crochet patterns to remove NDS and add new yarn recommendations.
A year onwards and I'm not even half way through.
I have 81 published patterns and have only edited about 25 of them, (that doesn't include the 4 books and motif patterns).
The process hasn't been helped by the fact I needed to finish the book and produce new designs at the same time.
I started off doing alternating the patterns between blankets, scarves and shawls, but I didn't seem to be achieveing much, so I've decided to concentrate on blankets first and then move onto scarves or maybe even garments, which are a bit more tricky as I need to re-do all the photo's.
I'm really proud to say I've almost finished editing all the blanket patterns to edit, there are only a couple left (Spyro & Starry Night) I should be able to get them finished by the end of next week, but hopefully a lot sooner.
And then I'm going to edit the 3 blanket patterns that are no longer for sale as they are so old. I wasn't going to edit them, but occasionally someone e-mails to ask where they can buy the pattern, so rather than leave them I've decided they need a re-vamp too.

Happy crocheting
love Amanda - off to edit more patterns :-)