Raining Cats...

Happy Friday, Yarnarinnas!

🌸Hope all is well in your patch of Crochetland?🌸

It's been raining Cats and Dogs here! I often wonder where that expression originated? If any of you cleversticks can enlighten me I'd appreciate it very much.

This week has whizzed by as I furiously hook up a storm to reach next Friday's deadline for the completed Hibiscus Tea Extension. Yesterday I made over 3000 dc's! All the while LIFE happened in the background. Many of you may already know that our beloved and legendary Johnny Clegg from Jaluka and Savuka fame and the man behind so many wonderfully unifying songs like "Scatterlings of Africa" and "It's a Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World", passed away after losing his four year battle with pancreatic cancer. His music has been the backdrop of my life for so many years, and thankfully his legacy lives on. Again, tears wove themselves into the Yarn. Good grief, this has been a very teary year so far. This has to stop!

On a positive note...it has been raining, raining and did I say RAINING! Our dams are filling up fast ahead of the dry Summer months. Our rain tanks are full to bursting. The swimming pool and fish pond have overflowed. Luckily Jaws, Nemo and Dory ( our three longest surviving Goldfish ) didn't get washed away! As a born Pluviophile, I am in my element. We're heading for our coldest month ( which just happens to be my B'day month too ) and I'm holding thumbs for SNOW! And of course, it's perfect crochet weather. I just want to make ALL. THE. THINGS!

My top-down Lemon and Ginger Fizz Sweater is coming along (aka The Gilmore Girls Project). This is very much an experimental piece in anticipation of many ( hopefully! ) future Sweater and Cardigan patterns. I'm very eager to try my hand at yarny garment designing seeing as I've been making some of my own clothes (as well as my children's clothes when they were littlies) for many years, and I've always loved "fashion"...or more accurately anti-fashion! I'm mostly off-trend though (positively anti-trend! ). 😄

As you can see, the struggle to complete WIP is real.

Today, this image caught my eye and I enjoyed putting together the colour mood. As you can see, there are quite a few colour combinations you could play around with.

I've used colours from the Stylecraft Special DK range simply for its many colour choices. I'm sure you can match the colours to any similar Yarn range. Talking about colour. There are some spectacular colourways coming forth from our wonderfully talented Members over on the Pattern Workshop Group. This gorgeously romantic colourway for the Hibiscus Tea is being hooked by Shirly Martosoewondo while she holidays in France. Lucky fish!

The upcoming FIRST EVER Cape Town Yarn Festival is fast approaching ( on Woman's Day August 9 ). I am so excited to meet some very special Yarny people and I'm saving up to make sure I don't leave without an armful of delicious Yarn (and a proper Yarn bowl). I'm going to take a gazillion pics to share with you all and get you acquainted with all our local talent.

Which brings me to some international talent. This week the Giveaway is the beautiful Sakura Shawl by Atty van Norel. If you haven't already nabbed this beauty then all you have to do to stand a chance of being one of our 3 x GIVEAWAY RECIPIENTS is leave a comment in the comment section down below (don't forget to add your Ravelry name!).

💗Please check your Ravelry Library to see if you're a lucky last Friday winner! 💗

 IMAGE CREDIT: Atty van Norel.

Wishing you all a happy, peaceful weekend, and a full yarn basket!

💗Jen

PS: for those of you who are no longer on Ravelry I have made some of my patterns available at LoveCrafts. 

Busy Bee...

Hello, Lovelies,

Thanks for stopping by. How are you today?

💗( I'm serious, leave a comment and let me know how YOU are )💗

To be honest, I am NOT ok. We have had three house burglaries in six weeks. Luckily we were not home at the time and LUCKILY my Yarn is all accounted for! 👍 I laugh, but I am sort of crying inside. I know, I know it's all just material "things" which can be replaced. Still. Thinking back over the past six months I have to say it's been an incredibly drama-filled period and I do hope the next six months will see things looking a bit more positive. I like POSITIVE VIBES!

Anyhoooo...enough complaining! If you are making the Hibiscus Tea Extension then you will already know that it's in your Library! I am ahead of the deadline, again ( I surprise myself sometimes! ). I've kept the design super simple to offset the very busy Block and I rather like how it's looking up to this point. Part 4 ( final rounds and border ) will be available on Friday 26 July.

In between working on the Extension, I have been designing the "fillers" for the Sunday Folk Hexie. So far I have the pattern down for the Horizontal Half-Hexie. I'm hoping to release the full Sunday Folk Hexie Filler Bundle at the beginning of August. ALSO... in between finishing off the Extension AND the Half-Hexies I am making a simple top-down sweater, a scarf, and a colour-strand Beanie. I'm hoping to release all those patterns close to the Northern climes Fall/Winter. But still...I have 2 x Throws to complete so I really need to grow a few more pairs of arms, right?

I really needed some calming and soothing colours today! The Yarn is Stylecraft Special DK.

If you are a Knitter and entered our last Giveaway please do check your Ravelry Library to see if you have a little something waiting for you there!

Today our Giveaway is the gorgeous and delicate Shawl pattern called Fluttering By by Sandra Paul ( from the Cherry Heart Podcast and Website ). All you have to do is leave a comment in the comment section to tell me how you are? Don't forget to leave your Ravelry name!

On an entirely other note but related... I am thinking of opening a Patreon page. What are your thoughts on this? Unfortunately, it seems that quite a few people have been sharing Unlisted Videos for the patterns even though I do say that if you purchase a pattern the Videos are FOR YOUR EYES ONLY! 😍 I am also looking at how to embed Links into PDF's so that they cannot be shared. It's all very techy so I might have to call in the Tech Troops for help! I'm on it though. In the meantime, let me know if you had similar problems and how you solved this?

I hope you all have a wonderful, relaxing and creative weekend!
If you're otherwise crafty ( other than Crochet ) I came across this video and I am SO going to make these... with my eight arms you know? 😊

💗Jen xx