Week # 50

At last, here is another new scrumble for the blog.

A bit of random lacy knitting with lots of roundish and oval crochet shapes. 

This time I just used some leftover bits and pieces that I unearthed the other day.  They had all been put away together in a bag, but they certainly hadn't been from a single project originally.  Mostly there was just a metre or two of any particular yarn.  Nearly all appeared to be either wool or a wool blend.

The colours were all rather bright, and I decided that I would just go with the combination of scraps that was already in the bag, using them all up and trying to arrange them in a reasonably pleasing way without leaving any out or resorting to adding any extras.

To give a bit of extra dimension to the piece, crab stitch was added to the edges of many of the curved crochet sections.  Sometimes this was done before the smaller pieces were joined on to the scrumble, but sometimes after.

My original intention when I started this blog had been to do a year's worth of scrumbles, adding a new one every week!  Obviously I didn't quite keep things on track that way...but since I am now finally up to #50, I plan to get the next 2 done fairly soon.  That will at least give me all 52 'weeks', even if it has taken me quite a few years to finally get there     ;-)

Scrumble # 49

First off, a very happy and creative 2013 to everyone reading here.  I have to say I am rather proud of myself for getting around to posting a scrumble so early in the year.  Hope you like it.

As you can probably see, this one is all crochet.  Lots of different yellow-toned yarns in cottons, wools, silks, rayons and a weird synthetic blend. This last yarn would have been just awful if used in an entire garment.  It had absolutely no stretch, and went from being a really thin thread to having thick, oddly fuzzy and almost matted sections.  It was just great for freeforming!

I started the piece by wrapping a sunny yellow rayon yarn around the tip of my finger a couple of times to create a ring-like shape, then slipped it off my finger and worked over this 'padding' to create the initial motif.  Once this circle had been filled with a round of short stitches (UK:dc/US:sc) I continued on, creating more loops, filling them as I went.  The first few were made with the same yarn, but then I changed yarns periodically, using up other yellow bits and pieces from my stash. 

For each new loop I made 5 or 6 chain, then, after missing a stitch or three, I added a couple of slip stitches to attach the end of the chain firmly back onto the work.  Then I turned the piece to the other side, and filled the gap with as many short stitches as it took to completely cover the chain. 

There are also a couple of small crochet domes, and a few bullion clusters.  Sometimes I worked into the tops of previously made stitches, but sometimes behind other stitches, to create little ridges on the surface. 

When the piece measured about 6 inches across, I was sort of feeling that the scrumble was finished, and I went looking for the camera...and that was when I spotted a packet of printed wooden beads and the small ball of the funny synthetic yarn mentioned above.  Both said 'add me, add me', so I did.  The beads were strung onto the yarn, and I randomly pulled them up and crocheted them in place as I added a small and then a larger triangular shape on opposite sides of the piece, which elongated the original roundish scrumble into the more oval shape that you see above.