Bollywood – bamboo and cotton knit scarf with sequin yarn (includes pattern)
Bollywood - magenta cotton and bamboo scarf with sequins
This knit scarf is made from three strands of yarn: two are bamboo/cotton (60%/40%), and one is a sassy polyester, sequined number!
The colour is a deep magenta and the effect is razzle dazzle. I’ve crocheted some rosettes for each ent to finish it off. Originally it had crochet ‘arm’ tassles with baubles at the end, but they looked a bit odd. The rosettes work much better.
There are more pictures on my esty site.
How to make it:
You’ll need: Three balls of yarn, each allowing at least 100 metres. (Use two threads of the same yarn, then add a bit of bling yarn as the third. ) Note: I used three balls on this. 100 m of sequin yarn; 260 metres of cotton/bamboo, with a tiny bit left over.
How it’s done – scarf :
- Cast 14 stitches onto approx. 13 mm needles.
- Knit plain rows until you run out of wool! (Though leave a ball aside for the rosettes.)
The rosettes:
Bollywood scarf rosettes up close
- Using your doubled-up yarn and a hook that feels about right for the ply (perhaps 5 mm), chain 23 stitches.
- Turn, skip a stitch, then double crochet (Australian/UK DC) into each stitch to the end (22 DC).
- Cut the yarn and sew ends in.
- Sew the strands of crochet into rosettes by twisting them around themselves from one end, and securing with a couple of stitches.
- Sew rosettes to scarf. Note both sets need to be on the same side of the scarf.
Of course my Siamese, Peabody Wiggle, is way too interested in this number due to the high natural fibre content.
Bollywood scarf with keen Siamese cat, Peabody Wiggle
Erika – knit scarf with crochet flower, includes pattern for flower
Eirka, knit scarf with crochet flower. Pattern included for flower.
I’ve named Erika after my mum, not because it looks like her, though. It’s because when I finished the edges in maroon, it started to take on a Teutonic look (Ma was German). The scarf is knitted, the edges and flower crocheted in complementary colours.
The pattern for the flower is this:
Close up of Erika, knit scarf with crochet flower. Pattern included for flower
Use any wool in complementary colours and pick any crochet hook that’s easy for your thickness of wool and your tension of crochet. You might have to experiment it you’re new to this.
Note, this pattern uses Australian/UK stitch names, not US.
- Form chain ring:
5 chain then slip stitch into first chain to form a ring. - Create 8 spokes with spaces in the ring:
5 chain (the first 3 chain form the first spoke of an eight-spoke wheel you’re about to make).
Make the next seven spokes by crocheting 1 treble then 2 chain seven times.
Slip stitch into the top of the 3rd chain in your original spoke. - Create petals:
1 double crochet into the first gap, next to the first spoke you made from chain stitches.
Follow it with 2 chain, 2 trebles, 2 chain and 1 double crochet.
Repeat this in the remaining 7 gaps until you have 8 petals.
Put a slip stitch near where the first double crochet was, to tighten the flower shape.
Sew in the ends.
You now have a flower.
Note.
- You can either make many of these in different threads (thick, thin) then sew them together like a layered pancake stack, with pancakes decreasing in size; or
- You can crochet another layer or two onto the back of the first round. See extended pattern below.
Creating more petal layers:
After you’ve created your first flower, if you want more layers, work the thread to the back any way you know how, near your first spoke. Make sure the front of the flower is facing you (you’re working behind the first layer).
- Create chain loops behind the flower, anchoring them onto the spokes:
4 chains, anchor the string of chains into the 2nd spoke.
Do this until each spoke has a string of chains behind it (8 sets of chain, strung along the back of your flower, anchored to the spokes. You’ll use these as the base for crocheting more petals, behind the first round of petals. - Create more petals:
When you have your eight strings of chain, slip stitch again into your starting point.
Now, into the first string of chain, 1 double crochet, 2 chains, 3 trebles, 2 chains, 1 double crochet.
(If you want a fuller petal, substitue the 3 trebles with this routine: 1 treble, 1 double treble, 1 treble.)
Now, move to the next chain string, again, with the front of the flower facing you, and keep creating petals as outlined in step 4, above, until all 8 petals are complete.
Slip stitch near the start again to give the flower a strong, uniform shape. - Complete, or keep going: Sew in the ends, or make another layer. Try another texture or colour. Sew in a few French knots. This is the fun part and it’s all up to you!
Visit my etsy store to see more pictures of this scarf. Also, checkout the recycled and upcycled section and let me know what you think. I’m loving recreating from something that existed before.
Lisbeth – recycled and upcycled sheet turned into rag knitting scarf
Lisbeth - recycled and upcycled rag knitted scarf
I love the combination of chocolate and raspberry, both in a culinary sense and when it comes to combining colours.
I also love to recycle then upcycle fabrics, and play around with textures and colours.
Lisbeth is my latest rag knitting scarf, with an op shop shredded sheet as a base, knitted with a sequin yarn and a lovely alpaca blend in raspberry and chocolate. I’ve made this scarf a little shorter, so you double it up and put the flower at the end. It’s probably more like a cowl or scarflet, though it’s still around five feet long.
The flower has five layers, one made out of the shredded sheet, and the centre picking up more of this theme. The flower looks good enough to eat.
I’ve put a long fringe on one of the long sides, to enhance the notion of doubling the scarf over to wear it as a cowl.
There are 12 stitches and three strands of yarns/sheets. It’s done in garter stitch (plain, pearl), and took around 100 metres of each of the three yarns to make.
You can see more recycled and upcycled scarves on my etsy site.
Lisbeth - rag knitting scarf, front view
Recycled and upcycled orange silk remnant, now a new scarf
Raw silk rag knitting - voila, a new scarf
Montmartre, this raw silk and cotton rag knitting scarf, is the second of two I made this weekend.
I bought the remnants from my local op shop and paired them with a bobble trim yarn in varying shades of oranges, browns and greens. To add a bit ot pizzaz, in came the sequin yarn. To finish, I crocheted a two-layered flower with some of the ripped up cotton and paired it with some silk, some complementarily coloured wools, and a bit of spangley sequin yarn.
I used 13 mm needles, and three strands of yarn: the rag shreds, the bobble yarn, the sequin yarn. There were 13 stitches. I knited pearl stitch (garter stitch) for about six feet.
Use any two-stage flower pattern from the net. Use the rag knitting thread as your bottom layer. Put a bit of rag knitting thread in the middle. Go crazy with coloured french knots. Make it pretty, then sew a pin on the back. You’ll feel artsy if you do this 
Three new scarves
Since my last post, I’ve created three more scarves, as a way of integrating more creative pursuits into my life. The most recent is a free-form crochet number with felting, the second a knitted scarf, with a knitted flower and leaves, and the third is an orange mohair number with feather ‘wool’ stripes and baubles.
On Friday when I took all thirteen scarves, ensconsed in an IKEA tin, to a local shop I like. The shop owner, Louise, agreed to look at them.
And while I’m not hanging all hopes on this vendor buying some, I’ve done a small thing that scared me and I believe it’s good to venture out of one’s comfort zone sometimes.
I have confidence in the product too – I think the scarves are lovely and, at some point, they’ll appeal to someone else with my taste. I have them listed on www.handmade3777.etsy.com and some people have marked a few as favourite items.
So, I am taking small steps in the creative journey and I’m sure it’s doing my brain some good.
Until the next post, I hope you uncover some some time today to do something you love.
Crochet bug comes out of hiding
My religious, eccentric, lop-sided, rock-around-in-your-undies-&-singlet, and environmental before his time, Onkel Anton, married the lovely Irish Evelyn in around 1978. He was somewhere between 47 and 50, she 35, and me, about 14.
She insisted we kids put salutations aside and call her by her first name, something that sat oddly with our 1970s sensibility and careful migrant parenting rules.
Evelyn was completely engaging to us – she was interesting, talked to us as though we were adults and extended familial arms as though we were a perfect biological fit with her. We loved her then (and I still love love love her now).
It’s worth mentioning at this point she taught me and my sisters how to do Irish dancing. While we weren’t as fleet footed as her Irish kin, we gave it a crack and had a stack of gawky fun.
It’s also worth mentioning I come from a family of knitters, sewers, crocheters (not a dancer in sight). Since as early as I can remember I was cross stitching gingham, or knitting squares for a poncho, quite often in the car without seatbelts, alongside non-carsick siblings, knitting ponchos in other colours. Sometimes (alarmingly) sitting alongside same, we continued our concetrated and quiet clicketyclack in church (!).
Evelyn knew of our juvenile and possibly extraordinary-for-our-age skill with a knitting needle, knitting Nancy & crochet hook, and recruited me to crochet collars for Irish dancing competition dresses, for five bucks a pop. What a deal! A complex pattern that did heaps for my brain and confidence, tools and materials supplied, plus payment at the end for something that was actually needed. My dream job.
So, that’s where the crochet really took off. And while intensive at the time, the skill languished in favour of technical writing and work in IT for more than twenty years. That is, until now.
I’ve just crocheted two floral scarves and I’m thrilled the myalin coating for that particular memory is sound and strong; it just needed a bit of coaxing to get to the fore.
OK, so crochet is back. How’s the myalin around Irish dancing moves? Let’s see…
…double treble & back, double treble & back, and a one and a two and a three and a four, and a one two three, one two three, one two three, one two three, step treble back, double treble and back.
