Day: 14 January 2012

adult's clothing, crochet

unchain my heart

It’s official.  I’m a huge Doris Chan fan.  Such a crochet nerd – I know the names of many crochet designers and the names of the patterns they have designed.  This one is Unchain My Heart.  Love it.  A lot.

Unchain My Heart tunic

Strangely, the extreme heat that we had at the beginning of 2012 has turned into extreme cold (well, for January). We’ve all been wearing long pants and long sleeves and – confession ahead – we’ve even had the heater on at times during the past couple of days. All for the benefit of the invalid, of course. This tunic is really going to hit the spot once winter does hit us. Crocheted in Patons Jet, it is warm and cosy and has a flattering fit. Just check out the internal shaping!

Unchain My Heart tunic

Like all the Doris Chan designs that I’ve crocheted, it’s done in one piece. I love that! Everything flows together beautifully. The back also has lovely shaping in it for the armholes.

Unchain My Heart tunic

This was a two week project for me, but that includes the time crocheting it in a different yarn right to the part where I joined the neckline, tried it on, and realised that it was too small. The perils of yarn substitution! A couple of days later I found the Jet on sale at Spotty, and restarted. I’d really like to try this again in a more summer-weight, yet drapey, yarn. It would be a marvellous summer/spring/autumn layer. I also worked an extra four rounds in the shell pattern before starting on the empire line waistline ribbing, so that the ribbing would hit me below the bust. And other than that, I just kept crocheting on until I had no more yarn left. I think that it is about four rows longer than the pattern specified.  It wasn’t a difficult pattern and it was rather fast once I got going.

Unchain My Heart tunic

Ravelled here.

family, miscellaneous

so, what’s been happening?

It’s Saturday morning already.  I haven’t blogged for days – most unlike me!  Mostly because of all the school holiday activity that has been taking place.  The girls have both had swimming lessons at 8.30am every day this week.  Nothing like an early start to get you going for the day!  Then there have been playdates with friends, sleepovers, shopping trips, and a little too much television.  And there has been quite a lot of this keeping me busy:

the invalid

It looks pretty luxurious, doesn’t it? Since his rollerskating knee injury (an avulsion fracture of the tibia/posterior cruciate ligament/soft tissue damage for the medically inclined of you) the Mr has been keeping his leg up. Reading the paper in bed. Having cups of tea and his meals delivered to him. And cleaned up after him.   Helped into the shower.  And out again.  Having his slippers put on.  And I am definitely doing every single domestic duty that needs doing in this house – there is no way that he can do any of them. Poor man. He’s hating being incapacitated. He is able to work from home, which is great (thank goodness for laptops and modern technology) but can’t do a great deal more. Although he is reading stories to Stella in bed as I type! He also hurt his wrist a little when he fell and using crutches hasn’t been easy. But we know that things will improve (post-surgery).

The girls and I were lucky enough to have a sewing afternoon at the studio with Nikki yesterday – you can read about it here!  Just check out those girls and their machines!  Early indoctrination?

Sewjeen

After doing some routine hand-sewing and weaving in of ends, I busied myself making the wristlet from Nikki’s book.  I’ll sew the last seams later today.  Thank you so much for a delightful afternoon Nikki!  But otherwise, there hasn’t been a great deal of time for craft, although I’ve squeezed some in late in the evening. But you know what? I’m having loads of fun doing other stuff with my girls. As I’ve said before, I love school holidays!