Going Tunisian Crochet Podcast notes 6

The podcast – watch in YouTube by click play below

Episode 6 Going Tunisian Crochet Podcast notes

Social media links

• The new Crafternoon Treats Ravelry group for crochet chat and natter about the crochet podcast
• Crafternoon Treats on Instagram – wow, I topped 25,000 followers the other week! Fantastic, thanks to all who follow and like my ramblings!
• Crafternoon Treats on Facebook – another wow, I topped 15,000 followers the other week. The two FB groups are Bagalong with Crafternoon Treats and The Crafternooners
• Crafternoon Treats on YouTube – please do go along and subscribe to my channel as there will be more giveaways when we reach 1000 subscribers
• Crafternoon Treats (@crafterstreats) on Twitter
• @crafternoontreats on Ello

Tunisian crochet – my workshop at Black Sheep Wools

I might not be tempted yet to start a Tunisian crochet podcast but this was a great day out in Warrington and I really enjoyed the course taught by Rowan tutor Gina Couch. It was a lovely and relaxed day and I made progress with the first of my fingerless mitts, finishing them a couple of days later. All materials were included in the workshop and there was free tea and coffee, a cold buffet lunch and an afternoon tea with scones and cake (Victoria sandwich was to die for…). And plenty of opportunity for retail therapy with 10% off all purchases included in the course fee.

• Visit the Black Sheep Wools online yarn shop.
• Find out about other workshops going on there this summer.
• Bella Coco has some very good tutorials on starting out in Tunisian crochet.

Crochet shawls

• The Victoria Shawl pattern by Sandra Paul of the blog CherryHeart (paid pattern).
• The pattern and tutorial for the road trip scarf by Zelna Olivier is on the Zooty Owl blog (free pattern).
• Read my blog post about the road trip scarf that I made last year.

Crochet socks

I’ve been making the survival socks again using the Sirdar Heart and Sole yarn and ran into a few problems… so I understand why people in the Crafternooners group had issues when they used yarn other than the Drops Fabel. Sometimes patterns just don’t translate to other yarns and I think that crochet socks benefit from a slightly stretchier yarn. This crochet sock journey certainly is a big learning curve 🙂

• I’ve written a post about common crochet sock problems – visit the sock clinic to find out more.
• Download the free pattern by Elin Stoodley (@pandagourgh on instagram) for the #survivalsocks.
• Check out another free pattern for basic crochet socks.
• Look up the paid pattern for the Saunders socks by Joanne Scrace on Ravelry.
• See my previous post about the crochet sockalong.
• Join The Crafternooners Facebook group to see the socks we’ve been making so far.

I’m currently making socks in Sirdar Heart and Sole and the flavour of the yarn is pigeon toes – love that name! I’ve also started a new pair in King Cole Zig Zag in the new colourway Summer Meadow.

I’ve found some crochet sock books and you can get these on Amazon. I have one (see below) and the others all have good reviews:

• New methods for crochet socks (Annie’s Crochet)
• Learn to crochet socks the toe-up way (Annie’s Attic) (I have this one and find it very useful)
• I can’t believe I’m crocheting socks
• Learn to crochet socks for the family

My sewing efforts

I won’t be doing a tutorial on sewn bags any time soon (haha) but I made the crochet pod bag to store my crochet hooks. The ones I like best are the Clover Soft Touch ones, which I buy from Amazon. Over the last 18 months I’ve collected several in different sizes ranging from 2mm to 6mm.

When I checked on Amazon, one of the market place sellers currently has a very good deal on a set of 9 hooks in exactly that size range for just under £26 – less than £3 per hook, which is great value.

Blanket progress

My giant granny square blanket in Stylecraft Special Chunky yarn is coming along. I’m using gold, parchment, copper, burgundy and spice.

GIveaway winner

The winner of the giveaway – 6 free issues of the new Crochet Now! magazine went to Laura L – congrats Laura and I hope you enjoy the magazine.

This mag only started in March 2016 and you can currently buy 3 issues for £6! This is an introductory offer so won’t last forever… and its a great way to try out the magazine to see if you like it.

Coming up – episode 7

Episode 7 will be in two weeks time to give me chance to catch my breath, catch up with a bit of home decorating (the totally NOT enjoyable kind) and day job. I’ll also be adding some new posts to my blog that I haven’t had chance to finish – so watch this space xxx If you have any ideas of things you’d like me to chat about in future episodes please leave a comment and let me know.

I’ve already got a few things planned and I’ll be telling you more about becoming a patron of the Bakery Bears podcast. You can see top right that i became a patron this week – I pledged $10 per month, which is about £7.50 and now have access to all of Kay’s knitting tutorials and lots of other video material that is really fun to watch! Maybe I can now make some better progress with my knitting 🙂 You can pledge as little as $2 a month and this will enable Dan and Kay to produce loads more material. Dan is a cancer survivor and I am in awe of the way they have both coped with his diagnosis and treatment and feel really good that I can add my few pennies of support…

That’s all from me for now – have a great two weeks and I’ll be in touch on the blog, FB and IG 🙂