All Aboard The Stylecraft Blog Tour Bus For A Giveaway And A Free Pattern!

Have you been following this year’s Stylecraft Blog Tour? Yesterday, designer/author Sue Pinner showed us her marvellous Spinning Top crochet blanket pattern.

Six new shades have been added to the aran and the chunky Stylecraft Special acrylic ranges, and the fine fibrous folk at Stylecraft have mixed these up with some of the existing shades to make a couple of different ten-ball colour packs that they’ll be selling for a while. Over the summer, they kindly gave a few of us yarniacs a pack to try out. (Did I mention that this yarn-blogging thing is SOOOO TOUGH?!) This year’s blog tour gives a dozen of us the chance to show off what we’ve been making with our yarn.

I chose the ‘Parchment’ pack in chunky weight. Look!
Anyway, welcome to Day Eight of the blog tour. At an unfeasibly early hour this morning, I was woken by a rumbling sound, which turned out to be the colourful Stylecraft blog-tour-bus squeezing its way down our driveway, and parking beside the Stinkwagon. Hurrah! Heaven knows what the neighbours thought, although they’ve witnessed crazier (especially that time when I yarn-bombed our house).

So clad only in my third-best pyjamas, I rushed outside to greet the bus.

I’d been thinking long and hard about what to make with this yarn, as it ideally had to incorporate all ten shades. Also, I was in the mood for a spot of crochet. So I designed this scarf, ably modelled by my headless friend, here:-

Would you like the FREE pattern? OK, I’ll pop it at the end of this post.

The finished scarf turned out well, but along the way, my goodness there was a lot of growling, and ripping out, and setting a poor example of emotional self-regulation in front of the children.

Then, the night before I finished it, I was across the road in the village pub with a group of friends, celebrating the birthday of one of us. (Hmm, that was the sentence that grammar forgot, wasn’t it?) Three of us were knitters/crocheters, so a certain amount of yarnery was going on around our bit of the table. But the poor birthday girl – an avid and skilled knitter – didn’t have any yarn with her! Horrors! Yes of course we offered to sprint home and fetch some for her. But do you know what she did (and I swear she did this voluntarily)? She picked up my scarf-in-progress, which was at the time looking very hairy due to the number of ends I’d procrastinated about weaving in, and she wove in all the ends! All of them!

So I pulled out a sock-in-progress from my handbag and knitted a bit of that instead. (What?? You think that I ever leave the house with only one WIP?) Technology and lighting were against me on the photo front, but here she is:-

J, I owe you big-time. And I hope you enjoyed your birthday.

So at last the thing was nearly done, and the next day whilst slightly hungover I worked a simple scalloped edge around it. What do you think?

But now, I have a… difficulty. I want to show you a picture of the thing laid out, so that you can see how the flared end tucks through the slit near the other end to make a loop. But laid out flat, it presents a photographic problem. There’s no other way of saying this: it looks undeniably phallic. So, um, let’s mess things up a bit.

ANYWAY, would you like the chance to win a big squooshy pack of all ten shades of Stylecraft Special Chunky that I used to make this thing? You would? Well that’s a coincidence, because the kind folk on the Stylecraft tour bus happen to have a pristine new pack of yarn all ready to post out to one lucky winner. The competition is open worldwide, but you’ll have to hurry, because it’s only open from 1000hrs to 2359hrs TODAY, UK time, so put down your knitting/hooking for a moment and hurry, hurry, hurry!

Click here to enter!

And so, as the day draws to a close, the tour bus will rumble colourfully on to its next destination: Sarah at Annaboo’s House. It’s clocking up a lot of miles, that bus. Fortunately it’s very environmentally-friendly, existing as it does only in my imagination.

Just in case you’ve missed any, the full list of participants in the blog tour is: Emma Varnam, Jane Crowfoot, Keep Calm And Crochet On, Sue Pinner, Annaboo’s House, Hand Knitted Things, Cherry Heart, The Patchwork Heart, Crafternoon Treats, Stylecraft’s own blog, Le Monde de Sucrette, and of course this very blog.  

So would you like the FREE PATTERN to make this beast? Yeah? OK, then. Here it is. I’ll put a photo-tutorial for some of the stitches up within the next few days, too.

I’ve also listed the pattern on Ravelry, here.

The Candy-Pop Scarf

Please note: pattern instructions use US terms. (Fellow Brits, I’m sorry: it’s the only area in which I’m not loyal to our land. I’ll post a UK version shortly.)

Dimensions of finished work: 99cm (39”) in length, by 18cm (7”) for most of its length, narrowing slightly before flaring out at one end.

Hook: 6mm.

Gauge: 16 sc sts to 10cm/4”.

Yarn: Stylecraft Special Chunky ‘Parchment’ pack, comprising one 100g (3.5oz) ball of each of the following shades: Parchment (1218), Pomegranate (1083), Sage (1725), Pale Rose (1080), Saffron (1081), Spice (1711), Empire (1829), Gold (1709), Pistachio (1822), and Storm Blue (1722). Now given that this is a whole kilogram (35oz) of yarn and the final scarf only weighs 225g (8oz), you can most certainly reduce the number of shades if you wish to, especially as some of them only make a brief appearance in the pattern.

Ends: Lots of colour changes potentially mean lots of ends to be woven in. Unless this is your idea of a rollicking good time, there are a couple of ways to minimise the weaving. First, when you’re working in colour A, and then have only one row of colour B before returning to colour A, you don’t need to cut colour A because the edge of your work will be concealed. So in the pattern, I’ve encouraged you to travel up the side of your work using a sneaky slip stitch to resume working in colour A. Don’t tell anyone I said that, though. Second, where possible, you can crochet around your yarn ends once you’ve started a new colour. It’s not always possible to do this, e.g. if your new colour is being used to work a chain, but it’s possible most of the time.

Abbreviations:-

St(s) = stitch(es).

Ch = chain.

Ss = slip stitch.

Sc = single crochet.

½dc = half double crochet.

Dc = double crochet.

Tc = treble crochet.

YO = yarn-over.

Sc2tog = decrease by single crocheting 2 stitches together.

Yarn colours are given in capitals. Continue in current colour until instructed to change.

Right, let’s get started.

SAGE. Ch 120 stitches fairly loosely.

• -1. Ch1. Sc all stitches. Turn.
• -2. Bobble garland edging. [Ch6. Work 5dc into the 3^rd ch from hook, omitting the last YO-and-pull-through for each of these 5 stitches, ending with 6 loops on the hook. YO and pull through all 6 loops. Make a tight ss around the base of the bobble. Ch3. Sc into the 4th st along] repeated to end of row, although final ch3 after the last bobble is worked into the 3^rd st along, because you’ve reached the end of the row. (30 bobbles.)
• 1. You are now going to turn your work and make further rows on the other side of the starting chain. So proceed to the other side of the starting chain by working a sneaky ss at the end of the row. Ss into first ch. Ch1. Sc all sts across the row. Turn. Cut yarn. (120)
• 2. PISTACHIO. Ch1. [Sc, sc2tog, sc] repeated to end. Turn. (90)
• 3. Ch1. Sc all sts. Turn. Do not cut yarn.
• 4. SAFFRON. Ch1. Sc in every st. Cut yarn.
• 5. PISTACHIO. Switch to other end of row to resume working in Pistachio, working a ss in the end st. Work as row 2 until 2 sts remain. Sc these last 2 sts. Turn. (68)
• 6. As row 4.
• 7. STORM BLUE. As row 3.
• 8. As row 2. (51)
• 9-10. Both as row 3.
• 11. As row 2 until 3 sts remain. Sc, sc2tog. (38)
• 12. [Ch5. Ss into next-but-one st of previous row] repeated to end. The end of the final chain loop will have to be worked into the next st, not the next-but-one st. Turn. (19 loops)
• 13. Ch3. [Ch1. Sc into the chain loop from previous row] repeated to end of row. Turn. (38)
• 14. As row 2 until 2 sts remain. Sc in each of the last 2 sts. Turn. (29)
• 15-16. As row 3.
• 17. As row 2 (after the initial ch1) until 5 sts remain. 5sc. (23)
• 18-20. As row 3.
• 21. As row 4.
• 22. GOLD. 1sc, [1 bobble, 1sc] repeated to end, pushing the bobbles through to the front and back of the work alternately. Cut yarn. (To create each bobble, work 5 dc into the same stitch, omitting the last YO-and-pull-through of each dc. You will then have 6 loops on your hook. Finally, YO and pull through all 6 loops. Push the bobble through to the correct side of the work. The sc into the next st anchors the bobble.) (11 bobbles, 6 on one side and 5 on the other)
• 23. STORM BLUE. Working from the side where you left the Storm Blue yarn, ss into edge of previous row so that you can use this yarn for the present row. Ch1, sc into first stitch. [Ignoring the next st from previous row, work a dc into the same-colour st from the row-before-last that’s directly below this bobble on the reverse side of that bobble. Then work a sc into the next st from previous row, i.e. the st after the one you ignored] repeated to end. Turn. (11 vertical bars, 6 on one side and 5 on the other)
• 24-25. As row 3.
• 26. As row 4.

• 27. PARCHMENT. As row 4.
• 28. PALE ROSE. As row 12. Cut yarn. Turn. (11 loops)
• 29. PARCHMENT. As row 13, but finishing with a ch1 after the last sc. Turn. (23)
• 30-34. As row 3. (23)
• 35. As row 3, but on the 4^th and the 4^th-from-end st, increase by working 2 sts where usually you’d work one. (25)
• 36. As row 4.
• 37. PALE ROSE. [Ch5. Ss into next-but-one st of previous row] repeated to end. Turn. (12 loops)
• 38. Ch4. (4^th ch = the first st of current row.) [Sc into the chain loop from previous row, ch1] repeated to end of row. Turn. (25)
• 39-41. As row 3.
• 42. POMEGRANATE. Bobble row! As row 22. (12 bobbles, 6 on each side)
• 43. PALE ROSE. As row 23. (12 vertical bars, 6 on each side)
• 44-47. As row 3.
• 48. POMEGRANATE. Ch2. ½dc all sts. Cut yarn.
• 49-51. PALE ROSE. Resume with yarn from row 47 using a sneaky end-of-row ss, as before. Then work as row 3.
• 52. [ss, sc, ½dc, dc, tc, dc, ½dc, sc] repeated 3 times, then ss. Cut yarn. Turn.
• 53. POMEGRANATE. Ch4, [tc, dc, ½dc, sc, ss, sc, ½dc, dc] repeated 3 times, then tc. Turn.
• 54. As row 53. Cut yarn.
• 55. PARCHMENT. As row 52, but do not cut yarn. Turn.
• 56-58. As row 3.
• 59. As row 4.

• 60. SAGE. As row 3.
• 61. Ch3. Dc into 1^st st. [Ch1, dc] repeated to end. Turn.
• 62-65. As row 3.
• 66. As row 61.
• 67. As row 4.
• 68-70. PISTACHIO. As row 3.
• 71. As row 61.
• 72. As row 4.
• 73. SAGE. As row 4.
• 74. POMEGRANATE. As row 4.
• 75-76. PISTACHIO. As row 3.
• 77. As row 4.
• 78. SAGE. As row 3.
• 79. SAGE. As row 4.
• 80-86. PARCHMENT. As row 3.
• 87. As row 4.

• 88. SPICE. As row 3.
• 89. As row 4.
• 90. PISTACHIO. Ch3. 2dc into 1^st st. [Miss 2sts then work 3dc into the next st] 7 times, 2dc into the last st. Cut yarn. Turn. (25)
• 91. SPICE. Ch3. [3dc into next gap between clusters from previous row] 8 times. 1dc into last st. Turn. (25)
• 92. Ch3. 2dc into 1^st gap between clusters. [3dc into next gap] 7 times. 2dc into last st. Cut yarn. Turn. (25)
• 93. POMEGRANATE. As row 91. (25)
• 94-96. As row 3.
• 97. SAFFRON. Bobble row! As row 22. (12 bobbles, 6 on each side)
• 98. POMEGRANATE. As row 23. (12 vertical bars, 6 on each side)
• 99. As row 4.
• 100-104. SPICE. As row 3.
• 105. As row 4.
• 106-112. PARCHMENT. As row 3.
• 113. As row 4.

• 114. SAGE. Ch1. Work sc into 1^st 11 sts of row only. Turn. (11)
• 115-116. Ch1. Sc into all 11 sts. Turn. (11)
• 117. EMPIRE. Ch1. Sc into all 11 sts. Cut yarn. (11)
• 118-120. Resuming with SAGE, as row 3. (11)
• 121. EMPIRE. Bobble row! As row 22. (5 bobbles, 3 on one side and 2 on the other)
• 122. SAGE. As row 23. (5 vertical bars, 3 on one side and 2 on the other)

• 123-125. As row 3. (11)
• 126. As row 4. (11)
• 127-130. PALE ROSE. As row 3. (11)
• 131. As row 4. (11)
• Now go back to row 113, and from the opposite end of the row, work the same 11-st pattern you did for rows 114-131. When you’ve finished this, there should be a 3st-wide gap in the middle of rows 114-131.
• 132. PARCHMENT. Ch1. Sc the 1^st 11 sts. Ch3 across the gap, then sc into the 11sts on the other side. (25)
• 133. As row 3. (25)
• 134. Ch1. Sc2tog across 1^st 2 sts. Sc until 2 sts remain. Sc2tog. Turn. (23)
• 135. As row 3. (23)
• 136. As row 134. (21)
• 137. As row 134. (19)
• 138. As row 134. (17)
• 139. As row 134. Cut yarn. (15)
• 140. STORM BLUE. As row 134. (13)
• 141. Ch1. Sc2tog twice. Sc until 4 sts remain. Sc2tog twice. (9)
• 142. GOLD. Bobble row! As row 22. (4 bobbles, 2 on each side)
• 143. STORM BLUE. As row 23. (4 vertical bars, 2 on each side)
• 144. As row 141. (5) Cut yarn and pull through.
• Weave in ends before working scalloped edging.
• Edging. SAGE. Begin at end of row -1 (i.e. the bobble edging row). Work around the edge of the piece, finishing at the opposite end of row -1. Cut yarn. Then work all the way around the inside edge of the gap in the middle of rows 114-131. Cut yarn. Here’s how to work the scallops:-
• Scallops: Sc into end st of row. [Work 5 ½dcs into a row-end st about 2 rows further along. Then sc into a row-end st roughly 2 rows further along] repeated all the way around. The spacing of the scallops is a bit of a judgement call. And when you’re working the inside of a curve, stretch each scallop out over slightly more rows. When you’re working the outside of a curve, work each scallop over slightly fewer rows.