Delivery Day!

It's always exciting at Planet Yarn when we get a delivery!  Even if it's just a restock of our usual favourites.  Today, however, there was a special delivery which included the brand new Stylecraft Special dk shades!  So, that's a whopping 85 shades in the Special dk range now!  The new Buttermilk shade is a lovely warm yellow and definitely the Planet Yarn favourite.  The other two, Mushroom and Vintage Peach, fit in beautifully with their siblings.  There's a very good reason for knowing this too, because finally, after almost a year of the Special dk shade card being out of stock, it's arrived!  Yay!  So now we can all peruse the lovely, scrumptious shades offered to us in the comfort of our own snuggly, crafty spots.  Happy days!  Here's a quick peek of one that arrived today:

I think they must have had a tricky time placing Mushroom on the card, it could have quite happily fitted between the peachy tones, or the pinky tones.  It's definitely going to be a very versatile neutral colour.  I'm not the world's biggest fan of mushrooms, so it was a pleasant surprise to enjoy this colour.  Still not a chance I'll be eating any mind!  It wasn't until I saw Vintage Peach next to apricot that I realised how much this shade added to the peachy/orangey toned yarns.  I'll have to get it and Vintage Rose together sometime soon to see how they 'talk' to each other.

I'm off to update the shop now, got to make sure my listings have the correct amount of balls available! 

Oh...and I'm very much looking forward to the Easter break and all the extra hooking time that comes with it!  What projects are you going to be working on?

Spring Giveaway and New Stylecraft Special DK Shades

Over on the Planet Yarn Facebook page and Instagram account there is a giveaway going on.  The winner will get their choice of Yarn Pack from the Planet Yarn shop.  Not bad eh?

To enter the giveaway you'll need a Facebook and/or Instagram account.  Have a look at the information about it on the site and see if you fancy entering. 

Looking forward to spreading the love of yarny goodness when the winner is picked on 20th March.

Hurray for Spring and lovely colours of yarn!

Stylecraft have been busy choosing three new colours of yarn to add to the 82 their Special dk family already boasts.

Here's their big reveal photo:

They will be available in Planet Yarn as soon as they arrive, which will hopefully be 3rd April or soon after.

I'm intrigued by the mushroom colour, apparently it's neither beige nor lavender...hmm.  We shall see!

Baby hat with ears? Sorted!

It's been a while but I really did intend on posting this ears pattern quite soon after the original pattern was written up.  However, seven months later here it is!

Start with the baby basics newborn hat pattern and make two of the following:

US terms
dk yarn, 4mm hook
you are crocheting in the round, just like the method for making the hat.

Row 1: make a magic circle, ch 2 then dc 12 into the magic circle loop and sl st into first dc (not the ch2) (()
Row 2: ch 2 then 2dc into each dc in row  and sl st into the first dc (18)
Rows 3 & 4: dc around and sl st to join (18) and fasten off.

To place your ears on your hat squish the hat so it's lying flat (as in the photo above) and stitch your ears in place.  Make sure you catch the stitches on both sides of your ear and sew firmly to the hat stitches. 

Ta dah! 

As my mum would say, when I put hats with ears on my boys, your baby now has two sets of ears!  All the better to hear you with!

One day I will make one to fit my own head, why should babies have all the ear hat fun!

Pointy Petal Flowers

Here's a jolly little pattern for hooking up some bright pointy flowers to cheer up a gloomy day.

Spring is my second favourite season, with Summer being my absolute favourite.  Ah yes!  Sun...well sometimes anyway...but colour, so much vibrant colour!  In celebration of Winter finally ebbing away and Spring peeking around the corner: flowers!  Hurray!

I've used Stylecraft Special DK and a 4mm hook for these particular blooms.

Stitches used (using US terms): single crochet (sc), double crochet (dc) picot and chain (ch)

Round One:
Make a magic loop then ch2 (not counted as a dc) then dc 12 stitches into your loop, gently tighten and slip stitch together for your flower's centre.

Round Two:
Next *ch6, miss a dc then sl st into the next dc* repeat until you've got six loops of chain stitches.

Round Three: into each chain loop: 4sc, picot (ch2 then slip stitch into first ch), 4sc then slip stitch into the same dc from round one that you slip stitched into when you were making the ch6 loops, I've tried to show the particular stitch I mean in the photo below, the needle is sticking out of the stitch your hook needs to slip stitch in.

Repeat for each petal then after your final slip stitch your flower is complete!  Sew in the ends and put it where you like! 

Ta-dah!

I particularly like the way they look when stacked on top of another one, pretty.

This has been written up super quickly on a gloomy Monday evening, if you spot any mistakes, give me a nudge and I'll sort it out.

4 ply Stylecraft Special Sale

Storm Doris has left us rather shaken, not stirred.  And the grey skies remain.  Cheer yourself up with a bit of stash building, Stylecraft Special 4 ply (just as remarkable as it's sister yarn dk, but sadly in less colours) had been slashed from £2.95 to just £2.00 a ball.  But only for this weekend.  So get in quickly if you fancy a bargain.  Hoping our weather is much less grim and wishing you a great weekend!

Choosing Colours and Yarn Packs

 

It's always tricky...you finally settle on the stitch you want for your project, whether it's a blanket, cushion or something else, but you want your colours to look fabulous together, what choices to make?  With 82 shades to choose from, when it comes to Stylecraft Special DK, you really are spoilt for choice!  But...sometimes in life...you just want to take the easy route...and let someone else sort it out for you. 

 

So...these are the seven yarn packs I'm currently offering at Planet Yarn.  I've faffed and messed about with lots of colour combinations until I was utterly satisfied with the way these combinations talked to each other. I'd like to tell you it was a terrible ordeal that lasted hours and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, but that would be a great big fat lie!  I really enjoyed it!  So here's each colour combination in glorious technicolour for you to feast your eyes on: 

 

 The Vintage Pack came from a discovery, with a lovely friend and client, that duck egg goes deliciously with vintage rose, they just look gorgeous together!  So I played about until I found another four colours that could go with them to create a vintage feel.

 

The Rainbow Yarn Pack was my first pack.  I adore rainbow colours...it was very easy to put these gorgeous bright colours together straight away!  I may have gazed adoringly at them after putting them all together...what's that?  I should get out more...probably...heh!

 

 
This pack just put itself together really!  These are only eight of these variegated shades of Stylecraft Special DK so I just took away brown and grey and this is what transpired and became the Variegated Yarn Pack.  They look lovely together!  I like the more rustic nature that these yarns give when knitted or crocheted up.


The Bright Yarn Pack demanded it's existence because the super bright colours fiesta and jaffa pretty much catch my attention every time I have a rifle through my own personal stash.  I found them some bright friends and this rather manic and quite dazzling combination burst into life.  These bright colours cannot fail to cheer you up even on the greyest, grumpiest day!

This is very much the more subdued and sweeter version of the Rainbow Yarn Pack.  I was rather out of my comfort zone admittedly for this pack, bright jewel colours are my usual choices.  However the Pastel Yarn Pack does make me think of cute little baby clothes and blankets, which gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling. Awww!

This is a colour combination that snuck up on me.  I was playing around with the more muted tones of Special dk and rather liked the way the saffron and storm blue looked together.  It took me a while to find the rest of the colours to complement the snuggly warm and relaxed feeling I was looking for, but I think I cracked it with this Cosy Yarn combination.

This yarn pack is pure indulgence on my part.  Emperor is, possibly, my favourite shade from the whole 82 colours of Special dk.  Teal was always going to go with it but the lobelia and boysenberry shades were a bit of a surprise!  Empire is so very similar to teal but I just love the colours and they work so well with the other four shades...and petrol snuck in...so this is my personal choice yarn pack.  I was a bit stuck for a name but with emperor and empire in there,  Empress just seemed a good choice really!  The Empress Yarn Pack is currently being used in my current WIP, a great big 12 x 12 granny square blanket.  It's looking rather lovely so far...

So, do any of my colour packs tickle your fancy? 

Maybe you've got your own yarn pack idea, let me know, I'll put it together for you.

Sad Times

Just a brief post to update the blog.

My lovely Dad died on Christmas Eve, Leukaemia took him far too early from us.

As you can imagine things have been pretty tough around here.  I'm hoping to have some more yarny goodness for the blog soon, Dad was very supportive of my little business and I'd not want to let him down!

So please forgive the brief hiatus, normal service will be resumed soon.

Happy New Year, hope 2017 brings you lots of good things.