Tuesday 9 October 2007

Crochet cotton from Lidl - I couldn't resist







I broke my promise to myself not buy any more yarn for a while until I had whittled down my stash. (As if that was going to last anyway - I only lasted 3 days !) I went into Lidl as they had sent me a newsletter saying they had cotton knitting/crochet yarn for £1.39p for a pack of 3 x 50 gram balls. Well a bargain loving person like me just had to go in to satisfy my curiosity. Surely it would be rubbish and I wouldn't like the colours so I would be safe just taking a quick peek. Wrong! It looks really good value and the colours are nice as well so at that price I just had to buy it. I did limit myself to just 3 colours though. The only problem was I wanted 12 balls of each colour and they only seemed to have 9 balls in each colour of the same dye. I bought 3 balls of each in the different dyes so I will have to juggle if what I decide to make takes more than 9 balls. I can always do the edgings different, They do look very slightly different in daylight so I must remember to keep the odd balls separate. The photo on here doesn't do the colours justice. They are far nicer than they seem on here. It gives a recommended needle size of 3 - 4 mm, 100 metres per 50 gram ball, so I think it's a fine double knit/thick 4ply. Tension swatching on different hooks will be a must before I decide on a suitable pattern.






I have finished off the Sweet Pea shawl from the Happy Hooker Stitch n Bitch in record time. I started it at 2pm yesterday and finished the main part before I went to bed. It has only taken 200 grams of black DK acrylic so it has turned out to be a very cheap shawl. I didn't fancy a fringe on the edge so I edged it with a 7 treble shell and double crochet pattern. I had bought 4 balls so I am starting another shawl tonight but a different pattern as I will probably give these shawls as gifts and don't want them to look alike. I like to give something handmade to go with any family and friends presents that I buy for Christmas. Last year the ladies all had chunky long ribbed scarves and matching hats.






I have spent an hour going through my patterns and books to try to choose my next project. I got a filing cabinet through Freecycle and have asked my friend to buy me hanging files for my birthday so I can organise my patterns better instead of having to keep searching through them in storage boxes as I do at the present. She was amazed at my choice of birthday present but as I said to her that she had said "Choose something that you really want" - so I did! I want to sort out knitting patterns from the crochet ones, adults from children etc. and so cut down on my searching every time I want to start something new. Crafters must know the frustration of trying to find THAT certain pattern that you know you have and you know it's in there somewhere but you just can't find it.

1 comment:

Crobbles said...

I too wondered about the quality of the yarn from Lidl. Last year I picked up some eyelash yarn from there. It wasn't the softest of yarns but it was great to mix with others.
The shawl looks lovely. You'll have to show me how to do that one.