Crochet Suffolk puffs

I know there are fans of crochet yoyos out there. It's time for another fix.

I had wool left over after making my MHZZ blanket and used  it up making yoyos. The best thing about crochet is watching the piles grow. When you run out of room in the box you know it's time to start to lay out your random pattern. Random is not easy when you only have four colours.

If you fancy having a go there is a free pattern here. It's a how I do it rather than how it should be done. For that you'll have to buy "Crocheted Throws and Wraps" by Melody Griffiths.

The finished blanket can be found on Etsy

Yoyos finished!

OK, I failed my October promise of a listing a day but I did have a very good reason. I finished the yoyo blanket and it's winging its way to Australia as I write.

Of course the light was awful but there are very few places I could have put it to get good light. The colours are gorgeous and almost jewel like. I'm glad I didn't add the white.

So that brings me to November and the daily listings. It's also a chance for me to put all forms of social networking into play. This week should see me fully signed up.

Today I have Stumbled Upon. When I work out how to add the button to my blog I will link them.

Promise!

Have a great week!

Busy yoyoing

I've been very quiet on the blogging front for the last few weeks. I can't believe it's been so long. For the last two weeks I've been surrounded with crochet yoyos.

It's nearly finished. One last push over the weekend and it will be cot size.

Have a great weekend everyone! You can guess what I'll be doing!

Yoyos

All addictions have to start somewhere and mine started on a dreary Saturday afternoon. Too late to go shopping, too early for settling down in front of the television and too old to go clubbing, I picked up "Crocheted Throws and Wraps" by Melody Griffiths and decided to try her Suffolk puffs, otherwise known as yoyos.


Easy to do and quick to make I used the colours I'd been using in my previous project. Soon I had a little collection of them.

By Sunday afternoon I had even more.

By Tuesday I had the 168 needed to complete a baby blanket. That's when the easy finished for me. I find it best to join squares together with double crochet while joining hexagons still baffles me. I decided not to follow the instructions given for joining and chose to back stitch them instead. I've since found an easier way but (in the words of Magnus Magnusson) as I'd already started I had to finish.

I think it worked out well sewing them up in a random fashion.

There is a good tutorial here

I've since played around with sizes and have adapted the instructions for the organic cotton I've been using. I use a 4mm hook and a double knit cotton. Forgive the British terms but this is how I do it not a How To Do IT. It's also the first time I've written down instructions.

How I make yoyos
No place here for a closed centre. It needs to look like a Polo mint not a Trebor.

1) Chain 6 and join with a slip stitch to make a ring.

2) Chain 6 (this acts as your first quadruple treble), 21 quadtr into the ring, ss into the 6th chain.

3) Chain 2, 1 tr into the next stitch, 2trtog 10 times, ss into the 2nd chain to join and gather up the puff.

This is the part where I say leave a long tail. I didn't leave enough the first time so ended up have to join them in a way I wasn't happy with. A long tail means about 20cm, leaving you enough to catch the puff down on the wrong side. Still with the needle threaded run it up through the middle of a stitch to the edge. You can now use this to join the next yoyo.

To finish, run the needle back down through the middle and fasten off near the centre opening.

Do play around with it. Different threads and hook sizes will give your yoyos individuality. Experiment with longer or shorter stitches. Remember to have an even amount of stitches for the last round gathering and you can't go wrong.

The top green has 22 quadtr and the purple 24.

The bottom row has 20 trtr

Let me know if you have any problems. Show me what you wonderfully creative people do with them but most of all - have fun!