Catherine's Crochet Corner

I’m so gratified by everyone’s reaction to The Starry Night. I worked so hard on it, in secret, and it’s just so wonderful to know it’s so admired and to hear that it’s inspired so many of you to try freeform for yourselves. It’s a kind of crochet that I definitely want to do more of – though perhaps not something so ambitious, next time!

So on we go. New year, new plans. I’m not one for resolutions. Life is too unpredictable, and anyway, most resolutions get lost down the back of the sofa after a month or two. But plans! Plans I believe in 😀

So what have I got planned for this year? There’s projects planned, projects in progress, and lots of exciting things to hook and to share with you.

Firstly, I am pleased to be able to report that all of my pattern testers have finished testing the blanket I designed last year. I started it in April and finished it in August – a long time ago, now. So long ago that I’m sure you’ve all forgotten all about it 😀 But my lovely, helpful pattern testers have been determinedly working their way through the squares, flagging up inconsistences and typos and errors to make the pattern as good as it can possibly be. As I said back in August, it’s a big blanket, so it’s taken them a while – but the wait is worthwhile, I promise. It’s a beautiful, snuggly blanket, and I’m so excited that I can finally share it with you.

I’ll be starting some gentle teasing/promotion over the next few weeks, and the pattern will be published on 1st February. So put the date in your calendar and get your hooks ready 😀

The second thing on my ‘plans’ list is finishing up my current blanket. I started it waaaaay way back in October, but it’s been slow going. I’ve had Christmas presents to do, and obviously spent a lot of time working on Starry Night. It was essentially on hold over December, but since Christmas I’ve been back at work on it. I’ve nearly finished all the centres, and half the squares are complete. It shouldn’t take too long to finish all the squares, and then joining should be fairly quick. I haven’t designed a border for it yet, but that’ll come later. I’m hoping that within a month it will be finished and ready to share with you all 🙂

My other yarn-related plans are slightly more nebulous. I want to use the goooorgeous squishy new Batik Swirl cakes in something – I have ideas, but we’ll see what happens with that. My brother gave me a big pile of hand-dyed yarn for Christmas, and I want to make a shawl with it – that’s probably going to be my next project, because the yarn is just calling to me. I also want to do another smaller blanket – both the upcoming design and my current WIP are biiiiig blankets, and it would be nice to do something smaller and faster!

Other plans include trying to get my head around Instagram. Yes, I have finally signed up to Instagram, and I think I have got it linked up to the blog – so you should be able to see my latest four instagram pictures in the sidebar when you come here. Not that there are four pictures there yet! It should also be posting to my Facebook page. I say should, because I’ve not tested it yet, but still, it should work. We’ll see. I figure it’ll be good for brief little updates. Expect cats and crochet. Probably in that order.