Throws I love

OK (gathers thoughts). So, first, I wanted to say, thank you in particular all for the lovely thoughtful comments on my last post, I really enjoyed reading them. I sometimes think we have reached a critical tipping point on this blog and now the comments are better than my posts, unfortunately for you all though this does not put me off, and you will have to put up with my ramblings about cats (and what a cat I have for you today) and the black squirrel for a while yet. Secondly, my poor brother Dan has got a bad tooth and his face has swelled right up, this is what I can gather from talking to my mother although I cannot hear her very well as she has labyrinthitis and can only put me on speakerphone as if she puts the phone near her ear it makes her dizzy and she falls over. So could we all shout together, Dan, get well soon. Thank you.

Readers, I have throws on my mind, and in my perambulations around the internet I have found a couple of really pretty ones which I wanted to show you. Thank you to all the people I bothered who have given me permission to show their throws! I have a slight ulterior motive which I will declare now, and it is, that all these throws I am going to show you would look fabulous if you made them in Stylecraft Special DK. So if you have spent all your money on Christmas, not been thrifty like me (oh, ha ha) and unravelled things to knit socks for your mother, rest assured you are only about £25 + cost of pattern off from being able to produce something enormous, bright, and utterly, utterly unique (and possibly cheaper if you buy it from here or are cunning). And Stylecraft Special DK is always the same colour wherever you get it from, so you could spread the cost over the year, or, £2 a month! (Stylecraft don’t pay me. I just like it. The colours are so intense they glow. Look, you know me and subtlety).

First, a throw by that Dominatrix of Modular Crochet, the Gingerbread Lady. Pattern here.

Photo by the Gingerbread Lady. I want a sexy stone wall to drape things on (I wonder if they'd arrest me if I draped my stuff over one of the colleges? I wonder if I'd be got by a Proctor?)

Realta means star in Gaelic, and I think this throw is stunning. Let me just advise you from current bitter experience that if you are going to join black crocheted bits together, I would do it in July’s bright sunshine, not the half hour we get in December (7 rows down. 5 to go). Not only am I in awe of the Gingerbread Lady’s pattern writing and colour combining ability, I am also in awe of her eyesight. I think this is the kind of throw where you could really play with colour combinations and backgrounds.

My next is a free pattern, from Tangled magazine, which I had never heard of but is definitely worth a look: Bullseye. Lovechild’s is my favourite version (and thanks to Lovechild for permission to use the photos). I just love the way she’s used the colours on the grey background, it really sets them off:

I actually really like that headboard as well

And so does a certain other creature, proving again my law that where a huge complex crocheted/ knitted item is, there will a cat be. This cat is called Mr Darcy, and with this picture and that information I feel Lovechild has essentially won the internet.

It is a truth commonly acknowledged that a cat in possession of a hugely furry underbelly must be in want of a crocheted throw

I loved this version of the Sunflower Afghan – I think this is an absolutely beautiful throw.

Partner has instructions to stop me ever crocheting a throw again. Every time I show him a pattern for anything he looks nervous and says, but would you have to crochet squares?

I am not an advanced crocheter, but this is on my list for if I wake up some time next year and think, hey, I have not embarked on a ridiculously huge epic project for a while (look, this is going to happen, indeed it will probably happen around March). This is KaliKong’s project (and thanks, KaliKong, for permission to use your photo) and I am very jealous of it! Pattern is here. I could also see this in really seventies-style oranges, browns and beiges.

Now let me show you a throw from a duo whose designs I really admire, and if you have not looked at their other designs please go and look now, gasp, and then return. This is by Pat from Woolly Thoughts, and their website is here (and here are some more Woolly Thoughts illusion designs on Ravelry).

I want this throw and I also want an empty room with tiles

This is the loveheart throw. (Do you have lovehearts in America?). It’s an illusion knit, so, if you look at it full on you don’t see the pattern but if you look at it askance you do. I have dipped my toes into the waters of illusion knitting in the past (the alien illusion scarf from Stitch 'n Bitch) and, although the patterns are complex, the actual knitting is not difficult so long as you don’t mind following a chart (I love a chart). So this throw would be very doable. I couldn’t resist showing you another Woolly Thoughts design, this time by Steve, although it is not strictly a throw (a small throw perhaps? Or knit a big border?) – the Marilyn Monroe illusion.

Knit your own picture! I think this is great

Isn’t that just amazing? I love this pattern (pattern here) and it’s on my list of things to get when I have a bit of spare knitting time (I would do a cushion to start with). Not to bang my drum, but I actually think a really bright neon colour of Stylecraft Special DK would work particularly well with this. In fact, I believe that if Andy Warhol were around today and had taken up knitting, Stylecraft Special DK is what he would be using. Indeed, I am sure of it. I hope that encourages you.

What are your favourite throws?

(I am thinking now, Partner is actually a fellow of a college, I wonder if we could just nip up when I have sewn my epic thing together and drape it over their walls for a few artistic photographs? They have got some nice walls. It is not as if he is much trouble generally, he does not go to high table or bother the porters unduly. I may broach that one when Partner has opened his Chardonnay. I would be like Kaffe Fassett with his quilts but with slightly more dubious legality).