Han, in London

So for AGES I have been wanting to make myself something to hold all the brooches I don't have on my coats. Currently I only have a small collection of brooches (compared to everything else, ahem) and I had the vague idea of making some sort of frame.

Recently I found this project to make an earring holder and thought I could repurpose it for brooches:

www.laylock.org/blog/2011/05/sunday-morning-knitting-project/

However when I started the knitting I got frustrated very quickly, and went looking for a different pattern. I found this crochet blanket pattern on Ravelry:

www.virkaholic.com/2010/02/att-virka-gallerfilt.html

It's a very simple pattern that ends up looking like a grid, so won't be flashier than the brooches. 

I crocheted it with some scrap yarn and got a photo frame from Poundland, and this evening I pinned the crochet work to the frame and stuck some patterned paper to the back of it before putting it all together.

And this is what it looks like. I am really pleased with how it turned out!

 delgaserasca got me some looooovely alpaca yarn for my birthday (alpaca yarn is my second favourite after cotton yarn, although I use them for different things) so I decided to make myself a scarf. I did look around for patterns but eventually decided to make up my own. 

It is very simple but the finished effect was pretty so here is a drop stitch pattern by me:



Drop stitch scarf

Most patterns of this type recommend using needles bigger than usually recommended but in this case I used 10mm needles with 10mm yarn. However you can really do what you want with this kind of pattern. 

Use a chunky yarn of whatever type you like (this is Blue Sky Alpacas in Atlantis and it is NOT this colour but neither of my cameras seem able to pick up the green so this was the best I could do - anyway it is lovely).




Gauge is unimportant for this pattern.

Cast on 12 stitches 

Row 1: k
Row 2: k1 (yo, k1), repeat to end
Row 3: k (drop the yo, k1), repeat to end 
Row 4: k
Row 5: k1 (yo, k1), repeat to end
Row 6: k (drop the yo, k1), repeat to end 
Row 7: k
Row 8: k1 (yo twice, k1), repeat to end
Row 9: k (drop the yo twice, k1), repeat to end

Repeat rows 1 - 9 until the scarf is as long as you want.

 So, I finally got most (let's not say all, because I probably haven't) of my card photos - but especially the Christmas ones - uploaded to my cards tumblr. 

hanlondoncards.tumblr.com

That's basically a gallery for my card shop, which I have been threatening to write about for a very long time now.

en.dawanda.com/shop/hanlondon

(I also have photos of the jewellery I've made here - hanlondonjewellery.tumblr.com - but I haven't added any of that to the shop yet)

I suppose I should add some context, right? Well, I have been making cards since I was at university (coming up to 10 years ago), although it was mostly because I like making them/making personalised cards. Crafting stuff is just damn pretty. I've got an entire cupboard full now, which is possibly a little ott. 

For a few years now, I've had more cards made than I can possibly use, and I've been meaning to set up the shop. I think I finally got round to it earlier this year, which is fairly typical for my level of organisation. I then had various problems with hard drives dying and so on, so it took me ages to get the photos edited, uploaded and added. I've currently got 80 entries on there, and I've got 250ish cards (although a few of the entries are for packs, and I've used quite a few cards recently rather than making new ones). I do intend to add the others to the shop, honest. 

Anyway, I'd really appreciate it if you'd have a look, and forward on the link if you like the look of my stuff (obviously if you want to buy some cards, that would be lovely *g*). 

Just a few examples: