Look at this sweet little Trio: Echeveria, Saguaro and Domino Cactus Dude. This is the latest pattern I was able to test for MissBerlin. Aren‘t they cute?
They are the newest members of her Dudes collection. All small, bald and just too cute. Only to differentiate at their different caps, which also give them their unmistakable characters.
I fell in love with this little creatures the first time I saw them 💕
That must have been the Pumpkin Dudes back then, sometime in 2019. Later I was able to test „my” first Dudes pattern – the Woodland Dudes. The Pine Cone Hat is one of my all-time favorites, although it has faced great competition over the years.
Here some more photos:
The Echeveria DudeThe Saguaro DudeThe Domino Cactus DudeMy three Cactus Dudes Caps
The pattern for these lovely Dudes is available via Ravelry.
I’ve never made one, but at the end of last year BebaBlanket came up with a test for her Mosaic Temperature Blanket. It was launched as a free Cal (Crochet Along) in January and I was happy to test the four patterns she designed for it. Until then, I knew what a temperature blanket was, but I never really dealt with this subject. Through the discussions in her Facebook group I realized how diverse this topic actually can be.
Before I started this test and before I was able to observe the plans of others, my basic knowledge looked something like this:
A temperature blanket is a long-term project over a certain period of time, mostly a whole year. It is made to reflect the temperature curve at a particular location. Typically one row of the blanket stands for one day of the year and a certain color for a certain temperature.
Sounded a bit boring to me….. I think the temperatures in my place are not very interesting. It is not really cold in winter, it is mild in spring and autumn and in the last few years the summers have been just hot. And following one pattern for a whole year? That’s not mine …
Strangely enough, I never thought about the fact that it doesn‘t necessarily have to be my home that the blanket is about. It can just as well be the place of a family member, the place of a dear friend, a favorite holiday destination … just any place somewhere in the world …
And it is similar with the period of time that is considered. It may or may not be the current year. Basically you can use a temperature blanket to record all important times in your life. Or at least most. I searched the internet for the temperature on my day of birth and I didn’t manage to get any dates. Perhaps it’s too long ago. But it shouldn’t be a problem to go twenty or twenty-five years back. Just search for keywords like weather and history and you will get a lot of results.
Seen in this way, a temperature blanket can also be a very personal and unique gift. In one FB-group I read about a lady who was going to make a gift for her son’s 18th birthday. She choose the temperatures form the day of his birth until his first birthday. That is such a lovely idea! Or you can mark a very special day in a special color or a special yarn!
I knew that the temperature curve can be based on the highest, lowest or average temperatures of a day. I also knew that it is recommended to use temperature steps between two and five degrees to assign the colors. But I never thought about combining for instance the highest and lowest temperature or adding details about the weather like sunny, rainy and so on.
Another essential thing I realized when I measured my test swatch and did some maths: for a temperature blanket it can be more important than usual to think about the yarn you want to use. A 365-day blanket, made with DK yarn, will become over 2 meters long. So, if you don’t want to make a queen size blanket you might want to choose a thinner quality.
And just to make the theme complete: The colors are, as always, a matter of taste. A lot of people choose rainbow colors, but meanwhile I’ve seen a lot of color schemes that deviate from it, using only blues, or only reds….. I think there is only one rule: the more colors you chose, the smaller the temperature steps and the more colorful the blanket will be. For a less colorful blanket, simply choose less colors and larger temperature steps.
So many possibilities I never thought about……
As I said, I never planned to make a temperature blanket – and I am still not going to make one. But I I fell in love with the little swatch I made when testing for BebaBlanket. And, as I also like the three other patterns she designed for the blanket, I decided to use up my scrap yarn and follow the pattern for most of the year. I have a lot of yarn from which I have only one ball or even less, so this is a good project to finally use it up. I will show you the details and my progress in one of my next posts.
If I have piqued your interest, you find the pattern here in her Ravelry store.
Today I searched for some photos and came across this one by chance. I put this together at the beginning of the year as a review of my tests in 2020. I was surprised how many there were. Every single one of them was great fun.
I have been thinking about it for a long time. I‘ve been thinking about wether I should write a blog, wether I will have the time and, above all, wether I will have enough topics. I am still not 100% sure about that but I decided to give it a go.
I thought nowadays it would be easy to create a website or a blog. A lot of provider offer domains (free or paid) and modular systems to create websites. I had no idea were the differences were and what would be the best for my purposes. So I had no choice but to take a closer look at some of them and – hmm – I think I learned something for life.
There is an overwhelming deluge of pre-made templates out there for all sort of purposes – some are free, some are not. Some can be edited on the tablet, others work better on the pc, some can hardly be changed at all without programming knowledge.
I am a visual person and also a bit of a perfectionist. I know crochet terms in different languages but I don’t know any programming. And as I am not earning money with this blog I wanted to keep my costs low for the start. Therefore it was impossible to get the perfect looking website with the design, the fonts and the colors I wanted. So I decided to postpone my claims for now and started here, just to see how it goes.
Another thing I learned is: writing a blog post is more time consuming as I thought. It is not just about finding the right words to express your thoughts. I also still spend a lot of time with formatting and arranging. Well, I think I will get used to this. So,
Welcome to my blog, I am happy that you found me!
I’d like to show you some of my work, mostly the results of my crochet tests. I am testing usually patterns for blankets, home decor and shawls but also Amigurumi. But I am sure that there also will be some of my “Me”-projects to show.
At the moment my favorites are patterns in Mosaic crochet. So I just started a blanket by Ana Morais Soares (One skein of Love). Besides I am testing several patterns for BebaBlanket and some of them will be released during the next weeks so that I can show them afterwards. And there are still many more ideas……
Hooked on Häkelmaschen 