A long overdue catch up: 2017 so far…

Hello, Friends!

2017 has been flying by so I thought it about time to take stock of what’s been happening this year so far.

Following the Share the Love Heart project back in February (read about it here) the year got off to a fabulous start with so much interest in crochet workshops! I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and teaching so many people how to crochet this year, and it’s been lovely to see so many familiar faces coming back to try their skills at more advanced Amigurumi projects like these really cute cacti below!

Cute little crochet cacti for my introduction to amigurumi workshops earlier this year.

Now that it’s autumn, I’ve had another surge of interest and it’s fantastic! My projects are always themed with the seasons and I find this time of year the most inspiring. Two of my projects take particular inspiration from Hop Tu Naa, a tradition on the Isle of Man that shares similar roots with Halloween. My Manx moots (turnips) and Jinny the Witch Hats have gone down a treat so far so I’m really excited to hold those workshops in October! If you’d like to read more about moots and Hop Tu Naa I wrote a blog post all about them last year.

Some of the workshop projects I’ll be teaching over Autumn (right to left): Toadstools, Moots (turnips) and Jinny the Witch Hats

One of the biggest goals I achieved this year was to finally set up an Etsy Shop! It took a lot longer than I thought it would and a lot more bravery to finally click publish but by July I did it (6 months after initially saying I would go for it isn’t too bad going, right?)! Once it was done I’d felt like a huge weight had been lifted. And despite not having a huge amount of stock there, I am just so pleased that I managed to get it set up and have it as something to work on and improve as I go. I think the lesson I learnt here was not to strive for perfection because otherwise you never feel ready, instead just go for it. Even if it needs a little tweaking now and again, it’s better to have something set up that you can work on rather than putting it off time after time all because it’s not your idea of ‘perfect’.

 

If you’d like to have a little look at my Etsy page you can here.

Another amazing thing that happened this year was that one of my patterns got published in a magazine! I revised my Moon Garland from a previous blog post and the new 2.0 version is in issue 19 of Crochet Now! I’m so proud of this achievement and so pleased with the way the project was styled and featured in the magazine. My Phases of the Moon Garland was inspired by my love of all things celestial. I am very lucky to live where I do because the island has the most concentrated Dark Skies sites in the British Isles, which is perfect for star gazing! I love to be able to just step outside my door on a clear evening and look up.

 

If you’d like to get hold of a print or digital copy you can find out how to here.

Thank you so much for taking the time to catch up on what’s been going on this year. Hopefully the rest of 2017 will be just as exciting! If you’d like more regular updates pop over to my Facebook and Instagram pages.

For now though, lots of love and happy Autumn!

Gráinne x

(rhymes with narnia)

Moots vs. Pumpkins: An Ode to a Turnip

The 31st October approaches, and it is at this time of year that the Isle of Man tends to fall into two camps: Are you team pumpkin or team turnip?

In the Isle of Man we celebrate Hop Tu Naa. Without going into a full blown out explanation, it is, in a nutshell, old Celtic New Year. It marks the changing of the seasons from Autumn into Winter. In the tradition of Hop Tu Naa we carve turnips into lanterns (known as moots to any Manxie worth their salt) because that is what grows here.

Little moots (as turnips are known here on the Isle of Man) ready to be strung up into a garland.

Though there are a lot of similarities with modern Halloween, (like how we also dress up to scare away the evil spirits), there are important differences too which is why it shouldn’t be mistaken for the ‘Manx version of Halloween’ or become so easily merged into obscurity with wider Halloween celebrations. Key differences include singing the huge variety of Hop Tu Naa songs sung all over the island depending on where you’re from; or dancing the Hop Tu Naa dance at a Celi instead of Trick or Treating for the biggest haul of sweets you can get your hands on. For myself, I feel that it is more wholesome to take on the labourious task of carving a turnip and to sing and dance to Hop Tu Naa songs. It is also important in that it helps to promote and keep alive Manx culture. Something that should definitely be cherished and celebrated.

However, since globalisation and Americanisation it’s not hard to see how or why the pumpkin has grown in popularity and availability. It is aesthetically appealing in its vibrant orange colours, perfectly smooth and round in shape, delicious to bake and cook with, and, it is also way easier to carve.

Why bother with the turnip then? The moot in comparison is thoroughly more difficult to carve (I advise drills…), not so pretty to look at, definitely not perfectly spherical, and turnip pie? …perhaps not. But, despite the perhaps more obvious appeal of pumpkins and Halloween, I feel the humble moot needs its champions here on the Isle of Man. Sure, it’s ugly, but that’s what we love about them! They come in a whole spectrum of greens, yellows and deep purples. It’s lumps and bumps are what gives it character (sometimes literally). The years spent carving facial features based purely around it’s bumps and lumps is what gave it charm. Plus, there is nothing like the smell of freshly burning turnip. Once the tealights are lit and placed carefully inside the finished lantern that took you several hours to complete, you can breathe in a great sigh of turnip-y relief. It is the smell of victory! So this is why I say to you that we need to keep this tradition of turnip lanterns and Hop Tu Naa alive and distinct, celebrating them in their own right and recognising their meaning as a turnip-y beacon of Manx culture in the modern day.

That being said, there is a lot of enthusiasm for keeping Hop Tu Naa traditions alive if you know where to find it. But because of the similarities of dressing up and carving vegetable lanterns, it is in danger of becoming swallowed by the American image of modern Halloween. I am not against Halloween in any way, nor am I against the tide of modernity but I do feel strongly that Hop Tu Naa should be valued in it’s own right alongside Halloween rather than to be seen only as a quaint extension of it or the Manx version of it.

So that’s why this year I will be carrying on my tradition of carving a turnip, (with a drill if necessary!) because it just wouldn’t be the same without the smell of burnt turnip in the cold October air.

Whatever you are carving this weekend, spare a thought to the humble turnip and what it represents to the Manx people in all it’s gnarly and deformed glory.

Love, Gráinne x

(Rhymes with Narnia)

Crochet Leaf Tutorial

Hello, hope you’ve all been having a lovely weekend?

Here is a lovely and quick little tutorial I’d like to share with you for making these wee Autumnal leaves. I made ones of this shape and size to add a bit of contrast to the larger sycamore leaves that featured in my Autumn Wreath post (which you can see here). They would also make such a sweet garland, and can be made in any colour scheme of your choosing.

A note to international crocheters. I have used UK terminology throughout so it may be worth keeping a conversion chart handy.

Each leaf measures approximately 7-8cm when made in cotton with 3.5mm hook but will vary depending on whether you use a larger or smaller hook.

You will need

You can use up any of your small amounts of yarn with a corresponding hook size.
I have used 100% cotton yarn with a 3.5mm hook.
Scissors
Darning needle to sew in ends
Blocking optional

Abbreviations

MR -Magic Ring
Sl St- Slip Stitch
Ch -Chain
Dc- Double Crochet
Htr- Half Treble
Tr- Treble
Dtr- Double Treble
Picot- Chain 3, slip stitch in first chain to create point

Pattern

Note: All instructions contained within brackets are all made into the same stitch

Setting up: MR, ch3, 10dc into ring, sl st join

Leaf shaping: (ch1, dc), (dc, htr), (htr, tr), (2tr), (tr, dtr), (2dtr, picot, 2dtr), (dtr, tr), (2tr), (tr, htr), (htr, dc), dc in next stitch, sl st into next stitch

Stalk: Ch7, sl st in 2nd ch from hook and then into each remaining ch, sl st into base of leaf.

Fasten off and sew in ends.

Below are some progress pictures to help you along. If you have any questions at all about understanding this pattern please don’t hesitate to leave me a comment or send me a message on my facebook page by searching ‘Yarny Grainney’.

Enjoy and happy leaf making!

Love, Grainney x

(Rhymes with Narnia)

 

Autumn Wreath

So I’ve finally finally made an Autumnal wreath. Yay! It’s something which appears on my to-do list every single year around the end of summer/beginning of Autumn and I just never get around to it (especially as the pressure to make for that Mid-Winter festival we all know and love starts to creep in). It’s sounds silly to say but being half-way through October I should really be well on my way with making my Winter collection for fairs but the truth is that I just can’t help but cling onto Autumnal things well into October and occupy myself with October/Autumnal/Hop-Tu-Naa inspired projects. This might be the reason why I can never get everything done, hmm…

I took a lot of inspiration for my wreath from a Harvest Festival garland/wreath project I saw in Simply Crochet issue 49. I used the sycamore leaf and pinecone patterns from the project but the smaller leaves and acorns are my own. My wreath is also a lot smaller in size and I’ve used my own arrangement and colour choices for it. I used a wire wreath from Sweet Ginger Emporium in Ramsey, IOM, and wrapped polyester wadding around it to create a nice padded bit that I could pin and sew the leaves onto. Those cute wee toadstools are from Sweet Ginger too, I thought they added a nice pop to it. The stag and bird ornaments are my own and are not attached to the final piece but I thought they looked so peachy in there whilst I was photographing it!

I made this wreath partly to show what you can do with small 2D and 3D makes other than just garlands. I have made a lot of garlands in my time and there are only so many you can hang up or try to push onto others. I thought this was a nice alternative. I’m excited to try making some Winter-inspired ones in time for my next fair in November!

Have you made any autumnal wreaths? I’d love to know if anyone does it other than just at Christmas?

Hope you’re all having a lovely Friday!

Love, Gráinne

(rhymes with Narnia) x

Phases of the Moon Garland

It’s October and my crochet to do list is ever growing! But, despite all that, this is something that I’ve been wanting to create for quite some time. I’m pretty obsessed with the moon & stars and since the nights have been getting darker it seemed very fitting to get it made. Around this time last year I got up at 3am, to watch the eclipse (madness I know!) but despite the sheer horrendousness of waking up not long after getting into a deep deep sleep, I found it so magical and was really glad I went. We are really lucky on the Isle of Man when it comes to star gazing (and moon gazing), there are very few areas that are so light polluted that you can’t get a clear view. In fact, I’m very proud to say that we have been named one of the best Dark Skies areas in Britain. We have a lot of countryside so it’s really easy to see the night sky very clearly and we often see the Milky Way right above our house on a cloudless night.

Aside from all the physical inspiration behind the garland, it’s also soon approaching Hop Tu Naa (for those who aren’t familiar with this I explained more about what it is in my previous post here). And my party theme this year is going to be all things Pagan. It means different things to different people but my interpretation of it is going to be very celestial. This garland is so far the first thing I’ve made for the party and won’t be the last (including my costume)! I went slightly mad pinning away potential party decoration ideas so on top my massive to-do list I’ll be trying to tick off as many things from that board as possible. Wish me luck! And look out for party posts later in the month.

What are you making this October? I’d love to know! Happy Monday, folks!

Love, Grainney

(rhymes with Narnia) x