It’s here – and my it’s big!  Since Sarah Jayne unveiled box six on her YouTube channel I have been chomping at the bit for it to arrive.  This box is almost twice as deep as previous boxes so expectations were high. It took a little longer to arrive thanks to Black Friday shopping and I missed the postie while I was at work so I had to dash home from work to get to the sorting office to collect it.  My husband had offered to pick it up for me but on seeing the queue for collections I am glad that I had gone to collect it as I don’t think he cares enough about the boxes to stand in the cold to wait! First impressions, I was a little disappointed not to see a yarn cake in the box if I’m completely honest.  I had hoped that by now we would have got a lovely cake of pretty colours to crochet with and had convinced myself that the larger box was to accommodate a yarn cake. That’s not to say that I disliked the box though, here are my thoughts…

Box Contents

Yarn

This month’s yarn is Bella Coco branded aran yarn.  It is a delightfully soft cotton acrylic mix yarn and the colours are Polar (white) and Glacier (blue).  We have two 100g balls of yarn, each ball contains 200m of squishy goodness. As with the last box, this is a limited edition yarn though the booklet has a lovely section on page 16 advising alternatives that can be used to make the patterns in the book.  The yarn provided was, for the first time, enough to make all three projects in the book. As regular readers will know, I like to make all three designs in the book and usually have to either buy extra or stash dive for replacement yarn to finish all three, so it was definitely a pleasant surprise.  

This yarn was a dream to work with, I loved the feel of it and it worked up really well.  It was slightly thicker than the aran weight yarn I usually buy which gave the finished items a more luxurious feel.  It did split a little bit but I think that is probably just the nature of the mixed fibres as I have splits from cotton yarns quite frequently.  However this did not affect the enjoyment of using it. This is a much nicer ‘own brand’ yarn that I’ve had during the subscription and would definitely consider buying it should it ever come on the market.

One thing that does bother me though is that, while this yarn was amazing, this is the second non-branded yarn that I’ve had.  I don’t mind this too much but if I like a yarn, I would like to be in a position that I could buy an exact match to it. There is a page with suggested yarns to use as substitutes but these would not produce the same look/feel to an item as the original.

Crochet Goodies

This months main crochet extra was a project planner.  I love the look and feel of it though this is an item that will probably not get used.  I am probably the least organised person I know and I don’t really track my projects all that much to make it worthwhile using for my crochet.  I have however, been using it to plan my weekly meals and shopping lists so it’s not going to waste.

The other items in the box were the usual items we see in each box, a lovely stitch marker, a postcard with crochet terms on the reverse and toy stuffing.  This month’s hook is a 4.5mm in a lovely gradient of the two colours of the yarn in the box.

Pattern Book

This month’s book features a chat with designer Caitie Moore of Thoresby Cottage who designed the first project – a chevron stitch clutch.  On page 16 is a feature on substituting your yarn with some suggested alternatives, having worked with two of the yarns featured – the Stylecraft and Caron Simply Soft – I can say that neither would truly replicate the feel of the yarn provided in the box.  While both yarns are lovely to work with in themselves, they do not have the same feel as the Bella Coco aran.

There is also a feature on sorting your stash, this is something I think my husband wishes I would pay attention to!  I am a hoarder of yarn and I haven’t stopped buying yarn (though I don’t buy as often now) which means I have yarn literally everywhere in the house.  Open a cupboard or a drawer expecting to find something else and you can almost guarantee there will be a ball or two of yarn. I will make an effort in 2020 to get things sorted out as I feel like I’m getting to the stage where I have forgotten what I have and end up buying yarn that I didn’t need.

One thing I did find in this book however, were a few typos in the patterns themselves.  A couple of instances that I can remember involved places where I should have been slip stitching at the end of a round instead of carrying on in the amigurumi style.  This didn’t have a huge effect on the finished items however but I do feel that it may have put off someone newer to crochet than myself.

Projects

Ice Queen Slippers

The first design that I crocheted was the slippers.  I had a Christmas meal I was going to at the weekend after receiving my box and I had a friend that I hadn’t made anything for so when I saw this design I knew it had to be her gift.  I really liked the look of these slippers, having never made anything like this before I was pleased to see that it was worked fairly simply. You start by working in joined rounds for several rounds and then converting to working in rows until it was the right size.  After completing the main body of the slipper, you join the back seam and edge with a round of double crochet. The mobius twist is where I came across one of the first errors in the pattern, well it was more of an omission really, the instruction to join the rounds with a slip stitch had not been put in which meant that the first twist that I made ended up being done in a spiral like amigurumi.  It wasn’t until I watched the tutorial video that I realised the mistake and corrected this on the second twist.

Overall this was a nice pattern to make, it contained simple but decorative stitches and it only took a few hours to make both slippers.  I may make myself a pair if I find time between all of my other projects as they look and feel so nice. Until I have made myself a pair, I cannot comment on the sizing though I have noticed a couple of comments on the Crochet Society Facebook page saying they have come out a little big.

Eddy the Yeti

My two girls were over the moon when they caught sight of this pattern and immediately started fighting over who got to keep him when I finished.  This argument was settled by my wrapping it up as a present for a friend’s little girl! Now, I have not made a secret of the fact that I don’t like doing amigurumi because I can’t seem to make toys look how they should according to the pattern.  Eddy, like Girolle the polar bear, was an exception for me. I found the pattern easy to follow, only needing to refer to the video for the section where you crochet in the arms – a joining method I much prefer to sewing together as this is where I seem to go wrong.  

While outside of the box patterns I wouldn’t ordinarily choose to make a toy, doing this box and deciding to make all of the patterns in each box for this blog, has really helped my confidence.  While I still have some epic fails (I never got around to photographing the horror that was Carolle the Cactus), I am starting to see an improvement in my toy making.

Snowy Mountain Clutch 

Amazingly, after doing the last two projects, I suspected that I may have enough yarn to complete the last pattern of the book, a little clutch bag done in chevron stitch.  Preparing myself for a game of yarn chicken, I bravely begin the pattern. This was, for me the most intimidating pattern in the book, I have never done well while attempting chevron stitch and expected to experience the same issue of wonky edges and constant stitch gains and losses.  I don’t know what it is about the chevron stitch that catches me out all the time. I have done much more complicated patterns of stitches and been fine but every time I attempt a chevron throw, I end up frogging it and making something else.

Anyway, for the first time, I successfully managed to complete a ripple stitch pattern and it looks as it does in the picture!  I found this pattern really easy to follow and didn’t need to refer to the tutorial video at all for help, and I won at yarn chicken!  Well it wasn’t too difficult as after completing all three patterns I had two small balls of yarn left to go into the pile of bits that I have no idea what to do with.  

Overall I liked this box, while the planner doesn’t really rock my boat, the yarn and patterns more than made up for that for me.  I am starting to plan how to save up so that I can afford to pay for a year up front so that I can get a discount on my boxes as it is clear that I am going to continue subscribing, I may bite the bullet and use my credit card.
If reading this has made you want to subscribe to the box too, you can find details at www.crochetsociety.co.uk – happy hooking!