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There is nothing like colour overload to get the creative ideas flowing! I recently received a super glorious yarn package from Scheepjes yarn company to design with, containing one ball of every colour of Maxi Sweet Treat – that’s 87 balls!! Seeing all of that colour, thrown together, Deee-lish! They are like little balls of candy! (I totally get why it’s called “Sweet Treat” and “Sugar Rush” for the 25g and 50g of Maxi mercerised cotton balls respectively).
Just quietly (or maybe not quietly), Maxi is my favourite mercerised cotton for fashion. This yarn has such beautiful stitch definition - perfect for crochet lace, with a slight sheen to the surface. When wet blocked it has excellent drape and feels soft on your skin. Sooo many colours too - you can't argue with that! I first used Maxi Sugar Rush to make my "Olga" Cardigan, which I am excited to say - has JUST been published in Scheepjes YARN 6 bookazine!! You can see for yourself how well it works for crochet lace garments. Scheepjes have kindly allowed me to show you one of their photos of my Olga cardigan design:
What a stunning vibrant photo shoot, don't you think? I just think candy, sweet candy, like my photo below - strangely I discover I have selected a similar colour palette for this photo, but it is purely a co-incidence, we must be in sync? (Lol).
Like many hooksters, crochet is one of many textile crafts I have dabbled with. Cross stitch, embroidery, tapestry, knitting, felting, quilting and clothes sewing are all great fun, and I have shared most of these endeavours with my Mum. When I first crocheted with the Maxi, I picked up the phone to tell her how good it was! As you do. We did the modern thing of talking on the phone while looking at the same (Scheepjes) website to browse and drool over yarn. We have done this many times looking at many yarn websites. Yarn shopping is always more fun (and dangerous) with a fellow yarnaholic at your side! Mum’s first comment “Ooh, 87 colours! The people in my felting group would love this!!” Felt fabric is beautiful to hand stitch into, and many felters use various stitchery to embellish their creations.
I think anyone who does needlecraft WOULD totally love it! It glides through felt without picking up fuzz from the wool, and provides a lovely sheen against the matt felt fabric. I know this because I made a little felt experiment!
I was so inspired upon receiving yarn candy in all colours of the rainbow (and then some), I immediately had to make something. Like, right now! I already had a ball of white Lopi wool in my stash somewhere, and decided to crochet and felt a small piece of that to stitch and crochet into with some Maxi. The most difficult decision was narrowing down my colour choices from 87 to 3 of them to use in my little project…. but I pushed through and chose colours 385 Chrystalline, 264 Light Coral and 390 Poppy Rose when I thought about what my intended recipient might like.
A little bit of blanket stitch here and a few rounds of crocheted petals there, add a flurry of French knots in the middle, et voila! A candy fresh flower to wear as a ring (or a brooch)! I glued it to a silver plated adjustable ring, made a ring box (I am guilty of a little papercrafting too), and posted it back to Simy Somer as a little gift for her faith in me to publish my design. I hope she likes it - I have my fingers crossed!!
I will be swatching hard with my delicious bounty of Maxi Sweet Treat, dreaming up a new garment soon...
Happy stitching of all kinds,
Susan