SCHEEPJES Dawn Chorus Pick & Mix CKAL Experience

Big News:

“10 Years of Crafting Along
It’s 10 years since the first-ever Scheepjes CAL, and Scheepjes is celebrating our 10 years of community crafting with four projects! For the first time ever, it’s possible to choose whether to knit or crochet the projects in our CKAL – that’s a Crochet- or a Knit-A-Long! Free online patterns will be provided for both options for all three Dawn Chorus kits (see below). These three projects will be released in succession; the CKALs will run from late winter into summer.A different fourth project will be released for autumn 2024, also with a free online pattern.“

When my Friends from the Netherlands asked if I would like to be part of their 2024 Pick & Mix CKAL I felt very honoured and I did not hesitate to to say “YES, YES, YES” without even knowing what the theme would be. When they told me that they want me to create BIRDS related patterns, I was even more excited.

Even if I am not an expert of ornithology, I always was fascinated by those little flying fellas and I tried for years to take good pictures of the birds in my garden and the woods near by. I live in an environment where I can see a lot of birds on a daily basis and it really was hard to pick one who should be the inspiration for the pattern.

When I scrolled through my bird pics and saw all the Birds I use to take photos of, there was one picture that was a little special. I found quite a lot of pictures of Bullfinches, Blue tits, Crested Tits and Great Tits, Nuthatches and of course some of the mighty Great Grey Owl (which even got an own blog post back in the days).

But I also found this picture of a Goldcrest sitting on my porch. I remembered that this little fella sat there because he might have crashed into the window. I took a picture because I never had seen a Goldcrest near my house. I kept an eye on the bird and saw that he recovered fast and was gone within a few minutes. When this memory came up I decided that this brave little bird had to be the inspiration for my patterns.

The Pick & Mix concept is to create two similar patterns, one knitted and one crocheted. I have to admit that this task was much more complicated than I thought from the very beginning, but in the end and with a lot of help of more experienced knitters we managed to create two fun rectangular scarf patterns with similar designs using two different crafts.

Both patterns are using the moss stitch and an integrated mosaic part (of course one in knitting and one in crochet). The crochet scarf is slightly wider and a little longer(26 x180cm) then the knitted version (25 x 170cm) but both scarfs are just fine to wear for adults and kids depending on how you bind it. The crochet pattern not only inspired by the Goldcrest but even by the “French Braid” pattern by Cypress Textiles which I highly recommend if you want to dive deeper into the technique of moss stitch crochet.

For my part of the Pick & Mix CKAL there will be special kits available at your local Scheepjes Dealer and there will also be a retailer thread in the official Scheepjes groups (international group and nederlandse groep) where retailers will let the members know they have the kits in stock.

Kit Specifications/Contents
Box dimensions 31.5 x 23.5 x 8cm
RRPs €54.95 | £47.85 | USD 64.00
Yarn Scheepjes Metropolis 7 x 50g balls
Extras Set of 3 postcards • Notebook • Washi tape

The amount of yarn included in the kits is enough for one scarf (knitted or crochted)

My part of the Pick & Mix CKAL will be the first of 4 parts and runs over 4 weeks from the 24 of January to the 14 of February.

I will be releasing blogposts and helpful tips throughout the four weeks of the CKAL including videos, extra photos, handy tips and additional details to aid participants. As usual there will be a lot of support of the admins and moderators in the Scheepjes Facebook Groups.

The Goldcrest patterns will be available for FREE via Scheepjes website in Dutch, English (UK & US terms), and German via Official Scheepjes Facebook Groups International + Dutch as below.
Official Scheepjes International Facebook Group – Official Scheeppjes Nederlandse Facebook Groep

The official hashtags that we are going to use are: #ScheepjesCkal #GoldcrestScarf #ScheepjesMetropolis

I really also want to thank all people who have been and will be involved in this forthcoming CKAL. We are doing this together!

Please use them so we can find your wonderful versions on social media.

I really hope you will join the Dawn Chorus 2024 Pick & Mix CKAL Experience and have fun with it.

More to come from Up North soon…