Saturday, January 22, 2011

Block Party!

Well, I finally successfully blocked crocheted pieces for the first time yesterday. First was this pink shawl. The yarn was so cheap it felt like stealing (79 cents each!). It was the promotional color from october, which I bought in mid-November. I picked up the only three skeins thay had, vowing to do something with it, just not knowing what.

So one day I was looking through patterns I had been collecting on my computer, trying to figure out if I had enough yarn for one of them. I did. and it was such an easy pattern that I could easily make it longer ot shorter, depending on how much yarn I had. So I got started. As is typical for me these days, the pattern quickly changed from what was printed to what I wanted.

About halfway through the pattern, the recipient changed from me, to my sister, as I drew her name for secret santa. Now I really enjoyed making it as it was no longer something I was doing for myself. I guess I'll save that keeper project for when I finally get some lace yarn.
So here is a close-up view. As I was unpinning it this morning I was thinking that the next time I do this pattern, I might try pinning the edging, and giving it a little breathing room. I noticed when it was dry that it looked somewhat cramped in comparison with the rest of the shawl. Sorry Ginger.



Here's the full view right after I was done pinning it.




And here's my daughter wearing it.




Here's how it fits on an adult.




This is a hat I made not too long ago. It's really cute, but the edging was a bit too crazy in the yarn's natural state, so I thought I'd try blocking just the edging, to get those ruffles under control.


And this is a scarf I made a while back. Now that it's finally blocked I can add the fringe and put it in my box of craft fair stuff. Or sell it on etsy. decisions, decisions...








This is the last piece I have to show, and I can't even show all of it, because it's a surprise. But I was so excited I just had to post it! I'll post the full picture after it's given.



By the way, the shawl is based on Refracted Light Shawl from http://www.universalyarn.com/

The hat is Betty from Kreamer Yarns

The scarf is original

The blue one, well, I'm not yet telling.



And all of a sudden, I have no crochet works-in-progress. Geez, what happened?










































































Sunday, January 16, 2011

dreaming in yarn...

I have become a busy little bee in the past little while when it comes to crochet. I've finished 2 hats, almost finished a shawl, created a new shawl, tore it out, but not before writing down the pattern, started a scarf, and a bag, and somehow in the middle of all that, managed to keep dust and dishes under control. whew! I only wish my yarn would reproduce as fast as my dishes.

The new shawl, which is as yet unnamed, was actually loosely inspired by the Logwood Shawlette from crochetme.com (can you tell I like this site?) So after I got a few rows into it, I came to realise that the yarn the creator used, and the yarn I was using from my stash didn't match, nor did my yarn really work with the pattern (too stiff I think). So I took it out. Then I looked at the picture again, and thought to myself, how can I make this more...structured? and came up with this:

It's made up entirely of shells, v stitches, and chains, making it a very easy work up. The only down side? I didn't have enough yarn. So I wrote down the increase pattern and the first few rows so that I know what I'm doing (mostly because I've done it before), but I don't know about the rest of you people. It's a very rough workup so far, but if there's interest in the pattern, I can definitely get back to work on it, otherwise it will sit on my hard drive collecting what ever it is computer files collect, until I can justify the purchase of ever more yarn. Until, I will miss that shawl, I was really liking it.


So what did I do with the yarn? I balled it, then started work again. yeah, remember that scarf I mentioned before? This is the Queen Ann Lace Scarf from mypicot.com 's blog. It's very pretty. And so quick to work on too!

That's about it for my crochet adventures. I'll post pictures of the scarf and shawl later, when they're done. Well, the shawl might have to wait, seeing as though it's a surprise. I'll post it eventually...