New Year, New Beginning

It is 2010 everyone! This year I made a resolution to be happier and I am already off to a good start. Spending time with friends and family has truly been wonderful. I am also feeling all 'gung ho' about crafting. For your viewing pleasure I will post the beginnings of a hat that I started last night. My sister in law gave me this yarn for Christmas. Yay!


Happy New Year!!!!!

Raspberry Hat/Cowl

I fell in love with this convertible hat/cowl pattern by April Draven. The pattern called for bead at the ends but I made pom poms because I have never made them. Oh how I love making pom poms....I could make them all day long.

Slippas for my Sista....in-law

So I am 99% sure that my sister-in-law does not read my blog, so it's safe to post the gift I made for her here. They are really cute, I want some for me. I bought the pattern off etsy from Adventures of Jessica Rose.

I cannot say these were easy to make. I am in a crochet/knit slump right now (if you didn't notice due to lack of posting). I will work something up and then tear it apart. And my stash has got me really down. I feel like I shouldn't buy anymore yarn until I get rid of it all. But its all so uninspiring. I just needed some inspiration....AND I think it might have arrived. Winter is here! Thursday morning its supposed to get down to -6 degrees. Holy Moly! Hopefully my blog will be full of posts in the months to come!!!

Issac's Hat post #2

My friend's, Maria and Ron, sent a photo of their son Issac wearing the hat I made for him last year. He is so adorable....right? He loves that guitar. I saw a video of him rocking out with that guitar. He could be a very talented performer one day.

Bobble Beagle Cowl

I decided on Sunday to make myself some boot warmers because its getting colder by the minute here. So I am crocheting along and what do you know I have semi-circle. That's what you get for crocheting during an episode of Fringe. So... what do we have here? A beagle cowl of course! Thanks Mona for being such a great model (that was the least blurry photo I could capture). I am considering knitting or crocheting a body to attach it to. But she doesn't look very thrilled as is. I am thrilled, however, for finally working my way through a stash of blah orange yarn that I bought last year before I learned about specialty yarns. Still have lots left, better get to making those boot warmers.

"Bobble" is the stitch I used.. in case you were wondering about the title.

For those who want to know how to do this bobble stitch:

dc 5 in same stitch, leaving one loop on hook per dc (pull through first 2 loops after the first yo and then pull through one loop the second yo leaving a loop on the hook). After completing 5 of these you should have 6 loops on hook. yo and pull through all stitches remaining on hook. finish by slip stitching.

I've been lazy, sorry the photos still have a halo. I will send it off soon.

Fingerless Gloves # 2

Wearing my fingerless gloves to work made my co-worker say "Ooh I want some of those." Hi Jen!

She requested light yellow and grey. I used bigger buttons this time, because the last ones were too small and didn't stay buttoned.

This is just one glove, I lost 3 buttons on my way home from the craft store or while I was IN the craft store, so I have to go buy some more. I hope they have the same ones :)

PS- I am sending my camera in for sensor cleaning tomorrow, so hopefully it will fix my grainy/blurry photo problems.

PSS-Yay! My dumb ass just figured out how to hyperlink today!

PSSS-Happy Sunday!

Brown Hat

It's officially hat season in Chi-town, so Justin requested another hat. Pattern found here.

I modified it by doing 11 rounds for Justin's head and adding one black stripe using single crochet front loop only.

Mona is looking at me like "Where is my hat? And why are you on the internet when you should be walking me?" Must walk that beast! Hope everyone's weekend was as nice as mine!

Crocheted Canister

I had some wool yarn that I accidentally bought, MEANING I bought it without a project in mind. That is illegal from now on, because I am running out of yarn stash space. So since it was wool, I set out to try a felting project. Felting failed! I don't own my own washer/dryer so I tried the stove top boiling method and it didn't work for me. I think maybe a special felting wool is the trick, I bought wool of the standard variety.

I had made a Pink canister. I liked the way it turned out. Now to find a use for it! It's out of my stash, but now I need to find shelf space for it.

This is not a pattern by any means, but if you want to try and replicate it, here's how I went about it:

1) Crocheted a flat circle using single crochet

2) Crocheted a tube using single crochet

3) Single crocheted the 2 pieces together.

4) Blocked it using a cookie jar with the hard edge bottom on the outside

Fingerless Glove Pretties

Aren't these just fun? It only took me a few hours to do these. I bought the pattern here. I might even make some more. I really liked the yellow ones she has in her store, but I couldn't find any nice yellow yarns. But the turqoise/mint is really cute. I even got to wear them today, since it was in the 40's this morning.

To Frog...

Yep so I am officially frogging the ripple blanket. Starting over, going to try replacing the orange with an off-white. It will be more girly but I am ok with that. So the color palette will be more like this since I already have a ton of purple and red. I am super depressed about restarting, but hopefully I will be more in the mood to work on it once I switch the colors out. So question....Should I 1) restart and throw what I have away? 2) Unravel and wind and then restart? I know its wasteful to toss all that yarn in the garbage. But unraveling will take me at least a week! Feedback please.

Desert Sand Scarf

My latest and greatest. This was a much needed selfish project! I'm keeping this one for myself. It was so nice to have something new to wear today. And what a perfect rainy, chilly, fall day. This one worked up quite fast. I found the pattern here.

It was easy schmeasy. Doesn't it remind you of that desert that you have never been to but only only seen photos of?

As you can see I'm up to my old antics of self modeling and self photographing. Neither of which I am good at. Yep, its a me day!

*desert image brought to you by the great wondrous interweb and sponsored by a google image search (I didn't write down that site address)

In the bucket

So since I haven't blogged in awhile, I thought I would give you a sneak peak of some the little things I have started. Some really haven't been started at all, the fabric is still in the "idea" phase. I realized the other day, I am really attracted to Orange and Green things right now. My whole apartment is decorated with Orange and Green. The recent architecture competition I entered has an Orange and Green scheme to it. And all the fabric and yarn I am buying is Orange and Green. Hmm?

I'm having a crafta-thon today since its raining, we will have to see what all these things become.

New Yarn

New Yarn, new projects. I have lots of new projects starting up. I purchased this yarn from Kangaroodyer to make something for a friend. I should have photographed it when it was still a hank, but I forgot. My thumb is sore from winding it last night while watching Weekend at Bernies. I miss those silly 80's films where nothing had to make sense.

I will post more when the yarn becomes something.

Scrubby

A dish scrubby I made in minutes. I found the pattern here

Follow the leader, leader, leader...Sigame!!!!

The title is from this cuban pop song....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhG_RMa7yH4

Love that song! And it goes with the post so...

The benches at the bus stop at Belmont and Broadway (77 Westbound) are not very popular for sitting. I actually have never seen anyone sitting there in the morning. But it was a sleepy Tuesday morning and I said "What the hell." I started something because seconds after I sat, three business men also sat down and we were very tight on space. Then one

business man got up and another girl took his place. I guess everyone was having a sleepy Tuesday.

Sigame (from the song) means "Follow me" in spanish. In case you didn't get that. Speaking of following (this is a stretch), I'm getting closer to repeating my blanket colors. I have one more color to add before they repeat. Opinions are welcome, frogging still an option.

Knit and Gnat

Knit, being the knitwear on the trees over by my place. I came across this blog awhile ago http://microfibermilitia.blogspot.com/ but didn't realize there were pieces by my place. Pretty fun huh?

Gnat, being the chatty dude that stopped me while taking this photo to ask "Why are you taking a picture of that tree?" I shouldn't call him a gnat, that's mean, but it rhymed so what the hell. But it was annoying. Non-natives of Chicago will find that these instances occur more often than you like.

I explained to him the reason for the photo, he shrugged his shoulders and said "Huh! Tree sweaters!"

You see that white haze in the background of the photo? Why is my new camera doing this to me? Anyone know why or how to fix it? Alicia?

To frog or not to frog, that is the question...

(Sigh) So I spent quite a few hours on my ripple blanket this weekend. I got to the first row of purple and thought "These colors are horrible." I think its the orange that is throwing everything off, it has that slight macaroni and cheese yellow tint to it. But then I played around in photoshop and it seems like it COULD work out? I still have 2 darker shades of purple coming. I figured I would work until the next red row and then decide to frog it or not. But then I think, do I really want to work that much only to frog it?

Frogging, as I have recently become aware of, means: To rip out your knit or crochet project and start over or start over where you made a mistake. Apparently its roots came from the phrase "Rip it...Rip it" get it?

I would be interested in any comments on my progress thus far. Colorwise.

Birthday Scarf

With the Desert Mariposa Lily yarn that I posted awhile back, I crocheted my friend, Alicia, a summer scarf for her Birthday. I love the yarn, it made for a really soft and stretchy scarf. I know knitters and crocheters alike would kill me for using the most basic single crochet stitch to make it. But it came out super nice. If I would have tried a fancy pattern it would have been full of mistakes. Anywho...she got it. Here she is looking very beautiful! I got to wear it on my trip to Milwaukee because it was 50 degrees that day. And even though its 105 most days in DFW, the air conditioning can be pretty intense, so she can use it for going to the cinema, shopping, and really cold restaurants or working from her home office. She has a blog too about her vegan journey and other fun stuff! You can find her here: http://aliciabrooks.blogspot.com/

New Yarn

Yay! New crochet project! So I got some feedback, but I decided to go with my original yarn colors...sorry Kayla! But here they are, I like the priority mail text inside the box! I am going to need a lot more yarn than this, but I wanted to work up a couple of rows and gauge how much I will need. I ordered it online (caron.com) and it shipped from within my state and the shipping was super cheap. This way I am not left high and dry if the stores run out of my colors and I am being eco-friendly. I will keep you posted on my progress. And I have also started my Dad's scarf and have finished Alicia's. Alicia's post is coming next.

Color Recommendations

So I am starting a blanket soon. I will either do a granny square or a ripple blanket. Examples of each can be found here and here. Curious if anyone has any color scheme ideas. I kinda want to keep it to 6 colors or under. Please leave a comment if you have any ideas. This is one I am thinking of. But please suggest another, I need more input before starting such a big project.