Category Archives: Crochet

Blanket interrupted

My 17 year old daughter decided to make a crocheted blanket for Project Linus and it inspired me to join in. We’ve both been working at our respective projects for a week or two now and are making fantastic progress. I’d upload pictures if the blog weren’t mildly broken at the moment (so much to tend to getting things running again!).

In any case, I finished my first skein and went to start the second…only to realize that the colors were off. It’s not so bad that I wouldn’t use it for myself but definitely bad enough that I wouldn’t gift or donate it. Apparently the dye lot wasn’t as consistent as I needed it to be. Going through the rest of the yarn netted three skeins that looked identical to each other and two more that were different to those. The one I had already worked up matched nothing.

So I guess it’s back to the drawing board. The yarn is a lovely mix of colors so it can be repurposed elsewhere. Hell of a way too grow your stash though!

Tap Tap Tap

So maybe 6 weeks ago my 2 oldest children started experimenting with crochet. Knowing I had once loved it beyond reason, they egged me on and egged me on until I finally picked it up again. And here we are.

I had put it down in the first place because I had developed problems with the coordination in my hands and it was just too frustrating to work at half the speed that I was once able to achieve. But when I started again I learned that I had adapted over the years and crochet felt as fluid to me as it ever had.

To be honest, I felt like I had a piece of my life back.

So now they’re working on their projects and I’m working on one of my favorite things…a simple granny square throw…and we sit together and bullshit while the hooks flash in and out of the growing fabrics and it’s about an awesome a thing as you can imagine.

So I had to come back here and chronicle my newest adventures. And celebrate with the internet. It’s rough out there, and it’s a great thing to note the little victories. That’s what keeps us sane and full of hope.

New pattern time! Introducing Pretty Little Shells.

This is a “spa cloth,” y’all, made from KnitPicks CotLin DK.

Seriously soft when washed, beautiful to look at, generously sized, and an easy gift project that will still stun the recipient…what’s not to love?

Available through Ravelry, Etsy, and right here on the site.

Gah! I drive myself crazy sometimes!

I left the sweater I was knitting at work.

Fail.

I guess I’ll just have to work on one of the afghans I’ve got going. There are only…4 of them? I think. 3. And a giant baby blanket. I think.

Time to go through the WIP baskets, methinks.

RHSS

I know it’s practically heretical, but I’ve talked here before about my love affair with RHSS (that would be Red Heart Super Saver, for any of you who have never had the pleasure of encountering an OMG-teh-ebil-squeaky-babby-melting-acrylic thread). There are…new colors. New colors that I must have. New colors that need to find their way into the giant-granny-square-blanket-that-may-never-be-finished. And scarves that won’t get ruined when thrown into the wash. And the sweaters I really want to make for the kids. And that big-ass blanket I cut up.

And we’re not even going to talk about Red Heart’s new With Love

Another ode to the granny square:

I’d love to put this in poetic for, because it’s fun. And a proper ode needs a proper form, yes? But alas, tonight is not the night.

I suppose this is more of a thank-heavens-for-the-granny-square, which always comes to my rescue when I’m too scattered or stressed to work on something more complicated, which can soothe me just by moving my hands through those familiar motions, which can make me fall in love with crochet again and again and again, and which can be stitched together into some of the loveliest afghans ever conceived.

Thank you, my very best yarny friend. Thank you, indeed.

This is what I did to my crochet:

I’ve been slowly working on a Vintage Vertical Stripe afghan for the last year or two, and I’ve been rather severely hampered by the fact that I made it way, way too long to start with. I was planning to have the stripes run vertically on a bed, and I totally overestimated how long it would need to be, which I suppose was my penalty for starting it while I was in the middle of the woods.

So when I realized I was never going to finish it, and when I realized that I really, *really* didn’t want to send it to the frog pond, I decided to try something radical. Worst case, it gets tossed. best case, it gets revived. Why not?

After carefully cutting a couple of feet off of it, I started unraveling the cut edge and reworking the last stitch or three. I did one row at a time and worked up:

On the “wrong side” rows, it took a little more finagling and working some twisted stitches, but it came out looking fine. The right side was dead simple. By about halfway through I was fairly certain that what I was doing would actually work.

And with another half-hour of work, I discovered it had.

I have some weaving of ends to do, but I needed to do that anyway.

I won’t lie. I feel dreadfully clever. And I’m pretty excited that I’ll most likely finish the thing now. How could I not?

Why I don’t knit lace.

I have a deep and inexplicable need for my knitting to be insanely simple. I wouldn’t find this at all remarkable if it weren’t for the fact that I don’t feel the same way about crochet. Or at least not to the same extent.

I’ve tried knitting cables, and I’ve tried knitting lace. I’ve even succeeded a time or two. Hell, if the pattern is rhythmic enough, I’ve even enjoyed it.

Building that rhythm seems to be the key for me. I suspect this is why I took to spinning like the proverbial duck to water. (Nevermind that I’ve worked with it for all of an hour or so…I know love at first sight when I see it.)

I look at projects on Ravelry sometimes and wish for a few minutes that I were the kind of knitter that could and would make those things. But really? I’m happy over here in the corner with my dishcloths. Knitting for me is sort of like my old Birkenstocks…simple, useful, and dead comfortable.

Which would be why I love it.

Mobius Much?

This is an incredibly neat technique for getting started. It’s based on foundation double crochet and makes a lovely join.

Doris Chan is just awesome.

Scrub Happy!

This is a collection of my previous dishcloth patterns. I’m thrilled to be able to offer them in a set and at a discount from the individual prices!

Buy at Etsy or on Ravelry or here on the site (patterns are served through Ravelry, but you don’t have to be a member to buy!).