Christmas Hat

One of my Christmas gifts was a watch-cap-style hat knitted for me by my daughter:

 It's a terrific color and a gorgeous stitch pattern.  I just called my daughter at work to find out what pattern she used, and it is the Fern Glade hat from Knitty by Megan Marshall.
http://knitty.com/ISSUEwinter08/PATTfernglade.php

The photo below is a close-up of the stitch pattern, though the color is really like the picture above.

I forgot to ask about the yarn so I'll have to add that later.

Christmas must be more tiring than I thought because Boxing Day ended up being Nap Day.  After some clean-up chores today, I hope to finish up the aqua pullover ribbing and knit the sleeves on the machine.

African Flower Afghan Finished!

This afghan was finished in the year it was started – a new experience for me!  It is just the right size for a lap robe to use while watching TV, and it is certainly nice and warm. 

 

I’ll probably make another one sometime, and right now am thinking about  a cushion I saw on Pinterest that has a light gray background and flowers in shades of red, orange, and yellow.

It’s best for my hands not to crochet one project after another, so right now I am working on the aqua pullover, knitting the ribbing for the sleeves.

African Flower Afghan Border

 

It's nice to be near the finish line on this afghan.  The border is fairly wide which adds needed inches to the length and width of the afghan.  First I made a row of cream single crochets, then the dc, ch 1 row, then rows of yarns used in the flowers done in sc and hdc.  I looked through my vintage edging books for a lacy edging because I wanted that look and because the striped border tends to curl on itself and needed a heavy edging.  The photo above shows row 1 of the lace edging.  Here's how the completed edging will look:

 

This is really only a two-row edging and is fun to work.  It has a 'flower' look to it and the scalloped flower is an echo of the petals in the blocks. Here are the instructions, though I replaced all the trs with dcs, and I changed the second row as follows:  2nd Row - * In ch-5 loop make (2-dc cluster, ch 3) twice and cluster, sc in ch-3 sp. repeat from * across. 

It was interesting making hexagons, but I think squares are easier to finish off, so I hunted around for a square version of the African Flower afghan, and will try that next.

Sweater Idea

I love the back of this sweater.  This pattern is for sale from the designer for about $6.  Ideas I like from this design are the panel up the back, the garter waist definition, and the gathered skirt.  It has garter bands and what looks like a V-neck in the front.  So pretty.

I know you can do the gathers on a knitting machine by rehanging the stitches (you have to take them off by hand or a garter bar) but I would probably be lazy and take them off on a knitting needle, do the decreases, knit the garter band, then hang back on the machine. 

Love the color, too.

Tea Leaf Green

This time I changed the neckline up a little.  I wanted a V-neck but without the hassle of a continuous band that goes from the bottom to the center back neck.  To accomplish this, there is a 3-stitch flat area before the neckline decreases start.  This was sort of successful, but the next version will have a slightly larger flat area just to see how that looks.  This is a very pretty green that I couldn't catch in a photograph. As are all the other sweaters, it is made from Red Heart Supersaver and only took 3 skeins.  Supersaver knits up very well on a knitting machine except that you have to watch for the occasional flaw in the yarn that can snag in the yarn carriers.  I wind the yarn into big yarn cakes before knitting it on the machine.  One skein will make the whole back or front with a little left over, and one skein will make two cardigan fronts or two sleeves.

I didn't make any Christmas presents this year so have nothing to hurry and finish up.  It is very relaxing.

Purple Cardigan

Yet another plain cardigan with 3/4 sleeves.  This is also Red Heart Supersaver but I have lost the band that tells what color it is, perhaps Medium Purple.  It is a purple that has more red tones, and it is very pretty.  I did have a hard time finding buttons to match this one, too, and ended up having to buy expensive buttons at about $4.50 for a card of three.  Luckily, the buttons were on sale for 50% off that day or the buttons would have cost more than the yarn.

We had a lovely tea party for all the women on my side of the family last Saturday, and one of my sister-in-laws was wearing a pretty black lace sweater top over an emerald turtleneck.  It made me think about knitting a black lace top, but knitting on black, especially lace, is a recipe for madness.  I tried to knit some black lace socks once, and it was horrible trying to see where I was in the pattern.  Maybe it would work in crochet.

Mustard Yellow

 Another plain sweater that will get lots of use.  I love this mustard color, and this has reminded me to hem up a pair of gray slacks that have been languishing around for several years waiting to be shortened.  This color goes with gray, navy, and of course, black.  And purple!

This is knit of Red Heart Supersaver and was knit on the LK150. The ribbed bits were knit by hand.

Thanksgiving Sweater

This was one of the first new sweaters of the no-computer period. Also of Red Heart, it is a new color called Coral.  It's not really very coral looking, but is a gorgeous color nevertheless.  This is a plain, slightly-fitted, 3/4-length sleeve cardigan with ribbed borders made from a pattern I drafted myself. The ribbing was knitted by hand, and the sweater was knitted on my LK150. The picture above shows the sweater after it has been through the washer and dryer twice.  I wore it for Thanksgiving dinner accessorized with a necklace my daughter made for me for my birthday (or last Christmas):

The focal bead is a Kazuri bead from Africa.  Every time we go to a bead show I buy a few Kazuri beads because they are so beautiful.  It was serendipitous having a perfectly matching necklace in my collection waiting for me to wear.

I had the hardest time finding buttons for this sweater since the color is unusual.  I did have some cream and coral buttons that were never used for a dress I was going to make in the 80's, but I just didn't like the idea of a mostly cream button on the sweater.  Then one day, one of the buttons fell over so that only the bottom side showed, and when I saw that the underside was the perfect solid color, I sewed them on upside down.

I finished the first version of the pullover in hot pink and started another in an aqua color called Turqua.  I'm going to put a V-neck on this one.

Pink Sweater Jacket

This is not the first sweater I made when my computer was kaput, but my camera charge was used up so this is the only picture I have until later.  This is designed as a sort of boxy jacket with garter eyelet bands.  I was just experimenting with some extra yarn, but ended up really liking the sweater.

This is made from Red Heart SuperSaver and cost about $8 to make including the buttons.  It can go right in the washer and dryer and is nice and soft.  I have been making all my sweaters with 3/4-length sleeves lately because that length is very practical for a hard-working person who bakes, gardens, and deals with household messiness.  I think I would like to make this shape again in a more businesslike color like navy or chocolate brown.

After I had made 7 cardigans, I got tired of making the buttonholes and sewing on buttons, so I redrafted my pattern, added a little extra room usually supplied by the button bands, made it more shaped at the waist, and turned it into a pullover.  My daughter is always telling me to make my sweaters closer fitting, so I gave it a try.  I tried on the first pullover yesterday and was surprised at how good it looked.  I did get an 'I told you so' from the daughter, but when you're right, you're right.

Now I am going to go charge up the camera.

Offline

My computer broke right after Halloween so I spent about 5 weeks with no internet.  It became obvious that the internet can block lots of creativity by using up your time, because during the offline time I made eight sweaters.  I set up the LK150 which had been languishing in a box for a few years, and I learned to really love it.  I started making 3/4-sleeve cardigans in whatever color I liked that day.  I usually knit the ribbing by hand and hang it on the machine for the stockinette stitch knitting.   I made three or four plain cardigans then started trying new techniques.  I also drafted a few new patterns for myself, and after the seventh cardigan, I changed to pullovers and am just about finished with the first one of those. My goal is to have a casual wardrobe of jeans, nice T's, and pretty cardigans.  Lots and lots of pretty cardigans. 

One of the things I've started doing is writing down the techniques that work for me like the way I pick up stitches or handle a garter border so that I don't have to reinvent it every time I try it. 

Now I'm going to try making pretty pullovers to replace my ragged sweatshirts.

Turquoise Sweater Is Done

This turned out to be a sweater I really like and will wear a lot in the future.  Though I drafted the pattern myself, the design is based on this sweater from Coats and Clark:

http://www.coatsandclark.com/Crafts/Knitting/Projects/Apparel/WC1080+Knit+Springtime+Tee.htm

I used the pattern stitch and turned the design into a cardigan using my TNT sweater pattern.

This sweater is made from Red Heart SuperSaver yarn and cost around $10 to make.  Red Heart SuperSaver softens up nicely with washing and is easy to manipulate to get the effect you want.  For example, this lace pattern tends to shrink upwards so that you can't see the pattern very well, but a gentle steam blocking relaxed the yarn and gave that portion of the sweater nice drape.  You have to be very careful applying heat to an acrylic yarn because you can fry it, but I've made so many Red Heart sweaters that I am used to its properties. I use a cotton dishtowel and have the iron on 'Wool', and I never press down on the fabric. My sweaters have lovely colors and go right into the washer and dryer.

I am looking forward to the election in two weeks because after it is over I will stop getting the dozens of phone calls I get every day from people trying to get my vote.  Our main phone is a technological dinosaur without call screening - in fact, it is a rotary dial phone.  We tried to put a more modern phone in the kitchen, where this phone is, but they would keep breaking.  Someone told us that the phone was too close to large appliances to work well, so we went out to the garage to rescue the exiled old phone, and put it back in place.  I remember how my niece wanted to make a phone call from our house one time and was totally puzzled by the rotary dial.  "How do you work this thing??!!" she called.  A child of the push-button age.

Two New Cardigans

This week I have been thinking about UFOs, so this turquoise cardigan turned up in the sewing room.  The lace portions had been hand knitted and were waiting to have the stockinette portions done on the knitting machine.  I managed to get that done in one day, so now it is being sewn together.  I basted it together and tried it on, and so far I think I'm going to like it a lot.  The sleeves are the right length, and the fit is good.

In addition, after the big rip fest, I am almost done with the yoke on the berry-colored Soft Serve cardigan.  Notice the new addition to my library, the Doris Chan Everyday Crochet book that my daughter gave me for my birthday.  I've never had a purple cardigan before, so I am trying to think of ways to wear it and what colors to wear it with.  Because it's all about the color.

Frogged

After a week of crocheting on the Tall Latte sweater, I made the underarm extensions and tried it on.  It was wavy and ginormous, plus I didn't like the pattern stitch.  It is useful to be brutal in moments like these: you can soldier on and hope it corrects itself (which it probably won't) or you can stop struggling and rip it out.  Starting over isn't always bad.  This time I am making another Soft Serve and am already halfway done with the yoke.

African Flower Half Block Experiment

The first attempt at a half block was just half of a regular block, but I didn't like how it looked in my afghan, so I invented this one.  I still have to figure out what I want to do with the edge, but right now it looks pretty good and doesn't detract from the colorful blocks.

Two thumbs up for crocheting the blocks together instead of sewing them together.

Tall Latte Started

The Soft Serve sweater is almost done.  I had to go out and buy some clear buttons to put on the back side of the band when I sew on the fashion buttons.  This is a trick I use to keep the band from sagging or pulling.  The sweater looks pretty good and will be finished as soon as I sew on the buttons.

The sweater is on Madame Merp, which isn't the dressform I use to sew for myself, but it's handy for picture taking. I just happened to have the coral shell in my wardrobe.

Below is a view of the border edging, backwards single crochet:

I was so pleased at how this turned out that I started another Doris Chan design, Tall Latte.  I'm changing it a little to make it a cardigan instead of a pullover.  In other words, I wanted a Soft Serve with a V-neckline.

When I'm not working on the new sweater, I try to add a few motifs to the African Flower afghan every day.  I spent one morning trying to figure out how to fill in the spaces between the top motifs and the bottom motifs to make the edges even, and I think I was successful.  I'll show how I did that when I get around to that step.  There are going to be half blocks in the cream color to fill in the sides.

It is incredibly hot here still, but Accuweather says we are due for a cool down which I am certainly looking forward to.

One Sleeve Finished

Last week we had some construction going on in the house, so I was staying with my daughter on the peninsula.  I needed a portable craft project so I took the Soft Serve sweater and got a lot done on it.  Today I finished up the first sleeve:

It is surprising me how well the pattern turns out, and I still like this coral color even after looking at it for several weeks.  It's been a long time since I made a crocheted button band on a sweater.  These bands look nice, but they have a tendency to curl up at the ends as shown on the left side, below.

The right side is where the yarn ended, so I wove it into the back of the band at the bottom, and this provided enough extra structure to prevent the curling:

When I finish the second sleeve, I will go back and reinforce the back of the left band.  I think I'm going to like this sweater a lot, and it should get lots of wear.

Another Yarn Caddy

 I am crocheting away on the Soft Serve Sweater, mostly while I sit in the living room watching TV.  My yarn kept falling on the floor every time I bumped my handy folding TV table, so I made a yarn caddy cover for the table.  My first version is shown above.  I like the way the pockets hold the yarn skein upright so that the yarn can feed out easily.  However, I needed another pocket to  hold the growing project so that I could use the table top for my instructions.  I added a large pocket with a box pleat onto the side.  With this pocket available, I can put the project away safely while I am off doing something else.

At first, I had the instructions flat on the table, but then I remembered this book holder that I found at the local thrift store.  I only paid $3 for it so it was worth a try.  It is excellent for instructions but not necessarily for book reading since it is not very convenient for turning pages constantly (you have to lift back those page  holders every time you turn the page).  In addition, the back section of the book holder is like a bin, so you can keep your pincushion and pencils back there.

The nice thing about this sweater is that it is crocheted from the top down so you can try it on as it grows larger.  I am having to make some adjustments to the length of the yoke and the length of the underarm addition, but so far, so good.  I am loving this color, too.

I finished all the flowers for the afghan and am ready to start putting it all together next week.  I need to plan the placement of the colors first though.

September

My unexpected interest in  crochet continues.  I got this book out of the library, and I am very impressed with Doris Chan and her designs.  They don't have that clunky look crochet garments often have so I decided to actually try one.

 This is the 'Soft Serve' sweater.  I saw a picture of Doris Chan wearing this sweater in pink and she says it is her favorite, most-worn sweater.  I am going to close it with three buttons instead of the tie because I hate ties.  Someone online mentioned making this out of Simply Soft, and that seemed like a good idea because it is drapey and fits the pattern requirements.  I found this pretty apricot color and have already started the yoke.  The instructions could be clearer, but I am figuring it out.

So far, I am finding Simply Soft a pleasure to crochet.  So much more relaxing than thread crochet, and the available colors are wonderful.

We recently celebrated our anniversary.  Both daughters took us out to the Basque Cultural Center in South San Francisco, and I enjoyed it very much.  After dinner, we went over to A's house for dessert.  She had made a chocolate mint pie with whipped cream and it was delicious:

The chocolate pie crust stuck to the pie dish resulting in lots of humorous efforts to pry the pie out.  The effort was worth it, though because the pie was excellent.  Those are mint 0re0s crumbled on top. 

Retro Crochet Wednesday!

I got this Royal Society Book No. 2 at the Benicia Peddlar's Fair on Saturday.  Since I am in a crochet phase at the moment, it was interesting to find a booklet devoted to crochet garments and toys.  The booklet dates to 1943.  'Royal Society' sounds like it would be a British publication, but the back cover gives New York as the location of the company.

 These were the days when, instead of strollers, moms had baby buggies and would take their child out for airings.  It would have been nice to have a little dress-up outfit for the baby. This outfit and the one shown below were crocheted with Royal Perle, an imported mercerized pearl cotton.  My mom also had a baby buggy, a big black buggy with big wheels.  I remember it because after my littlest brother was too big for the buggy, she let us play with it in the side yard.  One of us would get to be the rider, sitting in the buggy with the top down, and the others would push it while running like crazy.  It was fabulous fast and wobbly fun until the bottom of the buggy fell out.

The photo below shows a toy and a rug.  If I were trying to make a scary toy, I couldn't do much better than this one which I would hate to have in my crib when the lights went out.  The rug has a nice shape, but as a gardener, I have been battling the California snails for decades and don't find them cute.  Both of these are crocheted with rug cotton.

 This doll is named 'Susan' and has lovely hair made of rug yarn.  The instructions are given for the doll body, hair and features, but it says to 'dress doll as desired' and doesn't give you a pattern for the dress.  The features are crocheted into the face, not embroidered except for a few accents. The doll was stuffed with cotton batting like the quilts of the time.

 The duck pictures and bib are crocheted in tapestry crochet, though it isn't called by that name.  The instructions just tell you how to do it and provide a chart for the pictures. Crocheted in pearl cotton, these would have been hard-wearing, comfortable, long-lasting bibs.  I have an ancient cotton crocheted bib from my husband's side of the family, and it is still in great shape.

Flowers

44 flowers complete, 39 to go.

So far there are no duplicate flowers.  In order to make as many originals as possible and to use the 7 colors equally without ending up with too much red, for example, a nerdy solution presented itself.  I printed up 3 charts just like the one below:

One page is for the outer edge, one for the petals, and one for the second row.  The center colors are listed across the top.  I am making 12 of each center color, more or less, so the charts help me keep track of that without having to count all the flowers multiple times every day.

I saw an afghan online that had a lovely border that incorporated a few rows of tapestry crochet for a spot of color.  I am going to try it, so stay tuned.

An Inexpensive Yarn Caddy

My yarns for the afghan were getting a little tangled up so I put them in a cloth tote bag, but it wasn't big enough for all 9 skeins of yarn.  While out shopping at a discount store (like Marshall's, Ross Dress For Less, etc.) I saw this plastic caddy.  It was made for floor cleaning and came with a scrub brush, but was only $5.99 so it soon belonged to me.  It is very convenient to carry around the house and keeps the yarns nice and neat.

To keep the yarn strands separate, I used what was free and available to me, alligator clips stuck around the rim.  It works great.  Another idea for a yarn caddy is to make or buy a big enough cloth tote bag and sew buttonholes around the upper rim for the yarn ends to go through.  Or you could have an inner tote bag liner with  buttonholes tucked into an outer bag for carrying places.  When you are not crocheting, you would tuck the yarn ends between the inner and outer bag sections.

So far, there are 28 complete flowers so over 1/3 of the flowers are done.

African Flower Pincushion

  When I first found the African Flower block pattern, I made a sample.  After the color scheme idea had changed, I was using the orphan block to hold  the crochet hook and my big needle for sewing in the yarn ends .  There are some lovely photos of the blocks made into pincushions on Ravelry, so I took the little flat block and made it into a useful pincushion for my crochet hooks.  The sides are made by crocheting into the back loops around the edge of the block using single or double crochet (I used double), and just crocheting until the pincushion sides are as long as you want.  Then you make a bottom piece and either sew or crochet it on.

 The first problem I had to solve was what to stuff it with.  Fiberfill would leak out of the holes in the crochet, so I found a piece of brown felt in the stash and attached a piece, trimmed to fit, to the inside top and bottom.  I also wanted to make the bottom more sturdy, so I found a square of plastic canvas and trimmed it to fit the inside bottom.  You can't even see the felt, really.  I didn't want to stuff the pincushion with fabric scraps because I tried that once and it is hard to stick pins into that kind of stuffing.  What I ended up using was yarn pulled from an ugly skein of mauve yarn.  I just pulled out loops and loops of yarn and stuffed it into the pincushion, held it down with the plastic canvas, then crocheted the bottom on.

I started out making another flower block for  the bottom, but sort of ended up crocheting a more solid block, making it up as I went along.  Now I'll always know where my hook and needle are, and the holes in the flower pattern are great for sticking the hook through across the top of the pincushion.

So far, I've completed 22 flowers for the afghan.  There will be 8 blocks across and 11 blocks down so I will need 83 blocks plus some half blocks for the sides.  Every other row has one less block because of the way the hexagons fit together.  It will work out better if I make all the flowers first, then decide on the placement and crochet on the borders and attach them to each other at that time.

African Flower Afghan

Since I finished off the One-Color Afghan so quickly, I was looking around for something new to crochet.  I was going to avoid a project with many color changes, since I hate sewing in the ends, but I discovered that I have a big 3"-long needle that slides right through the work easily, so I no longer hate sewing in the ends.  Looking around on the internet, I ran across the African Flower hexagon pattern and decided to try it out.
http://www.craftpassion.com/2011/04/crochet-african-flower-paperweight-granny.html

I always start these afghan projects to use up my extra yarn, but then I get caught up in the fun of the color combinations and end up buying more yarn, so as a stash reduction method it is a big fail.  This afghan will be pinks and reds and a gray blue, and there will be some stash reduction since the cream color and some of the pinks were already in the stash.  There will be a net gain in the stash though because I ran out and bought more pinks, and thinking of the next afghan, some greens and turquoises.This flower hexagon is really easy and fun to crochet, and seems to go much faster than crocheting a granny square.

Since I also do not enjoy sewing the blocks together, this time I am crocheting them together which is absolutely fabulous.

Here's the basic flower before the border is crocheted onto the edges.  You make a bunch of the flowers, decide where you want them placed, then crochet the border  and attach them together at the same time. With the border, the blocks measure about 4 1/2" across.

This was one of my first blocks.  Do you notice the mistake?  I ended up having to cut off the white border and re-crochet the petal row, because as a 'hexagon' with 7 sides, it didn't fit.

These are much more fun to crochet than granny squares, and it is wonderful to try different color combinations.  I'm not sure how big this will end up being, but I am already thinking about the next one.