Summer's Almost Gone

Wow, I have been way lax on blogging this last month! I've completed several substantial projects, a baby blanket for a missionary couple who just adopted a baby boy, Abraham. It's made with Sinfonia 100% Mercerized cotton. Each color was assigned a number and my daughter rolled a die to determine which color to use next and how many rows of that color. It was a fun project. Done it a week, I think it was the quickest substantial project I've ever done.

The other was the blanket for my husband that I started in May. Definitely the biggest project I've ever done!!! I think there were about a hundred ends to weave in, maybe more. Sure glad I did them as I went. I used the majority of six different colors/cones of Peaches and Creme cotton. He chose the fiber, I chose the colors with his stipulation "it has to be bright, psychedelic." The colors are a bit brighter than the picture shows.It was definitely a summer of bright colors.

And the last project of the summer (insert picture here soon!) is a dress I made for my daughter for her first day of school. Again Sinfonia (there was a huge clearance sale in July!!) in Tourquoise using a Drops Design pattern. She opted to not put the contrasting detail on it. I really liked the look of it when it was done but it seemed to stretch a bit as she wore it ... I am considering lining it.

Until next time, God bless your stitches!!

Thrift Store

The Marklund Thrift Store has become one of my regular stops lately. They drew me in with their 50% off sale a few weeks ago. That's when I got this bundle.
Looking for blankets/rugs to line the dog crate, I found this large, never opened, factory stapled, bag of yarn and stuff. I had no idea what the project was supposed to be because the paper enclosed was folded to the inside. There were many, many hanks of some kind of yarn,
a very large piece of burlap and some kind of hooking tool. It was marked $15 and but it was 50% off. I didn't want to buy more acrylic, I like to look for wool or unusual fibers (in sweaters) when I go there. Hmmm, so what to do. I flipped the bag around several times and then saw a hole in one of the plastic seams. The yarn felt very scratchy. Since this looked quite old, could have been some low quality acrylic. Still not satisfied, I continued to look closely. I noticed each hank was tied with a piece of string with a tag and a hand written number on it, most likely a color code for whatever this project was meant to be. Then I saw it, one of the tags was flipped to the other side and printed on it was "100% Pure Virgin Wool"...ooooo, the felting possibilities!!!

Icelandic Shawl

Today is not just about crochet but about knitting. Even though I don't knit, I subscribed to the Knitting Daily weekly newsletter just for patten ideas. This is one of those ideas. Next week Knitting Daily is going to publish the knit instruction for this shawl. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it....I don't know if it was the colors or the patterns of the rows or what. All I know is that I HAVE to make this. So, not knowing how to knit this presents a couple of challenges....
1. I don't know how to knit
2. Not sure I could even correctly read a knitting pattern
3. Don't know if I could translate a knitting pattern to crochet
With that said, however, I am determined...I WILL figure out a way to make this shawl!! Stay tuned.....

The NEXT Next Generation Crocher

Wow, I'm so proud!! Meet the NEXT Next Generation Crocheter, my daughter Sydney. She learned to make a chain last summer when she was 5, couldn't get the hang of the first row of SC. She showed an interest again last week so we found her hook (AMAZING!!), I let her pick out some yarn from the scrap stash and she was off making necklaces and bracelets out of chains in no time . She found a basket to keep all her stuff in - hook, yarn and a pair of scissors. Yesterday she wanted to learn the next step. So we got it all out and she actually did pretty well with the first SC row this time, finding the "bumps" on the back of the chain was much easier than the two loops...whatever works best. On to the regular row of SC...she struggled a bit finding the two loops but she is a very determined child. We put it away before she got too upset and we'll try again tonight. She loves when I bring home new yarn and let her go to the craft store with me....this apple doesn't fall far from the tree!!

Freecycle - Oh Yeah!

My first score with Freecycle!!
Yesterday I picked up my first package from a Freecycle person. It was listed as "miscellaneous craft items, some new some started, stretcher bars, yarn, etc." Since I have an alert on YARN I got an email and answered right away. Most of the items I could not use but might be able to pass along to other crafters but then there was this bag of yarn labeled as "Elsa Williams NeedleArt Collection" Tapestry Wool Needlepoint Yarn. I saw wool and thought "felting". The lables say Moth Proofed Fast Color 100% Wool. I did a burn test on some pieces without labels and it all seems to be wool. I have no idea how old this stuff is. Smells kind of musty, like my beloved gramma's attic :-) . I've never seen anything like this. The skeins are tiny (Blistex tube to show size), 40 Yds, no ounce measurement but I guess for needlepoint and tapestry that's not really a concern. I can't wait to scan thru the Crochetville Fulling and Felting section to get some tips on patterns, hook sizes, etc. I felted a swatch from a sweater I recycled a few months ago but haven't done an actual crochet felting project yet. The creative juices are flowing.

Recycled Yarn Project

So the results of my thrift store recycled yarn project are mixed. The first sweater I worked on was the jackpot. Upon dissecting it, I remembered something about looking at the seams. Some are GOOD seams, some are ICKY seams. The good ones are when a sweater is constructed by all the pieces being made to the correct shape then sewn together. The icky ones are when the sweaters are cut from a large piece of knitted "cloth" and a serger is used to keep all the loose ends from fraying. One of my bargain sweaters had good seams (the striped one) the other two have "icky" seams. From the striped sweater I got between 14 and 15 oz of yarn. It was knotted in the seam at each color change. I showed it to my daughter and we decided this is now what I would use for the "crazy blanket" because it really was crazy. I trimmed the knots but pretty much left the yarn in tact as it came off the sweater. I don't mind knots as much as some I guess and I'm going for quantity yardage. I know my daughter won't care at all.
I imagine it's not going to be very big but that's not the point. The initial point was to see if I could be successful at taking apart a thrift store sweater, the secondary point was to quickly make my daughter a blanket. Here's the progress so far....I've used about half the yarn.

Thrift Store Challenge

Last Thursday my daughter saw me working on a comfortghan for my friend's brother and decided blue was her new favorite color and I had to make her a blue blanket. So I opened up the stash and let her look for blue yarn. Being only 6 years old she doesn't understand weights and fiber contents of yarn, however she does have a very good sense of color. I directed her towards the myriad balls of Lion Brand Kitchen cotton I had picked up in the clearance bin of Michael's because they didn't have labels. I have made a couple of items out of various balls but there was still a lot left, many in navy or medium blue. She picked one of each of those as well as a lonely 2.5 oz ball of Sugar 'n Cream light blue. I could tell she already had the design in her head. She said she wanted one like I made Roxy (our 12 year old Schnoodle). I found 3 hanks of rug yarn at the thrift store and made about a 20 inch Granny Square "blanket" for her. I asked her to draw me what it looked like. She was frustrated because she didn't have the right color crayons so we just talked about which color would go in the center, then next, then next. She also apparently decided she was not quite through with her "pink" era because she wanted me to use the left over balls of pink and purple from the skirt I recently made her. I told her "this is going to be a crazy blanket." So I put everything into a project bag and planned on working on it over the weekend.

Then on Friday, on my second trip to the thrift store near work I again went looking for one of those huge bargain bags of yarn I've heard others talk about. What I found was a knitted dishrag made with Sugar 'n Cream for 50 cents. I grabbed it thinking I can take this apart and mix it into the "crazy blanket". Then I thought, "...hmm, taking things apart...." I've heard of people finding great sweaters and recycling them into yarn for something new. Since I was in a thrift store I thought I'll just browse for a sweater that doesn't cost too much so I don't feel bad if I wreck it. I saw a huge rack of them right in the middle of the store. Touched some really nice wool, cashmere, angora, etc. but couldn't bring myself to want to dissect them because they were so pretty. All the sweaters were tagged $4 so I thought that was a great deal if I could find one to take apart. For some reason I was drawn to several cotton ones. I picked three that I liked the color of. I also decided to get a really pretty light bluish gray lambswool/angora cable cardigan for my daughter (as a gift, not as yarn). So began my adventure into yarn recycling. Now as a co-worker has pointed out, "you don't NEED to do this for yarn, you have plenty of yarn!" True. I consider this just an extension of my craft. So here are the sweaters in their original form......The pink ones are 100% cotton,

stripey is a cotton/acrylic blend (VERY SOFT! and pliable).

Modern Day Doilies

What to do with a doily?

It seems that just giving someone a doily these days is impractical to say the least. I made this one for my mom, matted and framed it as a wall hanging (16 x 20) and gave it to her for Christmast 2006. I wasn't sure how she would accetp it...she'd either smile politely and tell me later she really wouldn't use it or she would actually like it. Holding my breath as she opened the wrapping, her eyes widened and she turned to me and asked, "did you make this?". Proudly I said, "yes I did"....I think she really liked it. Brought tears to my eyes. Even now at 43, for some reason (and I'm sure I"m not alone in this) there is a little girl in me that just wants to please mom.