Loop-De-Doo

Drummer Girl

2009-11-12T15:21:00.000-08:00

Long, long ago I began Tunisian-crocheting a military style jacket.

In the very beginning (last January) it was a heathered purple swatch.

I received yarn in the spring. I was surprised to see bright red yarn - my idea was of a nontraditional feminine military jacket, and the surprise color had me rethink my own vision. (There are good and bad things about being given a color for a project so that it will tie in with the scheme of the publication - I think of it as a happy challenge.)

And then Frankenstein was born. If you're not familiar at all with Tunisian crochet, here are the basics: the stitches are teeny-tiny, and do not stretch; they take up more yarn than traditional crochet, and they also take WAY more time. (They also slant a little, but we won't go there.) I had mentally scheduled myself for a "normal" sweater, which turned out to be only a fraction of the amount of time I really needed.

(And then to top it all off, I had to crochet the sleeves twice. But we won't go there either.)

We happened to take a trip to the coast towards the end of the project, and I was disappointed to miss out on the great view outside the car windows, as I was furiously crocheting. I was lucky enough to be working reduced hours from home at that point, and spent a great deal of time on the couch, also furiously crocheting.

And then, in the middle of June, I finished.

Somewhere along the line, the jacket kind of told me how it wanted to look, and I strayed from my sketch just a bit. I ended up adding button bands towards the end, which brought it a little closer to a band-jacket look, but not horrible. (And if it were heathered purple, it wouldn't look at all like a band jacket!)

Frankenstein wasn't finished with me, though. I sent it off across the pond, and a month later it came back to me, marked as undeliverable. But I fought back, and sent it again, and the nice people at Inside Crochet made it look pretty.

So now it's not Frankenstein anymore, and I'm happy that it turned out so well! I hope people try it - it's definitely the kind of pattern that will try your patience, but mostly just because of the time it takes to finish. I think it's worth the time, though (because most of the fun of crocheting your own clothing is the crocheting)!

Crocheted Gifts "Interview"

2009-08-10T20:01:00.000-07:00

I wrote about my contribution to Crocheted Gifts a few weeks ago, and now you have a chance to chat with me and some of the other designers on Twitter! Kim Werker is hosting a Crocheted Books Live Twitter Event, under the hashtag #crochetedgifts; on August 25th at 1pm Pacific Time. If you don't follow me on Twitter, now is a good time to do it so I can help you remember to come participate! :) You can find me @megangranholm.

So far, the other participants are:
Julie Holetz, @skamama
Kristin Omdahl, @KristinOmdahl
Annie Modesitt, @modeknit
Christina Marie Potter, @ChristinMPotter
and Kim Werker, @kpwerker, is emceeing.

If you have questions or comments about the book, comment in Kim's blog (I linked to it above) so she can relay it during the event, or feel free to spend some time with us on Twitter. Hope to see you there!

Babymoon Robe!

2009-07-23T14:38:00.000-07:00

Kim Werker's Crocheted Gifts book officially comes out on August 1st, but I hear there are already copies in bookstores! I just added my project to Ravelry and thought I'd share it with you here!

The Babymoon Robe is for new mamas. So many mamas get tons of baby things as gifts, which is great, but it's also nice to give a little something for mom. Crocheted in soft cotton, it's cozy and washable, and easily undone for the whole breastfeeding thing.

Speaking of breastfeeding, for the longest time I couldn't think of a good name for the project. I mean, now that it's named what it's named, I don't know why it wasn't immediately obvious. But for a long time the working name was Mastitis Robe. Which isn't very pretty but was humorous back when I was crocheting as fast as my little fingers could go, trying to finish the sample on time. Sheesh.

If you make this robe, be aware that it's a little bit heavy (not uncomfortably so) and may stretch. To that end, it might be a good idea to reinforce the shoulder stitching. The pattern calls for slip-stitch seaming; a whip stitch may not be strong enough.

The other projects in the book are really nice too. My favorites are Julie Holetz's Sisal Spiral Rug, Lisa Naskrent's Organic Indulgence Washcloths, and Katie Himmelberg's Sea Star Pendant. Take a look at it next time you're at the bookstore!

2009-07-15T16:17:00.000-07:00

Back in January, I finally took the plunge and bought a drop spindle.

The whorl is square, and it's made from birds-eye maple. I spun with it for several months, and loved it - but soon I wanted the ability to spin more than a few feet at a time, and I started lusting after spinning wheels. I looked at Schacht (ack, expensive!), I looked at Louet (too modern-looking), and I looked at Ashford (just right!), and then I started monitoring Craigslist.

I also got in touch with a local woman from Ravelry (hi JaKay!) who invited me to her house to play with her '70s-era Ashford Traditional. I spent two hours there, and fell in lurve.

There were no wheels on Craigslist and I was getting antsy (yes, once I make up my mind I must HAVE IT RIGHT NOW!) and then I remembered that a friend of the family liked to spin and sent her an email to see if I could borrow her wheel for a bit while I saved up some money for one of my own. It turns out she was planning on selling her '70s-era Ashford Traditional! So last week I stopped by picked it up, to borrow for a bit with the intention of buying it.

Isn't she purdy? She needs a little bit of TLC, though:

It's a teensy bit rusty. I need to figure out how to take it apart so I can clean the wood, and get the rust off the metal on the flyer. See where the yarn touches the flyer? There's a little groove in the wood. I think it's been worn into the wood by the wool.

So my shopping list includes some good non-silicone furniture cleaner (or Murphy Oil Soap), linseed oil, beeswax (not sure where to get that though), and some oil with a long thin applicator to fit into the grooves. And steel wool. And hopefully someone who knows how to play with all of it just in case I get lost. :)

The Battle of Waterloo

2009-06-19T08:02:00.000-07:00

I won the battle of Waterloo!

Phew, that took forever. Part of the problem is that the stitches and yarn and hook were so small. (F Tunisian hook, sport weight yarn, Tunisian slip and purl stitches.) Part of the problem is that I mis-measured the sleeves and had to redo them as fast as I possibly could. I started last Friday afternoon, worked in the car and in the hotel during our weekend trip to Astoria, and grew roots on the couch where I sat all week, working all day long. I was hoping I could do them in a day each, which was a laughable wish but I wished it anyway.

So the week ticked by, and I have no recollection of it, except for waking up sore. (Did you know you could get sore from sitting on the couch and crocheting as fast as you can? Of course you did.) And yesterday evening I boxed it all up and emailed the pattern to be tech edited, and got to actually sit and do nothing for a little while! (And of course I felt weird and wanted to start another project.)

I'm awaiting yarn for two new projects now. They will go MUCH faster than the Waterloo, and my husband will be pleased with that. And so will my muscles. (They'd rather be sore after a more cardiovascular workout.)

Spinny

2009-06-05T11:10:00.000-07:00

If you follow my Twitter, you know what I've been up to - making the world's slowest Tunisian jacket! It's pretty though; now that I'm in the home stretch, and SO worth the time it takes to do it. I love making finishing touches to garments: crocheting the trim, placing buttons and buttonbands, being able to lay it out on the blocking board as a garment rather than pieces of fabric. And then comes the brain-overload of pattern grading, so I can send it to Julie, editor extraordinaire.

With finishing, though, comes thinking about the next fun project. Even though I'm waiting for yarn for two more designs, I have been researching spinning wheels while I weave in ends. If I go just on looks, I like the Ashford Traveller best. It's compact and tall, which works well with my living situation (and my height), and it's decently-priced. And it's not overly modern-looking, nor too antique-y, which I like. I've asked in my local Ravelry forum if anyone would be willing to give me a lesson or two, so that if I end up going to Black Sheep Gathering or Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival I can try out the assortment they have and get a better idea of what I like. I have to decide that it's something I want in the first place, but judging by the drop spindle I have nothing to worry about - except a lighter wallet, heh.

Hopefully I'll be able to share better pictures of my project soon. For now, this will have to tide you over. I met some friends in Portland for the Starlight Parade, and as two of us waited in the hot afternoon for the rest of the party to arrive and for the parade to start, we passed the time with yarn.

2009-05-14T15:29:00.000-07:00

I've been Tunisianing away with some pretty Frog Tree Alpaca, for the last few weeks. I am singing the praises of my new Excel sloper, which I've been fiddling with so that all I have to do is put in gauge and my patterns practically write themselves! It's time-consuming in the beginning, but is going to make subsequent patterns much easier and faster.

My current stitch is Tunisian Honeycomb. It makes a great fabric; check it out:

It's just tunisian simple stitch and tunisian purl stitch, back and forth, so that you work a TSS in a TPS and vice versa. Tunisian is such fun, especially in such a soft yarn.

The deadline on this baby is coming up, and I have two more designs in the works; definitely not as proficient as some but I love it all the same!

Inside Crochet

2009-03-17T09:51:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I got a call for submissions to a new publication. I think I was in the thick of Christmas crocheting and didn't think much of it, but then right around New Year's I was chatting with Julie and she asked me if I was going to be submitting anything. I skipped off to the yarn shop and got a skein each of Frog Tree Alpaca and Elsebeth Lavold Bambool, and used some Louet Euroflax from my stash, and whipped up a few swatches to send off.

And I'm so glad I did, because the preview for Inside Crochet is making me salivate! It'll be available in the UK, I believe.

Also, I caved and joined Twitter.

Design Process: Asymmetrical Sweater

2009-03-15T12:53:00.000-07:00

I thought you'd like to see my design process for my latest published design (a few months late, but who's counting). If you didn't know before that I'm still a fledgling designer with a lot to learn, this will definitely help you come to that realization. Still, even though I look back on it with a little embarrassment (I'm way too hard on myself, heh), it was a great learning experience and I came away with tons of things-to-do-differently-next-time.

After my 5:00 Tank was published in the CrochetMe book, I made up quite a few designs and put them together in a sketch book for future submissions. (Actually, I thought maybe I would try writing my own book, but soon realized that I had more to learn before I felt comfortable doing that.) One of the designs in my sketch book was for a zippered sweater.

I am most definitely not a strong draw-er, so I found a croquis figure from Threads Magazine to use as my model.

Next I actually crocheted the sweater myself, in my size. And it was a little bit dreadful.

The neckline was wonky, and too low, and the zipper just made the entire front not lay well at all. Nevertheless, I was glad to have done it that way if only to learn how to set in a zipper, and now I know firsthand why zippers aren't really a good idea in a sweater. (I knew why, really, but sometimes you have to do it to really KNOW why, yanno?)

Nevertheless, I pressed on, sending the submission to Interweave.

I emailed Kim (the editor at the time) to let her know that I had stitched up a prototype, and uploaded a photo of it to Flickr so that she could see. She chatted with me about the neckline and the closure, saying she thought it would look better if it were buttoned rather than zippered, and with a higher neck. The yarn was a go, though, so Silky Wool was sent to me and I started writing the pattern.

Because I'd already written most of the pattern out while I made the prototype, I was confident that it would be super easy to just size the thing, make the neckline and closure changes, and that would be that. But when I sent the first draft to Julie, the tech editor, things slid downhill pretty quickly. My armholes were too small. My math was incorrect. My layout was confusing. I had done this all before (albeit just once, and the construction was quite different), why didn't this come naturally to me? (I think that is always my biggest problem when it comes to being hard on myself. I was always good at schoolwork, I was able to learn quickly and almost always got the hang of a new subject right off the bat. Which helped me feel like I could just jump feet-first into a project without thinking sometimes, and also made it hard to bear when I didn't get the hang of it as fast as I thought I should.) Julie and I exchanged several emails, and then the decision was made that I needed to send a new draft to Julie, so that we could start fresh with edits.

After that it was smooth sailing, for the most part. From the tech editing emails that had gone back and forth, I was able to get a better idea of the pattern layout, and I tweaked some of the math and sizing here and there, and sent back a much nicer second draft. A few minor details were cleaned up, and I finished stitching the small size for photos and sent it to Interweave.

And then it was published, last December. And I frogged the entire prototype and remade it in my size, with a few tweaks for my torso length and different proportions for my hips and such. When I was finished and tried it on... the shoulders were all wrong. They were too wide. And I hadn't tweaked the pattern in the shoulder area; I worked straight from the final draft. Which meant that I'd sized the width of the shoulders along with the width of the bust, which, turns out, is a no-no. (In fact, after that, I read a LiveJournal post from a friend who ranted about that very thing: patterns which don't take into account the fact that shoulders don't widen quite like the rest of one's body from small to XL.) I fixed it for myself, but then noticed that someone on Ravelry had had the same problem happen to them and weren't pleased. So I made sure to comment on the pattern itself to let people know, so that hopefully they can set-in the sleeves in a little different way.

I think the most important thing that I found during this process is that I really needed a sloper. I set out to construct one a few weeks ago, along with a yardage estimator, so that I could have consistent sizing across all of the patterns I publish. I have played with it since, for a rough draft, and I can see it making life much easier. (No more over-sizing shoulders or under-sizing armholes, for one thing!)

I definitely learned a lot from this sweater. Sometimes I need to remind myself that after only three published patterns (in print, anyway, and only two are garments) I am not a seasoned designer. But there's only one way to get there: submit and publish and then learn from each process. So in the end I'm happy with how things turned out, if only to remind myself that I am fallible and but that I can become less so as I go.

Yarn Hop

2009-02-11T11:49:00.001-08:00

Last Saturday, my neighbor and fibery friend Lisa and I embarked on the 1.5-hour drive northward to Portland, Oregon to go to yarn shops. We'd spent a weekend afternoon before that at Coffee Culture (where there is free wifi) studying this neat Google map of Portland-area yarn shops and deciding where we wanted to go. Yarnia was on the top of our list, as neither of us had been there and we were both quite intrigued. We filled in the rest of the list with 6 more shops in the area, so that we had four on the east side of the river and four on the west side, all pretty close-in to the center of town. Complicating things were my evening plans - I had to be back in Corvallis in time to get ready for and then perform in a choir concert. So we left just after 8am.

We arrived at my friend Nicoal's apartment and decided that since the weather had gone from dreary and grey to bright and sunny, we would walk to Yarnia from the apartment. So we abandoned my car, and walked the 15 blocks or so to Yarnia. And arrived there 45 minutes before they opened. Whoops.

As we walked back to the car, we decided to go to plan B: drive down to Yarn Garden and shop there, and then drive back to Yarnia before stopping at Tao of Tea for lunch.

So that's what we did. It was hard to find a parking spot on Hawthorne, but we drove a few blocks away and squeezed in and went to fondle yarn.

Yarn Garden is a great little shop. It has several "rooms" plus a little cafe, and everything is stacked floor-to-ceiling with yarn, on shelves and on islands and on racks and in baskets. Nicoal was looking for some sock yarn to attempt her first pair of knit socks, and I was also looking for something in that weight to crochet a pair for my husband's Valentine's Day gift. I settled on two skeins of Berroco Ultra Alpaca Fine in a charcoal color, and as I was checking the dye lots a skein in green whispered that it wanted to come home with me too. So of course I obliged it.

We spent some time in the sunny books and notions room as well, perusing their individual patterns and drooling over a book of motifs; and I found a Sweater Stone to take home and try. And finally, with my arms full (and nobody else's! Hmph!), we high-tailed it back to the car.

Next was Yarnia. I could have easily spent thrice as much time in there, but as we were on a timetable for meeting another friend for lunch, I hurried as best I could. Yarnia is a really neat place: just a small room with a big machine in one corner and shelves of cones of single strands of yarn. Yarnia is a make-your-own yarn shop; which is a little overwhelming for the first little bit as there are dozens of colors and lots of different fiber contents to choose from. I had to kind of walk around for a bit at first, just to see what there was and take it all in, and eventually I settled on my blend: bamboo in a pretty blue, some purple cotton, and a strand of chocolate brown wool. Lisa also chose a blend, of two shades of green with a bright magenta/pinky pop - very pretty, I'm excited to see what she makes with it!

When you decide on the blend you like, the shop owner figures out the yards-per-pound and calculates the cost, and then once you decide how much you want (which is difficult when you don't have a project in mind, like in my case) she threads your choices through her machine and winds a cone for you. My first try has yet to completely grow on me; I think it doesn't quite turn out the way that you think it's going to (or maybe that's just me). I like it, I'm just not ENAMORED of it.

And as you can see, it works up a little differently than the way it looks on the cone as well. I think if I were to do it again, I'd put one more strand of brown in order to make the blue not quite as overpowering. It was great fun, though, to dabble in color science. I got a pound, and I think it's telling me it'd like to be paired with another color and become a vest of some sort.

After lunch at Tao of Tea it was just about time to get going back home. But we still had 6 yarn shops left. So plan C was to stop by an unrelated store (Cost Plus) on our way home and save the rest of the yarn shops for another outing, as we both had spent quite enough money that day on yarn. I'm kind of glad we decided that, as I got home just in time to get ready for my concert AND we have plenty of options for our next trip north, which I hope will happen very soon!

And now I'm off to work on Valentine socks again.

Quick Update

2009-01-27T16:31:00.000-08:00

* I'm in the middle of a production crochet project. I love being able to balance writing out my own patterns with following those of others - I see how some really talented designers write their patterns, which helps me to stay current with text styles and sizing, etc.

* Once the production crochet is finished, I'll hopefully have some time before V-day to make my husband a pair of socks. And I am also 1/4 of the way through with my pillow covers for my new couch.

* For those of you who carry Namaste bags (or want to): Hip Mountain Mama is giving away a Zuma at the end of February! Go to her blog to find out how to enter, and when you're done, have a look at the fun stuff she's got in her shop - lots of good environmentally-conscious items.

Like I need a new hobby.

2009-01-22T09:31:00.000-08:00

Just after Christmas, I suddenly REALLY NEEDED TO SPIN. I'd never tried before, so I didn't have any materials, but I quickly remedied that with a visit to the local yarn shop accompanied by a couple of gift cards; where I got a pretty birds-eye maple top whorl drop spindle, made just up the road in Monmouth; and a little bag of black alpaca roving. I spent a bit of time watching YouTube videos of spinners, and read a couple of web pages on the subject, and then tried it myself. I did it for a few minutes here and there, and then over the last weekend while I was at my mom's house watching movies I finished spinning it, and set the twist (hopefully, heh):

The finished product is seriously overspun in many places (and thin as thread sometimes), underspun and thick in other places, and best of all I didn't feel like it needed to be any other way. Usually when I try something new, I expect to be good at it and when I'm not I get frustrated - like keeping a good gauge in knitting without ending up making the stitches so tight that my wrists hurt by the end of the project (which is one of the reasons I'm not all that great at knitting at the moment) or knowing exactly how to do everything right the first time. I just did what I could and as I got further along I had fewer slubs and was able to keep up with the spindle without having to stop and park it between my knees. I got another bit of roving the other day (silvery grey this time) and am excited to try again.

The same evening I was up in the spare room (a.k.a. the stash and Lego room) fixing my sweater shoulders, I spied some gold wire that I didn't know I had. So I sat down for a few minutes and whipped up a ring.

It was super fast and easy, just one row of single crochet, and I love it. Except for the other side, where I joined the ends of the row. I'll have to make another now that I know how.

(You can see my dishwasher-element burn there on my middle finger, too. It left a good scar.)

January...

2009-01-21T09:18:00.000-08:00

... and my toes are numb. I'm glad my fingers aren't, because I've got stuff to do with 'em!

A couple of weeks ago, I finally finished my own modified version of my pattern from the winter '08 Interweave Crochet. Observe:

My main modification to the pattern was to begin in an XL at the bottom (because I am pear-shaped), and then switch to a Large right before the waist. I did run into a problem, though: the shoulders were too wide. (And this after I had a conversation with one of my designer friends about that very thing!) I thought I'd mention it here just in case anyone else has the same problem, with any sweater they make.

See the shoulder on the right there, hanging off the dressform in a very unflattering way. I pinned the other shoulder up so that the seam was where it should have been, to see where I should fix it.

My first plan was to frog the cap of the sleeves and re-crochet them so that the curve was shorter. Then I reattached them, and saw that I still had the same problem. So I removed the sleeves again, and overlapped the top of the cap with the shoulder part of the main body of the sweater. I overlapped three or four stitches. (Hope that makes sense.) I pinned the sleeves on and then sewed them on while the sweater was still on the dress form, to make it easier to see. Even with that small amount of extra bulk at the edges of my shoulders, it lays much much better and I'm pleased with the fit.

Attention, UK Crocheters!

2009-01-07T13:44:00.000-08:00

Yarn Forward Magazine broke the news this morning:

We’re thrilled to announce the launch of the latest magazine in the KAL Media portfolio, Inside Crochet.

Edited by Julie Holetz and Amy O’Neill Houck, the magazine will be launched on 27th March and published bi-monthly.

Pre-orders and subscriptions are available now from the website www.insidecrochet.co.uk.

More details to follow shortly.

I hear that it may also be available to American crocheters; I'm excited to see what Julie and Amy come up with!

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T10:14:00.000-08:00

Everybody else likes to post their new year's wishes early, but I thought I'd wait until y'all had a chance for it to sink in first.
Last night my husband and I watched movies until it turned midnight, while I worked on submission swatches. (My goal was to end the old year working on what I wanted to continue with in the new year. Hehe)

I'm really excited about this new year. I foresee a ton of awesome things coming up in the next twelve months. I hope you do too, for your own neck of the woods - this is going to be a great year!

Christmas: Complete

2008-12-26T08:50:00.000-08:00

Phew! That was a marathon of crochet, I tell ya!

I started on Christmas gifts the weekend after Halloween, running to the local Joann Fabrics for the acrylics I needed, and Fiber Nooks & Crannys (It's hard to spell it that way - shouldn't it be Crannies??) for the good stuff. I had ten people to crochet for, and one decoupaging project, and then baking and all the other Christmasy stuff one must do. All this crocheting and I couldn't show anyone until now!

First up is a Tunisian Kitty Pillow, for my cousin. I borrowed Carol Ventura's free kitty chart for the front, and then did vertical stripes of Tss and Tps on the back. (If you go to my Flickr site you can see a detail of the back.)

My auntie got Lara Croft's Troubadour Socks. It used less yarn than I thought, which means I almost have enough left to make a pair for myself! They're really pretty and I loved making them.

My cousin collects clocks, so I free-handed a Tunisian clock for her. Because Tunisian leans a bit to the side, it was an oval clock, but that's OK, it gives it more character. The bells on top are held up by an unfolded paper clip.

Another aunt received a cowl in her favorite jewel colors. She lives in California, so she may not get to use it much, but hopefully she'll enjoy it when her family goes up to the mountains.

My stepdad loved this gift - it's right up his alley. Free-handed toilet paper cozy with poo on top. He made puns about it all day and carried it around. Hehe.

My uncle teaches math classes at the community college, so I thought this might suit his office well - a hyperbolic plane. I believe n=4 in this one.

My cousin asked for boxes for Christmas. After I crocheted them I pressed them really well with a hot iron to kill the fiber, which made them a little less floppy.

I barely got these done in time - at the beginning of last week it got really cold and snowed quite a bit, so we were all having trouble getting around. I still needed to run down to the river to find some smooth rocks for this project, and luckily last Saturday everything melted so I went out in the rain to the edge of the Willamette River and found a half-dozen river rocks to dress up. They're based on a project in Kooky Crochet that I saw on Ravelry; I used my Harmony Guides to find some interesting motifs and then chained around the back/bottom of the rocks to hold the motifs in place.

The other two projects were a hat (which I didn't take a picture of as it was just a plain back-loop-only cap), and a basketweave hat and scarf set (which I posted about below). And I decoupaged a box with shredded dollar bills for my cousin who asked for money for Christmas. That took forever and in the end I completely forgot to take a picture of it! Whoops.

Phew! That was a long (almost-)two months. I have some production crochet on the horizon, I believe, as well as some submissions to a publication or two, so the busyness will not abate, but I kind of like it that way. :)

Cubism

2008-12-13T07:02:00.000-08:00

I'm getting close to finishing my projects for Christmas - I think next time, though, I'll start even earlier than Halloween so I don't panic at all. :)

But the panic has more to do with all my other obligations - I've got to work tomorrow to prepare for an audit on Monday, I have choir rehearsal tonight and Monday and Tuesday and Friday for a Saturday performance, and today I am hosting a party for my husband who just finished his last final and is a graduate now!! Woohoo!

Anyway. I come bearing photos!

My sweater is finally ready to show its face on the web! The Cubist Asymmetrical Sweater is a simple 3/4-sleeve cardigan with waist shaping. My goal was to write a pattern for a sweater that could be worn often, with simple lines and shaping, but with a little twist that made it a bit interesting.

A materials list (as well as materials for all the projects in the magazine) can be found here, and from there (or from my Flickr page) you can see a few additional photos.

I was in the process of making an orange one (go Beavers!) for myself, but then Christmas projects got in the way. So after the holidays I'll be able to show you one made a little larger and in a different color. I may also show you how the first version looked and how the Interweave editor (hi Kim!) and I made it look a little nicer in this version. :)

2008-11-18T08:15:00.001-08:00

I'm making (almost) all my Christmas gifts this year; I decided last month. With the economy on shaky ground (and the lumber industry among the shakiest!), I thought it would be a good idea. And my family is doing something a little different this year, in order to shake off the same old routine we usually do: my mom sent out fifty questions to everybody, and then compiled everyone's answers and sent them back out to everyone so we could get creative with our gifting and so that we could get to know each other a little better. The questions were things like "What's your favorite color? Do you like the beach or the mountains better? What's your favorite food?" etc. The answer to "what's your favorite comfort item" was the one I based my gifts on, for most people, and for others I had to be content with a favorite color.

This weekend I finished a hat and scarf set for one of my cousins. It was a simple basketweave stitch, which gave it some visual interest as well as a lot of extra warmth. As I don't believe he's all that interested in reading crochet blogs (and therefore seeing his Christmas gift too early), I'll post a detail shot here.

Boo!

2008-10-06T18:33:00.000-07:00

I love Halloween. Today I started decorating my little townhouse for it - I don't have a ton of stuff but it feels very festive in here now.

The other day I was up in the spare room, trying to decide if I ought to make another Witcheena, and I spied a skein of Moda Dea Tickertape yarn in a variegated brown that my sister gave me for Christmas a few years ago. I never knew exactly what to do with it - and then I had an epiphany.

So yesterday afternoon I began crocheting. I looked at a few profile pictures of people's heads to figure out where the back of the skull bulged out from the neck. I made the head, shoulders, body and one leg all in one piece, and then went back to add the other leg and arms later. (It was already getting dark and I was too distracted by crocheting him to properly set up the lighting for this shot, sorry!)

He started looking kind of odd once I stuck eyes on him:

(The above picture reminds me of Mr. Burns in "The Springfield Files" where Homer mistakes a drugged Monty for an alien.)

And there he is all clothed in Tickertape! His head took a bit of work, trying to keep the ribbon yarn flat and still cover all the whiteness underneath. I ended up taking a little bit of white thread and tacking the yarn down in places, like the ends of his hands.

The yarn is very soft, so he's a cuddly mummy now.

2008-08-12T21:05:00.000-07:00

I love blocking my designs. I love how it can go from being a pile of stitches sitting on my lap while I work on one corner, to a perfect realization of my original vision. Sometimes it looks even better than my vision. Sometimes it also looks better than my prototype, which is a good good thing.

So my contribution for the winter issue of Interweave Crochet Mag is on the blocking board, and I grinned through the entire pinning process because I'm pleased with myself. I am having a hard time photographing it as it's lying flat, which is a good thing because I can't show you anyway. So you can see it as it was before I blocked it, a pile of stitches on my lap as I worked on one corner, on the bank of the Santiam River during my camping trip a few weekends ago.

Bike Bag: Mistakes and Plan B's.

2008-07-12T17:47:00.001-07:00

Or is that Plans B? Heh.

So. I've been bicycle commuting for the last few weeks, trying to gradually work up from 2 days a week to 5. I found right off that though I have basket-style panniers (they're the size and shape of paper grocery bags) that work really nicely for work clothes and such, it's easy to lose keys and cell phones down in the depths of the panniers. So I thought I'd make myself a felted handlebar bag for my tiny accoutrements. I had a newly-empty oatmeal box, so I built my idea around that - a barrel-shaped bag with a flap across the top, with loops on the back so that I could hang it from my handlebars, and a strap to carry it when it wasn't on the bike. Sounded pretty straight-forward to me, so I fudged it without doing much writing-down of plans (besides making a swatch to see how much the thing would shrink in the wash).

So here it is, all ready for felting: one long rectangle for the main body, two circles for the ends, and a strap. And my dryer balls, which I've been using instead of dryer sheets, for some extra agitation. Into the washer they went, through two cycles, and then I took it out on the patio to sew together onto the oatmeal box.

Problems started around this point. The main piece didn't stay rectangular-ized in the wash; it ended up kind of hourglass-shaped, so I had to force it around the oatmeal box, and then sew the flap as well so that it wasn't an inch shorter on each edge than the width of the bag was once it dried. Luckily, that worked OK, and the next day when it dried I took the oatmeal box out to look at it.

I s'pose it wasn't all that bad once it dried, though keeping the oatmeal box inside was proving to be kind of difficult logistically - not that it wouldn't stay in, but that it looked kind of funky. Then I figured out why:

It may be difficult to see in the photo, but the right side opens further along the circle end piece than the left side does. (i.e. if you look at the bag from the side, where it looks circular, the opening is at 12:00 on one side, but at 1:00 or 2:00 on the other side.) I have no idea how that happened, and was rather annoyed.

So I ripped it all out - well, all that I could, anyway. I had one big rectangle, two circles and a strap. And I didn't want to throw it away, so I started hatching Plan B.

I think when you crochet on the road less traveled (i.e. making up your own patterns, or just kind of striking out, it's important not to get frustrated when something doesn't work, but try to see how to change it so it'll work in another way. In this case, it was already felted so I couldn't frog it, so I started rethinking the shape of the bag. I cut a strip out of each circle and threw away the rounded D-shapes, and made a messenger bag instead:

Much better. I made an asymmetrical edge on the flap with a leftover orange "tongue" where the oversized snap is, and I "hid" my initials just above it:

It turns out this is much better for my commuting situation after all. Excess weight on the handlebars makes the bike harder to handle, and because of the brake wires and such on the front it would have been difficult to get it on and off quickly and easily. Now, because it's flat, I can put bungee it onto my rear rack and it works out very well!

The only downside to the bag now is that Trout likes to sleep on it. Here it is in the 90s outside, and not much cooler inside, and she slept on the plastic bag of skeins before I started, slept on the unfelted pieces before they went into the washer, and she ignores her kitty bed for the finished bag as well:

Aww.

What? You've been crocheting?

2008-07-12T17:31:00.001-07:00

Oh hi. Just about every time I write a post, now, it feels like I should apologize for not writing sooner. I will now resist the urge and move on to other things.

Since last we spoke, I finished my Interweave project and thought it might be nice to make something from someone else's pattern for a change. I've done lace before, but not very seriously and not very large projects (read: I've done snowflakes and swatches and that's about it), so I thought I'd play with that a little. As a crocheter who doesn't usually feel the need to knit, I am jealous of the way that knit lace looks - it looks much more delicate than the crocheted lace shawls I've seen (which is probably because it is). But I picked up some wool/silk lace weight yarn in Victoria, BC a year and a half ago that's been languishing in my stash waiting for a project, and I found one for it.

I spent a few moments outside on the patio this morning before it got too hot to do anything, and before the sun started shining directly onto the rocking chairs. (The trees are now shielding the patio from the sun, but it's 95 and I don't want to open the door.) I'm really enjoying this project - the lace is so light and compact that I can take it wherever I go, and when I bust it out in line or sitting at the coffee shop it's not like the Interweave project I just did, where it spilled over my already-huge Namaste bag and I got nicely toned arm muscles from lugging it around.

The pattern is from "Crochet Lace" published by Ondori, a Japanese book I ordered from Amazon.jp last year. A lot of the patterns are a little too pseudo-Victorian for me, but I liked muddling through the diagrams and the kanji to find the basic idea of how many foundation chains I needed and all that good stuff. The yarn looks like a kind of greyish green but in person it's brighter. (I think the camera is possessed.)

I don't have much longer to play with lace though - yarn is on its way for another pattern I'm writing for Interweave Crochet mag!

Overalls

2008-06-20T07:31:00.000-07:00

I have been working pretty hard for the last few weeks, which is why you've not heard a peep from me since May. I was approached to crochet 27 swatches for a stitch dictionary, and right after I accepted that I got an email from Interweave letting me know that the submission I'd sent in for a book (the one I thought was rejected) was accepted. So I've been tweaking the pattern and crocheting the piece as well as doing the 27 swatches. At first the deadlines were on the same day, and after panicking a few times thinking I mightn't get them done quickly enough, I got the Interweave contract and the deadline had been extended a couple of weeks. Hallelujah! I finished the swatches and sent them back, and now I just have a few inches left on the Interweave project and ends to weave in and blocking to do (which will be a bear - this is a big piece!) And because they're still secret projects, I have nothing to show for it. So I will show you something else.

At the end of last month I helped my friend have a garage sale. She has a hard time getting rid of things, so for a month or two earlier I'd go up to her house and we'd go through one room at a time and reorganize and get rid of things she didn't need, with the ultimate goal of her selling the house sometime soon. That was probably too many details, but whatever. :) Anyway, a couple of hours in I was wandering around looking at the things she was selling and I saw this hanging with the other clothes:

It looks to be all done in double crochet, using acrylic yarn, with spike stitches for the edging and either a slip stitch or appliqued mushroom on the bib.

My friend couldn't tell me any details about it, but her family is pretty crafty so I'm assuming it was made for her or her brother back in the late 70s.

In non-crochet-related news, I'm in the midst of week three of my Community Sponsored Agriculture box. It's been a great experience so far and I recommend it to anyone who has a local farm that offers it. You know where your veggies are coming from (you can even go visit the farm usually!), they're usually organic, and they taste so much better than the picked-too-early produce at the grocery store. My Flickr page is chronicling the weeks' picks, so to speak. Yum.

Anyway, I have some chemo caps for my sister in law on the horizon, so I'll have something visual to share soon! In the meantime - tell me what you're crocheting this summer!

Improvised Swift

2008-05-30T08:45:00.001-07:00

I was doing a little crocheting on my lunchbreak yesterday, and had to roll a skein into a ball so I could work with it. I don't own a swift or a ballwinder; so I usually untwist the skein and lay it around my knees and wind away. But I realized I could use some office equipment to make a quick swift (heh)!

I ended up doing this with two skeins yesterday. One fit over the back of the chair just right, and one was a little big but the arms kept the skein from falling down too far. I got a good rhythm going - push the chair, wind, push the chair, wind... nice in a pinch! But I think getting a real swift and ballwinder ought to be in my future - I like the nice neat cake that it makes - no rolling around like my hand-wound balls. There's something relaxing though, I think, about winding a ball of yarn by hand. Unless you get to the end of your skein and it falls off your knees and you end up with a mess. :)

Sunday

2008-05-18T12:48:00.000-07:00

Sunday mornings are made for coffee and crocheting. See?

I finally finished my twine privacy panel. I kept letting it sit in the evenings and only worked on it while I was watching Masterpiece Theatre on Sunday nights. So I finally put it up a couple of days ago:

Yesterday I got some new mesh chairs and a table at Target, to replace the blue chairs. I will take more pictures when I have more plants - right now the patio looks kind of devoid of life, except for mostly what you see in the pic - I have a beautyberry, a blueberry and a mint plant; and a jasmine on the other side of the patio.

Today I've spent quite a bit of time outside crocheting swatches for a still-secret book project, and now that the sun is streaming onto the patio I'm inside. The weather is cooler than it has been the past couple of days (right now it's 80), and I'm enjoying the quiet.