Here's a Tip

When using very fine, mohair like yarn.. be very careful not to make mistakes... it's hell to frog. I only noticed the mistake about 10 rows away...>>sheesh<<

Crochet Kroshai Crotchet Krahchit

Interesting little post I ran across in the Daily Chaos blog, about the history and meaning of the word Crochet.

Now I know why I'm krahchitty when I can't kroshai.

Yarn Addicted.. who me?

Do you think you might be addicted to yarn? Then Ya gotta read Cerridwen's post about yarn addiction. Although she is a knitter (sigh) she has a great sense of humor about how yarn can take over a life. I wish I had written her post.

I dropped a ball of yarn in ranch dressing this afternoon. NO, not on purpose. I kept watching the yarn jump around as I crocheted and thinking I needed to move the bowl before it happened.. and then it did. I guess I get to try out the "yarn in a pair of hose" laundry trick. I already rinsed it off, and it's sitting near the dish drainer. I suppose DH will think I've really gone bonkers, seeing yarn in the dish drainer.

I'm working on trying to figure out this stitch:


I found it originally as a Poncho, but I want to make it into a shawl. I can't find it in my Complete guide to Knitting and Crochet Stitches. I NEED a copy of the Harmony Guides #6 & #7. I hope Josi over at Weird Mirror gets some in soon. I may have to break down and pay a little more than what she sells them for. I have soooooooo many ideas bouncing around in my head.. the number of WIPs keeps growing and growing. argh.

I'm also going to join the Crochet-a-Long at Crochetville for the Catheral Window Afghan. I'm not a big fan of Annie's Attic patterns, but this one is drop-dead-in-your-tracks gorgeous. This one is too pretty and too complicated for me to use plain ole red heart. I will have to find something nicer. After I get the pattern. LOL.. that's going to be a challenge as it's out of print. And I'm too scots to pay too much for it.

1 more day left on my current eBay sales. Gotta get more listed. And that means more pictures..

And need to get 18 y/o a meningitis shot before she heads off to university next month...and she missed her dermatologist appt...and 16 y/o needs to take Spanish 3 final.. and enroll for part-time college classes (to satisfy DAP ~distinguished achievement program~ requirements) .. You'd think it would slow down some over the summer.

Our coffeepot stopped working today too.. Monday isn't going to be a good day.

Too good to miss

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail-in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.

At first thought, you think.. so what. So go check it out.. it's different than anything I've seen before.

Kinda reminds me of an online/postal confessional. (and no, I've never been to confession, not a catholic, so please don't get offended if I'm way off base. This is just what it reminds me of)

More soul sharing at http://www.thefatmanwalking.com/

This guy is brave. I admire him for his efforts and his honesty. You GO Steve. You're the man!!

Blogging For Freedom

The Electronic Freedom Foundation is sponsoring a Freedom Blogathon.




Info from their newsletter below.

* EFF Announces "EFF15 Blog-a-thon" - Blog for Freedom!
July 19-August 2

For the past 15 years, EFF has been fighting to preserve
the constitutional right to freedom of expression on the
Internet. In the last few years, we've seen an explosion
of expression as new web publishing tools emerged,
providing countless netizens with their own personal First
Amendment machines. This month is our 15th anniversary
and to celebrate, we're putting these publishing tools
front and center. We're holding an EFF15 Blog-a-thon
where you're invited to blog about your personal
experiences fighting for freedom online - a project to
celebrate new publishing tools, attract new EFF members,
and mark our 15th all at once.

We want to hear about your "click moment" - the very
first step you to took to stand up for your digital
rights - whether it was blogging about an issue you
care about, participating in a demonstration, writing
your representatives, or getting involved with EFF.

As a thank you, we've enlisted an independent panel of
judges to choose from among your posts for "Most
Inspirational," "Most Humorous," and "Best Overall."
At the end of the Blog-a-thon, we'll announce the
names of the three bloggers with the best posts on our
website and in EFFector. We'll also publish the three
best posts on our site and send the authors a blogging
"kit" as an extra thank you: an EFF bloggers' rights
T-shirt, special EFF-branded blogger pajama pants, a
pound of coffee, and a pair of fuzzy slippers!

Follow the links below for details on how to participate
and watch the Blog-a-thon - and for extra inspiration,
check out the posts by EFF staff members and interns
describing their first steps in fighting for online
freedom:

Join the EFF15 Blog-a-thon!

eff15

Free Patterns, Until Sept 1, 2005

After Sept 1st, these supposedly will be gone gone. so grab them while you can. (there's some there for knitters too).

Italian Styling

cd holder granny style bag

skimpy little top

cloche

ivory shawl with flowers

Very cute things from an Italian magazine called Mani di Fata. Thanks to the Crochet Partners member who posted the url to the magazine.

I'm almost monolingual (I can mangle espanol un poco), but am able to decipher most of the above patterns because.. HURRAY...they show them in English.

And to the KnittersInOurMidst.. they do have some knit patterns. It's up to you to find the free ones though. There's also a ton of embroidery available.. not sure if much of that is free though.

What time does the train leave?

Do you think he knows his servant is leaving home next month and he's trying to catch a ride?

Mystery Thread

I received in an ebay auction some mystery thread on a blue spool. No markings and no clue to where it came from. I thought I had enough to make a shawl. Wrong. Posting this to solicit help in identifying it. It feels like it's all cotton and has a beautiful sheen. It's bigger than size 10, I think it's about size 5.




Above is the shawl in progress, and then there's a bit of the thread next to a size G Boye hook.

Any ideas anyone? I'm thinking maybe the Perle cotton on a spool from Herrschners might be a match. Or maybe some of the thread at Elmore-Pisgah? I'm really leaning towards the Herrschners though because if you look at their picture closely, you can see that the interior cone is blue, the same shade that this thread was wound on. Unfortunately, I can't find the cone this morning.

Thanks to any who can suggest somewhere else to look. I'll probably just order the thread from Herrschners and if it doesn't match.. I'll use it for something else.

Feeling Irish?

5-Ring Rose


I've been playing with Irish Crochet recently. I didn't feel like using the tiny thread that IC is supposed to use, so I used some Aunt Lydia's fashion thread. I think it's size 3. Also used a G hook. I think it turned out ok. The ends haven't been woven in because I don't know if I will keep this, or what to do with it now that it's made.

Picot-petal Rose

Here's another one. Same deal, ends not secured because I have no idea what to do with the thing. Both patterns came from "The Ultimate Sourcebook of Knitting and Crochet Stitches" which I got at 1/2 price from a Barnes & Nobles that was going out of business (lost their lease).

5-Petal Flower

And here's one that is in progress. It's a little different in that I'm making it in size 10 thread. It's not great thread, being a cheapo brand.. but it was on clearance and is good enough to play with when learning stitches or experimenting. I don't mean to be a threadsnob.. but there IS a huge difference in thread. If you can afford the better thread, I'd advise using it.. it's so much easier on the fingers.

In the above pattern the leaves are added on seperately after the flower is completed. I used a size 5 steel hook (boye.. my preference.)

Comparison:













Demonstrating what a huge difference thread and hook size can make.

Binding by the Hook

Been on an international kick lately. First Japanese amigurumi, now Russian crochet. The russian sites are interesting, very often they will post the instructions with the finished work. While I can't read russian (even with the help of babelfish, it's a bit on the weird side).. I CAN read crochet diagrams. So this has opened up a whole new world of freebies.

Here's some of the places I've been visiting.

www.melissa.ru/forums

www.melissa.ru (put this into babelfish to figure out where to go..they have patterns on the mainsite without having to go into the forums)

http://forum.knitting-info.ru/index.php?showforum=60 yes, i know it says knitting, but it has lots of binding by the hook also. :)

http://www.ntl.narod.ru/rukodelie/shali/ (GORGEOUS shawls here> the download files won't work.. at least for me they wouldn't, but the pictures load nicely.

some of them I've found have links that only work when they are NOT in babelfish. So the thing to do is to open the page twice, once in Russian and the second time in babelfish.. and then flip back and forth so you can see what you're doing. This works best in a tabbed browser like Firefox.

A couple of clues or things I've learned: Charles is the Russian term for a Shawl. Napkin is a doily.

Stupid Pattern

One of the stupidest patterns I've ever seen. A shoulder wrap? grief. It's just a scarf that is joined at the ends. And LB has it mislabeled too.. at the top of the page it says Microspun and the pattern calls for Moonlight Mohair. someone was really sleeping when they added this to the site.

Have to take my son back to camp so he can attend the final sessions initiation.. he doesn't want to borrow my van, he'd rather ride back with his sister after camp ends tomorrow so he can torture her for another hour.

Then they're both home for what's left of the summer. Not sure whether to celebrate or mourn. Little of both I suppose.

I was crocheting when crocheting wasn't cool

Just got through reading a couple of rants and thought I'd share them. The first one by Bellalinda blogging her thoughts regarding Debbie Stoller and her coming to the rescue of crochet. I'm ambivalent about Ms Stoller coming out with a crochet book (someone alert Xavier Hollander..LOL).. sure it's great for "the other art" to be recognized.. but hey, we've been here all along and don't need to take a back seat to anyone or any other craft.

LadyLinoleum at Monster Crochet has a great blog .. with several pertinent posts, but this is one I really agree with.. Knitting Yarn? When did yarn become soooooooooooo specialized? I'm waiting to see some "Crochet Yarn" .. probably will happen after DS's book is published.

Oh, and I found a really great site for patterns.. only it's mainly in Russian. I don't read Russian, but I can figure out some diagrams (or schkemas as they call them). Babelfish to the rescue.

Amigurumi-lust, Blogger frustration

Ok. I think I know what's going wrong. I've been trying just to copy & paste from an email into blogger and evidentally the two don't get along. Sheesh.. try to take a shortcut and end up going miles and miles out of the way.

Anyhow, back to Amigurumi. For those who don't know (like me a week or two ago) Amigurumi seems to refer to single crochet in the round, and specifically to the making of small toy animals with this technique. I don't speak or read japanese, so I'm going from what I've seen on pattern book covers and reading in the crochetville forum.

They're very similar to occidental patterns, but the japanese style seems to be somewhat rounder, and the eye placement seems to be almost parallel with the creatures nose, instead of above.

Want to join in the fun? Check out this blog.

If this post works, I'll add some links to patterns. Cross fingers that this will go.

Yippee.. it worked. so here's some pattern links. Not all are japanese, but are still cute and could be made to look oriental with very little effort.

Bunny

da tame Bunny (I think) different link.

flamingo

PocketAnimals

Bee

Marsupial

Dragon

Panda

Monkey

Baby Harp Seal (ugh.. pdf file. I hate pdfs.. espescially when I'm using dialup. )

What's up with Blogger?

Test to see if blogger has fixed its problems with posting yet.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

I've been sitting here for at least 40 minutes trying to post and blogger keeps telling me a required field can't be blank. Dang computer gremlins.

Disco Throw

I'm in the process of making an afghan or throw. What's the difference? I'm guessing it's the size of the thing. Anyhow.. here's a picture of one of the squares being blocked. I don't have a fancy-schmancy blocking board, I just measured out 11 inches with a piece of paper (8.5 x 11, ya know) and marked the edges with some irridescent headed quilt pins. Then stretched the dampened square out to meet the shiny pins and then pinned it down with yellow quilt pins. Not the most professional job in the world, but it works for me.

And here's the throw with 12 of the 20 squares joined. The pattern calls for the squares just to be sewn together, but I DESPISE sewing blocks together, so I used the flatbraid method. I also decided to use a contrasting color to put them together and will go around the outside with a couple rows of the black (really it's a black/grey blend) and then a couple rows of the disco. The pattern is from the wrapper of the Homespun, called homespun crochet lacy blues throw. It is NOT on the Lionbrand site, but I have written to them and asked that they consider addding it.

NOTE: They finally added it.. on July 18th.. Lacy Blues Throw.

I've done much more than this lately, but taking pictures is not my favorite thing to do. I will get them done and uploaded though. We've been very sick here, an awful stomache flu going around that will knock you on your butt for several days. I was so sick that I couldn't even pick up a hook.. and believe me that is SICK. So glad I'm all better now. Just waiting for the last child to get it so we can be finished with it.