World kidney day

 

This Thick Warm Crocheted Winter Hat lives up to it’s title.  With front post stitches for insulation, my brother loves how fast this hat warms his head.

I crocheted the Boy Beanie v2.0 for him, also using Red Heart Super Saver in paddy green, but it turned out too tight.  I was thinking of trying out the Husband Hat for him, but he requested a Cable Hat, like my gray one.

I really enjoy the Cable Hat pattern, but after making that hat several times over to get the right size, I had no desire to make another for a while.  The Thick Warm Crocheted Winter Hat pattern seemed like a good compromise.

This hat is my first with a brim and it looks very bulky in the picture.  When worn on an actual head instead of a yarn ball, the brim stretches out a bit more.   

In other news, I’m working on a new set of photos for the Through Any Window Baby Blanket tutorial.  Three rows were out of pattern order, so I’m re-photographing them.  The actual directions are correct, but just remember the color order is jumbled.  Also, I’m planning a new tutorial for a neat little crochet technique I came across on YouTube. 

Today is the third annual World Kidney Day!

      

*That’s cool* a random fact

One in nine US adults have chronic kidney disease.

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Seven random things

 

Wondermommy tagged me! 

The tag rules are:

1. When tagged, place the name of the person and URL on your blog

2. Post the rules on your blog

3. Write 7 things about yourself

4. Name 7 of your favorite weblogs

5. Send an e-mail letting those bloggers know they have been tagged

So here are 7 random things about me:

1.  The sunshine on bright, sunny days gives me headaches.  Even with sunglasses, it feels like I’ve been looking directly into a bare lightbulb at the end of the day.

2.  I gave myself a haircut when I was three.  My mom put a ribbon in my hair for the picture below to keep the short hair on the top of my head from sticking straight up. 

3.  I love fresh ground pepper – lots of it.  I even put it on popcorn.

4.  At restaurants, I tend to shred, tear or strip my paper napkins by the end of the meal.  It’s very bad manners, but I always make sure every piece is scrunched up on the plate before I leave. 

5.  My public high school graduation ceremony was at the Roswell Street Baptist Church in Cobb county, Georgia, the same county that had the famous ‘evolution is theory’ sticker controversy.

6.  I love going to those cheap matinee movies where there’s five other people and you get to put your feet up.  The theater on this island only plays two shows a week in the evenings, so I don’t get to do this often.

7.  I have a tiny scar under my left eye from when I was a toddler and an older kid at daycare threw a record at my face.

I’m tagging the following 7 people:

Andrea, Angela, Ashley, Cami, Christina, Lesa, and Nikki.

*That’s cool* a random fact

When trade was monopolized by the Portuguese in the Middle Ages, pepper was worth more than gold by weight.

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Just over one

This Washboard Dishcloth used just over one skein of Lily’s Sugar and Cream in Soft Teal.  The color is washed out a little because it’s very dark and overcast in the San Juan Islands today and I waited until just before sunset to get the camera out for photographs. 

With a few more foundation stitches and added rows this pattern could double for a placemat.  The picture below makes the dishcloth look placemat size, but in reality it measures 11 x 13 inches - not quite big enough for a full size plate and utensils.   

 

Linuxwitch‘s square-shaped version on Ravelry uses only 18 rows for the body of the dishcloth.  (Thanks for the link Adrienne!)  If I made this again I would follow the 18-row formula because the back-loops-only half double crochet gets a little boring.  Plus, cutting back on the rows would put this pattern back in the single-skein category. 

The border is my favorite part of the pattern.  I like how the shells curve around the corners. 

Also, I finished the Through Any Window Blanket Tutorial.  I took plenty of pictures with lots of detailed shots.  For beginning crocheters, the first two rounds are written without abbreviations and there’s left-handed directions too. 

Hopefully, in the next few days, I can blog about my Swap Swap Gals package for Katrina!

*That’s cool* a random fact

The largest soft-shell clam, the geoduck, can weigh up to three pounds.

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Pretty baby blue

I got my first RAOK in the mail from an anonymous fairy godmother on Crochetville.  (Thank you, thank you FGM!)  The package had a sweet little note and these ribbons.  There’s a handful more, including some pretty baby blue and sage satin ones.  All of them are beautiful and will be used for sure.  And I’m so excited to have a ribbon stash now!

I also received my Swap Swap Gals package today from Zarah.  (Thanks Zarah!)  Here’s a little sneak peak of what I got:

 

There wasn’t enough time today to get Zarah’s swap gifts blog-ready.  I’ll get everything photographed tomorrow ASAP. 

Meanwhile, I’m putting the finishing touches on my own Swap Swap Gals package for Katrina.  All the knitting/crocheting is done, but I am forced to sew a few things so it is going slowly.   

And for those select few that are waiting, I’m working on the Through Any Window Baby Blanket tutorial also.  

*That’s cool* a random fact

Pabst Beer is now called Pabst Blue Ribbon beer because it was the first beer to win a blue ribbon at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893.

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Tawashi rosebud

    

I’ve been making these scrubbies on and off for a while now.  The pattern is a no brainer, so it’s a great project for the hands when your mind is occupied.  I put all my Lily’ s Sugar and Cream scraps in a little basket with a hook, ready to crochet when I’m on the phone.

These scrubbies are also perfect cotton stash-busters.  There’s very little yarn needed, and the pattern is exceptionally easy to modify.  Subtracting a few rows or reducing the foundation chains does little to alter the finished product. 

I picked up too many stitches to gather together in my first few scrubbies.  It’s best to thread through less than half the stitches on the side, otherwise you’re left with an open hole that is difficult to pull closed.  This is what happened with the bottom right scrubbie.   

The photo mosaic shows my four favorites out of a batch of eight.  If you’re interested in the other four, I made a slide show of the complete set over at slide.com. 

Another free pattern with a similar design is the baby swirls hat, which is basically a giant scrubbie with only one side cinched together.  It’s a great hat for beginning crocheters and makes a cute hat for newborns.   

*That’s cool* a random fact

Cottoncan absorb up to 27 times it’s weight in water and the absorbent fibers get stronger when wet.

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Mishmash of color

More dishcloths today.  These are a quick distraction from other projects I’m working on, but can’t show.  First of all, I’m crocheting some top secret items for my Swap Swap Gals appointed recipient Katrina.  We’re not technically swap partners since each person delivers to next down a list.  Most of the projects for Katrina are crochet, but there’s also an intermediate knit piece that I’m excited to finish. 

Also, I’m spending some time on a picture tutorial for the Through Any Window Baby Blanket.  I’ve got about half of it photographed and, as usual, I’ll have left and right handed photos included. 

And there’s good news about the camera: my brother had a look and ‘broke’ the lens back into place.  Was that all?  In any case I’m happy to get my little PowerShot back in working order!

So, about the dishcloths.  This Sunshine Dishcloth by Drew was interesting to crochet.  I like the multi-layered effect and the unique shape the border forms using shells.  I had to block it lightly to get the ‘pointy’ effect, but this turns out well without any help.  I want to make another in a variegated cotton like Andrea on her blog Knits and Knots.   

James G. Davis adapted this design for a twelve inch Sunny Skies Square.  So, if you’re not a dishcloth kind of person, you could still try this pattern to include in a blanket or comfortghan.

 

Here’s another design by Drew called the Pentagon Dishcloth that does require blocking to get the right shape.  In it’s unblocked state, the pentagon looks more like a miss-shaped circle.  

The dishcloth is made with Lily’s in Soft Teal.  (Can you tell I have a lot of Sugar and Cream in my cotton stash?)  The pattern itself kept me on my toes, but I like the overall design and I learned a few crochet lace tricks along the way.     

 

The Lacy Honeycomb Dishcloth is made with Lily’s Sugar and Cream in Over the Rainbow and Hot Orange.  I’m thinking that this color scheme would have worked better if I used the orange as the main color.  The pretty crochet design is lost in all that mishmash of color in the center.  This dishcloth  is on the small side (not necessarily a bad thing) but turned out to be a satisfying little project.     

 *That’s cool* a random fact

The bumblebee moth has transparent wings and a black and yellow body that makes it look like an ordinary bumblebee.  This disguise allows the moth to infiltrate a bee’s nest and lay it’s eggs in the honeycomb.

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Neither rain nor sleet

I finished the knit boucle scarf for my mom.  Even though the pattern was very simple it took a lot longer to make than I’m used to.  There are more stitches to the inch compared to crochet and being a slow knitter doesn’t exactly speed things along. 

When I did finally finish the knitting I still wanted to embroider something simple in the corner.  After deciding on a treble clef, I put an image through knitPro to get one of those nifty graphs.  Originally, I intended to try out the duplicate stitch technique but the Caron SS yarn was fatally hidden by the boucle.  Those little tufts of yarn buried my best attempts. 

Since the duplicate stitch didn’t look right, I tried the back stitch.  Even with two strands together all that fuzzy boucle still got in the way, so I finally came to the conclusion that the crochet slip stitch was my only option.   

The slip stitches turned out to be just what I was looking for.  The only downfall is you have to free hand a bit more than the embroidery (exactly the reason I put it off).  The extra effort was worth it, though.  The slip stitch made the curves look much nicer than the embroidery and the raised effect makes the insignia really pop. 

My favorite part of the slip stitch technique is the opposite side.  Since I wove the ends in back through the treble clef, the backside doesn’t look that much different from the front.  See the gray yarn outline through the back?   

This scarf was made just in time, too.  We got four inches of snow yesterday and then a few more today.  What’s weird is that it snows during the night and early morning and then it’s really warm and sunny during the day.

During the day, on account of the warm weather, the snow trapped on tree branches melt off randomly in clumps.  It sounds like it’s raining all around in short, heavy bursts - defintely an auditory experience.  Plus, every once in a while when I was under a tree (hard not to do around here) I got smacked in the head with an ‘organic’ snowball courtesy of Mother Nature.  

*That’s cool* a random fact

The treble clef is also known as the G clef because one end circles around the ’G line’.

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Get lost

I got lost walking around in Seattle today.  I’m very good at getting lost but luckily my brother was with me.  We were on our way to visit our cousin Erika in South Seattle, but made a pit stop around Pike and 6th to have a look around. 

Isn’t this manhole cover pretty?  I wanted to take a clear picture but felt kind of silly on my toes, holding a camera at arms length, so I took the stealth way out and settled with a blurry version.

After sightseeing and stopping to play a few games at the Gameworks Video Arcade we got a little turned around.  We were able to back track with the help of a few friendly Seattleites, but by my estimate I would say we walked around for three hours, one-third of that in a confused state.  If I have learned one thing today, it’s that Seattle is not a flat city!

*That’s cool* a random fact

Seattleites buy more sunglasses per capita than any other city in the United States.

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The time warp

This is the product of my first thread crochet stint way back in February 2007.  My Grandma graciously gave me her thread crochet hook collection when I told her I had a project in mind, but no supplies.  Not only did she donate her steel crochet hooks to my craft cause, she gave me some of her stashed crochet thread to get started. 

I made a bunch of bookmarks from that thread and as a thank you I sent her one of the them.  This is how my Grandma keeps the bookmark today, hung over her lamp.  I snapped a pic when I visited her in December.   

I don’t think I’m the thread crochet type.  The tiny string makes it hard to keep the right tension, especially the shiny kinds.  Even if I personally don’t absolutely love thread,  I still ‘ooh’ and ‘aah’ at the multitude of doiles harbored on Flickr.  I guess I’m a prime canidate for those doily baby blankets.

The pattern for the Columbine bookmark above is currently unavailable as far as I can tell.  Every link I try has a “Oops!  Error” slogan.  Lucky me, I have a copy from those luxurious days when my printer still worked.  There was another bookmark I made at the same time called the Star Flower.  The pattern for that is available at Craft Bits (thank you Ravelry pattern search!)

I got curious and searched Crochetville for my orignal post.  This was way before I ever thought about keeping a crochet blog and I had just joined the ‘Ville.  You can still see my Crochetville post from way back when, complete with original fuzzy bookmark pictures.  I got a kick out of revisiting the post and believe it or not, Riohnna was the first comment!

*That’s cool* a random fact

Mick Jagger wanted the part of Dr. Frank N. Furter in the film verion of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

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The last two

I’m doing a little blog housekeeping with my FOs from 2007.  These are my two last Soley Granny Square Hats of the half dozen I crocheted.  More of the same, I know, but I never did get tired of making them.  In case you didn’t read my earlier posts on the subject, I made these with scraps as part of a stash-busting goal.

   

 

I like that the granny hats look like they are levitating in the photos.  There’s a yarn ball under them for shape but it didn’t really show up in the picture. 

This green hat was made with RHSS in mint, white and orchid.  It was the very last hat I made and I got lazy with changing colors.  Weaving in the ends from the circle center was my least favorite part because it was easy to distort the spokes.  For that reason I used purple for the first two rows.  Compared to the other two hats I made with the circular start I think it would have looked better if I put a separate color for the first round.  It will have to do though, because I am not going back to fix it!

*That’s cool* a random fact

The Purple Earth Theory suggests that ancient microbes used retinal instead of chlorophyll on early Earth, making organisms appear purple instead of green.

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