Solar flare

I made the Grannyesque Headband with random tan wool I had from my stash.  The yarn was bought by my grandmother, so I’m guessing it’s Mill End yarn.  There’s no label to go by, anyway. 

The headband pattern is so easy, with granny shells and triangular ends.  My favorite part were the ties, which are written into the border.  I love patterns that start and end with the same length of yarn!

Here’s a picture from the garden.  I like how the light bends around the petals.  I wonder if there’s a ‘rule’ in photography not to have a strong line end in a corner.  The stem angle looks off to me, now that I look at it.   

Happy Wednesday!

*That’s cool* a random fact

According to the Thai solar calendar, the color associated with Wednesday is green.

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Atre y pico award

         

Sue of Perpetualplum’s Weblog passed the Atre y Pico Award on to me! 

The rules read:

1) Pick 5 blogs who deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material and who also contribute to the blogging community no matter what language.

2) Each award must have the name of the author and also a link to their blog.

3) Each award winner must show the award and put the name and the link to the blog that has given her or him the award.

4) The award winner and the one who has given the prize must show the link of the “Arte y pico” blog so everyone will know the origin of this award. 

I’m going to cheat and recognize six, not five, bloggers who I have previously never awarded/tagged.  The “Atre y pico”  award goes to these six bloggers who knit and/or crochet for their excellence in the following categories…

                             writing:  Bezzie of Random Meanderings

                      drawing:  Carina of Carina’s craftblog

amigurumi:  Mia of Owlishly

          sewing:  Lara of thornberry

        jewelry:  Jordana of Guaya

    photography:  Oiyi of Oiyi’s Crafts

 *That’s cool* a random fact

The first ever patent of a sewing machine was in 1790 by Thomas Saint. The machine used the chain stitch, made with a hook-ended needle and a single thread.

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Cotton twiggy

I crocheted this Kitchen Scrubbie with the very last strands of my Sugar ‘n Cream stash.  I ran out of Hot Blue after making the body so, I had to dig around in my small scraps basket for a very short strand of Summer Splash cotton yarn.  Fortunately, the variegated matched the blue body and the green color makes it looks like a flower stem.

The pattern calls for a size J hook but I went with a size I hook since my size J hook is MIA at the moment. (Angela, I loose them too!) The scrubbie itself consists of two layers chain loops and a slip stitch handle.  The double layer construction may confuse beginning crocheters, but the idea is easy enough.  

Here you can see the ‘inside’ of the scrubbie.

This kitchen scrubbie could double as a bath poof since the stitches aren’t too tight.  It would probably dry just fine.  If a reinforced handle were added it would also make a nice duster. 

 

This was a nice distraction from my top secret Swap Swap Gals purses.  I’ll get to that in a later post!

*That’s cool* a random fact

Scientists in Japan claim they have developed the first true blue roses by extracting the gene for blue pigment (delphinidin) from pansies.

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April showers

 

Here in the San Juan Islands it’s been snowing in big fat drops.   I found these flowers buried in partially-melted snow this morning. 

All this cold weather coupled with very windy conditions make it absolutely freezing!  I prefer hat and sweater weather, myself.

This picture of the first snowfall reminds me of the book cover from Snow Falling on Cedars (which takes place in Puget Sound, WA). 

 

Crochet pictures to follow.  There’s really nothing to show today since I’m working on the Swap Swap Gals purse-themed swap and testing a pattern.  (Thanks for asking me Mellissa!)

*That’s cool* a random fact

Naturally occurring organic compounds called thujaplicins give cedar wood it’s distinctive smell that is highly unattractive to insects, moths and pests.   

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Tapioca and beer cozies

I met with my brother for some shopping and we got to try bubble tea.  Apparently Bubble Tea Cafe is a new store in the mall set up after the cookie place went out of business.  There were lots of different flavors to choose from, including honeydew, taro and blueberry, but we settled on grape and mango-peach flavor, respectively. 

We both thought it was delicious and I personally liked the tapioca peals: they taste sweet and chewy and you suck them up through a huge half-inch wide straw.  These drinks are expensive at $4.25 (only one size available), but it’s a nice treat and those tapioca pearls are really filling!

I crocheted the Beer Bracelets while waiting/riding the San Juan ferry in the morning, about a two hour stretch.   They’re a little too small for the bubble tea containers, but I imagine they would fit just fine on a beer bottle or paper coffee cup. 

I was thinking I’d get an action photograph somewhere along in the day with some coffee cups, but the bubble tea models were an unexpected surprise.  Add the flower pot from the entrance of the mall and some odd stares from fellow shoppers and poof, crochet FO pictures! 

I went a little crazy sewing on the buttons.  I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to sew just two parallel lines.  It just speaks to my sewing skills I guess.  Speaking of yarn, I used TLC Essentials in Jungle and a random ball of yarn rescued from the local thrift store.  If anyone could identify this purple and pink variegated yarn I would be very happy!

The Beer Bracelets use the linked treble stitch, which creates tall, connected stitches.  If you’ve seen my adjacent double crochet stitch tutorial, you know I’m a fan of patching up unwanted crochet holes.  The picture above shoes the horizontal bars which you loop around, like in tunisian crochet.   Every linked TR row is followed by a row of single crochet and the whole cozy is bordered in slip stitches. 

Here you can see the wrong size of the cozy with the linked TR stitches separated by single crochet stitches. 

And for good measure, this is what the car deck of the ferry looked like just before docking back on Orcas Island.  You can see a slide show of all the ferry pictures I took that day on Slide.com.

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Warm up america

The twenty-five rectangles I made finally made it to Donna at Crochetville!  They’re for the Soften the World Simply Soft Sweepstakes Caron is holding. You can see a picture of my rectangles and the 1000+ rectangles other Crochetvillers have contributed on the 2 for 1 – Warm Up America and Crochetville! thread.  I crocheted every last bit of Simply Soft in my stash, including two unused skeins in navy and remnants from the Cable and Divine Hats. 

I used Donna’s 7×9″ Rectangle Granny pattern for the majority of the rectangles.  I thought about using a bunch of different stitches, but finding the gauge for each pattern was taking too much time.  Grannies work up fast and once I figured out the perfect hook size the rest was easy. 

To get the right gauge I actually left out Row 8 of the pattern.  My gauge was still too large with a size F hook and I hate using the size E hook with worsted weight yarn.  My yarns splits, the handle is too thin and I generally can’t crochet as quickly.  Also, since I can’t stand weaving in lots of ends with a granny-style stitch, all the little yarn balls that I couldn’t stretch to a whole rectangle were made up in plain double crochet. 

I’m glad I tried Donna’s granny pattern because I learned a new way to join granny-style rounds.  For the last corner, you chain one and single crochet to join the round.  The single crochet ends in the middle of the last corner and from there you make half a corner and continue around.  It’s difficult to explain, but simple to use and there’s no slip stitches involved!

Anyway, I crocheted twenty-six rectangles total.  Twenty-five went to Donna and the last rectangle was sent out in my name for the individuals category.  The deadline for individual square entries is May 1, 2008 with a prize of twelve skeins of Caron SS.  Crochetville is still accepting rectangles through the mail until April 29, 2008 for their effort to win the $300 cash prize.  All the squares collected for the contest will be donated to the Warm Up America charity. 

 

*That’s cool* a random fact

Granny Smith Apples are named after Mary Ann Sherwood (1799-1870), who never saw her apples become a commercial apple variety. 

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Double trouble

I’ve been in a crochet funk for the past couple of days.  Instead of actually crocheting, I found myself going around in circles about what pattern to start and which yarn to use.  So I -gasp- took a break from yarn.  It’s been an interesting change of pace, but now I’m back with a fresh mind and a new dishcloth! 

This is the Double Trouble Dishcloth, made with Sugar ‘n Cream in Hot Purple.  With four different rows, the pattern stitch was entertaining enough without being difficult.  I added a couple single crochet rounds to the border to square off the dishcloth.  In hindsight, a simple shell border or even a picot stitch would have been a better option. 

The whole FO is on the large side.  If I crocheted this pattern again I would use a smaller hook size to get a firmer fabric.  The shells feel a little loose, but since no gauge is given I can’t say for sure if the designer intended for the dishcloth to be more compact. 

The Origami Hot Pad is a fast crochet pattern that makes a sturdy and practical hot pad.  This is the type of pattern that makes a great mindless project, since it is made completely of single crochet.  I used Sugar ‘n Cream in Hot Green and Key Lime Pie.

The hot pad is started with a chain of thirty-five and made by crocheting continuously in rounds.  By folding the resulting pouch, the ends meet and you get a double thickness hot pad.  I’ve seen other versions that have a little loop added to hang.  I’d love to make more of these with lots of coordinating stripes. 

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Abominable snowman

These Abominable Baby Slippers are for my cousin Lindsay’s little boy who just turned one year old.  I went ahead and made the 18-24 month size so he’ll hopefully get some use out of them. 

I’m pretty sure that the loops stitches are too long.  The slippers look sort of mop-like.  The first time I made the body of the slipper the loops were way too short.  I guess I got a little overzealous the second time around.  I think the loops will shorten slightly with wear, though.  The crochet loop stitch does not secure the actual loops very well. 

The inside of the slipper is reinforced with another matching layer of crochet to prevent the loops from shortening.  Although this made the actual crocheting and assembly more time consuming, I really like how shoe-like the slippers feel.  If I had enough gray, I would probably have made a double-crocheted sole too. 

This pattern was so well thought out.  The claws, pattern stitch, crochet reinforcements and a BLO folded cuff all come together easily, making a structually sound little slipper. 

I would make these again in another color scheme like Andreacrochets.  You can see her blue and orange ‘monster’ version on Flickr.   

*That’s cool* a random fact

 Quatchi, a young Sasquatch, is one of the three official Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic mascots. 

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