Evergreen

This is the One Skein Scarf from Stitch ‘n Bitch: The Happy Hooker.  The pattern is so easy-peasy, and I liked the chart included in the directions.  The ends curl a bit, but I can see why this scarf pattern is so popular. 

The yarn is from a garage sale, so I have no idea what brand it is.  I’m 99.9% sure it acrylic yarn (but soft).  I really like the teal color, which is actually a combination of blue and green fibers.  If you recognize this yarn brand, please comment! 

Purely for the blog, I took my camera on a short hike to Cascade Falls in Moran State Park.  The flash was actually really useful, since it is very shady under the forest canopy. 

*That’s cool* a random fact

A tree branch is not actually attached to the rest of the tree. It is held in place by a series of interlocking “collars”. Collars overlap and mesh to form a tight woven pattern of tissue.

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Da fourth

Happy 4th of July!

*That’s cool* a random fact

The official military name of the M-80, an illegal firework that was designed to simulate the sound of gunfire, is “military rifle fire simulator.”

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Bird in flight

The Lacey the not so Lacey Headband turned out to be a much wider headband than I thought.  I used Red Heart in Ranch Red and a size H hook and my headband measures about 4″ wide.  

I’ve been hiking around Moran State Park a lot lately and this headband with a low ponytail is perfect.  I like having my hair out of my face when I’m on a long walk.  I haven’t taken my camera with me on the trails yet, but I really need to.  Late spring and early summer is so beautiful in the park!

Apart from a hiking headband, the reason I wanted to make the Lacey Headband was to sample the bruges lace technique.  From what I understand, you crochet a long strip with chain loops hanging off the side.  When you make the second strip the parallel chain loops are slip stitched together.  This makes an interlocking, lacy fabric.  The center strip looks like the X-stitch to me. 

 

The pattern is a really nice introduction to bruges lace. The written directions are very clear and there’s a chart included.  I’m not a full fledged chart reader, but if you’re a visual person, it can really make the process clearer. 

I’ll leave you with an evening photograph.  The hummingbirds around the house stop by the feeders all day, but at sunset they come out in swarms!

You can see a slide show of the other hummingbird pictures I took on Slide.com. 

*That’s cool* a random fact

Hummingbirds have the fastest wing beats and the largest brains proportionate to body weight, of any other bird.

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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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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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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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Marbles and bubblebum

 

Doesn’t the picture above look like a crochet spermatozoom, perhaps carrying a tiny X chromosome?  (And, yes, I did have to look up the singular form of ‘sperm’.)

Anyway, Val over at Yarni Gras! has this great tutorial for making marble-enclosed book thongs.  Her Crocheted Bookmark calls for yarn and a size F hook.  I like this supply list because not all crocheters have a plethora of steel hooks and crochet thread at their disposal.

I used Babysoft in bubblegum, a clear marble and a size C hook.  With a much smaller hook than gauge, the decreases make lacy holes.  You can see the upper half of my bookmark has some open work because of this.                        

I was surprised how fast this book thong worked up.  With the tutorial pictures, the pattern is very easy to understand.  If you’re looking for more bookmarks, Val also has an owl and a blowfish/peep pattern, too. 

*That’s cool* a random fact

Virtually all the scripts of the unsuccessful sitcom “Hey, Landlord” (1966) were eventually rewritten as scripts for “Laverne & Shirley” (1976).

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Rain drops

Happy Easter everyone!  If you have some extra blog time today, vote for your favorite rain cloud over at Knits and Knots.

*That’s cool* a random fact

Wet air is less dense than dry air with temperature as a constant.

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Just slip stitch

 

I have more than enough WIPs and computer upkeep to keep me busy, but I just couldn’t resist a few little projects.  They are entertaining until all those little ends catch up with you! 

Hopefully people are managing with the error in color scheme for the Through Any Window Baby Blanket Tutorial.  The corrected tutorial is slowly coming together. 

This tan Crochet Headband, below, consists of a few easily crocheted flowers.  The pattern calls for four motifs, but I threw in one more as a tiny bit of procrastination.  Since each motif was made individually, all those loose ends were no fun. 

The pattern directs you to leave a ten inch tail when you finish off, which is then used to connect the motifs.  Next time I crochet this headband I would just slip stitch across a ch-5 loop for a quicker, join-as-you-go assembly. 

 

Just like the Elizabeth headband I made last Christmas, the wrong side almost makes this headband reversible.  Each flower petal is a cluster of double crochet stitches which bulge on the bottom side. 

Mandi of On Hooks and Needles made a pretty green cotton version back in May 2007.  Mine is made of some scrap Red Heart Super Saver in Cashmere. 

Andrea’s “Woven” Dishcloth gives the stitch multiple so you can easily customize the dishcloth size.  I used a starting chain of twenty-six with a size F hook.  The actual dishcloth measures 6″x 6″.  I also replaced the double crochet stitches in Row 1 for half double crochet stitches. 

This dishcloth packs a lot of cotton in a little square.  Back and front post stitches are alternated in each row with a tight gauge.  This results in a tough, durable structure and a nice, bumpy texture. 

Andrea has a blog contest running until 2pm CT, March 23rd.  To enter the contest, make up the mystery pattern and e-mail her a description and/or picture.  Even if you can’t participate, check out her blog after the deadline to vote for the best entry! 

Also, check out her review of A Whole Load of Craft along with a short interview about my crafty beginnings.

*That’s cool* a random fact

The Pink and White Lady Slipper (cypriedium reginae), illegal to pick in Minnesota, takes over a decade to produce it’s first flower.

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