The yarn bearer

 

I won yarn from Kayla!  That’s 1200 yards of hand-dyed, 100% fingering weight yarn.  I’ve actually never worked with fingering weight yarn before, so I’m very excited.

Kayla hosted the contest on her blog, The Yarn Bearer.  All she required was a comment with what you would make from this skein.  I chose the Celestine Crochet, which looks like a spiky ball.  If I like the pattern enough I’ll try the knitted version, too.

 

I plan to start crocheting just as soon as I wind this hank into a ball.  I’m a bit scared about tangles from Angela‘s experience, but I think I’ll take her advice and hang the yarn off the end of a chair. 

Thanks again, Kayla, for the beautiful yarn!

 

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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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Bobble bobble

 

I’ve actually had this Bobble Clutch crocheted for about six months now, waiting to be lined.  Shocking, I know, but my fear of fabric and thread is hard to overcome.  With the “All About Hearts” swap for Swap Swap Gals I decided to make a few purse items in order to force myself to sew.  It worked out and I got everything finished in time, but I’m still not a sewing convert. 

 

Anyway, I finally got this darn purse lined and zippered.   The zipper is sewn in a little wobbly, but it zips like a champ.  I learned a very important lesson – do not sew the lining too close to the zipper!  I had to sew the fabric twice since the first time the zipper kept catching the hem.

 

I’m not 100% positive, but I’ll guess this purse is made of Red Heart Super Saver in Gemstone.  I like to roll my skeins of yarn into balls and rarely keep the wrapper.  I figure the internet can always help me with future identification.  This is easy when I remember what brand, but I’ve had the yarn picked out for my grandma for a long time.  She loves these jewel tones, especially the turquoise, and I was just waiting for a one-skein pattern to catch my eye. 

The Bobble Clutch was the perfect project I was hoping for.  The pattern is from One Skein: 30 Quick Projects to Knit or Crochet.  (I’m sure you’ve all heard of it.)  Easy pattern to memorize, and the bobbles make any yarn look wonderfully textured. 

Hayley, over at Adventures with Little Miss is working on the Bobble Clutch in a gorgeous olive green color from Vanna White’s yarn line.  It’s looking great so far!

Happy St. Patty’s Day everybody!

*That’s cool* a random fact

New York’s St. Patrick’s Day parade is the longest running civilian parade in the world.

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You make my day

          

         

         

Angela, Ashley, Cami, Christina and Lesa were kind enough to give me the ‘you make my day’ award.  Thank you for the award and to all my readers everywhere!  I’m just excited that a few people find my craft world interesting enough to follow.  

The rules of the award read: “Give the award to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blogland. Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so they can pass it on. Beware you may get the award several times.” 

I’m passing this award on to the following ten blogs:

Melissa on A Mess Put Together Nicely 

Umme on ummeYusuf

Angela on My Tangled Threads 

Ashley on Crafty Ashley

Andrea on Knits and Knots

Christina on Crafty Christina

Paula on Hookandyarn

Niki on Knockout Niki Crochets.

Cami on Crochet Cami

Lesa on Lesalicious Style and Life

 

While we’re on the topic of blog fun, I saw this on Mary’s Little Craft Corner:

Anyone seen the BAND MEME going around? Basically, you go to three sites to randomly select your band name, album title, and cover art.

1. Go here for the band name: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
No matter what the title of the article is, that’s the name of your band.

2. Go here for the album title: http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words from the very last quote on the page makes up the title of your band’s album.

3. Go here for the cover art: http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
Whatever the third picture is, that’s the cover to your band’s album.

~here’s my results~

Name of my Band:
ITM2C

Title of my first Album:
“To Be a Hundred”

Cover Art:

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On a roll

Since I’ve only been working on my boucle knit scarf, and any updates on that would bore you to tears, I thought I’d show you my Baby Hat on a Roll.  You can read the original post about it on Crochetville. 

I didn’t really bother with the gauge and it turned out too small for a my cousin’s baby so now it’s sitting on my FO pile nearly a year later.  I’m not too sad about that, since I got to rephotograph it.  Plus it’s one more project I can put in my Ravelry notebook (but who’s counting?) 

The hat has the roll or bullion stitch for the border.  This stitch is tricky and I was using a Boyle.  In hind sight a Bates hook probably would have been a better option.     

 

In other news, I’ve just disovered RSS feeds.  I had some trouble in the beginning because the automatic setting scans for updates every 24 hours but, once I located the options menu, everything fell into place.  Now I have a pleasantly tidy list that bolds any blog listing with an update in the past thirty minutes.  I have even added more blogs to my mental ‘read every post’ list since I’m flooded with a few more blog minutes everyday.

Speaking of blogs, I did a sweep of all the blogs on my blogroll today.  Some blogs that have not been updated in a long while were deleted.  It’s not a matter of like or dislike, so please don’t be upset if your blog suddenly disapeared; I just want to keep the blogroll solely for regularly updated craft reads. 

I’m aiming to add some new blogs for the newly pruned list soon.  I’d love it if you readers would comment with your own craft/crochet blog or one that you like to read if it’s not listed already.  I’m always on the prowl for new and interesting craft reads. 

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Swap swap gals

 

I’m joining Lesalicious‘ Swap Swap Gals blog and these are the required survey questions.  Enjoy!

hobbies : digital photography, guitar hero, reading (esp. non-fiction science, trivia and ‘book club’)

crafts : crochet, knit, bead, cross stitch, paper crafts, book binding (learning), latch hook rugs, paint-by-number, origami

favorite colors: deep blue, aqua, turquoise, lime, heathers, the cottonease colorway or anything bright and cheery

favorite animals: penguins, frogs, jack russells, goldfish, octopi, koalas, hamsters, orca whales

all dislikes: not a fan of royal purple, denim, dusty pinks, lemon yellow, caramel candy, lots of fun fur

favorite candies: peach, gummies, cinnamon and dark chocolate, coconut, hazelnuts, basically any nuts. 

favorite smells: linen, lavendar, cinnamon, pumpkin, butter-cream, honeydew, watermelon, lilac, anything that doesn’t smell like a disinfectant

other: have a jack russell terrier, The Office fan, thread work is beautiful, always on the lookout for good recipes, enjoy trivia/flash cards, ribbons and buttons, listen to music in the car, like playing video games, puzzles/card/board games are fun, handmade is the best 

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Pay it forward

This is the center of a granny square I did recently for a ROAK on Crochetville.  The pattern is the Multi Stitch Granny available free from Dayna’s Crochet.  I really like her crochet square pattern selection.   There are slightly altered grannys, pretty lacy squares and solid textured designs.  Also, she has nice pictures of the samples.     

I’m not sure the purple flower petals were meant to overlap.  In the picture from Dayna’s Crochet site the petals are arranged next to each other but my flower won’t lay like that.  I like the effect though.  By overlapping the petals it adds an inconspicuous three dimensional texture. 

In other news, it’s time to announce my Pay It Forward blog.  I signed up for my PIF handmade gift at A Mess Put Together Nicely from Melissa.  She sounds very nice and when I left an error in my name on Crochetville she had to hunt me down.  (Sorry about that Melissa!)  I believe she has one more spot available so if there are already three comments here try snagging a spot on her PIF entry.  Below are the ‘official’ PIF rules: 

“I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.”

When you leave a comment on my blog for the PIF please leave your name on Crochetville, Craftster or Ravelry.  If you prefer you can e-mail me at thekidneybean@gmail.com or just leave me some way to contact you.

– Edit –  One PIF spot left!

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