The Sheep(ish) Hooker

Project Name: Sheep(ish) Hooker
Pattern Name: N/A (An improvised Crochet Scarf)
Yarn: Caron Vickie Howell Sheep(ish), 2 skeins = 334.0 yards (305.4m)
Hook: 10.00mm (N)
Size:6.5" x 54"
Love: ♥♥♥♥♥ - Full of Love and had to keep it for myself!

You can find my Ravelry Project Notes HERE.

I am in love with the Extended Single Crochet stitch and can't seem to stop using it in crochet projects. I chained 12 stitches and worked this scarf in (what else?) extended single crochet with two strands of yarn held together on a N (10.00 mm) hook. Fast, furry and fabulous! I thought it might be a charity scarf when I started it, my hesitation being the wool content. I try to donate machine washable and dryable items. When I finished I tried it on and did NOT want to take it off! It's super warm and just a snuggler of a scarf. LOVE IT!

You will notice my dog is doing a lot of modeling this week. I still look a bit like warmed over death so I am employing her talents for modeling my knitwear until I can get my self put back together. And since it is January and Minnesota - we have pretty much no daylight at this point. One day I will make a lightbox for taking knitwear photos, but until that day it's too much flash and a dog model! ;)

Where I force my brother to be matchy matchy

Project Name: Soldier, Brother, Packer Fan - The Scarf (Crochet)
Pattern Name: N/A
Yarn: Red Heart Team Spirit, 0.98 skeins = 239.1 yards (218.7m)
Hook: 5.5mm ( I )
Size: 6.5 inches x 50 inches
Love: ♥♥♥♥

You can find my Ravelry Project Notes HERE.

After I made The Packer Hat I still had over a skein of this yarn left. Obvious solution was to hook up a scarf. I made a chain of 20 and then worked the entire thing in extended single crochet until the length was just about right for my brother. He loved the length of the last scarf and I wanted this to be about the same. I finished this in 2012, but we had the flu hit my hubby and then me, so it's been tough to take the time to take pictures. Today was my first full day of work in a week, and I feel less Zombie than I have in some time, so I thought I would snap a quick pic and get this posted.

Hope everyone else is avoiding the flu and feeling fit and fine!

Hooking Away!

We have a guest dog in the house this weekend. We are pet sitting my MIL's dog Minnie. She is just a ball of energy and she has been wearing us all out, but in a good way. Above you will see I was trying to crochet a little blanket for my cat while Minnie climbed all over me trying to see what was going on outside. Emma of course was calm and just hanging out.

 

Once the blanket was finished I placed it in Izzi's cat bed and she immediately curled up and went to sleep on it! She loves it and I was so happy. So often with pet knitwear (crochet wear?) I feel like you knit it for yourself - since he animal tends to not care one way or another. So to have Miss Izzi claim an item I knit for her was pretty wonderful.

Since her cat house has two beds I quickly made another one for her other bed as well. This is not the bed she spends as much time in, but I had the yarn and thought "Why not?".

 

I suspect she will love snuggling into both of these once Winter rolls in. As it is now still summer temperatures, she isn't getting the full affect I think.



Oops! I guess your a blanket now

 

You know how you grab a random ball of yarn out of your stash and think you will quick make a charity scarf? Well that's what I started here and it just sort of exploded on me and turned into a blanket I cannot part with. This is crocheted out of Paton's Divine and JoAnn's Angel Hair yarn (see more details on how much, etc on my Ravelry Project Page) and it is fluffy and light and just wonderful to curl up under. I have been rather obsessed with it and knocked this out in about 10 days. My wrist is none to happy with me, but I can curl up under my new blanket while I complain about it!

 

Bonus that I got 8 large balls of yarn out of my stash by making this as well. (Woot woot!) I crocheted this with a size (P) crochet hook and it was just under 1000 yards when I finished. I curled up under it last night while watching Bar Rescue and it was really warm but really light weight. Just love it!

 

Already I am looking at my stash and wondering what I can whip into a blanket next!

It's Fugly and it's Finished!

I HAVE FINISHED MY FUGLY BLANKET AND I LOVE IT!

This took me four months to hook up and it was a real learning experience. It was really fun to just grab a ball out of my scrap bin and add it onto the growing blanket. I methodically weighed each scrap and ball on my handy scale and recorded that on note cards to enter onto my project page on Ravelry. My yardage ended up being 2620.1 yards although that is a bit of a guestimate since most of my scraps did not have ball bands, but I think most cotton yarns have similar weights and yardage per gram - so I am pretty comfy with my guestimate. (You can read the list with all the weights and stuff on my project page on Ravelry.)

Sometimes I would try and place colors next to each other - and sometimes I would "need to work with pink" and would just add pink yarn where ever it landed. I started out thinking I would just use up my scrap bin, but I ended up running out pretty quick, so I found myself crocheting wash cloths on my lunch hour and then going home that night and hooking the rest of the ball onto the blanket!

Emma enjoyed me placing a blanket out on the grass for her and she had some nice rolling around on it. Any time I lay out a knitting/crochet project she has to come over and lay down on it. It's funny. I appreciate her being so kind to my knitwear though. She only ran off with one hat and no damage was done. And she's just the cutest little model!

I did a test run for possible future picnic's and the size is really good. I can sit here and have a nosh with Emma no problem. I think my hubby could even squeeze in! Nice! :)

Here's a shot of the denim blue border in single crochet. I think I did 6 rounds but it might just be five. I have a hard time counting rows still and I didn't track this as I went. I just added rows until it told me it was done. The corners have three single crochet into the corner stitch for the turns. I think a darker border would probably look better (in hindsight) but this color is more pet hair forgiving - so I call it a win.

There is also a little bit of pucker from my border - but not enough to really bug me. I suspect going from Extended Single Crochet to Single Crochet may have been part of the problem here - but I like the slightly denser fabric around the edge of the blanket.

I did crochet blocks of color together in areas which left ridges all over the back. I decided they bothered me too much and went back and sewed them all down. Not very pretty - but like I said. LEARNING EXPERIENCE. Also - It's called a fugly blanket - so yeah. No pressure to look pretty.

The size is perfect. I can wrap it around my shoulders and it just reaches my feet. Since it's all scrap cotton I can wash and dry the crap out of it. If I stain it I can bleach it. And it sleeps like a dream. I finished sewing in my last stray end last night and within 30 minutes after I did that I was sound asleep under it in bed. Just love it.

Fugly Update

I thought I would update on my Fugly blanket this week. I spent a couple hours last night weaving in the ends and tacking down the fugly seams I created when I crocheted chunks together. Today I pulled my blanket our and measured it and took a few pictures. It's currently 56 inches by 52 inches (142 cm x 132cm). I feel like if I make it too much larger it will hit "blanket" or "afghan" level rather than throw. I wonder if there is a real division in the those or if that is just my feelings? Anyway - I don't want a HUGE blanket. I want a mini blanket for throwing over my shoulders in bed at night or wearing on my lap while I knit. My internal voice told me I was there.

My next challenge is picking out the color I want to edge it in. I THINK I have it figured out now, but honestly I have changed my mind three times this morning already, so.... Yeah.

My only requirement is that it be in my stash. I have a whole bin of cotton - so that's really not an issue I don't think. This whole blanket is an experiment and since I have declared it FUGLY from day one there really is nothing I can do to it to make it worse. That really takes the pressure off.

In other news, my weekly weight in was pretty successful considering how much I consumed over the 4th of July holiday! I gained about half a pound this week and I was pretty happy with that since I was sure it would be much worse.

Another blessing is our heat wave finally broke. We hit 102F (38.88C) yesterday and it was over a week of temperatures like that. Last night we had storms roll in and today we are a bit cooler - so yay for that!

Is anyone doing the Stephen West KAL that starts next Friday? Lord help me - I signed up for it! I don't work with small needles  - like ever - and I am thinking if I am lucky I will be knitting this up on a size 4, but the yarn states size 1-3 needles so I may end up smaller than I think. Uffda. What have I gotten myself into?!?! My other concern is that this KAL will only be halfway over when the Olympic Games starts and I have a project geared up for that as well! So.... Yeah. We will have to see how this goes!

Crochet Charity Scarf the Second (2012)

I finished my second crochet charity scarf to send off to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. This one used 163 yards of worsted weight acrylic (Bernat Mosaic) and I again did the Extended Single Crochet Stitch. I chained 13 stitches and then worked the extended single crochet until I ran out of yarn.

I carried this in my work bag and just worked on it at my lunch. Very easy and it used up the yarn left over from the scarf I made my co-worker for her birthday. Very win win!

I would like to branch out and practice more kinds of stitches with charity scarves. What a great way to practice, stash bust and do a good deed all in one shot!

A Pot Holder of Ill Repute

I haven't been talking a whole lot about my knitting and crochet lately, but I have been cranking along on stuff. I have been crocheting washcloths on my lunch hour, and today I finished a pot holder! Weeee!

This was really easy. I cast on (chained) 51 stitches and then worked 50 stitches in Extended Single Crochet until I could fold my fabric in half and get a square shape. When I hit that point I DID fold it in half and then did single crochet all the way around to lock the two pieces of fabric together. On the corners I did three single crochet to give a nice turn. I did this on a size I/9 - 5.50MM hook. It ended up weighting in at 71 grams on my trusty scale - which is about 129 yards of cotton yarn. Easy as pie!

And YES! I found out that the crochet stitch I have been doing rather obsessively for the last few months is called the Extended Single Crochet. So yay(!) that I can finally put a name on what I am doing!

I am still working on my KAL shawl. I am almost ready to bind off and then I can begin the edging, so that is really exciting. I can't believe this was supposed to be knit in a week! Crazy. It should have been more like a month long KAL. I went last weekend and purchased a longer needle for it and have been working on it pretty non-stop since then. (I was working with a 29" needle and upped it to a 47" and it's SOOOO Much better!)

I am trying to get some whips done before I cast on anything else new, but it's hard. I am pretty fickle and I have so much gorgeous yarn that is just BEGGING me to knit it! Argh! Must. Finish. What. I. Started.