Number 3 in Pomaire

Project Name:  Number 3 in Pomaire
Pattern Name: This is pattern #3 from The Complete Book of Crochet Stitch Designs by Linda P. Schapper
Yarn: Araucania Pomaire Multy,1 skeins = 183.0 yards (167.3m) in colorway 4
Hook:  5.0 mm (H)
Size:  5.5" x 60"
Love: ♥♥♥♥♥
 
You can find my Ravelry Project Notes HERE.

This was a really fun crochet stitch and I had a hard time setting it down. It looks really nice and once you get going it's just go go go! Great stash buster of a single skein I had rolling around. I had never worked with this yarn before and I have to say I am a fan! I will use it again. I think a throw in this yarn in this pattern would be quite awesome. One of those nice summer throws for the couch when you just need a little warmth. I wore this all day at work and am still wearing it right now while I type this up. It's really soft and non scratchy - feels nice after months of wool against my skin.

Really enjoying learning new crochet stitches and busting stash!

Butter Beret

 

 I am not sure what made me do it, but I had a burning need to cast on a simple crochet beret. I call it Butter Beret as the color is the palest yellow. It's a free pattern on Ravelry called Crochet Hat by Corrine Leigh of Threadbanger Fame.

 

I wanted to stash bust so I used a thinner yarn than they used for the pattern. They used Lion Brand Organic Cotton, and I used Debbie Bliss Cotton. Reading through other projects I decided I better add a single row of crochet after each increase row to give the hat some extra poof.

Here is a view from the top. I think the center area got a little wonky when I closed up the starting hole, but I am fairly happy with my stitch consistency.

 

A view from the inside. The pattern calls for just two decrease rows and no additional rows, but I thought it needed a little more, so I added two single crochet rows after the decreasing to clean it up a little and just give it more of a band sort of look.

 

I am fairly happy with it for a first crochet hat, but I think I might agree with my hubby that the color is just a little too light and baby-ish for me. I don't do pastel colors very well. We will see. It might look better with my wool pea coat this fall.

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!

Just an old fashioned love song...

I am starting to seek out patterns (SIMPLE patterns) of crochet items. I recently came across this pattern for a pot holder - a pot holder that I have used at many people's homes including mine growing up. I feel like we had one in dusty rose in the early 80's made out of a Red Heart acrylic. Anyway, I have been placing these pattern's in my que on Ravelry and when my mom came over this weekend she told me she spotted this pattern in my Ravelry Que and had printed it out and was making one for herself! So when I went to case on a simple wash cloth she guided me through the steps of this pattern.

The pattern we used is the Folded Crochet Pot Holder by Michelle Gibbs on Ravelry. You can also find it on her blog The Boring Knitter if you are not a Ravelry person. It's very simple. I made the smaller of the sizes and used Peaches n' Cream Stripes in the colorway Seaside. I used 85.5 yards (78.2m) which was pretty close to all of one skein. The hook is a 4.00mm (G). If I were to make the larger pot holder I would use one of the larger skeins of cotton yarn as I don't think you can do it with the 2 oz balls.

I think the pattern is really clever and I immediately thought I would like to enlarge it and make a cute summer purse in this pattern. You work this in a spiral around a simple chain. The first couple rows are a bit fiddly, but once you get all your stitches on - and you really only have one increase row that you do pretty much right away - it's just single crochet around and around.

I struggled a bit with crocheting the two sides together when I got to the end, and ended up just picking up one loop on each side instead of going through both loops on both sides. I was getting a really thick spine when I went through all the loops -and it puckered weird. I still have a bit of pucker in this one - but it's much improved over my other tries. I think if I were to make this as a gift I would be inclined toward using a running stitch rather than crochet, but maybe if I make a few I will get the hang of it. The shot above shows my crochet seam going diagonal in the center.

And here is a rather blurry shot of the back of the pot holder. There is a bit of a dip on the very first row I chained - which is again across the very center.

All in all I am quite pleased with how mine turned out! I cast on another one while eating my lunch today. Perhaps this one I will add the optional hanging loop, just for fun.

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.

KAL progress, Fugly Blanket update

So I started a KAL yesterday and I am loving it so far. It's a very basic shawl pattern that will end with an edging I have never attempted before and I am a little nervous about. Vickie Howell is leading us in her usual wonderful fashion though, so I am fairly confident I will get er done. I didn't get lots of time to work on it on Day 1, but here is my first days work.

The flash on my camera bleached the color out of the yarn, but you can see it's taking shape. Love working with this yarn and love the color so much! I took it with me to work today and knit on my lunch hour. Would have loved to just knit the day away.

And here is my Fugly Blanket. I am almost out of scraps and will soon have to dig into my stash of cotton yarn and start working whole skeins. Maybe I will make myself take only balls with labels torn off so I can have a really clean stash bin. I have this laying across my Queen sized bed and it covers most of the width of the bed and about two fifths the length. Not sure if I am going for a square or a rectangle. Guess I will know when I get there.

Because I am working on this KAL shawl I will have to put my crochet hook down for the next week until the KAL if finished. It saddens me but conversely I think my wrists can use the break.

Fugly Blanket Progress Report

I have had a challenging week this week. Insomnia Monday. Leave work early Tuesday after throwing up my lunch. Yeah. So I have spent a bit of time lounging in bed and working on my Fugly Blanket. I find it amazing how easy it is to lay in bed and watch several episodes of Biggest Loser (I am watching Season 3 on Netflix) while hooking away on my Fugly. Bonus that it is now big enough that I can throw it over me for a little warmth while I hook. I love the weight of this blanket and it makes me think I will want to crochet more blankets in the future. I am realizing too that this blanket would have been a lot more attractive if I had just done stripes rather than this crazed patch work thing I got going on. **shrugs** C'est la vie!

I stretched it out on my dining room table this morning and took a few snap shots of it. Terrible light but I think it captures the eye searing color combinations pretty well.  I have a fondness for multi colored wash cloth yarn. Knitting a plain color I found really dull unless I was following a pattern or something. Still. Yawn. I prefer bold and loud. That does make anything I Frankenstein together out of the scraps a bit loud and obnoxious.

Still, I am really having fun throwing stuff at this and watching it grow. Rather like being fascinated by a fungus or mold I suspect. Yeah. It's like a giant mushroom you find growing under a tree in the yard and you just keep watching it grow in kind of horrified fascination - wondering how big that thing will get and if it's toxic or maybe a rare culinary wonder?

Crochet some fugly

Last weekend we had my Mother in Law over to celebrate her 60th birthday. I always like to have a little project to work on while we sit and talk so I grabbed a ball of yarn from my cotton yarn scrap bin and started to do a little crochet. I try to do a little bit every once in awhile just to keep the ability. I am really new at crochet (Made my first washcloth in November last year) and I cannot read instructions yet. I will get there eventually, but for now I just do some simple practice bits.

I knit up the left over yarn from my headband I knit last weekend. This made a pretty nice sized square. Then I thought I would just add to it with different colors and just keep using up yarn practicing.

Add a little chunk of teal and a bigger chunk of navy. So far not too ugly. I was really enjoying how this hooked up and loved that I was burning through some left over scrap cotton. Crochet is really fast and you can really burn through the yarn.

Here it is Friday and suddenly the blanket (because that is what I was going for after the first couple squares added on so quickly) has turned into something a little big fugly. I am going to keep going even though I am pretty icked out by the product. I keep thinking how awesome a cotton blanket would be for the camper, and if it's really fugly then I won't mind throwing it on the ground to sit on at a campsite or what have you. Also - it can go right in the washer and dryer when I am done - so there is that too.

I confess - I had the thought that maybe I should make it into a Dog blanket. Our dog loves her little blankets and curls all the way under a blanket at night. (She has her own bed and own blankets.) So in the back of my mind I have that little thought process. I also have the thought that I can always bleach the crap out of this and mute the colors quite a bit. Some of the cotton yarn is very soft though - so I fear it would destroy that yarn a little.

Anyway, It's been a fun experiment. I wish crochet didn't hurt my wrist and shoulder so much. It's really addictive how fast you get product (It's 27 inches long by 16 inches deep right now) and I could really get into it if it didn't hurt my body so much!

I think my next crochet project will have to be something pretty like the blanket that Knitting Nix is making. I love her happy colors and how NOT ugly her end product is. I have a lot of stash just begging to be used.

Things are getting done!

About a month ago I started the Figurehead Shawl by Alexis Winslow. The body was very easy to work but the border was a real challenge. That's a knit scallop edge! The design is really really clever - but I hated working on the border. Of course now that it is finished I am in love with it and thinking about other colors and yarns I would like to work this in. It's really cute!

I worked my version in Brown Sheep Prairie Silk yarn - Which is now discontinued. I really love Brown Sheep Yarns. I used just over 1 skein of each color - a lavender and a grey. REALLY love the results! I originally wasn't going to put a button on the project, but after I blocked this out I got more length I found that I could. The way I am wearing it in the picture below is with it buttoned under my chin and tucked under the bulk of the shawl. It was really windy when I took these pictures and the shawlette really kept my neck from feeling the wind!

I have been wearing headbands a lot lately and have been looking for simple headbands to knit. I found this pattern on Ravelry called "Cool Cotton Headband". I knit it up and it took 27 yards (15 grams) of cotton! A perfect use for those left over balls of yarn from knitting washcloths. This is a free pattern on Ravelry and I was able to knit it up in about an hour. (I think it took a little longer than that but I was surfing the net and drinking coffee....) It's still a little thicker than I would like for everyday wear - but I think it would be a perfect headband to throw in my make-up caddy for wearing at night when I wash my face. Would make a great instant gift or stocking stuffer too. I knit this with Debbie Bliss Pure Cotton. (I could make three of these out of one skein and still have a little left over yarn!)

And I finished my Sari to Drop-In Scarf knit out of Frabjous Fibers Millefiori yarn. (The recycled Sari yarn.) The pattern I used was Barb Bettegnies Drop-In Scarf pattern from Creative Knitting, Fall 2010: Accessorize with Style. I had made this scarf a couple years back in ribbon yarn and loved the pattern. It's really fast and easy and the results are quite pretty! This was another stash buster for me and I am very pleased with my results!

Not much progress on my vest this week. I have had a lot of insomnia and I won't work on that project when I am tired or lacking focus. I don't want to mess it up!

In other news - We are breaking records for our warmth here this weekend. It is just amazing out! Yesterday it was 67F  - our normal average high for this time of year is 37F! That's a huge difference! I saw kids biking outside the house in shorts and t-shirts! Amazing! I will be out in that garden before I know it!