April 9, 2013
by mio
2 Comments
I’m a bit late on this, but our next challenge is a bit of a doozy!
This time around, we’re in a finishing mood! Finish those WIP’s! Finish those patterns! Finish that stash organizing! Whatever makes sense to you!
Personally, I’ve started by organizing my WIP pile (it turns out there was a whole other couch under there!)
… and hopefully finishing off some patterns I’ve been working on.
I’m going to make this a two-month challenge, so be ambitious!
April 2, 2013
by mio
1 Comment
That
would
be
absolutely,
insanely
ridiculous!
April 1, 2013
by mio
1 Comment
Dear Readers,
I have greatly appreciated your support over the years. It was the best of times. It is with some regret that I must inform you that we are coming to an end here.
Some of you may remember a post I made a few years ago about why I started to crochet. To recap: I wanted to make a granny square blanket.
Now, I have made a few of these over the years: my first was one giant granny square. I also did some wonky things with layout. But I had never reached my ultimate goal.
Until today.
That, ladies and gents, is a blanket made up of equally sized granny squares joined together to form a blanket.
It only took about 17 years, but I finally did it.
What now? Well, it’s time to stop crocheting, clearly. There’s nowhere left to go. Nothing left to explore. The goal has been met, and it’s happiness all around.
My best regards,
Mio
March 11, 2013
by mio
0 comments
Ok, so I know we were doing the novelty yarn challenge last month, but holy macaroni, look at this!
That, ladies and gentlemen, is mio’s hat, made with Loops & Threads Pom-pom yarn as colour A, and Bernat Waverly as colour B, and using a 6.5mm double-ended hook.
I did make some alterations to the pattern, though. I did four wedges, and I’m pretty sure (it was hard to see what I was doing) that I missed 8 stitches on each one.
You may recall from my swatch that I discovered that this stitch pattern is only stretchy on the diagonal, and since stretchiness is a coveted feature in hats, I had to make one major change: This hat is made sideways, so the bottom edge of the hat will be at one end of a row and the top of the hat will be at the other end of the row; which end is which changes depending on the row. Basically, I added a stitch to the end of the row that was the bottom of the hat, and I made a decrease at the end of the row that was at the top of the hat.
I increased on the “lift up loops” part of each row by simply inserting the hook through the fabric between two vertical bars and pulling up a loop that way. I decreased on the “work the loops off” part of each row by doing a “yarn over, pull through two” if it was the first thing I needed to do on a row, or “yarn over, pull through three” if it was the last thing I needed to do on a row.
Now, mio’s hat is supposed to be a reversible pattern, but I don’t think this hat works well that way:
Actually, it IS reversible, but perhaps doesn’t look very fashionable this way. It is, however, super-duper soft on the pom-pom side, so maybe you’d want to wear it that way anyway!
Sadly, this hat is too small for me. It’s stretchy, but not that stretchy! So here is Roopurt modelling the hat in a sexy glamour shot:
She’s really, really beautiful, and not at all laying down because she’s been washed so often that the beanbag that is supposed to be supporting her neck keeps falling down into her bum. Honest.
March 3, 2013
by mio
3 Comments
It’s March, and we all know what that means! It’s NatCroMo! National Crochet Month. Woohoo!
We’re going to merge our Project Crochet plan with the events of NatCroMo, which in this case means that our challenge for this month is: pick an advanced technique (or two, or three…) and run with it. Put it through its paces. See what it can do.
Pick a technique that you’ve never done before, or one that you have done and always meant to get back to.
Some ideas: Tunisian crochet, double-ended hook crochet, broomstick lace, hairpin lace… or maybe pick a particular stitch pattern like Jacob’s Ladders, crocodile stitch, or Bavarian crochet… the sky’s the limit!
For the truly daring: come up with something new! (Good luck with that!!)
(Bavarian Crochet test swatch)
February 26, 2013
by mio
0 comments
I’m afraid I might be in the bottom three this month!
All I’ve managed to do with the novelty yarns so far is this swatch:
It was made on a double-ended hook with Loops & Threads Pom-Pom and Bernat Waverly yarn. This is what the back looks like:
I know, the colours don’t really go… but I used my patented “grab what’s nearby” method of yarn choosing.
I don’t think this fabric will work well with any of my current double-ended hook patterns. It’s not at all stretchy in two directions. It is stretchy when you pull it diagonally. I’m thinking maybe I’ll merge the mio’s hat pattern with the Hope’s hat pattern.
What has kept me so busy? This:
That is my Jacob’s Snakes and Ladders pattern made all in one colour. Mostly to see what it would look like, but also to see how much yardage it would use. Almost 3100 yards! It’s a bit wider than I was aiming for, but it works. ^_^ It’s going to Blankets for Canada at work.
Oh, and so is this one:
Also, way too many hats and scarves. 
There are still a few days left in February though… perhaps I can pull off some kind of miracle! ^_^
February 5, 2013
by mio
0 comments
Some of you have already noticed the new page listed up top there – B4C. If you haven’t clicked on it yet, B4C stands for Blankets For Canada.
I have taken up the position of Blankets For Canada coordinator at the Michaels I work at – Dixie Mall in Mississauga.
As a basic overview, this is how it works:
Crocheters and knitters make 8″ squares out of worsted weight acrylic yarn:
Bring them into the store and drop them in the bin located near the yarn department in the classroom:
And once a month we get together and join them together into blankets that are then donated to the local homeless shelters:
We had our first joining party on January 20th and I think it went really well! It was my first time organizing something like this, and I couldn’t have hoped for more, really!
I sat down with the classroom coordinator and booked the classroom for the rest of our joining parties for 2013. Generally speaking, we will be meeting on the last Sunday of each month with some key exceptions: in March, the last Sunday is Easter and we’ll be closed, so the joining party will happen the second-to-last Sunday. In July, the last Sunday is my birthday (^_^) and so the joining party will happen on the second-to-last Sunday. We will be taking a break from joining parties in November and December as it’s just too busy a time. Not to worry, the blankets will still get joined together during those months (albeit, more slowly), and any excess squares brought in during that time will be joined at a big party in January 2014.
For the most up-to-date information about this program at the Dixie Mall location of Michaels, always check out the B4C page here.
February 1, 2013
by mio
3 Comments
It’s Project Crochet time again. Welcome to the Unconventional Materials challenge!
The month of February has been set aside for experimenting with novelty yarns. This means ruffle yarns, pom-pom yarns, eyelash yarns, and any other yarn you’ve seen and thought to yourself, “what on earth would you make with THAT?” (Assuming, of course, that you have disregarded the yarn companies’ usual suggestion of “make a scarf!”).
My plan is to see how many novelty yarns I can find a non-scarf use for, but I’ve had a small amount of experience with these yarns, perhaps your challenge could be to test out these yarns by making scarves. Whatever makes sense for you, just remember to challenge yourself!
For this challenge, you can use regular yarn as part of your project, but remember that the goal is to find a novel way of using the novelty yarn! (As in: using mulin as a base is fine, but the judges frown on using tablecloths and umbrella fabric )
January 28, 2013
by mio
0 comments
So, four colours, none of which are neutrals. Right. I can do that. *shudders*
I decided to make my first attempt by mixing up the colours in the first Eventually Granny Square blanket:
It still makes me a feel a little uneasy, but it’s growing on me…
This one was just a disaster all the way around. I screwed up the math so it’s a lot smaller than I intended. And the colours. Blech.
It was suggested to me that I try it in primary colours next. I think I’ll do that… with the right math this time.
Now… this one doesn’t count. I didn’t pick the colours, and there are several neutrals in it (beige… brown… grey…).
But it’s too awesome not to share!
January 14, 2013
by mio
4 Comments
I decided to start small with the colour challenge. I am still working on that green/yellow/orange/purple blanket, but it’s still in the “make a bunch of green hexagons” stage, so doesn’t really count as colourful yet.
I kicked things off with some two-colour combinations.
The first was supposed to be amazing. We got this new colour of Lion Brand Homespun in at work – it’s seafoam and white, and it looked stunning with the Parfait one, which is coral and white. I thought nothing but amazingness could come from putting the two together. A Spiral Hex blanket was just the ticket!
Ye gads. I have shown this blanket to several people, and they have all said that it looked fine to them. I, on the other hand, can’t stand to look at it. My previous experience with this sort of thing tells me that it will soon find someone who is head over heels in love with it, so… off to charity it goes! (As an aside: what do I do with the several dozen more balls of these two colours I bought, so sure that they’d be amazing together?)
Next I made this one, which I think might fall squarely in the “neutral” category, so perhaps doesn’t count:
Disappointed with myself, I did the next one in “no one could mistake these for neutral” colours:
I feel a little iffy about this one. I don’t think it clashes, which is great! It seems a bit superhero-y to me, which I didn’t intend, but as all of these are going to charity, maybe that’s a good thing. Perhaps it will be inspiring to some young child out there.
I love this Spiral Hex pattern, but I was getting just a tiny bit tired with it (I made these blankets over four or five days, you see…), so I decided to switch gears briefly to slippers! It was time to experiment with complementary colours, so I went with two that I have never thought looked good together:
I love these. When I wear them, I can’t stop giggling when I look at my feet. Apparently they clash. Fooey on that!
In a rush to head out for work, I grabbed yarn to make another pair of these, seeing if I could successfully pair a variegated yarn with a solid that didn’t appear anywhere in it.
I love these! (I’m wearing them right now, in fact!) Charles doesn’t think these two yarns go together. I’m a little worried at this point that I’m not actually getting better with colour, I’m instead just embracing the bad.
That may have been the thought process behind the latest Spiral Hex:
Time to start playing with more than two colours at a time… gulp