November 11th, 2011 
mio I’ve been working on Christmas presents over the last few months, and just can’t wait to share them!
Below the cut, you will see the items I have made so far, but with no names attached. If you are on my gift-giving list and want to be surprised, I recommend that you do not continue with this post!
For the rest of you, I’ll include the pattern source when possible. ^_^
Posted in Afghans 
Tags: baby, Bernat Satin, blanket, Christmas, crayon, crochet, spiderman, star 
1 Comment » March 28th, 2011 mio I’ve decided to plunge into the world of crocheting garments. When you need a crocheted item to be a predictable size, you must swatch, and when I spotted the Petal Pullover in the latest issue of Interweave Crochet, the first thing I did was make a swatch.
Perhaps, despite the terrible quality of this picture, you can see the problem I ran into:
Hint: the bottom is supposed to be straight.
Experienced crocheters would look at this swatch and say: the base chain is too tight! Go up a hook size and try to stay loose.
Alas, that isn’t the problem at all. How do I know this? Because I didn’t use a base chain, I used chainless foundation single crochet stitches.
Given my experience with other patterns that I have failed at, I have come to the conclusion that my problem is, in fact, that my single crochet stitches are too small when compared to my other stitches.
At least I’m innovative with my gauge problems!
Anyhow, I really wanted to start working on this sweater, though, so I’ve decided to go down in yarn thickness (the swatch was Bernat Satin, the yarn I settled on is Bernat Satin Sport). I used a 5mm hook for the round of sc foundation stitches, and then a 4.25mm hook for the rest.
(The bottom looks curved in this picture, but that’s only because it’s a tube and I didn’t want the front and back to overlap in the picture)
I’m going to need to figure out a way around this single crochet problem, though. There are lots of patterns out there that have sc mixed in with other stitches in a single row, and I can’t keep switching hooks.
In other news… I finished the boring, just-a-bunch-of-dc-stitches baby blanket I was working on as a counterpoint to the flower blanket:
(That’s just a plain old hexagon pattern worked until I ran out of yarn; 2 balls of Mary Maxim Sugar Baby Stripes in Tutti Fruitti with a 3.75mm hook)
And I’ve made two more Spiral Hex blankets:
(Shot artfully in a fruitless attempt to make them look like some other pattern)
As for what I’m working on now, well, that pink sweater is at the “need-to-consult-the-pattern-often” stage now, and so is now on the “work-on-it-at-home” WIP pile. My current “avoid-smacking-people-on-the-subway” project is…
… well, never mind what it is…
Posted in 11 Blankets, Afghans Tags: baby, Bernat Satin, blanket, charity, crochet, gauge, hexagon, interweave crochet, sweater, swirl 1 Comment » June 25th, 2010 mio You know you’ve been away from your blog a long time when the spammers start to notice! My spam filter for the comments found one that said something like, “Come back, please come back!” How nice! ^_^
I’ve been silent because of a combination of “working on presents for people who read the blog” and “working on getting a pattern published”.
I’ve been over-thinking about this for about a month now, and I’ve finally made a decision! I’m off work because of the G20 Summit being hosted in Toronto this weekend, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to post the pattern for the Oddly Linked Blanket.
If you’re on Ravelry, you’ll find the pattern here: Oddly Linked Blanket.
If you’re not on Ravelry, you should still be able to buy it by clicking on the button below to be taken directly to the PayPal page:
You would be paying $2.00 USD for the pattern for the blanket. I’d say it’s an easy-intermediate level blanket, with one tricky part that is clearly (I hope!) explained using both text and lots of pictures.
Once you get the hang of the special stitch, the blanket works up quickly! Use any smooth, solid coloured yarn with an appropriate hook for best results. I think a variegated yarn would work well, but one with long runs of colours would work best.
One last note: I know that this pattern looks like it might have a lot of ends to weave in, but it has exactly as many as you’d expect with that many colour changes; so 2 ends per stripe of colour.
11 Blankets in 2011
