Remember this?

It’s bigger now:

(Colours are a lot closer to real life in the first picture.)

And it is officially the First Finished Christmas Gift of the Year. Let’s have a round of applause!

I also made this, which the always lovely Roopurt is modeling for us:

Here is a close up:

I used a single ball of yarn I found in my stash that was unlabeled. I’m pretty sure it’s Astra but they don’t seem to have this colour anymore (even though it looks like this colour is the featured picture… weird).

To make this kind of scarf, you make a base chain approximately as long as you want the scarf to be, then do 2dc in each chain on the first row, and 1dc in each dc for the following rows.

I wanted to see if the “no base chain” foundation row method would work for this… and it did! It’s a bit complicated to write out, so I’ll save a tutorial on this for another post. If you simply can’t wait for that, do a search for it on Youtube. It’s pretty neat!

These blankets are going to charity:

(I should get a better picture of that purple one made at the show before I send it off…)

I’m going to make these three bigger and give them as Christmas gifts:

These are Christmas presents, and I’m keeping them as is:

And this one is MINE:

My current main project is a gift for someone who reads this blog, and I really don’t want to give the surprise away if I can help it, so pictures and updates will be made on Ravelry (where you need an account to see it). Don’t worry, once the Big Day has come and gone, I’ll post all of the gory details. ^_^

Now that BOB is over, I find myself with my own crafting time again, so I’m waffling around trying to decide what to do. I’ve joined a couple of swaps, I still need to make the June square in the CAL, and I’ve been itching to just make my way through my growing collection of motif books and make at least one of everything.

Of course, there’s still Christmas coming, and various birthdays left to think about. I’ve been hoping that Bernat Satin would go on sale for the last several months, but I haven’t seen it. If you do, could you please let me know? I’m planning on buying a LOT of it, not only because I’ll need it for some gifts, but also because it’s my go-to yarn for worsted weight acrylic and I’m starting to run low. It’s soft, works up well, and the colours are pretty nice.

Anticipated projects: at least one more Snowflake afghan, maybe the Hawaiian Flower afghan, more 3-way Tunisian, lots of hats and scarves, some geeky afghans, and of course, Dad’s Christmas present.

My work situation has changed and I suddenly find myself with a good chunk of crochet time. That time can only be spent working on a pattern I know really well, and that doesn’t have any tricky colour changes. The project I’ve been working on lately has recently become too large to do while I do my job, so I need a replacement project. For now, I’m prepping some scarves (doing the base chain and first row at home on several), and I’m thinking of doing some granny squares. Any thoughts on what else might work? Basically, anything I don’t have to look at too much, that can easily be done a couple of stitches at a time.

Finally, check out this Spiral Granny Square I made: click here.

Those of you who live in Toronto know what a beautiful day it was yesterday, what with the thunder storms and intermittent rain all day.

I arrived at the fair about 2 hours after they’d closed off the street, and an hour after they said we could come and set up only to find no tables and only two other vendors on my assigned block. It was spitting out a little, but not too bad.

We got the tent up before it really started raining again and the tables and chairs finally arrived.

There were supposed to be 26 vendors on my block; there were 7, including me. I was also at the very end of the fair, which is what I wanted, but turned out to be bad since most of the people attending never made it that far. I can’t say I blame them, I’d have bailed after only a block or two as well. The weather was just so terrible, and the vendors few and far between.

I only had about a dozen people actually come up to my table (of which I was quite proud. It was very colourful!)

Here’s what the fair looked like from where I was sitting:

Notice the lack of other vendors!

Still, I did get to meet a couple of fellow crocheters, which was great! And I did have a tent, which is more than I can say for some of the poor people around me. Umbrellas could only do so much in these conditions. The worst I got was a bit of spray. My inventory was fine, since it was all acrylic. It dried really fast.

It was a cold day, though. Luckily I make blankets:

If the weather had been better I think things would have gone a LOT differently, so it’s hard to decide if I want to try this again. If I do, I think I’m going to make fewer blankets, and more little things. The Tetris pieces attracted the most attention, but I do believe that the multiple colours of the blankets made people smile on such a dreary, grey day.

And since I didn’t sell anything, I’ve got quite the head start on Christmas. Always the optimist, I am! ^_-

I finished the 3-way Tunisian blanket:

For a better idea of the colour:

There’s been a lot of fighting over this one here in Fantastic Land, so I expect this one will go fast. If it doesn’t, there’s a line of people who want it. ^_-

I also *finally* finished the Tetris block pillows!

Raise your hand if you didn’t think we’d see this day! (Don’t be afraid, my hand is up too!)

If you’ve ever wanted to see what a partially finished Tetris block looks like, here you go:

It takes your breath away, doesn’t it?

Ok, back to work with me. I’m only a few rows away from finishing the last baby blanket, and I have important tags to attach and vital worrying to do.

While we wait for the BIG event to start, please join me in a heartfelt rendition of this traditional song:

Oh the weather outside is pretty
And I’m singing you this ditty,
So if you don’t want to feel pain,
Stop the rain, stop the rain, stop the rain!

Fingers crossed, people!

This was made using my standard round ripple pattern, though I didn’t have enough of either colour left to make the backwards-sc edging, so I did some slip stitches around instead. I just don’t like leaving those chains bare on the points!

I also finally got around to finishing the Settlers of Catan blanket:

I feel I must apologize for the indoor picture, but there just wasn’t any way to properly display this outside (which should make showing it at BOB interesting!)

At this point in the “prepping for BOB” game, I’m just finishing off projects I’ve started already, and not starting anything new. That means that we can expect to see one more baby blanket, a handful of pin cushions, and a couple more Tetris pieces. Depending on when I finish all of that, I *might* start another baby blanket; after all, I’m going to need SOMEthing to do while manning the table, right?

It’s hard to measure because it’s so stretchy, but it’s approximately 28 inches square now. (I know, it doesn’t look very square in that picture. I was surprised too, when I folded it into a triangle and there was almost no overlap)

Here is a better picture of the stitches and colour:

It’s still not an accurate picture of the colour, though. It’s quite beautiful with its earthy tones. I guess it’s another “come see it in person… then buy it!” blanket. ^_-

Here’s a picture of the three balls of yarn I’ve been using for this:

My thought process on the colour choice went something like, “I need something to do on break at work! I need something for work! Ack! Quickly! Quickly!! Hey, here’s some yarn… but does it go together? Well, green and brown are nice together, and blue and green are pretty good… I’ll make a swatch on the subway!”

When I got on the subway I proceeded to “cast on” 76 stitches. That’s one heck of a swatch!

I’m going to have a hard time parting with this one, and I’ve already had two requests for a bigger version. I’m going to have to spend some time scouring the stores for more of this yarn… I have a sneaking suspicion they’re not making it anymore. That would be sad!

In other news, I went to Lettuce Knit for the first time yesterday (I figured it was about time, having lived in Toronto for 2.5 years now…). The store was smaller than I thought it would be (not a bad thing), it was farther away from Spadina than I imagined it would be (not bad, just surprising), and it was less expensive than I feared it would be (hooray!!).

Keep in mind that you’re reading the blog of a die-hard acrylic crocheter: I want to knit some natural fiber socks now.

Please don’t tell my hooks!

I blame the Yarn Harlot for all of this.

Let’s see, we’ve got several water hexes for the Catan blanket, to the left of those is some over-exposed light-coloured yarns that make up the border colour for the Catan blanket and that yellow broomstick lace blanket. At the back is a blue and yellow round ripple blanket that would be absolutely stunning if I hadn’t run out of blue with less than 2 rounds left to go. In front of it is a blanket kit that I bought two Christmases ago; it has butterflies on it, or would, if I ever get around to making it. In front of that is an almost-finished blue and green blanket that, when finished, will hopefully have enough blue left over to finish the stunning blanket mentioned above.

Somewhere in there is some light blue yarn waiting for a pattern, and some purple yarn destined to be striped. (The bag of rainbow ripple yarn is on the floor, and thus not pictured.)

^_^

Speaking of looking for a pattern, here’s a fun link: Crochet Poet’s Pattern Collection.

The real news is that I’ve created a page for the Big On Bloor Festival, at least as far as it applies to me, anyway. ^_^ You’ll find a tab for it at the top of this page, next to the Patterns tab (which I swear will have content soon!). There you will find details as to date, time, and location, as well as thumbnail pictures of my planned inventory. If you click on them you’ll find the larger picture on my Flickr photostream.

I was going to put descriptions up, but it’s getting late, so that will have to come tomorrow.

Let me know what you think!

On the other hand, it turns out that rainy days are perfect for crocheting, so here is one I made yesterday while watching TV with Charles:

The difference between the two is amazing, isn’t it? One starts with pink as the middle colour, and the other starts with *peach*.

Anyhow, I’m hoping to sell these at the Big On Bloor festival in June. That’s assuming my neighbours don’t try to buy up all of my stock as I try to take pictures of it for the blog. ^_-