I’ve talked about gauge before. I hope we all know now that even if you get gauge with one dye lot, you might not with the next. Different colours of yarn sometimes have different gauges, even if they are otherwise the same yarns… even in variegated and self-striping yarns (I’m looking at you, Bernat Baby Coordinates White)

The other day I made this:

It’s for my cousin; she likes handmade dishcloths and her kitchen colours are blue, green, and yellow.

I also made this for her:

(it’s actually more blue than grey in person… it’s supposed to look like denim)

And then this green-and-cream one:

I finished that last one on the commute home and it wasn’t until I stacked it on top of the other two that I noticed this:

All three dishcloths were made using Bernat Handicrafter Cotton, each with a 6mm hook, each exactly the same pattern.

Luckily, gauge doesn’t always matter. ^_^

(P.S. this post documents the first finished Christmas gifts for 2010. That’s right, you heard me!)

I’ve got a need for speed and I’m going to blog about it!

I’m making a blanket for a rather tall individual. I decided on a hexagon pattern (I haven’t made one in a while!), and this is what I got done last night while watching Castle:

I only just noticed this morning that the first hex looks kind of Settler of Catan-ish. I’m thinking of maybe switching up the sizes of the tan-middles… we’ll see.

I’ll update this post tonight with how much I get done today. Wish me luck!

*****

Look!

That’s 14 finished hexagons, all ends woven in except the last one… I’ll probably use those to join them.

Here’s a closer look:

I’m back to watching Castle again, and making some Granny’s Daughter squares. It’s just the first round of a regular granny square (*3dc ch2* 4 times).

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’ve made a bunch of swirly hexagons up and, after consuming copious amounts of caffeine to counter the hypnotic effects, I posed them in a couple of ways for your consideration.

Which do you prefer?

Option 1 (aka Klingon Layout)

Option 2 (aka Opposite Layout)

Vote in the comments! Or via e-mail if you’d prefer: fantastic dot mio at gmail dot com

In the meantime, I’ve joined a swap on Craftster! Specifically, the Amazing Crochet Motif Swap. It’s being run by my favourite crochet pusher on Craftster, craftADDchick (some of you may remember her from the 12″ square crochet-a-long). It should be fun!

In completely unrelated news, I’ve bought a new book! You see, Charles wanted to get out of the house this weekend, and really wanted to get some new reading material so we headed off to Chapters at Runnymede. He took lots of pictures, and I bought a book:

I’ve barely had a chance to look at it, really. What post-it notes? Oh, and just ignore Charles if he suggests that I’ve been keeping the book next to the bed so that it’s handy just before I go to sleep. (My most creative time is between 11pm and 1am. It’s a curse.)

And he didn’t even buy anything. *sigh*

Anyhow, more pictures from my trip to Alberta under the cut!

Safety first:

Huge tracks of land next:

And finally, the stupid-face Michaels in hick-town Medicine Hat:

To be fair, I should post a picture of the Michaels in Toronto, oh wait!

Yeah, I’m not bitter at all…

Last year I made this Snowflake blanket for Charles‘ Mom:

Here’s what one of the hexes looks like:

I’m thinking of making this same blanket, in the same colour, for my Mom. Her favourite colour is yellow, but I don’t think that would work for this particular pattern…

I’m debating making this for two other women on my list as well, but in different colours. We’ll see. (I’ll try to post something interesting along side the hundreds of snowflakes this means I’ll have to make!)

For the last few years I’ve made my nieces and nephews hat and scarf sets, and I’m thinking that this year I want to branch out a bit. I’m thinking blankets! (For those keeping track, so far we’re at 1 each for Dad, Mom, two women, and four kids. That’s only 8! Totally do-able.)

I came across this pattern for a swirly dishcloth, and immediately loved it. As I gazed at the picture of it I noticed that while it’s quite rounded, it’s still a hexagon. I wondered if it would make a good blanket motif.

Naturally I tried it out:

The pattern is pretty easy if you know how to do Tunisian crochet.

It’s hard to get a real feel for how the blanket would look with just one hex, so I brought some yarn to work with me today (oddly enough) and made two more. I joined them when I got home:

I really like how the two-coloured hex came out, and if I do this, I think I’ll do it that way (even if it did mean 12 ends to weave in!), two shades of yellow for Katie, pinks or purples for Madeline, blues for Ethan, and greens for Asher.

The question is, do you think the individual hexes need a border before being joined? Especially since they’ll all be two-colour hexes? Do you think an entire blanket of two-colour hexes will be too busy-looking or dizzying? Perhaps I should do a mix of two-colour hexes and single coloured hexes in each of the two colours?

I might need to draw this out to decide for sure. I just doodled this up in Paint:

Thoughts?

I’m also going to make at least one more two-coloured hex and join it to these three and see what it looks like.

I have excellent ideas for about half of the people on my list that I haven’t mentioned yet. Unfortunately for all of you out in blog land, the remaining people on my list are quite internet-savvy and many of them read this blog. I don’t want to give too much away, so you’ll just have to use your imagination!

In my defense, he’s never been that easy to buy for. I mean, ok sure, he could always use socks, but where’s the fun in that? (No, I won’t be knitting him any socks… men’s size 13 wide. ‘Nuff said.) I used up all of my best gift ideas on him at Christmas. So what to do?

Naturally, I thought of a really excellent gift for him: a memory blanket! 24 hours is plenty of time to whip up a warm blanket for a man who is over 6′ tall! Right-o.

Clearly this idea was more of a Christmas idea. I told Dad that I wanted to get him something, but instead he’s getting a really kick-butt Christmas present.

I’d better make it now!

Here’s the plan so far: I’m going to make it in squares, probably mostly 12″ squares. He likes blue, so that will be the main colour. So far my memories list to use for possible squares (all ideas might not be used) are as follows:

- braiding my ridiculously long hair
- a car up on blocks
- fixing things (maybe tools?)
- a toy plane made out of a spark plug and Popsicle sticks (yeah, I’m probably going to have to chart this one out myself, that’s ok)
- car racing (TransAm)
- anosmia
- cake decorating
- Smallville
- piano tuning (he tuned my upright as a kid and I still don’t know how he did it, being unmusical as he is. lol)
- cooking (specifically something to do with rice)
- Star Trek
- living on the beach
- Made in Canada
- vacuuming a cat, or spraying water at a cat (she loved both! I think an existing square with a cat would work and I could add the details)
- elephant butt (probably a square that has the front of an elephant would be easily modified.)
-macrame
- Boy Scouts
- (edit to add) a model plane made out of Coke cans (I can’t believe I forgot the Coke plane!)

Do any of my loyal readers know of any existing squares that would represent any of those things? Or of patterns that could be modified to create them? Or of a site that makes for easy crochet charting?

I’m thinking that the hair braiding one could be some kind of cabled border around the blanket… I do have ridiculously long hair, so it would make sense. How well do blue and brown go together?

For those of you who are only in this for the pictures, here is my progress on the yellow and green striped baby blanket:

Let’s start with my favourite: a donut pin cushion for Mom.

I had a lot of fun making this. I had to measure the pins to make sure they wouldn’t poke all the way through the donut (ow!), then endure questions about what I was making (picture the long brown tube I was crocheting in public), then had lots of fun making the icing (random stitches? Yeah, I can do that).

Mom loved it! (And now my cousin wants one too. It begins! <insert ominous music here>)

This is a hat and scarf set I made for my niece:

These were made on the red Knifty Knitter round loom using Patons Melody yarn. She liked it, I think, and she also seemed to like the set of Knifty Knitters and Paton yarn I got her as well. I’ve made her a hat and scarf set for the last few years for Christmas, but I guess now I’m going to have to think of something else for future years!

I’ll post pictures once she comes down from the traditional Christmas sugar high and starts making things on her looms. ^_^

And to round out this post on Christmas crafting, here is an example of the Santa ornaments I made both as gifts and to sell at the annual Christmas Bazaar at Mom’s church:

I got this pattern from Mary Maxim. It came as a kit (and doesn’t seem to be available anymore… a shame), but all it took was buying more eyes and pompoms. They’re fun to make, especially in the summer so as to freak out the muggles.

I thought that on this, my first Christmas Eve blog post, I’ll show my favourite handmade Christmas gift from previous years.

I made this rose blanket for my mom a couple of years ago.

Here is one octagon:

And the full blanket:

My mom is a member of Beta Sigma Phi, and their flower is the yellow rose. This blanket seemed appropriate. It lives on her couch (a very comfortable couch to which I seem to be highly allergic. It figures!).

Making this particular blanket was a challenge because I started working on while living with my parents. Thank you, mom, for having more of a life than I!