Posts Tagged ‘cozy’

A New Cozy

May 10th, 2010 mio

I decided to try making a Tunisian-in-the-round cola bottle cozy. It went well!

DSC04084

To make this, I used 2 balls of Bernat Handicrafter Cotton (MC=main colour, CC=contrasting colour), a 5mm (regular) hook, and a 6mm double-end hook.

With the 5mm hook and MC
ch3 (or ch1, then no-turn-chain-dc)
Rnd 1: work 11 dc into the first ch you made. Join. (12dc)
Rnd 2: ch3/no-turning-chain-dc, dc in same stitch. 2dc in each dc of previous round. Join (24dc)
Rnd 3: ch1, sc in same stitch. sc in next stitch. 2sc in next stitch. *sc in next two stitches, 2sc in next stitch* repeat until you reach the first sc you made. Join. (32 sc)

Remove 5mm hook, insert 6mm hook in loop (you might want to take the opportunity to weave in the starting ends shortly after you’ve made them)

Tunisian section:
lift up a loop in as many sc stitches as you can/want, starting with the stitch next to the one your loop is coming out of. Turn. Pull a loop of CC through the first loop of MC on the hook. Pull through 2 loops repeatedly until you have 2 or 3 MC loops and 1 CC loop on the hook. Turn. Lift more loops on MC up. Turn, and work them off with CC.

Continue in this fashion, working in a spiral, until you have the length you want. Work a round of sc for the last round, and join (try to hide the step created by working in a spiral previously!)

Weave in all ends.

Enjoy!

Posted in Pattern Tags: , , , No Comments »

Dave Capisano

March 7th, 2010 mio

Attention new crocheters, there’s something you should know!

Designers sometimes make up their own names for stitch patterns.

The good news is that this means that designers will usually define their special stitches right there in the pattern, so they could call it a Shazbut Special, and it wouldn’t matter because they tell you what it is.

The bad news is that finding more help on these stitch patterns isn’t easy. That pattern the designer called the Shazbut Special might be called Busker’s Delight by the person who posted the tutorial video to youtube.

I bring this up because I recently came across a pattern that called for the moss stitch. Before this point in my life, I was only aware of the moss stitch as refered to by knitters. Luckily, there was a link to a youtube tutorial.

I made up a swatch:
DSC03863
We’ll call this one “Moss Stitch HalfDouble-SlipStitch” because it’s made up of a pattern of *hdc, slst* repeated, with each subsequent row made up of doing an hdc into a slst, and a slst into an hdc.

Those instructions might sound a little bit familiar to some of you, as they are eerily similar to this:
DSC03865
which we’ll call “Moss Stitch Double-Single”, and some of you might recognise as the stitch pattern I use in my Diet Coke Bottle Cozies. Basically, it is a row of *dc, sc* repeated, and in subsequent rows you work a dc into a sc, and a sc into a dc. I didn’t know it was called “moss stitch” when I chose it for my cozies… I just thought it looked neat. Not too stretchy, not too tight.

Finally, there is a third stitch pattern that is referred to as “moss stitch”:
DSC03862
and we’ll call it “Moss Stitch Single-Chain1″ for it is made by repeating *sc, ch1* a bunch of times (and ending with a sc), and in subsequent rows you work your sc into the ch1 space.

I’d say this one has the nicest drape of the three moss stitches, and it didn’t curl up in the corners like the others. I do believe I’m going to make a blanket using this stitch. We’ll see!

Extra bonus today:

I tried out the stitch height experiment with two colours.
DSC03860
It’s a bit wonky, but I think that would go away with a larger example. What do you think?

Posted in Experimenting Tags: , , , , , , 1 Comment »

NatCroMo 2010

March 2nd, 2010 mio

Happy National Crochet Month!

I have no idea where it comes from, but this is at least the third year it has been celebrated.

The Crochet Guild of America is doing a Crochet-along. Ravelry is having a party. Craftster is getting in on the fun, too! And you can follow the excitement on Twitter by searching for #natcromo.

As for me, I’m going to try and crochet even more than usual this month (though, I’m not sure how I’m going to do that yet…)

This morning on my commute to work I started making another Diet Coke Bottle Cozy, mostly just to see what the pattern would look like with striped yarn. I finished it at lunch, and here it is!
DSC03837

In other news, I finished the Ladybug blanket!
DSC03754

A close up of the face:
DSC03757

I ended up crocheting a separate black wedge and sewing it on for the face, as the colour changes on the big circle really weren’t working for me. Sewing the spots on was quite annoying as well… I’m going to have to find a better way to do that. Not that I plan on making this blanket again, but I’m sure this sort of technique will come up in something else.

So, back to NatCroMo: Learn to crochet! Crochet something new! Learn a new crochet technique! Crochet in public! Talk about crochet! Sing about crochet! But above all… CROCHET! ^_^

Posted in Afghans, Experimenting Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments »

Cotton Crocheted Cozy

February 23rd, 2010 mio

It’s snowing out!

snow-22-02-10-a
Mississauga is usually out there somewhere…

… and there’s supposed to be a lake this way:
snow-22-02-10-b

And I hate snow (boy, do I ever live in the wrong place!), but it’s ok, because my pop will be cozy:

DSC03825

See?
DSC03827DSC03826

I’ve posted bottle cozies before, but there’s a difference this time: there’s a real pattern!

Yarn: Bernat Handicrafter Cotton
Hook: 5mm
Size: fits a 710ml Diet Coke bottle

ch3 (counts as a dc)
R1: 11dc into first ch, join (12 dc)
R2: ch3 (counts as dc), dc into same stitch, 2dc in each following stitch, join (24 dc)
R3: ch1, sc in same stitch, sc in next 2 stitches, 2sc in next stitch. *sc in next 3 stitches, 2sc in next stitch* 5 times, join (30 sc)
R4: ch3 (counts as a dc), sc in next stitch, *dc in next stitch, sc in next stitch* repeat all the way around, join (30 stitches)
R5: ch1, sc in same stitch, dc in next stitch, *sc in next stitch, dc in next stitch* repeat all the way around, join (30 stitches)

Repeat R4-R5 as many times as needed to reach desired length. (I did 23 rounds on the tan cozy, and 21 on the pink. The difference is for no other reason than they looked the same size on the subway… Yeah, I dunno… but they both fit the bottle nicely.)

As always, if you try this pattern and find an error, please let me know!

Posted in Pattern Tags: , , , , No Comments »

Happy Thursday!

January 1st, 2009 mio

I don’t normally make New Year’s resolutions. New Year’s Day is such an arbitrary holiday in my mind. About the only thing of note about it is buying a new calendar, which isn’t an issue for someone like me who uses the Google calendar and a four-month wipe-off calendar I got in university.

If I feel like there is something I need to change about my life I’ll think about it, decide if it’s really something I need or want to do, decide how to do it, then do it. Only once has the execution of my resolutions happened on January 1st. That was last year.

Last year my resolution was to do more charity crafting. I’ve posted already about one project I’m working on in that light, and there will be more to come over the next few days. Overall, I think I was pretty successful. The reason this became a “New Year’s resolution” was because I wasn’t able to start planning and crafting towards that goal until the end of year festivities were over. It just made sense.

This year I’ve decided to craft more for myself. Worry not! I will be keeping up on my charity crafting for sure, but I’m going to plan it out a bit better than I did last year and actually finish some of the projects that I’ve had planned for myself for what seems like ages.

I’ve had the yarn to make myself a rose afghan for two years now (Employee Appreciation Week at Michaels. ‘Nuff said.) Mom’s was yellow, mine will be purple (using “silk” for the background instead of white because I didn’t want to find a box in which to put the huge amount of that colour the warehouse had sent us it wouldn’t show the dirt as much).

During the Boxing Week sale at Mary Maxim at the end of 2007 I bought myself an afghan kit, with the matching rug. They are still in their original packages. I have two other rugs waiting to be made, as well. Not to mention a funny little hook I found at Michaels once that looks like a crochet hook on one end and a huge yarn needle on the other. It’s for making rugs, but I haven’t tried it out yet.

I consulted my 2008 crafting spreadsheet yesterday and found that I had listed “Catan Blanket” under my own name there. Looks like I’ll have to make another one of them now! (A smaller one… definitely smaller.)

I want to try out hairpin lace on the loom I got for Christmas from Charles’ sister. And thread crochet. And get better at knitting. And play with broomstick lace more.

So, in the grand tradition of New Year’s Resolutions, I present to you the first project of the year:

Cozy

It looks like some sort of cozy… Let’s undo the drawstring closure:
drawstring closure on the cozy

What’s that inside?
Penny Whitle inside

Ah. Charles‘ penny whistle.

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