Since the last episode of fantasticmio.com my laptop broke; it still works, it just doesn’t stay open! Just check out that hinge:

It was decided that I needed a new computer. Not wanting to bother with Windows Vista, and not willing to muddle through with the broken laptop, I got a netbook that runs XP.

We named it “Sprinkles”.

But that’s not why I haven’t blogged.

I turned 32 a few weeks ago. It was awesome.

That cake was decorated by my 8-year-old neice (she’s the one in yellow. You may remember her from the Breast Cancer walk post.) She’s been taking the Wilton cake decorating classes at Michaels. It was her idea. The lower age limit for the classes is 10, but they agreed to let her take the classes if an adult took it with her, so my Dad is also taking the classes. Word is that the only thing she’s having trouble with is making flowers with the Royal icing. Not because making flowers is difficult, but because the icing is so stiff that she can’t pipe it out of the bag properly. I hear her buttercream roses are beautiful, though!

Yes, that IS the basketweave technique.

For my birthday I received all sorts of wonderful things. A Cricut personal cutting machine, as well as a bunch of accessories for it; an iron which I intend to use for all manner of crafty purposes, including using in conjunction with the Cricut machine and some freezer paper to make amusing t-shirts; some clothes; tickets to see Riverdance (always a good show!); a really neat Halloween cross stitch my Mom made; and, of course, YARN!

More on the gifts in another post!

My birthday isn’t what held up the blog either.

What held up the blog is our fantastic news: we’re moving! Moving day is Sept 1, but we had to get the current place ready to show to potential renters, and what a job it was!

We packed up some clutter, threw a lot of stuff out (including the entire contents of the fridge when it died suddenly), and most traumatic: packed up the yarn! *sob* Most of my stash, which turns out to be at least twice as big as I thought it was, is now living at my parents’ house.

Evidence of our efforts:

Cleaning for the move made me late in sending out my packages in the two swaps I’m in, but they’re all out now, and half of my partners have received.

Whew!

I’m hoping to spend the next little while catching you up on the crafty things I’ve been doing and if I time it right, I can show you the motifs I made very soon! Here is one of my favourites I sent out:

Stay tuned until next time, same fantastic time, same fantastic channel! ^_-

It turns out that his wife was thinking of getting one. I’ve thought about it, but I don’t do enough scrapbooking to warrant the financial outlay. When I mentioned that to my brother he said that he was more worried about the cost of the room he had to build for it.

It doesn’t look like much now, but that’s going to be a really sweet craft room!

I’m so jealous! (Well, I do have green eyes…)

Today I’m going to cover picking yarn and a matching hook, how to make a slip knot, and how to hold the yarn while crocheting. If you already know these things, take a look at the pretty slippers I made myself for work:

Everyone else, please join me under the cut:

So you want to learn how to crochet. The first thing you do is head to the craft store, but what do you get when you’re there? Well, a crochet hook, obviously, and some yarn. But there are dozens of hooks from which to choose, and hundreds of different types of yarn. What do you do?

My advice is to start with the yarn. Pick one that is smooth (not hairy or bumpy) and not too thick or too thin, in a colour that you like. I recommend a shade in the medium range: not too light, not too dark. You might want to pick a variegated yarn (meaning there are multiple colours in one ball). Some people find it easier to see the stitches when they appear in different colours. Seasoned crocheters sometimes like using variegated yarns because it can hold their interest longer than the single colour yarns do.

Once you have your yarn of choice, look at the label to determine which hook to get. Here is the ball band from a ball of Bernat Satin:

You can see where I’ve circled the recommended hook size. Beware: some yarns don’t tell you a hook size. Usually those yarns will tell you a knitting needle size, and I’ve found that using the same size hook works just fine.

Find your hook. Most hooks come in a package that clearly displays the hook size. If it doesn’t, you’ll want to look at the thumb rest; that’s the flat bit about an inch or so down from the hook. Here’s mine:

When I first learned to crochet I found that when using the recommended hook I ended up with stitches that were too tight. Moving up a hook size usually solved the problem. So, in this case, I would have probably gone for a 5.5mm hook. For the last little while I’ve noticed that the recommended hook size has been working just fine, which means that no matter how experienced you get, it’s important to do a swatch before you start any patterns where size matters. (More on swatches another time.)

For now, start with the recommended hook. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can certainly buy more hooks in different sizes, just to test them out. If you get as obsessed with crocheting as I am, you’ll be buying them eventually anyway. ^_-

So, you have your yarn and your hook. What now?

The first thing you need to do to make anything in crochet is to make a slip knot. (There are always exceptions.)

These instructions are for right-handed crocheters. If you are left-handed, just switch the directions and hold a mirror up to the side of your screen ^_^

Find a yarn end (preferably the one on the inside, again, more on that later) and lay the yarn out with the end of the yarn to the left:

Lift the yarn up to the right of the end and fold it over itself making a loop:

With your thumb and pointer finger, reach through that loop and grab the yarn to the right of the loop (towards the ball) and pull it through the loop:

Pull on the yarn hanging down from the loop (I needed one hand to take this picture, so imagine my other hand holding the loop at the top) :

Grab your hook and insert it in the loop you made:

and pull on the yarn leading towards the ball (known as the “working yarn”) and the loop will tighten around your hook. If it doesn’t, try pulling on the yarn tail. If that works, then you did something differently than the instructions. Take your hook out of the loop and keep pulling on the yarn tail until the slip knot comes out, and try it again. It’s important that the working yarn be the side that closes the loop.

Finally, how to hold the yarn. There are many different ways to hold the working yarn. The goal is to control the tension of the yarn as you work with it while still having fingers left over to hold your work in progress.

This is how I do it:

Starting close to the hook, and working loosely, hold your hand palm up and bring the yarn up between your ring and pinky fingers:

and bring it down over the pinky.

Wrap around the pinky then pull the yarn up between those same two fingers again:

then pull the yarn up towards your other fingers.

Bring the yarn down between your pointer and middle fingers and wrap it up and around your pointer finger:

Then hold your work in progress between your thumb and middle finger:

This will allow you to control the yarn by moving your pointer finger up and down as needed, and holding the rest of your fingers splayed apart or held close together to make the yarn come faster or slower, respectively.

Experiment with it. Some people find that simply holding the yarn in a loose fist does the job just as well.

I was hoping to at least include pictures on how to make a chain stitch, but the batteries in my camera died, so that will have to wait for another day.

Good luck, and don’t be afraid to ask questions!

I always get to bed at a decent hour. Always. I need 8 hours of sleep in order to function at peak efficiency. Even on the weekends, I don’t like getting too far out of my sleep routine for fear of not being fully awake on Monday morning.

So, I think you’ll join me in finding it extremely weird that for the last week or so I’ve been going to bed late.

What’s been keeping me up?

This:

And this:

And this:

I didn’t think anything would be more important to me than the proper amount of sleep, but there it is. Crochet as moved up to the top of my priority list. It seems like a natural progression, but it also seems a bit weird. If that makes any sense.

This week won’t be any better, since I just acquired the following:

I’ll post a picture tomorrow of what I’m working on with those. ^_^

We awoke ridiculously bright and early Friday morning and headed out for the airport.

There weren’t many people at Pearson at that time of day, so the line at security was non-existent. The carry-on bags go on the counter. Then our coats. Charles‘ shoes. The laptops (each in a separate tray). My knee brace (and its annoying, yet effective, metal boning).

I warned one of the guards that I had scissors in my bag, and after the brief look of panic on her face, I amended that statement to say that they were rounded scissors for kids. No problem.

I walked through the metal detector and all was fine, so I headed to the end of the counter to get our things. Charles was behind me (his shoes take a while to take off). Everything seemed fine, so I started getting our things together.

Oh, wait. Something is holding us up! Oh no! They’re not going to let my crochet hook through! I knew I should have told them it was in there! I just panicked! I’d forgotten to bring a book! Eeek!

They were searching through Charles’ coat. Wait a minute, that doesn’t make any sense…

My stuff was fine. They didn’t like the pen Charles had in his coat pocket. Oy!

Almost finished! It just needs a few more rounds for the border.

I really wish I could get an accurate picture of the colour on this blanket. It’s something to see! I’ll try to take the finished picture outside and see if that helps.

I stopped at the store on the way home from work today and picked up some scissors that are not only awesomeness defined, but I think they’ll allow them on the plane in my carry-on, too.

“The children are right to laugh, these couldn’t cut butter.”

And the big news:

I finished something last night! I am now the proud owner of a double-thick short scarf. When I got home from work today I thought to myself, “What would be the best background for a totally black scarf picture? If only there was an abundance of whiteness that also represents the function of the item…” Stupid snow.

One finished project down, a few hundred left to go…