I has it.
(Of *course* that isn’t all of it!)
Posts Tagged ‘yarn’
Dainty it ain’t
January 5th, 2010 
mio Today’s motif is from the same book, motif #29 found on p68, in the hexagon section.
I was really hoping for a lighter motif, but this one is quite dense in the middle, and it’s very heavy. It also curls inward, but I think it would do ok if joined to other motifs. I’d hesitate to tile this motif, as the resulting fabric would be really heavy… though, I suppose that depends a lot on the yarn.
And, hey look! Another hat!
And the other side:
Pictures don’t do the colours justice. I took a lot of pictures of this hat. In full sun, in difused sun, with flash, without flash, with indoor lights of various types… you’ll just have to take my word for it: it’s pretty. ^_^
It’s Bernat Satin again, about 3/4 of a ball of teal, and almost an entire ball of “Luxury Ombre”, which is the variegated yarn.
It’s the same pattern as my last hat, but I did 45 stitches to start instead of 50. It turned out a little bit too small for my liking… the brim doesn’t cover the whole of my ears. Ah well, I’m sure I’ll find a use for it.
This is how much of the variegated yarn I had left after making this:
Good thing I bought more than one. ^_-
Posted in Motifs 
Tags: Bernat Satin, crochet, crochet-on-the-double, Keeping Warm, motif, yarn 
No Comments »“Normal” is what other people do
December 29th, 2009 mio So, I was working on Maddie’s present on Christmas Eve. That’s nothing!
I made these dishcloths for my cousin on Christmas day!
(As an aside, I think this is my favourite way to wrap dishcloths: just a pretty bit of ribbon and tie in a bow.)
On Boxing Day, Mom and I went up to Michaels to see what was on sale (hint: yarn was!), and to use the gift card I got from my brother and his family (he’s the one with the daughters… clearly, they know where the handmade goods come from ^_-). We also went out to Mary Maxim in Paris, Ontario.
Because I was running dangerously low, I bought some more yarn. Including some in a lovely teal colour that you’ll see more of tomorrow, some wine coloured Bernat Satin Sport (I know, I usually don’t use this, but the pattern I have in mind needs something a bit thinner than my usual), and some dark blue Satin…
… which I used to finish Dad’s present. You may remember this picture:
I made the hexagons for this blanket in about 3 days. It made an excellent subway/work project. That is, until it was time to sew them all together. It took *forever*. I think it will be a very long time before I decide to whip-stitch motifs together again! Watch for future posts about experimenting with joining methods, coming soon. Very soon.
Anyhow, here is the blanket when Dad received it:
(Check out the sweet stockings my mom had made over the years, there on the right)
And here it is finished, and going extremely and accidentally well with that chair that I forgot my parents had:
I’m particularly happy with the borders. I’m never happy with the edges on hexagon motif blankets. Two of the sides are ok, kind of a ripple, but the other two are very boxy-looking. I don’t normally like experimenting with presents (we’re just ignoring the original present idea right now) but this turned out really well, I think!
So, let’s have a show of hands: how many people think I’m going to keep adding border rounds on that blanket every time I visit?
Posted in Afghans Tags: afghan, Bernat Satin, blanket, christmas2009, crochet, hexagon, yarn No Comments »Zombie Yarn
November 4th, 2009 mio “No dye lot.” Get it? Heehee!
You know, I really should know better by now: always check the dye lot. Especially on white yarn.
I’ve been busy recreating my Craftster avatar. I got this far before I ran out of white.
When I started up with a new ball, I noticed that it was a vastly different colour of white. Crap.
So I sent an e-mail off to mom asking if she could nip out to Michaels (of which there are THREE near her house) and grab some for me (because there are NONE in Toronto), being careful about the dye lots.
She was able to get 5 balls of white that shared a dye lot, and I desperately hoped that it would be “close” to what I had… though, I wasn’t holding my breath. I figured I could just pull the pieces apart, frog all of the white around the faces, and re-do it all with the same dye lot this time.
Easy enough.
While I was still in Hamilton I re-made that blank space above the faces. When I got home, I compared it to what I had previously done, just to see how close the colours were.
(Click it to see a bigger picture that maybe shows the difference in colour a bit better.)
That new piece is *exactly* the same pattern as the top part of the old one. Same number of stitches, same type of stitch, same brand and type of yarn, same hook. The only difference: dye lot.
Lesson learned.
What am I going to do now? I think that’s obvious: I’m going to change the plan completely, keep the piece exactly as it is now, fit ALL of the words into that top part, and slap a lovely border around it. And then use the new white to make a snowflake afghan. Hrmph.
(P.S. Do you think the faces need noses?)
Posted in yarn Tags: Add new tag, anosmia, Bernat Satin, blanket, crochet, dye lot, yarn 4 Comments »Hey look, a distraction!
September 15th, 2009 mio So, you may have noticed – because I’ve already blogged about it – that I have a fair amount of yarn.
I’m on a hat-and-scarf-making kick, so it was time to dive into the stash. I’ll tell you more about the actual hats and scarves in another post, but first, let me show you what I found while sorting the stash.
This is my Patons Melody stash, which makes up most of the yarn I’m using to make hats and scarves.
A mixed bin:
Another mixed bin:
I don’t think any of us are surprised about how much yarn this is, I mean, you saw the picture of the car!
Mom and I started out buying this yarn at Michaels, one ball each at a time, using the weekly 40% coupons, sometimes roping Dad and other unsuspecting loved ones into our plan.
Then Herrschners had a sale. I had a coupon for free shipping, and this yarn was on for an amazing price… including tax it worked out to $1.52 per ball (regular price was about $5 +tax per ball at the time, if I remember correctly).
How could we resist, really?
So Mom got some, and I got some (and I convinced some friends they should get some, too), all in one big order.
Anyhow, while sorting the stash, I noticed that I had a lot of black Melody. Two bags of 10, in fact:
(Look at that, they aren’t even opened!)
I think we’ve officially crossed into, “Boy, that’s a LOT of yarn” territory.
What’s that? What about the yarn that didn’t fit in the car? Why, yes, we do have a storage locker here, what’s your point?
Oh, ok, let’s go look. I mean, I did bring the last of the yarn home this past weekend…
Those purple bins? Er… you don’t want to look in those; it’s really not that interesting…
Ok, so there’s a whole bin of black… that’s not so bad… right?
The bin under it? *tugging nervously at my collar*
It’s not even in focus! That doesn’t prove anything.
…
Hey, take a look at my beautiful view!
Let’s talk about the high price of furniture and rugs
September 11th, 2009 mio It started back in the spring. My Mom has a friend who likes ladybugs, and when Mom was flipping through a crafting catelogue and saw a pattern for a ladybug afghan, she asked me if I could make it.
I took a look at the picture and agreed, though I told her not to buy the pattern. Now, normally I don’t condone depriving a designer of well earned money, but I seem to be having this problem with a lot of crochet patterns in that, I look at them, and most of the time I can figure out right away how it’s done.
Honestly though, a ladybug is just a big red circle with little black circles on it. I already know how to crochet a circle, so how hard could it be?
At the time I couldn’t work on it. Big On Bloor was coming up, and I was focusing on making things for that. Then the summer was taken up with the move. I suggested to Mom that she wait until Bernat Satin went on sale; I’d figure out how much I’d need, and she could go buy it.
Bernat Satin did go on sale, at the exact time when I couldn’t buy any of it (go two posts back to see what I was up to that prevented the yarn buying), but Mom did get some red and black Satin. She bought it just before leaving on her vacation.
When Charles and I were camping out there (again, go see the post about our move; you won’t believe it!); I was getting a bit tired of working on that yellow project that I had kept in my work bag during the move, and was the only yarn I had out; I decided to grab the two bags of yarn Mom had bought for the ladybug blanket.
I had no clean clothes, but I did make this:
Then it got bigger:
Here it is, bigger still, enjoying the nightlife:
Here it is today, with some black for the face added in:
Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever crocheted a blanket in the round, mostly all in one colour, and all the same stitch, over, and over, and over before. If not, let me tell you: the farther along you get, the less fun it gets. I was blowing through a ball of yarn a day on this, which meant 16 inch diameter the first day, but only up to 24 inches the next day, then 28 inches… now a ball of yarn is just barely making it all the way around! Just endless rounds of dc… constantly counting for the increases… *yawn*
Understandably, I’d put this down for a while.
I picked it back up tonight and wondered how I would know where I’d left off. I’d done a small part of the latest round. (See how it starts with the black, then ends with red shortly thereafter?)
It turns out I needn’t have worried because apparently I’m brilliant. ^_-
First, how to crochet a circle in dc:
Start with your favourite way to start working in the round. With me, I ch-1, then did the no-turning-chain-dc, followed by 11 dc into the first ch.
When making a flat circle in dc you need to add as many dc’s as you started with to each round, so, round 2 was 24 dc, 2 dc in each of the previous round’s stitches.
Round 3 needed 36 stitches, basically a repeat of *1dc, 2dc* around.
The pictures I’ve seen of crocheted circles always struck me as odd, and I finally realized why: people tend to put their increases in the same spots every round, and what you end up with isn’t a circle, it’s a dodecagon.
I decided that, with this project, I was going to try moving my increases around, but still evenly spaced within a round, and see if that helped. It seems to be working so far, anyway.
For the rest of the rounds I was counting stitches. Basically, you count to whatever number the round is 12 times(so, if you’re doing round 6, you count up to 6 then start again). The trick is deciding where the increases will go. For example, I might do: 1-23-4-5-6, where stitches 2 and 3 went into the same stich in the previous round.
So, back to this evening: I laid the blanket out on the table (as seen above) and counted the rounds. It turns out the round I’d started before putting it down before was round 35. Good, now I know what number to count to, but where did I put the increases?
Let’s take a closer look at that black, which is the beginning of the round:
I hope you can clearly see how, counting from right to left, you count 3 single stitches, then 4 and 5 in the same stitch. Ok, so I know I’m counting 1-2-3-45-6-7-8…. up to 35.
But, oh man, where did I stop? Let’s take a look:
Like I said: brilliant. Clearly the last stitch I made was #5 in the pattern. So the next one will be 6, then 7 and so on.
Except that I’ve spent the evening blogging about it instead of actually working on it. But that’s ok, I found this:
Show your partner/parents this post
September 9th, 2009 mio Dear significant others of the yarnaholics following this blog,
This is the part of my stash that was being stored at my parents’ house that could fit in my Dad’s car:
Maybe re-read that first sentence a few times. Clearly, your yarnaholic of choice needs more yarn (yes, Charles, this does include you! ^_-).
You might be saying to yourself, “Man, that mio really needs some help!” and I agree. There is still more yarn to be moved!
Posted in yarn Tags: Add new tag, I like yarn, lots of yarn, more yarn, wool is nice too, yarn, yarn for president, yarn is good, yarn yarn, yarn yarn yarn, yummy yarn No Comments »Sweating it out
July 7th, 2009 mio I bring yarn and hooks with me almost everywhere. You never know when you might have to wait or you might get struck with inspiration! The other day, when I got to work and was pulling my lunch out of my bag I noticed that my yarn was wet. Not a huge deal, as it was acrylic and it dried quickly, but still rather annoying.
The culprit? My Diet Coke. Normally I drink pop in cans, but at my work we are not allowed to have open containers of liquid near our workspace (I work with really old books and expensive computer equipment) and bottled drinks need to live on the floor. (I work in a very dark environment too… this will be important later!)
Well, I’m home today due to my bum knee acting up again, and am kind of stuck in my chair. I felt like crocheting something and the closest yarn to me was the Bernat Handicrafter Cotton I was using yesterday to make dishcloths. I had lots of odds and ends, especially of bright colours, and so my Diet Coke cozy was born:
With those crazy colours there’s no way my drink will get lost on the dark floor in the dim room!
The back:
The top:
At the top of the cozy I did a round of mesh, basically *dc, ch1 (skip a stitch)* repeat, to make holes to weave in a bit of a drawstring. The drawstring itself is mostly just 1 sc in each base chain, except on the ends I did 2 sc in each base chain, to add a bit of a twist.
The bottom:
The bottom is actually a circle (the shape of the bottom of the bottle makes it look a bit like a wonky-pentagon). 12 dc, followed by 24 dc, then a round of sc in the pattern of *sc, sc, 2sc* repeat
I tried to get a close up of the stitch pattern in this pic:
After a round of 1 dc per stitch in the base, I started a pattern of *dc sc* repeat, and in the following row *sc dc* repeat, so that sc goes into a dc and dc goes into a sc.
I made the mistake of measuring this as I went with a bottle of Diet Coke I was actually drinking, which means that the sides of the bottle were sweating, and it made the yarn wet every time. Crocheting with wet yarn kind of sucks! (Which, if you’ll recall, was one of the major motivators for making this project…). I finally got wise after a few rounds and found an empty bottle nearby (What? We’re in the middle of a garbage strike here. Of *course* there was an empty drink bottle next to my chair. lol)
Here it is empty:
I’m going to have to make another one of these, as I usually have two bottles with me. I’m thinking of doing some sort of spiral pattern…
Plan B
June 26th, 2009 mio BOB didn’t go well (stupid rain) but that’s ok, because I had a backup plan!
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.
Posted in Afghans, Geeky, charity, swap, yarn Tags: afghan, baby, Bernat Satin, Big On Bloor, blanket, charity, Christmas, craftster, crochet, Crochet-A-Long, geek, hat, scarf, Settlers of Catan, swap, Tetris, Tunisian, yarn No Comments »Another keeper!
June 11th, 2009 mio It occurs to me that I haven’t posted that 3-way Tunisian blanket in a while. It has grown quite a bit:
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.
