Where did the swag bags come from, then? Well!

I’m working from the list of donors on the KAL blog, and doing some educated guess work, so I may not be totally accurate here… if you know better, please tell me, and I’ll fix it! (ETA: fixed the things mentioned in the first comment!)

Let’s start with:

Two balls of my very favouritest yarn, Bernat Satin, from Spinrite!

(My crochet guild is working on arranging a bus trip up to Listowel to see the fine people at Spinrite. I can’t wait! Also, while I’m on the subject, keep your eyes on the top bar of this blog; I’m planning a “yarn” tab)

Next is some superwash merino from Diamond Yarn:

Then there are a couple of sets of knitting needles. The wooden ones are 19mm (!) and are from the Purple Purl, and the 4.5mm needles are from Romni Wools:

A handful of books from Simon and Schuster:

There were also coupons in the bags, from the Purple Purl, Mary Maxim, and Knit-o-Matic

Here is the t-shirt I won:

And the bags it all came in:

(The black one was this year’s bag, the white one was from last year, and it had the t-shirt in it)

Thanks again to the TTC KAL folks, and all of the donors (a full list of which you can see on the TTC KAL blog)

I can not wait until next year! I’ll try to remember to post about it in time for people to sign up and come along (you know, instead of the night before… heh)

Charles: I could really go for a grilled cheese sandwich
Becky: There’s a place two doors down from Lettuce Knit that apparently has great grilled cheese sandwiches
Charles: You know, we really should go to Lettuce Knit!
Becky: Ok, but that’s where I got that skein of $39 yarn…
Charles: I seem to have suddenly developed a cheese allergy…

I was on team Central Purple. We started the day at the Yarn Boutique, near the corner of Bloor and Keele, where I bought this:

As well as some DPN’s. The plan is to make myself a pair of socks… because I’m some kind of crazy person (a crazy person with size 11 feet)! I’m going to try the simplest pattern I can find for my first pair.

Next stop: The Knit Cafe, which sells both yarn AND tasty treats. I had a lovely vegetarian quiche, and bought some lovely malabrigo:

I’m planning to make a hat out of it, but after winding the purple skein into a centre-pull ball, I’ve discovered that I am allergic to it after all. :( The hat will have to be for someone else, I guess. It’s a shame, because it’s just so very soft!

Then we headed to Romni Wools, which, if you look at a map of Toronto, it seems like it’d be easy to travel between the two shops, but due to streetcar re-routing, possibly due to protests, we ended up taking a scenic route down the street!

I found Romni quite overwhelming! It’s huge, and has every natural-fibre yarn you can think of (I assume… I don’t know of very many!). For someone like me, I’d have been better off deciding what I wanted to make and what yarn I’d need for it before heading in.

Still, I bought this:

I’m planning on playing with it to see if it’ll make a nice shawl. If it does, I’m going to go back and get more!

We then took another scenic streetcar ride up to Lettuce Knit where I simply could not resist buying this:

It’s soft, and even more beautiful than this picture would suggest. It is destined to become a scarf, which should be stunning with my black winter coat!

At the end of the shopping spree, most of us headed over to the Rivoli to meet up with the other four teams for merriment and prizes!

I won the “WTF WIP” prize my mitten, which I started when I got on the subway at Kipling Station. This is how much I got done over the course of the day:

Action shot:

The most frequently asked question I got about it all day was: how are you going to do the thumb? I love yarnies!

More in the next post about the amazing free stuff we got! (Look for that post either later today or tomorrow… my blog is being quite flakey today!)

What is it? Well, you sign up, are assigned a group, your group rides the TTC (knitting all the while, or possibly crocheting since I’ll be there ^_-) to four yarn shops, and all of the groups meet up at the end to compare purchases and get prizes. At least, that’s the description I’ve been given; this is my first year participating!

I will, of course, be blogging after the fact, to let you know how it went and show you what I bought! In the mean time, you can watch my Twitter feed (or the box over there on the right side of this page) for updates! I’m going to try to take pictures and tell interesting tidbits of stories throughout the day. You don’t need to sign up for Twitter in order to follow me tomorrow, just go to http://twitter.com/fantasticmio and possibly refresh the page as the day progresses, and you shouldn’t miss a thing!

Things kick off at 11am (Eastern)!

Until then, check out the progress on my “Eventually Granny Square” blanket:

It just needs the border and then I’ll have an actual finished object to show off! This one is special in that I don’t know who it’s going to be for yet. Once I’m finished I’ll do up a pattern for those who want to try it at home. If you’re new-ish to crochet and are going to try this, I suggest you learn how to make a traditional Granny Square first. (I do 2ch in the corners, and no ch stitches anywhere else, but this pattern should work just fine with any pattern that has the Granny Square look to it… in fact, ANY square that has the “granny” border on it would work)

Anyhow, it’s not a hard pattern at all; the only part I had to figure out, really, was the valleys between the squares, and it’s actually pretty easy to do. ^_^

The last time I did something like this, I filled a “bin”, meaning, one of the plastic bins I was using to store my yarn. I figured if I could take the yarn out and put it back in in the shape of a hat or scarf, then I could cart the whole thing off to my parents’ house and I’d have stash-busted not just the yarn, but the bin!

Brilliant plan, except Mom doesn’t seem to want the bins. I got that original bin back and it is now holding Christmas decorations. Mom traded the plastic bin for a cardboard box (left over from our move); I think it’s so that she can just take the stuff over to the charity in the box and leave the whole thing there.

So, this time around I’m going to skip the middle-m… er… middle-container, and put the warm goodies into a cardboard box. The one I got in the mail recently seemed like the best bet, so here it is!

And this is what’s inside so far:

I’m still stash busting, and I’m concentrating on the black yarn. I’ve got two bins full of black! I’m using the odds and ends left over from the last batch of hats for stripes and the like. Also, the hats are bigger this time; they’ve asked me to make bigger hats for older kids, so I’ve gone up a loom size and I’m making the scarves slightly longer. I might throw in some Crochet-On-the-Double sets, too…

(Of *course* that isn’t all of it!)

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. ^_-

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?

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?)

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!

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: