Mr. Gobbles

With the impending change in weather...okay, this is the South, it won't be autumn for awhile.  But still, with the dream of the change in weather, I started thinking about Thanksgiving (mostly thinking about how to convince my husband to try his hand at homemade pumpkin pie), and I thought it would be cute to make an amigurumi turkey to liven up the table or something.  So I'm taking an old pattern from Crochet Today and modding it a bit to make Mr. Gobbles.

Here's the rough sketch idea:

I got to work already on the tail; this is how it turned out:

I was going for the look of those drawings we used to do in elementary school with all the cliche fall colors.  Plus, why have just a plain brown crochet bird sitting there?  And then I got lazy and gave up for the night.  Ha.  Still, it's a start and I may actually finish this bad boy in time to grace the table on Turkey Day.  Maybe.

experiencing slight delays

I had hoped to have my star blanket done by tonight, but I've been sick.  All.  Week.  And when you are suffering for a cold/sinus infection/virus thing, it's probably best not to handle yarn that is going to be wrapped around a baby in a few months.  My bigger worry is that I'm going to lose my groove and enter into a crochet hiatus where I'm up at midnight days before the baby is due trying to finish the stupid thing.

Other than that, dear hubby finally got to use his dear hubby blanket for it's intended travel use.  How he managed to roll that thing up and shove it in his overnight bag, I'm really not sure.

And now I shall end this pretty much pointless post.

project roll call

So, I have a ton of on-going yarn projects and rather than have a jumble of to-do's in my head, I'm posting my list here in an attempt to organize it all.

Currently in Progress:
Star Baby Blanket - Hopefully I'll be done by next weekend.

Austen-inspired Mobcap - getting closer to the decrease portion.  I'll have to eventually switch to dpn and I've never knitted with those before.  What I really want to do is practice knitting in the round with the double pointed for a bit first before having to switch for this pattern.  However, I've been really lazy and haven't tried it yet.








Scarves for co-workers - just basic knit scarves.  I have 3/5 completed and need them done by mid-December.  I really don't know why it is taking me so long to get these done.

Coming up Next (and in order of most likely to start next):

Log Cabin style baby blanket - Gonna use scrap yarn from the star baby blanket to make a log cabin style baby blanket using a pattern I saw in one of the Mason-Dixon knitting books.  But rather than knit, I'm going to crochet, mostly because I'm faster at crochet.

Starry Night Cowl - With SAFF coming up, I'm trying to actually use the yarn I bought last year before going back.  This year my goal is to actually have projects that I want to make, rather than just getting whatever yarn tickles my fancy.  That way I'm not sitting around with a ton of yarn that I have no idea what to do with.  Well, that's going to happen anyway, but when I'm buying "the good stuff", it's probably better to have a little bit more direction.  Anyway, the dye lot is inspired by my favorite Van Gogh - Starry Night.  I found a cute cowl pattern that will work nicely.  I'm looking forward to wearing this while on late afternoon autumn walks while dreaming up fanfiction ideas (because I am a complete nerd).



Hubby Scarf - going to use scraps from my Hubby Blanket to make a coordinating scarf.  Because of all my years of crochet/knitting, I have never actually made my husband a scarf.  Which is kind of sad.  The hubby doesn't get much love with my yarn projects.

Magic:the Gathering inspired Dice Bag - Once more with the hubby love - I found a really cute M:tG dice bag pattern that I want to make for Dear Hubby for Friday Night Magic (also known as "get-out-of-my-house-I-need-some-me-time" night).  It using a pattern grid, which I've never done before, so it has the added benefit of expanding my abilities.  Who knows when I'll actually get around to it though.

And that's all folks.  Of course, as mentioned above, I am now pattern hunting for SAFF in October.  But hopefully I'll have a good bit of these done by then, so I won't be drowning in my stash.

seeing stars

This may be silly to say, but I am absolutely, 100% pleased with myself that my star-shaped baby blanket is actually star-shaped.  Which probably sounds very silly, but I'm still rather amazed that it is turning out so well.  Not to sound like I doubt the person who designed the pattern, but I have been known to botch easy, straight-forward patterns.  I'm also pretty pleased with how much progress I made.  For having just started on Saturday, I'm surprisingly far along.  It may be the quickest I've ever done a blanket - that is if I didn't just jinx myself and subsequently loose all motivation.

Behold!:

Again, I am stupidly pleased with myself.

adventures in baby blanket making

How is it that people I know always end up pregnant in batches?  It's almost always two or more at the same time.  So inevitably, I don't bother making one for someone.  Right now, there are three ladies I would like to make baby blankets for.  One is an old high school friend, so she's pretty much guaranteed one.  The other two though...well, one is my husband's boss's wife - so I feel kind of like it would be a good thing to do (and maybe earn dear hubby some brownie points??).

So now I'm faced with having to crank out three baby blankets and I want to try different patterns.  I'm tired of the same old ones, but at the same time, with the stress of the amount to make, do I really want the stress of trying something new?

Apparently, yes.  The one I have started (for the high school friend) is a 12 pointed star shaped blanket.  It's going pretty well so far, but it looks like it's going to be big and probably take awhile to complete.

Add on top of that I want to have my mobcap done in time for SAFF and I had planned on knitting my co-workers scarves for Christmas (I've done 4.5/5).  Oh, and I found a great cowl pattern I want to use for some of my yarn from last year's fiber fest.

Because why only do one project at a time?

two years later

It's taken me as long as a new season of BBC's Sherlock to post on this thing again.  Egads.  As always, I have too much yarn, too many project ideas and not enough time or motivation to do it all.  I will say I am currently working on a mobcap (pattern from an issue of Jane Austen Knits).  It's the first hat that I will knit and there are all kinds of challenges for me.  I've never done M1 or knit on double pointed needles, etc.  Plus I'm using my "nice" yarn - the stuff that cost me $30 a skein at the Fiber Fest last year.  I'm always scared to use it because it's expensive and I want whatever I do with it to turn out really nice.  So to me it feels risky to try so many new things using the "good stuff".

yet another baby blanket

Once more I am working on a baby blanket.  I feel like I have spent most of my crochet/knit career working on baby blankets.  At least this one is a challenge in that it is a cable knit baby blanket.  When I snagged the pattern at Michaels (it was one of those freebie ones they hang up in the yarn aisle), I seriously wasn't planning on ever really using it.  A friend had previously taught me to cable knit but I was pretty sure I could never do it on my own.  But I'm now about twenty rows in and while it doesn't look quite like the picture on the pattern, it doesn't look bad.  I did cave and buy actual cable needles.  Must faster than simply placing the stitches on a straight needle like I had been doing.

SAFF (Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair) is coming up next month and a friend and I are planning on heading back up.  Last year I took about $75 in cash and thought that would be plenty of spending money.  Ha!  The bad thing about the fair is that it makes me a yarn snob.  It's hard to go back to the local craft shops to pick up acrylic yarn after you have tasted the pleasures of real wool.  And the spinning wheels?  I'm surprised I wasn't helping my friend try to get one in her trunk.  I think it would be amazing to learn to spin, but I can just see the look on dear hubby's face if I showed up with one.

Since I've been getting hyped on the coffee I've been sipping while typing this, I think I'll go work on more knitting projects now.

The Case of the Gauge Swatch

I was so thrilled to see the Japan-inspired patterns in the latest issue of Crochet Today!. I was even more pleased when the dear hubby said I could order the yarn needs for the "Lantern Pullover". The yarn arrived last weekend, but I had major jitters about starting such a massive project, so it wasn't until Thursday night that I decided to start by working up the gauge swatch.

Normally I crochet rather loosely and several projects have taught me to automatically start with the hook size down from what the pattern calls for. So I picked up the B hook (cringing at its smallness) and worked up the swatch. What should have been 4 x 4 was 4 x 3.5.

Okay.

So I decided to actually use the size C hook that the pattern called for (feeling more than a little surprised). The resulting gauge was 4 x 3.5.

The stupid things are identical. Absolutely identical (well except where you can see I accidentally added a stitch).

At that point, I was getting more than a little frustrated, so I have yet to make a third swatch (my next plan of action is to use a size D hook), but I am seriously perplexed as to why the gauge is identical even though the hook size was different. Did I really crochet that differently in the span of a few minutes? And it definitely doesn't really inspire me and get me exited about doing the whole darn thing when I'm having so much trouble with the gauge swatches! So any words of wisdom would be appreciated. Otherwise, I'm going to just keep plowing on.

she's baaaaack

Yep, so I finally decided to update this blog again. I'm pretty sure I'm going to let my other blog rest in peace though...well, maybe.

So, what has been going on in my yarny life? The baby blanket from hell, that's what. Minus the whole how-does-the-woman-struggling-with-infertility-manage-knitting-baby-blankets angle (that might be a whole post to itself) there is the whole knitting the stupid thing in and of itself. I'm not a fast knitter as I only took up knitting about a year ago, and everything I know is self-taught. But I was pretty confident I could do this. And the pattern is completely super easy. I was even able to successfully rip out stitches when I did mess up (before I have just been restarting the project or ignoring the mess-up). It's just going so sloooow!!! I've tried listening to music and podcast sermons and watching my current fave TV show (Sherlock...just in case you are wondering) and nothing seems to help the time go by. So, what have I done to cope?

Started a new project.

Kind of counter intuitive, I know, but I was getting desperately bored with the baby blanket. So I've started a cute little turtle pillow pet which is kind of like amigurumi on a grander scale. I want to make one for each of my nephews (I have three) and I've already started thinking about how I can mod the pattern to make a unicorn for my youngest niece. So hopefully the baby blanket won't be completely forgotten because it was actually a commission. That is if the person decides to pay me. This time, no money, no product.

suddenly, posting again...

Okay, finally updating after 8 months....

I finally decluttered my stash by giving it away! I sent a box full of yarn up to an old high school friend who teaches in NYC and happens to be in charge of the knitting club at her school. It felt so nice to get rid of yarn that I had no desire to make anything with, plus the added bonus of knowing that it's going to good use.

I'm currently working on a shawl for Reformation Sunday. It will be on October 30th this year. Traditionally, you wear red that day, so I figured I would make a lovely red shawl to wear to church (and then I will have said lovely red shawl to wear all winter because it gets rather nippy in our church during the winter months). I'm about half-way done, so there is actually hope at me finishing it before Oct. 30.

I also have two commissions for berets. I had given one to my co-worker and she went and showed it off to other co-workers and let them know how easy it would be for me to stitch one up if they would like to purchase one. I just hope they turn out nicely; it's one of my biggest fears of giving away something and then it unraveling the first time they try to wash it (especially when I give away baby blankets - so far I've only had two recipients comment on how much they love theirs...and I can't help if all the others are thrown away, in some deep recess of an attic or worse - fell apart within days and they're just too nice to tell me the truth.)

Other than that, I have a ton of projects I want to do and just not enough time to do them all. But isn't that every knitter's dilemma?

yarn overload

My yarn stash is out of control. With a one bedroom apartment, there just isn't much room and I try to keep my yarn contained to one canvas bin. Which is currently overflowing. With more yarn on the way. I've been trying to bust through my scrap yarn granny blanket, but it gets old crocheting in rounds over and over. And I still have a ton of yarn left even though I'm on my tenth square.

I keep getting bombarded with ideas of things I want to make for others, which of course, means buying more yarn. There's the wedding ring blanket for a soon-to-be wed couple that I would love to make, but that's 8 more skeins to buy. Plus I've been commissioned to make a vest (hence the more yarn on the way). That's not to mention the bright, summery blanket I want to make for my husband and myself. I'm seeing bright, dark blue, yellow and white yarn with fresh, just bought light-blue sheets - because really, I have two sets of sheets and I need a change. In my mind, I'm seeing a Better-Homes-and-Gardens-esque scene with bright summer sunshine pouring through clean windows onto my lovely homemade creation - but the sensible side of my brain sees the stacks of skeins piled around the house while I struggle to finish yet another project.

I'm torn between wanting to wait until I use up my surplus and running out an buying a ton more new yarn. Crochet/knitting is definitely a struggle in self-control.

a good idea

Every Christmas I'm surprised at how much I spend not on gifts, but gift bags. Christmas Eve I dropped $25 on wrapping alone, and that was only for one side of the family. Not to mention finding the right size bag for the gift is impossible. I inevitably have several gifts that are too big for medium size bags but too small for the large. And with the whole "go green" movement, I cringe at thinking of spending so much on paper bags that are going to be thrown away and fill up a landfill somewhere.

So, my husband came up with a clever idea. Well, he might not have intentionally come up with the idea; I think he was teasing me about my yarn-addiction. However, he suggested that I knit/crochet bags - they would be reusable and could count as part of the gift.

I'm going to take some of my stash yarn and try to think out some easy bag-like patterns. Even a year away, I'm not sure if I have the discipline to make all of my gift bags for next year. Still, I might make a gift bag or two for a birthday and see how it goes.

attack of the stash

I'm getting desperate to cull down my stash. I'm working on a granny square blanket, trying to use up all the extra yarn I have. So far I've done five complete squares, each 8 rounds, each round a different color, with a size K crochet hook.

And I've only used up one leftover skein.

I haven't made a dent on my stash. And considering I was only going to make a lapghan for church, it looks like this little endeavor is developing into a full-blown project.

Now, in addition to figuring out what I'm going to do with all the excess yarn, I need to figure out what I'm going to do with all the granny squares. Bah!

WIP it good

I am now officially doing too many projects at once. Seriously, my WIP list is a little out of control. It runs as follows:

* fingerless, gauntlet-style gloves for my sis-in-law

* knit shawl for my mother

* crochet shawl for my sis

* cap/beanie for my husband (for our trip to the UK in December)

* knit scarf for myself

* a mini-blanket made from all my scrap yarn (because it was freezing at morning service on Sunday)

That's not adding in the sweater pattern I've been eyeing over at Lion Brand's website. Plus I'm feeling the urge to purge my stash. It's overflowing the sides of the bin I keep it all in. I was able to use up some of my baby yarn stash yesterday making cute little beanies for an expectant co-worker.

I just can't help starting new projects.

abort mission...

Okay, I'm putting my knit baby blanket aside for two reasons:

1) Because I couldn't get the gauge right. I have only been knitting for four months, so I'm still not the best at it. I tried doing separate squares but it was hard to sew them together. I'm also not good at sewing knit/crocheted fabric together, so it looked rather hideous. I then got the bright idea of knitting in strips: sort of like knitting a scarf, changing the colors as needed to form a row of blocks. For some reason the green section was shorter than the white section. Ugh.

2) I found out that the baby shower for the girl I'm making the blanket for is in two weeks. The group is throwing an early shower for her and I want to have the blanket done in time to present it to her. I can crochet faster, so I've change my plan over to a crocheted baby blanket. Which is something I've done a dozen times. Pretty fool-proof. Of course, I'm itching to try a new pattern, but I just don't have the time to experiment or to hunt down the right yarn. The local craft shops only have the bare basics type of yarn (it took them six months to start carrying Debbie Stoller's Stitch Nation brand). I'm kind of quirky about wanting the yarn that the pattern recommends. Plus I'm just not good at substituting yarn.

So I'm back to the tried and true method. I have to say, it's getting dull, but on a strict time line, it's do-able. I'm still going to be pushed, but I can crochet up a baby blanket by Oct. 14.

I think....

knitting a baby blanket

I'm getting ready to embark on my first large-scale knitting project. I've knit a little pouch and a scarf, both fairly basic, easy-to-do sort of things. Now I'm going to try a baby blanket. I'm modifying the pattern from one I found at Lion Brand's website. I'll keep the basic blocks (about 3 x 3 in squares), but I'm changing the color scheme. The girl that I'm making the blanket for doesn't know if it's going to be a boy or a girl yet, so I'm doing the typical white/green/yellow color scheme. Ideally, it will end up like this:

G Y W G Y W G Y W

W G Y W G Y W G Y

Y W G Y W G Y W G

G Y W G Y W G Y W

W G Y W G Y W G Y

Y W G Y W G Y W G

G Y W G Y W G Y W

W G Y W G Y W G Y

Y W G Y W G Y W G

The real kicker will be the fact that I'm going to have sew all the little blocks together. I hate having to sew pieces together. Almost as much as I hate weaving in the ends. Those two steps seem to give me the most trouble.

But there's nothing like facing your fears and challenging yourself. And sewing all these little squares are going to be a challenge.

too busy to blog

Okay, maybe I haven't been too busy to blog. More like just too plain lazy. Even though I have been doing some serious yarn-crafting in the mean time. I managed to crochet a shawl in under two weeks (given as a gift to a grieving friend who just lost her mother). I was my first sort of "over-drive" crochet project, where I had an extremely tight time line to follow. It helped that I mentioned to another friend I was thinking about crocheting up a prayer shawl...I had the added sense of responsibility knowing I couldn't just put down the hook and say "Well, no one knew I was doing this...so I can't disappoint anyone if I don't" - which by the way is one of my favorite excuses for putting down a project and never picking it up again.

Also, Christmas is approaching, and I still have a few projects I want to whip up before the holidays. The beret for my mum-in-law is complete, and I just finished knitting up a scarf for my sis-in-law (which by the way is my second completed knitting projecting since I started to teach myself a few months ago). I'm now working on my other sis-in-laws gauntlet style gloves...which are going surprisingly well. If I could just commit myself to crocheting 30 minutes a day, I would probably have them finished. But I keep get caught up in some of the novels I've been reading.

Only a completely non-yarn related note, I've gone to the dark side. That is, I've started reading Austen fiction - novels written based on Jane Austen's works. I know this makes me a traitor to my two best friends (we're all Jane Austen nerds), and I know I've spent the past year turning up my nose at these novels, crying out "Geez, make your own characters, idiots" - ironic since I used to write fan fiction. But the lure of the novels proved too great, and I've fallen. I just finished Me and Mr. Darcy last week and I have to admit, I liked it.

So that brings me up to date on not one, but two, of my major hobbies. Yep. That's it.

further adventures in bootie making

Okay, so maybe booties aren't my worst enemy after all. Last Saturday I grabbed a skein and hunkered down for an afternoon of bootie making. I even went so far as making a gauge swatch before trying the real deal. And behold! I produced something that was definitely bootie-shaped and looked like it might actually fit on a baby's foot without having to be tied on.

But even after one successful pair, I'm sort of nervous about attempting a second pair. I've also realized that it only takes one skein to make a pair of booties with matching newborn cap. In an overzealous fit of wanting to have enough yarn, I had bought two skeins of each color. So now I have extra skeins that I really have no idea what I'm going to do with (especially since each skein is drastically different colors; I can't combine them to make one piece).

Still, even with my glowing first success, I'm still procrastinating from trying to finish two more sets. I've been avoiding the project by catching up with some reading this week. But now that I'm finished with the book club's selection for the month (Sex with the Queen by Eleanor Herman), I have no other excuses to shy away from hook and yarn.

adventures in bootie making

Baby booties are the bane of my existence. Okay, maybe that's an over-statement. But still, something that should be so simple, so easy to whip up consistently stumps me. The first bootie I ever tried to crochet came out looking fine. It was the shape of a foot. But every other attempt from that first bootie on has ended in disaster. They end up looking more like little brightly-colored cotton baggies than something cute and "awww"-worthy. I've tried different patterns, different yarns, but each time I get the baggy-effect.

So I said I wasn't going to try to do booties again. Ever. But now one of my dearest friends is expecting her first and the itch to take needle and yarn to hand is overwhelming. I could do a blankie. But to be honest, I'm sick of them. Most of my projects have been baby blankies and I want to do something different. Not to mention, my friend attends a church with a very active crochet ministry - I know she's going to get tons of blankies, booties, caps, etc.

And that leaves me in a bit of a conundrum. It's one thing when you're the only knitter/crocheter in a group. Your gift sort of sticks out with all it's handmade-with-love yarny-ness. But when your one of over a dozen crocheters, it kind of feels like "oh, another blankie/cap/bootie/etc."

And my husband is no help. As I whined in the yarn aisles at Michaels about not knowing what to make, he uttered the dread words: "Why don't you make some booties?" This is the man who thought my baggy-booties were "kinda cute."

I pretended to ignore his suggestion and bought six skeins of bright-colored variegated yarn with the purpose of crocheting caps/hats. Lots of them. (A complete aside here, but another aspect of crocheting baby stuff that I've come to dread is the limited color palette. After three years, it's getting old using the same shades of pastel blue, pink, yellow and green.)

But now that I have the yarn at home and I've been mulling all week over getting started on the little hats, I find myself being drawn to the idea of making little matching booties. Three little caps, three little sets of booties. So I think I'm going to suck it up and try again. Maybe use a different size hook (have I mentioned that I loathe gauge swatches and try to pretend they don't exist?) I'm feeling determined to make it work.

That is once I can get up the nerve and/or energy to start.

rinse and repeat

Today I hunkered down with my crochet supplies, determined to get to work on the many projects I have planned for Christmas. I was able to crank out a beret for my mother-in-law. The pattern came from the September/October 2009 issue of Crochet Today!. I had made one for myself last year and loved the pattern. It's amazing how much a years difference and experience can make.



Last year, it took me two days to complete the beret. This year, it took me under six hours (including a lunch and dinner break). The first time I made it, I had never worked in rounds. Instead of using stitch markers, I tried to count correctly. Needless to say, it was a nightmare and I ended up improvising several times to make the count come out correctly. This time I used the markers and the stitches came out nice and even. Which probably explains why this beret fit much better than the one I made for myself.


***the red beret to the left is the one stitched last year; the green to the right is from this year