Mock me no more!

Several months ago I discovered the wonderful, long-striping colors of Boutique Unforgettable yarn.  I bought six skeins; three in brights and three in muted shades.  The brights were loads of fun to play with. Remember this?  And this?

Yeah, well that shawl tried so hard to be loved.   I wore it precisely twice, and both times I felt like some weird middle-aged woman who got lost in the fashion sense of yore.  I see shawls everywhere in magazines and websites and they are often displayed beautifully on the 20-ish model.  The shawls looks young and trendy. Alas, somewhere things take a seriously wrong turn once draped over my shoulders.

Every morning, as I'd ponder the offerings of my wardrobe, that shawl would call to me from the shelf.  "Why won't you wear me?  I'm beautiful with soft shades of plum and orchid!"  And I would pretend I couldn't hear it's cries because I'm not a shawl person.

Last week I'd had enough of its guilt-infused ways, so I ripped out all it's stitches and rolled it back into balls. Seven days later, this pullover was born.

It's perfect.

Because it's been so dang cold this month, my husband has started wearing scarves again.  He pulled out one I made eons ago when I was first learning to crochet and wore it to a meeting where apparently, it was coveted by others.  He asked me to make two more for gifts, pretty please and thank you.  While I'm at it, I figured the pattern was worth writing out and making available to others.  And so, I'm pleased to present my second "official" design, the Chill Chaser Scarf.   Someday maybe I'll type out all the unofficial designs and make a book or something.

Chill Chaser Scarf

Click the Chill Chaser Scarf over there in the right side panel to get the pdf pattern. ---------------->

Anyone have a Space Bag?

I have two planned trips this summer and the first is coming up quickly.  It's still far enough out that I'm unsure exactly what the weather forecast will be, but the internet is full of helpful information like "temps fluctuate wildly," "often breezy," "average temp between 50 and 90 degrees."

How does one pack for that, exactly?

50 degrees means jeans and long sleeves.  90 degrees means dresses and sandals.  In between could be a crazy hodge-podge of layering.  Oh, and did I mention that I'm trying to do this with only my carry-on bag?   So far my must-take list includes 3 pair jeans, 3 dresses, 4 pair shoes, assorted short-sleeved tops, and then long sleeved things to layer over everything else.

I made this cardigan special for the trip.  Hope it's not too granny.  I wanted something warm that can be worn with both jeans and sundresses, because we're just climbing out of the Longest Winter Ever and I don't want to wear anything that resembles a coat, jacket, or windbreaker again until at least October.
 

Why is packing the hardest part of travel?  Gah!  The next trip should be easier.  Because Texas is always warm, isn't it?

Summer Sunshine

There has been no trace of summer and very little sunshine so far this April, but I call this piece Summer Sunshine anyway. The color reminds me of everything summery: white-hot sun, flowers, bumblees...

The yarn is vintage.  Picked it up for $5 from a person who was de-stashing her yarn collection.  The yarn label has a pattern on it for a Disco Bag (which I may make, just for the fun kitschy-ness of it).  Based on that label pattern and the gold color, the yarn is probably from the 60's.  It washed up just as soft as ever!

They've re-issued this yarn in a modern color palette, and I couldn't resist getting some in hot pink.  I've started on a summer dress with that stuff.  I'll have a show n tell in a couple of days, once I get the bodice together.

Steppin' it up

Today I published my first pattern.  Moving from Crazy Crochet Lady to Designer has been one of the most challenging yet rewarding things I've attempted so far.  Much like having kids.  I just kind of created the thing, tossed it out there to the world, and am hoping for the best.  Although unlike having kids, this pattern went through testing for accuracy and coherency before being released to the wild.

Meet Carousel, the easiest, most adjustable sweater pattern you'll ever find.  

Show N Tell

I am so excited to share this new design!  It's called Recipe for a Sweater, because the instructions are written as a base and intended for the creator to customize it for their unique size and shape.

Recipe for a Sweater V2.0

I made the second one as a pattern test along with seven lovely volunteers from Ravelry who are also testing this for me.  They're testing it in different sizes from baby all the way up to mens.  It will be interesting to see how the formula works for such large differences in scale.  So far so good!  I'll keep you all posted.

Gettin' in on the Sweater Action

Recently my dear sweet son, while patiently following me up and down the aisle at Jo Ann's while I petted all the yarns, tossed out this little gem.

"When are you going to make ME a sweater mom?"

Ruh-Roh Shaggy.

My youngest offspring has realized the crochet imbalance that exists in our household.

I tried to explain that crochet stitches, by nature, look girly and lacy.  No 7-year-old boy wants to wear a girl sweater to school. right? What if I spent hours and hours on this thing and he was ridiculed on the playground?

"Nope!  That won't happen", he calmly said.  His friends were good friends, he assured me, and they would think it was neat that his mom made him a sweater.

Really?  I doubted the authenticity of that.  But if my boy wanted his Momma to make him a sweater, I was gonna go forth and crochet it.  It was like I'd been double-dog dared.

My son selected a shade of blue, super-soft baby yarn, and tossed it into my basket.

Once I arrived at home, though, reality set in.  Nearly every crochet sweater pattern out there is for a girl.  Out of the hundreds and hundreds I studied, only four weren't ridiculously feminine.  A bigger problem ensued when my son didn't like any of them.  He wanted something simple, with vertical stripes.  "And the edges should be orange!" he proudly declared.

Well, ok.  The Raglan Boys Pullover was born this past weekend during a weekend marathon of watching the Transformers Trilogy.  Good thing those movies are long.

 I didn't really write this pattern down, but I did take cryptic notes.  Attempt at your own risk.  :-)

Boy's Raglan Pullover

I measured a raglan-style shirt from his closet to get the piece shapes and dimensions in the photo.

Next, I crocheted the pieces vertically, alternating each row with hdc blo and hdc flo, working increases and decreases as necessary to make the shape work.

On the slanted edges, I added 3 rows of sl st for a bit of style.

Whipstitch the seams together.

Work sc evenly around neck edge, sleeve edges, and bottom band.

With alternate color, work ribbing in hdc blo, connecting with 3 sl st at each pass. Neck and sleeve ribbing is 6 sc tall; bottom band is 12 sc tall.

Taa-Daa!

The front edges DO line up.  I was standing crooked.

Finished up the non smoking jacket.  It doesn't look exactly like what it set out to be, but it's a keeper anyway.  :-)  The post stitches give it some 3D texture, and I love the vertical stripe effect.

It was supposed to have a shawl collar and belt.  But I didn't like the belt, and I didn't like how the collar hung open more than I wanted it to.  So I added 6 buttons and made it a double-breasted jacket instead.

And the good news is I actually WROTE DOWN THE PATTERN this time!  Sort of.  It's in my own crochet shorthand and partially charted, but at least I can make it again sometime.

In other news, you may have heard about a recent small event called Hurricane Sandy.  Well, one of my fellow Ravelers lives in a part of New York that was impacted, and she is collecting hand knit and crocheted items to distribute.  I quickly whipped up a baby afghan to pop in the mail.

This pattern is a freebie, called Cerulean Harmony Throw, designed by Carrie Carpenter.  If you're new to changing colors in crochet without cutting the yarn, this is an excellent pattern to learn the technique.   I modified her pattern an eensy bit, and only did two rows of each color instead of three, like the pattern states.  

Close up of the color changes.  Work 4 double-crochets, then drop the yarn and switch to the other color.  The unused yarn is carried along inside the stitch.  Very clever.

So I made this afghan, and I like it very much.  So much, that I decided to swap it with the one I made months ago for my BFF's baby girl, due this Friday.  I had made her a rainbow stripe afghan because at the time, she didn't know the gender.  Now that she knows she is having a girl, it makes more practical sense to give her this girly pink and purple sparkly thing, and to mail the gender-neutral rainbow stripe one to New York.  It will find an appropriate home there, no doubt.  

Rainbow Ripple baby afghan, for a Hurricane Sandy baby.

It's also germ-central around here.  Both of my kids have been sick, and they have different ailments no less. So there isn't one icky bug in here, but two!  I made an emergency trip to Walgreen's for antibacterial wipes and we're spraying down everything with Lysol.  I do NOT want to spend Thanksgiving in bed with a bucket, thank you very much.

In between the fevers and chills, my son read a couple of the Ugly Guide books, based on the Ugly Dolls.  Then he drew pictures of two of the critters from the books and asked if I could make him some new cuddly creatures.  We rooted through the craft bucket for some fleece scraps and buttons, and whipped out these guys.  

The yellow guy supposedly has 3 brains; one in each piece of his head.

The drawings that inspired the creatures.

There's nothing like new cuddle friends to make you feel better.  I guess Tylenol works too, though.

Reinventing the Wheel

Hubby thinks I'm cold-blooded like our pet lizard because I'm pretty much shivering for October through May.  Since cranking the heat isn't best option for either the environment or my bank account, the only choice is to layer sweaters instead. 

I stumbled upon this beauty at the end of last season: The Copenhagen Jacket.  It's a free pattern from the the Caron yarn company.   I think what appeals to me most is the texture.  3D is all the rage right now, after all.  But, the stitch pattern has a lot going on.  Almost too much.  So this afternoon I decided to use the same basic construction method used in this jacket, but go with a totally different stitch.

I've spent the last two hours studying my favorite stitch guide and making sample swatches. The Complete Book of Crochet Stitch Designs is my go-to guide.  This thing is ridiculously full of design inspiration.

My photography skills suck.

Criteria:

1. Simple, yet look complicated.
2. Something with a long, vertical layout
3. Textural and dimensional, containing post stitches
4. Will look good both right side up, and upside down, since this will be constructed in 3 long panels.

These stitch patterns met the above criteria  so I quickly worked them up.  Sometimes the picture in the book doesn't look at all the same as the finished product, because I tend to crochet much more loosely than the book author.

I have no idea why we have a Prison Industries ruler at our house.  

I also have no idea how to flip these photos right side up.

After wasting 15 minutes trying to flip the photos so they're all the same way, I'm giving up.  It's something between the way I held my iPhone when I took the picture, combined with the way it downloaded to my computer.  Blogger doesn't have a "rotate picture" option that I can find.  Whatever.  But hey!  This way I can see how the stitch pattern looks upside-down, which is criteria #4.  So it's all good.

Whaddya think?

I keep studying these, and I seem to like the evenly spaced ones best.  So #443 and #431.  But, I also really like #439, perhaps with a modification so the raised stitches occur in groups of three like they are now, and add a single line in between each group.  That should be easy enough to create. 

Hmmm.....such difficult decisions I'm tasked with making.   :-)

Arctic

Isn't is odd how 55 degrees in October feels very different from 55 degrees in March?

If it were March, we'd be shedding clothes right and left, and parading around in t-shirts and flip-flops, proclaiming the virtues of such a wonderful spring day!

But it's October and the sky is dreary and dull.  The leaves are almost past their colorful beauty, and I'm cold.  Oh so cold.  I swear the older I get the harder it is to keep warm.  Last week (before caving to the chill and turning on the furnace) I wore mittens and socks to bed.  Husband thinks I'm nuts.

And there's nothing like a good cold wind to make a person crochet faster.  After holding your frigid fingers under hot water so they have feeling again, that is.  Must. Make. Sweaters.

I finished up this sweater a couple of days ago, and while I wasn't sure about it at first, it's grown on me.  Originally I had planned to make this into a lighter, airier layering piece.  But the gray yarn wouldn't have it, and it demanded to become a thick and cozy sweater, sweatshirt style.

The pattern is not mine.  It's called No Sweat by Doris Chan, and it's from her Everyday Crochet book.   Her designs are fast too.  This one took about five days, working just a few hours each evening.

The yarn does that subtle stripy stuff all by itself (open bag, let out cat) making this look much more difficult than it really is.  Unfortunately, the yarn was discontinued a few years ago.  I was lucky and won 8 skeins of it on ebay.  That's the only place to find it these days and it doesn't come up very often.  If you want to start stalking the auctions, it's called Caron Simply Soft Shadows, and they made it in lots of different colors.  Just don't bid against me. :-)

What have I agreed to?

So, yesterday my daughter came up to me and said, "Mom, can you make me a sweater?"

Since I love 1) making things for others and 2) making sweaters specifically, of course I said, "Yes honey!  What would you like it to look like?"

And she handed me this.

Ginny Weasley

Yup, that's Lego Ginny Weasley from Harry Potter.   And I'm supposed to make her sweater.

Some projects are just meant to be, because a quick rummage through the yarn leftovers bin resulted in the exact shades of gray, burgundy and white for this cute little cardi.

Lucky kid.

Closing the Door on Sweater Season

Another downside to this early Spring weather (or should we just call it like it is and admit it's Summer in March?) is that the multitude of sweaters I had in the queue have to be sidelined till fall.  Ugh.  That's so disappointing because there is nothing more rewarding than crafting a hand-crocheted sweater.

I finished up these three and put all future plans on hold.  Hopefully when the weather turns cold again they won't have been replaced by a new sweater-making frenzy, since to look through my closet one would think I have some sort of sweater ADD disorder.  Either that or I'm attempting to crochet winter wear for a small army.

First up is Eve's Rib Tunic.  What a joy this one was to create!  The design is by Doris Chan, from her Everyday Crochet book.

This sweater wins an award in two categories because 1) I actually followed the pattern AS WRITTEN, which is a first I think, and 2) it was my first foray into self-striping yarns.  What a challenge that was.  It seems that yarn labeled as "striping" may in fact only stripe successfully when knitting it.  Crochet uses such tall stitches, that many yarns didn't stripe but instead made horrible gobs of color chunks.  It was bad.  All kinds of bad.

So, after trying many brands and many colors and many thicknesses, this plum-colored stuff worked out beautifully.  The key was really long color runs, and a limited color palette overall so any color clumps that do occur kind of blend in.  Thanks to Lion Brand for creating the Tweed Stripes line.  Looking forward to using it again sometime.

When experimenting with the striping yarns, I found Yarn Bee Rainbow Wool (Hobby Lobby's house brand).   I am not a fan of wool yarn, but the colors appealed to me.  The striping seemed perfectly spaced.  I spent some time researching user feedback online, and those who had tried this yarn swore up and down that it was completely washable and would not shrink.  Not a bit!  Even though it's 86.4% wool and 5% mohair,  the added 8.6% acrylic would keep it from shrinking even a fraction.

You can see where I'm going with this right?

Liar, liar pants on fire...it DOES TOO shrink.  My daughter now has an Eve Rib Tunic sweater dress for next winter.

 
I really love how the striping turned out in that dress.  It looks intentional, but it's mostly a guessing game with a bit of hope thrown in that it'll turn out all right.

Now check this out:

This sweater also wins an award: Favorite Obscure Pattern.   What you're glimpsing above is the Sophisticated Swirls Pullover, designed by Doris Chan and published in 2004.  It was published in one magazine issue that is no longer available and the company refused to re-issue the pattern or make it available digitally, no matter how much I begged.  I coveted the photo I'd seen, stalked the internet crochet forums and eBay, and finally, after months and months, located one lost issue of the magazine.

In the meantime, Doris Chan, feeling the pain of all those who desperately wanted a spiral sweater, designed a new one very similar to the original and self-published it.  Isn't she wonderful?  It's called DJC Spirals.

Sophisticated Swirls is based on old fashioned doilies, with that delightful spiraling pattern.  I made this swirly bit of delight into a longer tunic to wear with leggings and boots.  I'm not good at taking my own picture, but you can kinda see the boots there.

This yarn is cheap acrylic, because I wanted easy care, machine wash and dry, lounge around in it kind of comfy thing.  And it's definitely all that.  Caron Simply Soft yarn in their new Lights version.  It's ridiculously soft and airy.   Good thing I bought 4 more skeins in pink, because I want to use it again for sure.

Perhaps the warmer weather will encourage me to get back to Realta?  It hasn't been completely neglected...only 18 more octagons to go.  Plus 24 filler squares.  Plus sewing them all together.  And then edging it.  Yikes.