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. ---------------->

Why doesn't she have a movie deal yet?

It snowed yesterday.

We had to make cookies because that's the thing to do while the beautiful snow is falling.

My daughter made her gingerbread man into Wonder Woman.  She's awesome like that.

She must have the special extra-long toes that some people have because she can carry her Magic Lasso with her foot.  Sadly, I can only pick up dropped pencils with my toes.  That must be why the Justice League recruiter still hasn't called.

Latte on a cold day.

The most comfortable sweater pattern I've ever made is by crochet guru Doris Chan.  The original is done in brown and cream and is aptly named Tall Latte and is found in her book Everyday Crochet (which anyone who A-crochets and B-makes sweaters should own).

Last month I embarked on an experiment in pattern modification using this one as a guide.  First I made the pattern mostly as written, but modified a few things to fit me better like lengthening the sleeves and body, and omitting the increases for the hips.

Then I wondered how it would look if I shrunk the whole thing down into a girls' size by using a really skinny yarn and a hook 3 sizes smaller than what the pattern called for.  That resulted in Small Latte, modeled on my daughter here.  It must be comfortable because she's worn it to school a half dozen times already, and we all know kids will not wear anything that itches or scratches or causes them to be ridiculed by their peers. Score one for mom.  She also requested added length, so this is quite a bit longer than my first version.

Lastly, I'm a huge fan of the sweater-dress-over-leggings trend because it looks pulled together yet feels like wearing ratty old sweatpants.  This experiment successfully resulted in Latte Grande, accomplished by adding extra hip increases at two points to make the skirt part.

All of these projects showcase my newfound love, slip stitch ribbing.   Finally I have found a ribbing that looks just as crisp as knitting, without actually touching a knitting needle!  

Slip Stitch Ribbing

After all this I'm going to relax into something simple, like a scarf or cowl.

Halloween is all about pretending to be something you're not.

And my costume was cheap too.  The last two days I've been Ultimate Mom!  But now that the Halloween festivities are officially over, I can go back to feeding my kids pancakes and eggs for dinner and ignoring the dust bunnies that waft by as I crochet away in my happy bubble of bliss.  

Whenever we have pizza, the kids love taking the leftovers to school for lunch the next day. Since I don't have a trapezoidal tupperware suitable for pizza slices, I started doing foil-gami over the leftovers. Over the years we've had bulls, kites, hearts, kids faces, and lots of other things.  Pretty easy...all you need is some foil and a sharpie.    Last night it finally occurred to me that this is an idea worth sharing! Duh.

Horton the Elephant

Foxy!

My husband makes fabulous homemade pizza.  He combines interesting toppings and they're often quite gourmet and delicious.  Last night he dug through the fridge and ended up tossing this together:

Grape tomatoes, artichokes, BACON!, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh mozarella, and homemade basil pesto.  

The crazy city we live in does not do Trick or Treating on Oct 31.  They do it the night before and call it Beggar's Night.  I know, right.  Who makes up these crazy ideas?  Anyway, it ends up stretching out the event into a two-day fiasco, so on Beggar's Night we had this gourmet feast.  (I needed something quick because....CANDY TIME!)

Mummy Dogs, Dracula Hearts and Bats Brains.
Bwhahahaha!

Ok, so I wasn't really Ultimate Mom this week and I never will be.  But at least everyone showers daily. Just keep the bar low and it's all good.  

We did go to a Halloween Party a couple of weeks ago and the four of us had a theme going on.  You'll never figure it out.  ;-)

Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom

Some cheap t-shirts and 2-yards of yellow felt. This years' costumes cost about $12 total.  Perhaps instead of striving for Ultimate Mom, I should embrace what I truly am: The Frugal Fairy.

Besides, they LOVE having pancakes and eggs for dinner.

Stripes!

Who knew self striping yarn was so versatile?  I can't get enough of this stuff.  Makes projects look so complicated when the yarn does all the magic.

I'm in a rush today, so here's a quick photo dump of recently finished objects.

This last photo isn't mine, but a friend from my knitting group shared the idea with me and found the pattern for it.  Isn't this the most awesome Lego Brick Scarf?  I have a ton of scrap yarn in assorted colors to use up.  This might be the perfect project for it.

Bring out the Boots! (and other ramblings)

Even though the days are still pleasantly warm, the chilly nights have me thinking of fall and fall crafting projects of all kinds.  My daughter, like most tweens, loves her boots.  Casual, dressy, patent leather....she wears them all.

Today I experimented with some new self-striping yarn called Red Heart Boutique Unforgettable.  I know, I know... Red Heart has such a bad reputation for being icky and scratchy.  Their new boutique line of yarns is anything but.  This stuff has fabulous colors and great stitch definition.  You'll probably be seeing it frequently in my projects.

Anyhow, here's how the boot toppers turned out.

Ribbing end up

Crochet shells end up

Here's what the yarn looks like in the skein. The colors are delicious!

This color is called Parrot.

I'm using the same yarn in an experimental design for a boyfriend cardigan.  Alternating the striping yarn with a solid gray makes an interesting effect.  It keeps my attention too, because you never know what the next row will look like.

I've also uncovered the sewing machine after a brief hiatus.  Just didn't have the time for a lot of sewing the past few months.

See, what happened is that a new store called Stitch opened downtown in the East Village - a fabric and yarn store (!!!) I stopped in last week to welcome the shop owners and see what they had for sale, and stumbled upon the Perfect accompaniment to a fabric I already had in my stash.  Add in a cute pattern (This is Simplicity 2396), and I just had to drop everything and whip out a crochet project bag - and it's REVERSIBLE!

This is the fabric I had in my stash.  

And this is what I found down-town, at the new Stitch.

And, since patterns were on sale, I couldn't resist the one for animal hats with the attached paw pockets (Simplicity 1795)  These only took about an hour each so I'm sure by winters end, we'll have a whole zoo.

Despicable Bathrobe

We've had some unexpected expenses lately, so I put myself on a self-imposed yarn diet.  It's not so bad though, forcing myself to use yarn from the stash.  There are only oh....14 sweaters worth of yarns in there.

I also am on a quest to either finish WIP's (works in progress) or rip them out and use the yarn for something else.  Ripping out is where this purple yarn came from.

In it's first life it was an afghan.  I bought it thinking the long stripes of color would be so pretty as an afghan, but it just wasn't working out.  The yarn is fickle.  It's boucle, so you can't see the stitches well at all, making it hard to do any sort of detailed pattern with it.  So the unfinished afghan was stuffed into the closet in a time out.

When the weather turned a bit cold, I starting dreaming of a longer-length coat/jacket/sweater thing.  Something that could be tossed over anything for those days when it's chilly, but I don't want a full coat.  This pattern is by Doris Chan and can be found in her book Everyday Crochet.  The original pattern has a shawl collar, one of those that flips back and rolls slightly.  I love the look of shawl collars but this yarn wouldn't have it.  I did a simple single crochet edging instead, and it really shows off the striping in the yarn nicely.

 My son wanted to know why I was crocheting a bathrobe.  For weeks I've held firm that this is NOT a bathrobe, it's a coat-jacket thingie.  But now that it's finished and I see myself modeling it there, I concede that it does, in fact, look very bathrobe-y.

Whatever.  I'm wearing it anyway.  I'll be that weird lady at the grocery store buying cat food in her "bathrobe."

In other news...

My kids have been obsessed with Despicable Me for months, more so since the sequel came out July.   All over the internet are pictures of the minion cupcakes.  I caved and bought the twinkies and the kids made these today.  My 10-year-old did the faces.  I think she did a great job.  Piping frosting isn't the easiest skill to learn.

If we try this again we will use black instead of brown coloring.  There needs to be more contrast between their features and the color of the twinkie.  They're delicious!