Projects that can't be ignored

Since I last posted I've been working on more scrunchies and scarves and I also pulled out this shrug project. I finished it yesterday and here are the pictures for you all to see.

I just love this shrug, it's so soft and cuddly. The pattern was very easy, from the book 100 Crochet Projects by Jean Leinhauser and Rita Weiss. I have to say those two are some fantastic designers. I've worked more patterns they have created than any other designer who crochets. Their instructions are always clear and there are very few errors in them. I highly recommend the book, and the two women's patterns. I made the shrug entitled Simply Shrug. I used Red Heart pounder worsted weight acrylic in Light Purple held together with an eyelash yarn I picked up a few years ago when Target was clearancing it out ($.25 a ball!) in a purple that is just a shade lighter than the acrylic. I am thrilled with the way it turned out and very grateful that someone was willing to model it for me. It's definitely a bit too small for me to model. Now I'm intending to make one like it for myself. I did make a couple of changes to the pattern, for purely aesthetic reasons, nothing that affected the pattern itself.

There are so many wonderful projects in that book alone I don't know how I'll get to every one of them.

Spring is now three weeks away; I know I'm ready for it. I'm sure many of you are sick of winter and feeling the same way. Even though we haven't had much snow or even all that much cold here, it's been wet, wet, wet which made for a miserable, muddy winter. Hooray for Spring, please hurry with all your sunny days and new growth. I think it's probably a tossup for me as to which I prefer more, spring or fall. Though all the seasons have their good and bad points, for me, there's something really special about spring, all the trees budding out, flowers springing from the frozen tundra and even the rain in spring somehow feels different. Of course, fall is a fabulous kaleidoscope of color and crisp smells and it's as compelling as spring, but the difference for me is that spring brings hope while autumn is a harbinger of death and decay. The death of season, the death of summer, the passing of yet another year.

This past year I treated myself to a hairpin lace loom large enough to work some of the newer fashion projects. I made a few items with it, intent upon learning how to do it well enough to work a particular project I had in mind. Well, that fell through, I did try the project in a test run first, with a less expensive ribbon yarn and just didn't like the end result enough to use the more expensive ribbon yarn I'd purchased to use. I ended up using the ribbon yarn in another project which I was quite pleased with. I've made nothing else with the loom either. I do have a few more projects in mind using the loom. Something to look forward to as I plod along on all these unfinished PIGS I have vowed to clean out this year. I've been very diligent about getting them done and I'm proud of myself for my stick-to-it-ness. Of course, being so proud of myself I just have to reward myself for it as well and so, even though I haven't done that yet, trust me I have it stored away in the back of my mind. I am just waiting till I get a few more of those projects cleared out first.

The Skipping Stones afghan is one of those PIGS that is almost complete, just waiting on a trip to Wally World to pick up the extra yarn needed. I have plans, pattern, and material bagged to make a crucifix as well. It's going to be a gift for my mother on her birthday this year. I really need to get off my duff and get that going because I've never done anything like this project before and her birthday is only a couple months away. If I run into trouble with it I certainly want to have enough time to work through the problems and get it done.

I have vowed that once I get everything caught up I'll not let myself get so behind again on projects. I have vowed that once I start a project I won't put it away, I'll plug away at it until it's complete. I have every intention of doing this, but I won't chisel that in stone either. LOL
That's a sure fire way to throw a cog into the wheels!

Ok, off to finish this scarf, and then perhaps the doily I set aside (yet again). I needed a break from it once I ran into a problem with the pattern and now that I've been given a suggestion on how to resolve the snafu in the pattern I need to focus on it again. It's four rows from done! Four seems to be my magic (stalling) number. Seems each project I work, once I've gotten to the point where I'm four rows or rounds from completion I end up putting it up. A year later I find it in a bag, stuffed in the back of my project closet and so this year I resolved to change that and having changed the arrangement (meaning I took all the projects out of the closet which is a back of the mind mentality for me) and put them all into my line of sight (in the rolling cart right beside my favorite crochet chair) they're all sitting there in that cart taunting me to come finish them up.

Coffee Time!

I just love Saturday mornings. I'm loving them even more now that the dogs are waking me up at 7 a.m. because they hear people moving about outside. I have to look at it like this, I could hate it and gripe and complain but they'd still wake me up at 7 a.m. (or whenever they hear people outside) so I might as well make the best of it. So, get up, take them out, make coffee and sit, sipping coffee, catching up on email and various other readings (blogs, books, magazines, t.v. guide, last Sunday's paper). It makes the early morning more tolerable when I've been up way too late the night before and I actually love the early morning when I've had enough rest. When it warms up it'll be even nicer, sitting outside with my coffee while they run around.

Now, I'm sure many of you have dealt with interruptions from family and others when you're counting. I don't really have anyone speaking to me when I count so it's easier to get through those periods in my crochet. I do however have three muttleys who think they're my kids (who am I kidding, they are!) and they like to interrupt. They don't actually have a favorite time for it (like when I'm counting), they do it any time. Anytime they feel like I've not given them their fair share of attention, petting and cuddling that is. Honey, the beagle is only 22 lbs. Small for a beagle but a very vocal and spoiled brat is she. Now, when she's wanting attention and I'm not giving it to her, she just crawls over everything and into my lap. So often she's climbed up in the middle of my crochet project and trapped me. I can't move because she's pinning the project in my lap and if I move I'm going to be pulling out stitches. So, helpless, hanging on to that last stitch and the hook, I'm trying to fight her off my lap while she's trying to lean up and lick my face. It's a sight, an oh so frustrating, infuriating, hilarious sight!

I've wheedled the Skipping Stones afghan down to three rows. I was down to four but had to frog as my count was off, so I'd spent the second half of last week reworking to get back to where I was and then started on that fourth-from-the-last row. It worked around pretty nicely, then I began the third-from-the-last row and lo and behold, I ran out of yarn! AAARRrrgghhh! I feel so like Charlie Brown sometimes! You know, nothing ever goes right. So, I've had to lay the afghan aside until I can go back to the store and match up the yarn. Luckily I used R.H. so it should match up pretty easily. I hope! In the meantime, it's back to scrunchies and I think I'm going to work up some scarves. I may bring out the shrug and start that, but I just hate to start it when I haven't got that afghan out of the way yet. I'd set my mind that that's how I was going to work it. Finish one PIG before starting another and now, well. They say in life (and crochet) you should know nothing is ever written in stone and you should anticipate that and expect to have to make adjustments. I'm such a person of routine though that I hate getting things set inside my head, and started in that direction and then have to change it in the middle of things.

The thought though, of spending the weekend on just scarves and scrunchies isn't very appealing. I like having a larger project and those smaller ones to break up the routine of the larger. Ah well, life is unexpected and that should be part of the beauty of it that you can appreciate. Unexpectedness! Learn to go with the flow I suppose. Something I'm not very adept at doing, but learning none-the-less.

Scrunchies Galore

In one of my recent postings I mentioned that I was working on a skirt and shrug project. The skirt was made with Jewel Box yarn using Caron's Openweave Skirt pattern. I was making a shrug with the same yarn in the same stitch pattern to go with it. Well, I had reported to you all about having to frog and re-frog the project. I should have started out with a ww acrylic I suppose because I frogged that Jewel Box way too much, the strands ended up separating and the resulting shrug just wasn't of the quality to match the skirt. I have abandoned the project, am taking the skirt as just a skirt and will attempt the project again perhaps, at a later point. This time though I'll be sure to use an acrylic yarn. I have learned a valuable lesson in the endeavor though, and this was worth messing up the yarn for. So, any further experiments I make will be done first in an inexpensive acrylic and worked until I'm satisfied I can make the object in the (delicate) yarn of my choosing. So, I have a picture of the finished skirt that I am posting for your viewing pleasure.

I've been busily working away at scrunchies, throwing them into a bag as I go. I'm using a few patterns that I particularly like but am mostly doing freeform on them. I'll post several of the pictures here for viewing and then tell you about a particular one that I made.

This one I'm calling the dream weaver scrunchie because it looks like a dream weaver to me.

This scrunchie is made from
some of the same ribbon yarn, but worked differently.

The next two are free handed just like the two above. I'm rather enjoying just playing with different combinations of stitches. This is a simple one worked with a worsted weight acrylic held along with an eyelash yarn.




This next is worsted weight in pink with a ladder yarn held with it.









These are only a few of the ones I've made so far, but some of the more interesting or unusual ones. I've also come up with another that I just love. It's sooo simple and just in time for spring.
In fact, I call it the Spring Ring Scrunchie. Now for the pattern.

Spring Ring Scrunchie

Materials
Scrap acrylic yarns, one in green the other in assorted colors
Size G hook
Coated ponytail bands

With green, sl st onto ponytail band. Ch 1, sc in start. Sc, ch 1 across placing about 29 combinations on the band. Sl st to first sc.
Ch 5 trc in next ch 1 space on band. Working around the band in the ch 1 space, trc and ch 1 around. Join with sl st to 4th ch of ch 5. Fasten off, waeave in ends.

With second color, sc around band in ch 1 space. *Trc around post of trc, trc again around post above 1st trc made, trc again around post above 2nd trc made. Sc in band in next ch 1 sp.* Repeat from * to * around. Once you come to the first trc "flower" you sl st, fasten off and weave in.

I hope those instructions are clear. Enjoy making them. I'm going to make a bunch more for Easter I think.

No Anchors, No Chains

I have a past, but it is not a past rooted in familiarity, extended family or geography. I am a person with no roots no early memories of American culture. No Elvis, no Ducktails, no Airstreams, no Saddle Shoes; no television, no belonging and little close kinship. There is No sense of family on Daddy's side and burnished early memories on Momma's side her sisters, all married, some with children already then and an aunt and uncle who were sharecroppers, working the land for another man.

That was the old log cabin. I remember my aunt pumping water from the well right off the door around back at the kitchen. They kept a huge tub to bathe in, pulled it right out into the kitchen, behind a screen. My aunt heated water on top of this huge stove. Aunt Samantha was a farmer's wife, the best cook I ever met. She ran two huge kettles that she poured into the pan, mixing with buckets of fresh pumped well water. I would sit at the table, watching her bustle between stove and pump, screen door banging as she went out with her empty bucket that time when we stayed overnight the first trip back through this area of the country. She'd start out with as much of that hot boiled water as she could, adding just enough cold for Melville to tolerate and he took his soak and she put on more hot water. We kids were lucky, as her niece and nephews we got our own bath in it long before Melville got in from the barn. I thought it odd at the time and sad in a way because she and Melville couldn't have kids and she wanted them so, you could just tell in the way she loved on you. I wanted to jump in her arms and tell her I'd be her girl and just stay there, because what it looked like didn't matter, it made you feel like you'd been well hugged. Later, she and Melville were blessed with a daughter, after they gave up trying to have one.

My daddy was a traveling man. He liked to see new places and he liked to drive. I think the journey for him was every bit as fascinating as the destination, perhaps better so every time we travelled it was by car. We'd ride in the backseat, and sometimes (and my favorite cause I could stretch out) I'd lay in the floorboard. I used to climb down there and lay beside the drive shaft, my legs tucked under the seat in front, a bit of a trick but comfortable for a bit, I could lay there and have my legs stretched out cause when I couldn't stretch them they started getting cricky and hurt. Long journeys Momma and daddy took turns driving, Momma usually during daylight and Daddy taking over long up till about midnight or later. Finally he'd pull up to a motel, quietly pay the room and tumble us all into the bed together, he and Momma in the other one, us four kids in various stages between slumber and wakening, flashes of the activities relaying the information that we needed to clamber up all together there in those cheap motel rooms. Just long enough, sleep till morning then Daddy'd get up and go gas the car, refill the coolers, lunch stuff packed and iced, soda's replenished and he'd pick up a favorite breakfast of doughnuts and milk. for us all while Momma set about the task of getting us ready to ride again for the day.

Later, mostly, we took day trips to the same areas to visit my cousins and aunts and uncles; trips which my daddy would map in his head each time he made the drive learning the lay of the countryside. He took us every single route he could find until familiarity of it bored him and he began exploring, veering off the arteries to explore the tar, and gravel and dirt between my momma's family home and ours. I believe in all the traveling he ever did, my daddy never really did find a place he felt really comfortable in.

I believe Daddy's granddaddy re-invented himself in Huntington when a gentleman of reputable note died there. Strange to find two men in the same town with almost exactly, first and last name, who are unknown to one another. Stranger yet that same name showing up elsewhere in the country prior to his Granddaddy's arrival in Huntington, and a certain marriage there of a man by the name and a woman by the same name the same day his granddaddy married his grandmomma. The dead gentleman, old money for generations, the once land owning family now bereft of wealth and land, a name alone surviving, a tombstone carved in granite at the back of the most prominent cemetery in Huntington, headstone epithets of those whose kinship's twined and intertwined. There is no kin in this lonely place for me. Where or whether there is any kin anywhere outside of Huntington on that side of the family is something that I may never know. My great grandparents and my grandparents are both buried there though in a different cemetery in another area of town.

Wants and Needs

Temperatures warmed up before sunrise. The snow melted off quickly, leaving behind thawing, muddy ground and puddles. The day was balmy, cloudy and errant like the soft iris gaze from a young child's eyes. Something you could lose yourself in. I've had a time getting the dogs out without having them come back coated in the mud. Only Honey will hold still to be wiped down (and that's only because she's so small I can actually hold her). I usually pen them up in the kitchen until they dry and then try to brush the dust from their paws.

I've learned, like I am sure most of you have, that Leisure Arts was sold to the company who owns QVC shopping channel, Animal Planet and the Discovery channel. I believe with this news an era has ended. Leisure Arts is one of the big names in craft patterns, having been around as long as I remember and believe me I can remember a long time. From the time I was old enough to see the slick pages (my mother crocheted) I would look at the lacy patterns with wonder. The effect was spun silk to my young eyes. The books, pictures and pages; a dream life it seems now, another set of social values, seemingly more genteel, a time when America had leisure, so long past it is being forgotten. I am hoping that this new venture will begin an era that can proclaim with as much pride its right to own the publication's title. That result would be a positive one. So many magazines have shut down production, and even the women's magazines don't seem to put much emphasis on crafts anymore, especially crocheting, that we crafters are feeling the effects of this demise through fewer paper sources for patterns. Outside of books. What are some creative ways you locate patterns?

This is my personal approach when wanting/needing patterns. I have to be frugal with my choices and so I try to get the best deal I can get for what I'm looking for when I do purchase, and I shop smart. I utilize the library and local booksellers, looking through the books before I decide which ones I really want to buy. I bargain shop the sales at Hobby Lobby and WalMart and sometimes I can find patterns and magazines at thrift stores. I shop on eBay. I have to confess though, 98% of my projects are from internet patterns. I have shot my budget for the next 6 months on all things crochet so I'm trying to be good and just use the stuff I have here for now. There's always something calling from the store shelves, but I am resolute.

So, since I have this stash and all the patterns, and now the new delicious yummy books I got I'm content. I'm still learning how to crochet clothing and am by no means a professional. I'm still learning how to gauge and figure yardage and fit garments and a thousand other things. I've got some beautiful yarns that I've put back for garments for myself, once I've mastered this necessary knowledge. Then I plan on making myself some spectacular items. Right now it seems like that time is a long way away, but I'm trying to be patient. I think it's worth waiting for.

While I love making afghans I find many of them take so long that I get bored with them and switch to other projects to give myself a break. You can take some afghans along as projects, mile-a-minutes, granny squares and motifs come to mind immediately. Eventually they get too large to carry or you finish all the separate pieces and you have to put them aside as a carry-along project. So you start a new project to carry along; the process continues. At first it's just one project, one bag, and you work on scarves or hats or dishcloths, afghan squares, whatever you chose, one at a time. Once bored with always carrying the same project, you start to find other patterns to carry along, some are a bit larger, some smaller but they're chosen and carried and worked on for specific reasons such as the amount of time you have to work on the project, whether you'll be sitting or standing, or which one you need done the most, worked on to keep our minds from over-thinking itself, our fingers busy, focused and why? Because we have a need. It's more than a want, it's a need because it's something that you have to do to feel your soul. Succinctly, there's the difference between wants and needs.

Before you're aware of what's happened you've got PIG's galore. You've got the project sitting there that you work on when you're in your Crochet Chair. You've got the projects you have at your chair to work on when you need a break. You have a project you keep in the bedroom to work on, the den, maybe even the kitchen or bath. You've got all those carry-alongs. Like rabbits they keep multiplying in direct proportion to the depth of your need to hook. Now this certainly calls for some sort of storage solution and so you just have to have a container, or two, or three; something to get them all up and off the tables, the couch. the corners of your living room. Acquisition of storage containers, however they are obtained makes this a fully blown official addition you know. You might as well accept the fact, surrender to it, you're hooked!

Snow, Snuggles and Scrunchies

It kept snowing yesterday until mid-evening then tapered, leaving a soft carpet world behind. The streets stayed really clear until the sun set and then got icy in patches. The neighborhood roads of course got blanketed and ignored by the salt trucks leaving us all to fend for ourselves. It's lovely, the dogs had a blast out in it yesterday, I don't need to be anywhere today and so I'm enjoying what will be the one snow I wanted for this season. By next weekend temperatures are supposed to be almost 60, but what do those meteorologists know anyway? It's a science that calls for a lot of anticipating and contains enormous opportunity for miscalculation, somewhat like the science of medicine. Hey, why do you think it reads on your doctor's office door "practicing medicine"? LOL

Last night I sat up watching a bit of t.v. and later, listening to The Sound and The Fury on cd, crocheting on my Skipping Stones afghan. I layered that by switching over to scrunchies and a scarf for variation. I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning, managing to come up with two scrunchie patterns. I'm not sure that I can say they're original because I haven't done a check yet. I didn't use anyone else's idea though so if they aren't it's purely coincidental. I am going to post the patterns here with my pictures for now. I hope you all like them.

This purple one should look familiar, it's made with leftover yarn from the slipper project I posted yesterday. This one is from the pattern Super Fast & Easy Scrunchie. I like this scrunchie because it can be made with any type of yarn and an appropriately sized hook. Works up quickly and looks great. I'm doing these for a craft fair a friend and I are setting up in this year. We are focusing on simple patterns, scrunchies, scarves, small bags, shawls, slippers and ponchos because we think they will sell well at this craft fair. It's held yearly, is well known and attended, hosted by one of the local high schools. We figure items like these will appeal to all the students that attend and to a lot of other people who are Christmas shopping. In addition to items like these we plan on adding in whatever items we crochet this year that aren't tagged for ourselves, or for presents for others. I have a couple items already that I plan on putting in there.

This next scrunchie came about because I had just this little snippet of colorful yarn left from a ball that I'd already used part of in making the 2+1 scarf pattern I created. It was a ball that was found in a bag of yarn purchased at a local thrift store and I really love the colors. Would love to know what type of yarn it is and if it is still available to purchase but I suppose that will remain a mystery. By the way, if you happen to recognize the yarn, please, please, pretty please, contact me and let me know what it is.

Cross Over Scrunchie - So called because of the technique used to make it.

Materials needed: Small amounts of any leftover yarn, Size H hook, coated ponytail band.

Sl st onto band, sc around the band until it's fairly full making sure to end with an even number of stitches. Sl st into the 1st sc. Ch 3, trc into back of band between 1st and 2nd sc on band. Trc between 3rd and 4th sc on front band. Continue working trc's, switching back and forth between the back and front of the band, moving in progression around the band (for instance, the next trc would go in the back of the band between the 5th and 6th sc and the next trc from there would go in the front between the 7th and 8th sc) until you come to the ch 3 at the beginning. Sl st into the 3rd chain. Snip and weave in tails.

The third scrunchie is called the Swirly Scrunchie. It's made using Lion Brand Chenille in black. The color makes it hard to see details in the picture but I've tried to get as much detail as I can.

Swirly Scrunchie
Materials Needed: small amount of chenille yarn, size I hook, coated ponytail band.

R 1: Sl st onto hairband. Sc around band making sure to end with an odd number of sc's. Sl stitch into the 1st sc on band.
R 2: Ch 1, sc in 1st sc, *ch 3, sk 1 sc, sc into next sc*. Repeat from * to * around. There should be one stitch left on the band from round 1 that is neither skipped over nor has a sc worked in it.
R 3: *Ch 3, sc into skipped st on R 2* (the open stitch under the ch 3) in front of the hairband. Repeat from * to * around band.
R 4: Ch 3, sc into the left over sc from R 2 on the band, ch 3, sc in each sc at beginning and end of each loop. Alternate each sc from front to back around the hairband, working the stitch into the sc's from R 2 and R3. This places a stitch into the front of the sc's from R2 and the back of the sc's from R3 between the two rows and fills in, creating three rows of chain threes in a swirly effect.

I hope the directions are clear, if not please feel free to email me and I'll try to explain. Remember, I'm a newbie at pattern writing and so it's all a learning experience for me.

Fuzzy Slippers on Saturday Mornings

Again this year, every time we hear the weather and they predict snow we haven't gotten it. Leave it to the meteorologists to finally give us an official, coming down hard, looking like it's gonna stick around this time snow. It never fails when they tell us it's going to pass us by this time that we end up with it, and here it is, snow! The kid in me loves to see it piling up on the lawn, loves to get out there and roll up a snowman, taste it on my tongue and make snow angels. Then I'm done with it, spring can come. LOL

I've even seen it snow in July. How many people can claim something like that? When I was a child, my family lived in Germany and there it snowed in the middle of summer. We woke up that morning and when we looked out our window the whole world was white. It was stunning and my brothers and I quietly dressed and snuck out the window to play. In winter there we would build snow tunnels . The snow piled on the fencelines was high enough for us to burrow and pack and create space as tall as we were to play in. I've not seen many snows like that since I moved back to the U.S.

Yesterday, after posting and leaving the computer a feeling of release came over me. It broke for me what had been a period of limbo, where I had been feeling as if my life were stuck and I was unable to do anything about it. I suppose it came partly from the realization that my daughter truly was on her own now and I could change the direction of my life, moving from what it had been as mother and provider into a new era of self-discovery. Now, suddenly I'm not responsible for anyone but myself and while that is a freedom within itself there is also the question of just exactly who are you now? I suppose all of life is actually a process of leaving behind and moving forward, but when life shifts suddenly from one phase to another it has a bit more impact than a gradual shifting does. This is, I suppose, why tragedies are so difficult for people to cope with. You're suddenly thrust from one reality to another, more devestating one. From one end of the spectrum to the other, gradual as opposed to swift and devestating as opposed to empowering or enriching. I am anxious and eager to grab this new phase by the horns and ride it with everything I've got.

So I suppose you might like to see the snapshots of my slippers, which are on my feet right this very moment. I used some scrap Red Heart colors, a light purple strung along with a darker one that had flecks of other colors in it. I think they turned out great! First set of adult slippers I'd made since I started crocheting again. I'm thinking they may be a great item for a craft fair.

Today I'm working on my afghan and making scrunchies.
That's the plan at least. As soon as there's enough snow piled up out there I'll probably bundle up and head out. I may not be able to roll a snowman anymore but I think I might try a snow angel or two!

I like Saturday mornings, they're my lazy time of day. I most often get up early and then allow myself a nap later in the day. I use this time sitting here reading email, crocheting or sitting and reading a book, drinking coffee. The dogs take turns napping and playing, the birds are chirping outside my window. In warmer weather I open my blinds and let the morning sun into my front window. I have a piece of art glass hung in my window that has beveled edges which throw rainbows across my floor and walls and the effect of it is soothing and peacful for me.

I suppose that is how your home should be for you though, soothing and peaceful. After the whirlwind life of raising my rebel daughter, I can feel that peace and serenity permeating my atmosphere again. I have missed that so much.