Three Projects, Two Complete

I've finished the Illusions shawl! Here's a picture.
First, the front:
As I said, I used 3 skeins of RH Light & Lofty in Salt & Pepper that I bought on sale three years or so ago. It's been just sitting here and when I saw the shawl pattern at the Bernat web page I immediately thought of this yarn. I think it turned out to be very lovely. It's a very thick shawl and will keep whoever ends up with it toasty this winter I'm sure.

Next a good picture of the back:
You can't tell from the picture but the pattern is a repeat of a row of v-stitches followed by a row with three dc clusters. The stitches are placed in the space between stitches on both of the pattern rows and it ends up with an alternating lacy and cozy effect. I am going hunting for another yarn to make another of these with because I like it so much.




I have stitched up the sides of the cell phone pouch and now am trying to decide on handles.
After some reflection I've decided that the clothesline is too thick for the pouch so I'm trying to come up with an alternative to that for the handles. Haven't made a decision but when I do I'll have pictures of the finished product for everyone to see. For now, here are views of the pouch open and closed. You can see in the picture where the pouch is open that I left an opening for the antenna because the pouch is so close fitting over the phone.

Last night I was sitting around after I had finished tucking in the ends on the shawl. I was trying to come up with ideas on handles for the cell phone pouch and decided I needed to keep my hands busy so I whipped up a little cotton bag. It was a fun project and didn't take much time so I may make a few more of these in the kitchen cottons I have stashed away.

Stash Busting Spree

Thought I'd share some of the items I've recently completed. After playing with the new yarns and rifling through patterns on the internet and in my pattern stash I've been hit with inspiration and gotten a few more things completed for the craft fair box.

Starting with the Fuzhio yarn I purchased recently at Hancock's Fabrics, I hit upon a triangular scarf pattern I liked a lot and created this with the Russet colored yarn. It's very simple, but then that was what this soft, luxurious yarn called for.

Next thing is a simple chenille and flag yarn scarf. I had one ball of some NoBo black/white flag yarn that has been sitting around forever. I carried it along with some black chenille and worked it in a very simple dc/filet stitch pattern. I think it came out lovely. This picture is very small so it doesn't give really good detail but the scarf is very open and so soft. I imagine it will be one of the first things to go at the craft booth this year.

For this next piece I just grabbed a Q hook and some balls of Eyelash yarn I had laying around. It's totally off the top of my head, I made a chain, then started crocheting and ended up with this cute little shawl. What I like most about it is that the way I made the piece (hdc's with chains in between) gives the yarn enough room to drape slightly.

My next FO is the Hipster Scarf, a pattern made by Sandy Scoville, found in the book 24 Hour Crochet Projects. I made this using some leftover IRoss trellis yarn I had laying around rather than the Choo Choo called for in the project. After all, the whole idea here is for me to be using up my huge yarn stash. I'm talking really huge too; so huge I'm embarrassed to talk about it in actual quantities with anyone outside of my inner crochet circle (aka, my crochet buddy). But, I digress; this project didn't take nearly as much of the trellis yarn as I thought it would and so I've still got two balls of it in the same color to contemplate over for another project. That's two balls of THAT particular color mind you, I've got some of it in other colors too. Yup, stash!

So, it appears I've been busy, which is a good thing. I prefer to call it being hit with inspiration even though I know it's just the perfect excuse to keep from doing housework. But, like writing, when inspiration hits you gotta run with it. And who wants to do housework anyway, right?

In between creating combinations and following directions to complete some projects and reduce some stash I also have spent time surfing the net, keeping up with the emails from various groups I'm in and adding links to my HQ page. In one of those mails this link got posted and I thought it was so interesting and darned cute too!

There is an actual competition going on so I urge you all to place your votes!