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Remember the packing twine I used for my towel topper a few weeks ago (scroll down)? I had some left over and I badly needed a thingy for a side table (you’ve got to love the Military Engineering Services for the sheer numbers of dinky little tables they provide you with), so in overweening optimism, I started a doily called Pineapple Posy from Pineapple Crochet Designs ed. Rita Weiss. Naturally, the twine ran out, and I ended up with this. It shall remain in this condition forevermore, so in my books, it’s a finished object. At least the pineapples are done!
For my August CAT PAC, a friend sent me lots of blue-themed yarn and the Spring issue of Interweave Crochet, which had the Boteh scarf pattern. I had to start it immediately, so I grabbed the Patons Kroy sock yarn Rosi sent me as a contest prize and set off. The pattern repeat is simple enough, but I had to rip a bit after the second motif, having confused myself with right and wrong sides. Now it is making sense, though, and I’ve made quite some progress. Here it is:
Please forgive the blurry pictures, I’ll try and get a better one of the Boteh once it’s done.
I’ve also finished and added a zipper to Jacque‘s pattern that I was testing. Turned out a bit small, but more on that later. Have a hat FO in the wings, also, perhaps tomorrow.
I’ll never understand the fascination of the Larger than Life Bag, though. It’s just some motifs, right? Perhaps I’m missing something.
Does anyone have any hints/tips on yarny shopping to be done in Beijing? My father is visiting there next week and I’d like to give him some specific requests. Someone on Ravelry said China yarn is cheap(er). So what fibre would be good? I know bamboo needles and hooks sound likely, but…
LYS recommendations also welcome, please?
Denise. Sorry, I couldn’t resist! The thing is, my Denise set has gone missing, and try as I might, I can’t remember when I saw it last. I remember showing it to Ruth in London, and in Vizag beginning Jacque‘s pattern on it, but here in Cochin? Nope. Now all I have are two pairs of tips (the one I’m using for Jacque and another 6.5 mm pair I have in a UFO), plus 3 cables (one ultra short, one medium and one longggg – on second thought, that last one might be two joined cables, which would mean I have one of those joining thingies) and two end doodads. If anyone can remember where I put the set, do please tell!
I have made some progress on the pattern as you can see above, having detoured wildly on both the crochet and knit fronts, by turning out these two FOs (now, isn’t that a rare word for you to hear on this here blog?). First up is the Gingham Country Tea Towel I had a bit of a duh moment with:
Specs:
Yarn: Lion Kitchen Cotton (navy) and Sugar n’Cream (light blue)
Needles: Unknown plastic/resin (very flexible) 4.5mm circular and for the handle a metal circular that’s among my favourites, which is loose in the 4.5mm slot and won’t go through the 4mm (Is there a 4.25mm size in western needles?). Both needles courtesy Heide.
Pattern: Country Gingham Tea Towel
Time: About a week?
Size: Haven’t measured, but it’s a good size. It’s been immediately pressed into action in my kitchen.
Extra #1 Did two-colour double knitting for the first time, following a chart. Phoenix was good enough to hold my hand throughout and spell things out in words of one syllable! It was wonderful to be able to hound her interact with her on Ravelry. (If any of my readers want me, I’m MrsFife there).
#2 Got confirmation my finishing is terrible
#3 My floats are too tight and my wraps are too loose. Resolve that conundrum if you will
#4 Perhaps a thinner needle would have made the work neater
#5 Stopped the handle when I ran out of the light blue.
#6 I liked the grid stitch better than the gingham part (not to mention my work was neater)
#7 The original colour combo was scrumptious, and was what made me do the towel, actually. Also possibly, yarn which wasn’t 100% cotton might have fared better.
A great learning experience, though, overall. Five stars all around. Now for a crochet FO:
The details on this one:
Thread: Something called Fitpack, a twine from Jaipur that I bought in Vizag, in the philosophy of “any string will do to hook with”. It isn’t bad for bags and things, but I doubt any other colour would be available. On the other hand, I remember a crochet goods salesman telling me you can get cotton yarny type of fibre in Jaipur, so maybe the place is a hotbed of fibre.
Hook: The 2/0 (2mm) end of a Clover double-ended 2/0-4/0 hook. Nice and light.
Pattern: Acrobatic stitch from The Harmony Guides (the instructions are for a straight swatch, but I made up the decreasing on my ownsome). Pat yourself on the back, sweetie!
Time: One hour
Size: Seriously?
Extra #1 Nuthin’ much. There’s two more towels where that came from which need topping.
We now have a working washbasin, and the rains have stopped. Now all I need is some good roads, and we’re all set.
I tried a couple of different infant sock patterns, but even though they were knit, they appeared to use more yarn than I had left (I was knitting from opposite ends of the leftover skein). So I frogged and fell back on my favourite no-seam bootie pattern and would you believe it, I had just the right amount to weave in ends. I’m not totally happy, because crochet has a different look from knit and I wanted the set to be homogeneous 😦 With this worsted yarn it somehow doesn’t appeal. Anyway, here are the pictures and the specs.
Yarn: The same Shepherd Cynthia Helene that I won from Nona when she was giving away some of her stash last year.
Hook: Pony 4.5mm
Pattern: Darcy Richardson’s Newborn Booties
Time: Half-an-hour
Size: No idea. Hopefully they should fit at some point. Most probably, the three different parts of the set will fit the baby at three different points of time. Very odd.
Extra #1 Satin ribbon with tiny polka dots. No one said a boy baby can’t have polka dots. (Also, I didn’t think I’d find a matching shade of brown)
#2 Why do ribbons fold up when you thread them through the holes? I wish they didn’t.
#3 This is one set I wish I’d see pictures of in use. I never do, otherwise.
Here’s a picture with the ribbon in.
I got my invite for Ravelry yesterday and spent a few hours there browsing and adding some of my projects and stash. In one fell swoop, I managed to lower the tone of the place by an immense quantum 😀 Most of my yarn is acrylic, my projects are odd and my photography is terrible. Let’s hope they don’t throw me out for bringing the site into disrepute! My favourite feature is the hooks & needles database, the result of which you can see in a new page I have ———->
In other news, Cordelia tells me she has received the shipment of some afghan hooks which Michelle was giving away at Good Yarn Karma, and which I asked her to send me care of Cordelia, so she could save on postage. I love reading the posts at GYK, even if I can’t ask for swapping most of the stuff. I think it’s a wonderful idea! Thank you folks of Good Yarn Karma, and thank you Michelle! Hope you have lots of good karma.
Well, not really, but it does look a lot like an eye! (Now I shall get lots of LOTR fan visitors.) This is the finished doily whose chart I had a problem with last week. Sorry for the horrible photograph! Specifications:
Thread: Red Heart thread, 50 gm ball, probably size 10 (the big balls don’t have a size written on them). I was stashbusting as usual and thought I had enough, but apparently I didn’t. My favourite local craft store didn’t have the exact shade of pink, so a lighter shade and an interesting twiny thread came home with me. I forayed to another craft store and picked up two 20gm balls of the right shade, but the wrong thickness. Now, these smaller balls have #20 on them, so I know the size, but held together they ended up thicker than my original thread, so I just shrugged and used a single strand. Apparently 20+20≠10 (wowie, I just used WordPress’ new advanced editing to put in that not-equal sign). This has happened to me before and I used a strand of sewing thread held with the size 20 to finish my Crochetville Doily Swap doily in September 2005. Somehow it didn’t occur to me and in any case I didn’t want to do that this time. Why didn’t I remember that simple equation (or un-equation, if you will)?
Hook: Started off with the plain Pony 1.75mm and when in the middle of the project I received the handle ones from Jaishree, I swapped for one of those. These Pony hooks with handles look identical to the Profi hooks, except they aren’t gold-tipped and obviously aren’t made in Germany. They are light and I think I might exclusively work with these for all my thread projects, unless of course I need a size they aren’t available in. I shall do a separate post showing off all the hooks she sent. Why don’t the company behind the Profis have a website? Maybe they do in German, but not, it appears, in English. You’d think at least Western companies would be well-established online.
Pattern: From Burda Handicraft Series Vol 1 No 3, Crochet Lace, E 227. Lovely patterns, lovely photography, and all patterns are charted, of course. Despite the hype about Magic Crochet, I find some of their photos are really sloppy. Although well-lit, the doilies look unblocked and even unfinished sometimes. There should be a difference between how I, an amateur, present my work and how a magazine showcases its designs.
Time: About a week, not including delays for thread emergencies and chart puzzling.
Size: About 33.5″ long and 19″ wide. Bigger than the specified size, since I used a larger hook.
Extra: #1 This is for my mom, whose birthday is coming up later this month.
#2 This is a pattern I’d love to redo, which makes it a very rare thing indeed (other than winging-it stuff like funfur bags for visiting small girls). And use the right size hook this time. And avoid the booboos I made in this one.
#3 That part of the chart I didn’t understand taught me a new technique, that of turning in the middle of the row to end up with loops that look as though they’re hanging in the air. Nice challenge, even if I didn’t solve it myself.
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On the book front, I finished Martha Grimes’ Lamorna Wink. Good read. I’ve now gone back to Pico Iyer (Falling off the Map). I find he doesn’t particularly make me want to visit any of the places he’s written about, but perhaps that holds true for most of the travelogues I read. Perhaps that is why I read them, to savour the experience without the effort.
A few weeks ago I’d asked for suggestions on what to make for a baby girl in a hot place. This was the compromise solution I arrived at.
Thread: Anchor knitting cotton (I think it is bedspread weight) in cream, about 3 full balls.
Hook: Clover double-ended hook, with 4/0 on one end and 6/0 on the other. I assume those are size numbers rather than mm. I got two of those in a CAT PAC. They’re wonderfully light. I’m all about lightness in hooks. I used the 4/0 end.
Pattern: From Crochet World June 2005. Toddler’s Spring time dress. Errors found.
Time: A while.
Size: About 14″ long and 22″ wide.
Extra: #1 There was a row count error in the back instructions. It should read Row 44 instead of Row 43 (and so on). I found the pattern stitch instructions quite confusing and it took me several attempts to get it right. In Row 1 of the skirt part, it should read “Work 66 sc … ch 6… ” instead of ch 3. There was also some problem about right and left, which I don’t recall now.
#2 I left off the sleeves and improvised on the edging. (ch3, sc around for 3 rows). I was afraid I was running out of thread and didn’t want to buy any more, since I was stash-busting.
#3 My first dress.
I agree with Sara about finishing. Mine is very, very poor.
How do I do the chain loops and the trebles into them? More precisely, how do I move from one chain loop to another? Please help me! This is from Burda Crochet Lace N.227. The picture is clickable.
ETA: With the help of experienced and helpful neighbours at Crochetville, the problem has been successfully solved! What looks like two rows are in fact worked as one (very clever and a technique I’ve never applied before, in this manner, at least) and hey presto, you have the magical “hanging in the air” impression.
There was another minor (potentially major) hiccup when I ran out of thread, and this morning’s expedition to the local craft store only led to a paler shade. Another expedition in the afternoon to another craft store yielded what the husband assures me is the same shade, only packaged in 20gm balls rather than 50gm. We shall now resume our scheduled crocheting.
Another remarkable thing is that facing the prospect of having to redo the entire doily in a colour I had more of, I wasn’t daunted. There are very few patterns I ever redo, so that says something about this one, I think. How about you? Do you usually redo patterns, or never?
Also, WordPress now has an Advanced toolbar in its editor. I must explore it sometime, and see if I can post tables, for example.
I know I’m doing too many posts in one day, but this one has to be shared. (The aptly named) Wiseneedle has a very useful post up about an archive maintained by the University of Arizona which contains textile craft books of the past. Check out her post for specific links.
I was checking my blog stats today from the dashboard and I noticed a click-through from a new-to-me blog. I went there and found she has me on her blogroll 😳 Yay! Then I checked out her bio and her “50 things“. I especially like her yarn holder, as I’ve been using a Yarn Thimble on my latest project and have some issues with it (it makes my finger sweat, and leaves it stiff because I cannot bend it as I would if it weren’t there. I think Lucy wanted to know about it when first I received it a few months ago.)
Check out her Yarn Holder. And I thought listing stuff you’ve finished this year under 50 things was cool.
She’s made the same Hook Caddy I’d made, but in a much preeetier colour 
And she’s got interesting things poking out of it. Are they ergonomic hook handles, I wonder? Maybe I should just ask her.
swakrta.com 