Tag: crochet

Finally, pictures of WIPs

I know, it took way too long to get these up, but I finally got around to it, and now, yay! Pictures!  All blankets below were crocheted in the log cabin style featured in Mason-Dixon Knitting.

WIP: Noah's Buffy Season Two blanketFirst is my favorite, Noah’s Buffy Season Two Blanket, so named because that’s what I’ve been watching while I’ve worked on it.  I picked up the yarn two weeks ago at Handmade–five shades of Plymouth Encore, as it’s one of the easiest yarns to work with, has neato bright colors, and is washable.  There are two blues, one (bright) green, one purple and one variegated.  I’m very happy with it so far, I think the colors work together beautifully.  It needs three more sections to be complete (i.e., the same size as Grace’s).

The second is Grace’s Sorcerer’s Stone Blanket (named for the audio book I was listening to while working on it).  While I adore the bright oranges, yellows and pink of this blanket, I think I failed on the execution.  The problems:

WIP: Grace's Sorcerer's Stone blanket1.  I used the same color for two consecutive sections each, which worked great when I only had three colors, but not so much with five.

2.  Each section is made up of nine rows–way too many, it turns out.  Five rows worked so much better with Noah’s blanket.  This problem, mixed with the first problem, meant I ran out of pink when I was only four rows from being finished, requiring me to buy a whole new ball.  Bah.

 3.  I didn’t order the colors very well, and the two oranges that look really similar–but aren’t–ended up too close in the order, which meant switching things up.  I don’t think this mistake hurt as much as the other two, but it offends my own anal-retentive need for order and symmetry.

This blanket will be finished when I finally get around to adding the last four rows of pink (plus a border, of course).  So, very close now.

WIP: Scrap blanketThe final blanket is just a hodgepodge of the leftover yarn from the other two blankets.  No clue how it’ll look, as I’m really not planning it at all; nor how big it’ll be.  I might go out of my way to make it larger, large enough to give it to my aunt for a lap blanket for Christmas.

I’m really enjoying the log cabin styled blanket, and crochet in general.  However, I don’t think I’m spacing my stitches very well when I’m picking up along the edges, hence the weird puckering in all the blankets.  Just when I think I’ve figured it out, I lay it flat and voila! Puckers aplenty!  Fortunately, I don’t think the babies will care.

Outta yarn

First, let me say that I’m coming to adore crochet.  It’s so much faster than knitting, that I can finish a baby blanket in a week with double crochet, when it takes me three times that (if not more) to knit a Big Bad Baby Blanket.  That said, however, it uses more yarn than I expected–I’m about five rows from finishing Grace’s log cabin blanket, and I ran out of yarn!  Ok, so I didn’t run out of *all* yarn, but I ran out of the pink Plymouth Encore about halfway through the last pink stripe.  Not fair!  I mean, sure, it’s a great color, so even if (when) I buy another ball of the pink, I know I’ll use the rest of it in another project, ’cause it’s just too cute not to.  But I was so close to being finished, and now I have to wait until I can find time for a trip into the Valley to get another skein.  And you just know I won’t be walking out of there with just the one skein.  *sigh*

 Just as well, I suppose, as I have to stock up on the right colors for Noah’s blanket, which will be my next project.  And no, I still haven’t gone back to my ribbon tank top.  Sadly.

Categories
Knitting and Crochet

Knitting vs. Crochet?

I’m taking a break from the evil tank top, mostly because I’ve reached the part where I’ll have to take copious notes to keep track of where I am, which makes it less mindless knitting, my preferred method of knitting.  So instead, I’m working on another log cabin blanket, again crocheted, again from Plymouth Encore (specifically, the yarn I purchased when I went to Handmade) in shades of orange, yellow and pink.  It’s nearly finished–double crochet is SO MUCH QUICKER than single crochet, I tell you!  I’ll post pictures soon.

In other news, I wanted to share this comic.  The dialogue is from a conversation that occurred on one of my other posting boards; the graphics came from the really nifty web app at stripcreator.com; and the two were joined in blissful, hilarious harmony by one of the members of my posting board. I think it highlights the differences between knitting and crochet rather perfectly, don’t you? 😀

And if you decide to create something yourself with StripCreator, please post a link here, I’d love to see it!

Categories
Knitting and Crochet

Blanket's finished, purse sadly not

Blanket, finishedI finished the blanket yesterday–my first crocheted project!  As you can see, it doesn’t lie quite as flat as it should; I had difficulty figuring out how many stitches to pick up along the edges, so it’s….oddly shaped, I guess.  Hopefully washing it will even it out a little, but if not, I’m not too worried–it’s a baby blanket, and babies are notoriously forgiving about such details.  Which is good, because I’m sure you’ve noticed the white isn’t pure white, it’s a baby blend with pink and blue mixed in.  This is what happens when I try to use stash yarn only.  But at least the Plymouth Encore is machine washable, which I think is key for any baby gift.  Alpaca may be the most wonderful fiber in the whole wide world, and would make marvelous heirloom quality items, but what mother of an infant has time to handwash anything?  It would sit in a box or drawer somewhere, lovely to look at, but never actually used.  Hopefully this blanket will be used and abused until there’s nothing left but string (which hopefully won’t happen until well after the baby has grown out of it).

WIP, purseIn other news, I had a brain fart, and forgot that this purse was supposed to be finished by a deadline–today, to be exact.  Yeah, that didn’t happen.  The knitting part was done long ago, but it needs to be stitched along the bottom and felted.  It’s the felting part that’s been holding things up, since I don’t have my own washing machine, and the water in the machines in my building’s laundry room isn’t hot enough to do the job properly.  I also haven’t tracked down the appropriate accessorizing hardware.  It was supposed to be finished today, because it’s a gift for my friend who took her black belt test yesterday (krav maga).  I suck.  I may show her a picture of the soon-to-be-a-purse, but I doubt it.  I’ll just have to surprise her with it later–hopefully sooner than her next birthday, though.

Also, this picture doesn’t do the colors justice–the red is much deeper and less bright than it appears here. Sadly, I can’t get the colors to be true to life with this camera. Makes me miss my old Powershot A300 sometimes.

It's a zen thing

I know it comes as no surprise to anyone that knitting and crocheting are incredibly soothing activities.  As the yarn slips through your fingers, so does the stress of the moment, hour, or day.  Your mind becomes clearer, more focussed, less cluttered.  It can be difficult to make the world go away, and to do so in a constructive way (unlike, say, vegging in front of a tv–not that I’m against vegging in front of the tv); exercise is the only other way that comes to mind, at least for me, yet exercise isn’t always an option.  For immediate release, there’s nothing like picking up a project and stitching together a few rows.

I bring this up because I did something completely bone-headed this afternoon:  I forgot my ATM pin number.  ?!  Yeah, no clue how I managed that one, but I completely blanked in front of the ATM, and now I have to waste time this afternoon at the bank to clear it up.  But after crocheting a few rows on my log cabin blanket, I’m a little more “whatever” about the whole thing.  Yeah, it was stupid, but I will deal, and it will be fixed, and I will laugh about it next week.  Or maybe next month.

Wait, I think I need to crochet a few more rows…