Playing Hooky (no pun intended)

I have a few confessions to make...

I've been playing hooky from my ripple blanket.  It's not that I don't love the ripple, but sometimes, you just need to think about/ look at/ fixate on another project before the one you're working on is finished.  I used to have a real problem with this until I decided that I would only work on one project at a time.  But seriously people, ripple blankets take a really, really long time to finish.  Especially the particular ripple I love to do which consists of nothing but single crochet through the back loop (sc tbl) until the end of eternity.  This magical stitch makes a beautiful fabric that is cozier than should be possible, but that has a wonderful dreamy drape to it.  It even makes really cheap acrylic seem wonderful.  But it is boring! (Of course, if this blanket was for me, I'd probably be finished by now.)

There's also the fact that for about 2 weeks we thought we might be moving to Chicago.  Now as soon as I heard this, I naturally thought about yarn and knitting and making all kinds of things that I don't really have any occasion to knit while living somewhere that only gets cold about 3 times a year.  I was thinking about mittens and wool sweaters, (with real wool!)  And the imagination was sparking all sorts of inspiration frenzies and visions of walking through snow in a beautiful, perfectly knitted cable knit sweater. But alas, the dream died and the job Mr. Man was hoping to get went to some other (undeserving) candidate (who probably has no appreciation whatsoever for hand-knit sweaters.)  And I had to go back to finding things to knit/crochet that I might actually get to wear here in Houston. But by then I'd already raided my stash and found some pretty awesome and some other not so awesome yarns that I'd forgotten I had.  Well, this sparked another frenzy.  This frenzy had to do with finally knowing what I wanted to make with these certain forgotten yarns.

First up we have Nashua Vignette:

It looks like a lovely yarn, doesn't it.
Well, it isn't.
I bought this yarn years ago (it's now discontinued) to make a sweater, but once I started knitting with it, I hated it.  For one thing it is incredibly scratchy.  For another thing it's really... sproingy.  I don't know any other word to use.  What I'm trying to say is that even though it's a worsted weight yarn it behaves like a bulky weight yarn once you start knitting or crocheting with it.  It just... sproings up! I had a lot of this stuff, too because I bought enough to make a whole sweater, (but not a bulky sweater because, let's face it, Kate Moss I am not, and who else would look good in a bulky sweater?)  It's just been sitting in my stash for 5 years or so but a few weeks ago I had an epiphany about what to make with it.  

Can you guess what it is? (See how sproingy?)

Okay, I'll show you...



Yeah, that's right, I made another Half-granny shawl.  This one was made more for warmth than for prettiness.  I don't really have any plans to wear it out in public.  For one thing, it's huge!  I was trying to use up all that yarn (I still have one ball left.)  And I found a surprising amount of other scraps of very similarly colored yarn hiding out in my stash so I threw that stuff in there too.  Now I have a shawl that I can wrap around myself whenever I have to go outside to let the dog out or whatever, but don't feel like putting on a sweater or jacket. Or just for when I'm cold inside, which happens to me a lot. This shawl is very warm, and it of reminds me a little of the kind of thing you might see on an ancient Italian widow. I kind of hated every minute of working on it because of that crappy yarn, but I do have the satisfaction of knowing that it's no longer in my stash and it is exactly what I was wanting when I decided to make it.  My favorite part is the little picots on the edge.  I need to use more picots.

Okay so even though I do have more to show you of my "playing hooky" projects, I have no more pictures so it will have to come in the next post.

Meanwhile I'd like to know if anyone else is having this playing hooky problem.  Also if anyone else has any yarn in their stash that they hate and don't know what to do with it.  Anyone?  

Baby Blanket Madness

Oh dear!  Has it really been almost a month since my last blog post?  Well, but I have actually been busy. For real!

First I made this blanket for a friend who is expecting a boy in mid-October.

Can you tell this blanket is for a boy?  Haha! I usually try to be a little less obvious about using traditional gender colors because
1. I sort of hate pastels and
2. I just love doing the unexpected when it comes to baby stuff, it's just way more fun.

But for this one I decided to go super traditional. I'd been wanting to try the granny square thing with just a few colors and the same square repeated for awhile and I really loved it! I love the way it kind of looks like tiles and that it looks like something someone might have made back in 1950.

My favorite part of this particular blanket is the border.

It's very simple, just single crochet around and around but it makes it look very polished and elegant.  Almost serious.

I also knitted some booties.

Now, seriously, aren't booties just the cutest things ever in the history of ever?

Now I'm working on something else for another friend.  Here's a little peek...

(You can probably guess what it is.)
And I haven't forgotten about the Goodnight Moon blanket, but it's gonna have to be on the back burner for a little longer.  

Goodnight Summer

I am boycotting summer.
I'm just over it.  I am so done.

Merriam-Webster defines boycott as - to engage in a concerted refusal to have dealings with (as a person, store, or organization) usually to express disapproval or to force acceptance of certain conditions


Every year around this time I start yearning for Fall and the end of summer.  But this year I'm in a downright protest against summer.  Here in Texas we're on the 900th day of 100+ degree weather, not to mention one of the worst droughts these parts have ever dealt with. (Okay it's not really the 900th day, but that's what it feels like.) I mean we didn't even get a real Spring for crying out loud! No rain = no flowers.  I mean the trees are just gasping out here, folks.  


So I was walking through my local craft store sometime last week when I came across this:

Now, usually I scorn the putting out of the holiday things months before the actual holiday, but this year I almost did a little dance! And I thought, "Darn right! If the craft stores can start preparing for Halloween in August well then so I can I!"  And right then and there I decided that I'm just not dealing with summer anymore.  As far as I'm concerned it's time to start preparing for falling leaves and cornucopias.
So there!


And here at Casa Moi, that means it's blanket making time!

This one is going to be for Mr. Boy.  He's pretty much grown out of all his baby blankets, and when I made this one for my friend last year, he loved it!  So I vowed to make him a Granny of his own.

I chose to use the colors from Goodnight Moon because he can just stare and stare at that book for... well... minutes.  He's a 3 year old boy after all.  So no one activity can generally keep him occupied for more than a few minutes.

And I'm also making a baby blanket for a friend who's expecting and whose baby shower is coming up on September 17th.  But I can't show you pics of that one yet because you never know whose watching.

So I'll be a busy, busy, crocheting bee for the next few weeks!

Creative Ennui...

Well, I'm in a bit of slump.  A creativity slump, brought on, I think, by mild exhaustion.  The husband was gone for 3 weeks on business and it's always just a little too crazy around here for crafting when it's just me and Mr. Boy.  Husband is back now, but I'm still in a slump.

In the past 3 weeks this is all I've managed to finish: 

I bought these little pillows years ago from IKEA with the intention of making all kinds of cute little cushion covers to throw around different areas of the house.  Yeah, never happened.
So I have this one done (the picture shows front and back) and I'm not even all that thrilled with it.  It's ok.  It's meh.

So my question is:  Does anyone have any tips or tricks for getting over a creativity slump?  Do you just wait it out or do you force yourself to craft until something excites you again.  Maybe brains just sometimes need a break from being all excited and crazy inspired for awhile so they create the Creative Ennui.

Oh well.
I'll leave you with this picture of a cute little magnet I saw at a store the other day.

Oh Mr. Darcy, can you fetch me my shawl?

I must admit that when I first noticed that shawls were becoming the thing in the knitting realm, I was a bit baffled.  I know something had to replace ponchos once those went out of favor, (which I was really dismayed about because I still love ponchos, but that's a whole other story) but shawls seemed a bit too... I don't know... Jane Austenish to carry over into our current modern times.  I mean shawls and texting?  It just didn't seem right.

Don't get me wrong.  I love all things Jane Austen, myself.  I've read every one of her books.  I've probably watched Sense and Sensibility at least 400 times (much to my husbands dismay.) That scene where Elinor's shawl falls off while she's taking one of those oh so English strolls and talking to Edward and he tenderly places it back over her shoulder... *sigh.*

But the point is, I just couldn't really see the need to spend hours knitting a shawl and then where would I wear it and with what?  I mean I'm pretty much a lounge pants/sweats and tee shirt kind of gal.  In the summer I might wear a dress or two, but there's rarely a need for a shawl in a Houston summer.

Then I saw a girl in Starbucks and she had a shawl wrapped around her neck in this certain way so that it was more like a scarf and she looked très soigné, and I thought, well OK, I could maybe pull that off.  And then I saw this pattern on Ravelry and I knew I had to make myself one. It kind of goes along with my whole granny craze that I've been on lately.

So I went for a little stash dive and found some sock yarn that I seriously don't even remember buying and before I knew it I had my first shawl.  Here's three things I finally understand about shawls and why people love them.
1.  They keep you so warm!
2.  You can wear them inside without feeling like you're dressed for outside.
3.  Shawls are like little blankets that are acceptable to carry around with you all day.





I actually did a little research on the shawl (because that's the kind of thing I do when I get semi-obsessed with something new) and I found out that shawls first came into fashion around the Jane Austenish times (1780-1870) along with all things in any way Oriental.  Most everything else soon went out of style (turbans) but the shawl stuck around because it served an actual purpose which was mainly keeping women warm in drafty houses. And to think I used to feel sorry for poor Elizabeth Bennet and Elinor Dashwood freezing their arses off in the English winters with nothing but a shawl to keep them warm.  Ha!

(This is as close as I get to soigné.)


Here's Mr. Boy in my shawl.  He always gets cold in the grocery store.

By the way, crocheting a shawl is so much less time consuming than knitting one.  I used sock yarn and an F hook and it still went fairly quickly.  I would have made it bigger, but I kept running out of yarn.
There are definitely more of these in my future.  I've just about worn this one out already during this crazy cold winter storm nonsense.  (I seriously have already had to mend it!)  

Granny Square Reveal!

I can finally reveal the project I've been hinting at for the last few posts!

Tada! It's my first full sized granny square blanket ever! Isn't that crazy that I've been crocheting for so long and never made a granny square blanket?! That's like Crochet 101!
(Well, I made a baby blanket for a friend a few years ago, but I don't have any pictures of that one, and it was probably pretty funky looking because I don't think I had figured out how to join them very well, yet.  So like most crafters, I just pretend that the stuff that I did that sucked doesn't exist. If I can get away with it.)

Okay so, stats:
Yarn:  This was a true stash busting project using various acrylic yarns that I had in my stash.  Some that I have no idea at all where they came from or why I bought them.  (And yes I still have A TON more stash yarn left.)  The yarns that I know of are Lion Brand Wool Ease, Caron Simply Soft, and Red Heart Supersaver. The main color that all the squares were edged with is Caron One Pound.  I have previously pledged once before never EVER to buy Red Heart Supersaver again, so let me just renew that little vow here and now.  HATE it.  And unfortunately, I still have quite a bit more left in my stash.  Why did I buy it in the first place?

When I was making the ripple in the picture above I bought some Red Heart because, well, it was so cheap and the colors are so pretty, and even though I knew Red Heart is like the Vienna Sausages of yarn, I just figured that it wouldn't be all that bad.  Heh.  Well, it is. It's that bad.  It feels like cheap carpet, it wants to "catch" on the hook while you're working with it, it actually squeaks it's so plastic.  The only good thing about it is that it softens up and actually feels pretty nice after just one trip through the washer and dryer.  Also it will last forever.  I mean it does not die.  This blanket could be found somewhere, completely intact in an empty field after a nuclear blast had removed all life from the earth. But I digress...

Size:  Throw sized about 59" by 39".  I wanted it to be something that could be put comfortably on the couch  and not overpower everything, but be big enough to curl up under.  It ended up being perfect because I used up almost every single bit of the Caron One Pound.

Joining method:  Crocheted together on the back side using slip stitch.  Sorry, but didn't take any pics of the back side before sending it off to it's owner.

Blocking method:  Just washed it on gentle in cold water and dried it on medium.  I've found that is the best way to block acrylic. Below are some pics before blocking. 

Ian loved this blanket.  I had a hard time keeping him out of the pictures.  

I see many, many grannies in my future.  But more on that next post.

Hello 2011!

Hello all and Happy New Year!

I didn't make any resolutions because I never do because, honestly, really. Does anyone actually ever follow through? And why should you give yourself one more thing to feel guilty about not doing it? Which segues nicely into what my New Year's Resolution would have been if I had made one...

I need to blog more. Yeah, I really do. I had this vision of me blogging my little heart out when I started this blog, but well, really, I just don't have all that much to say. But this year, I really will make more of an effort to keep up and keep engaged. Even if it's just to post a cool picture now and then. Even if I only have 2 people who read it.

Here's a little sneak peak at what I'm currently working on...

I can't show any more than that because it's a gift for someone. I don't think she reads my blog, but you never know.

People can be sneaky.

Haekelbeutel!

This is what I made out of those mystery squares!

It's called Inga's Haekelbeutel which my German sister-in-law tells me means "bag" or was it "crocheted bag?" Well, anyway, that's what the pattern is called. It's free and super easy if you want to make one of your own. It's basically a bunch of squares sewn together in a clever way. The pattern calls for 16 squares, but I only did 12 because I didn't want the bag to be so huge and because I didn't feel like making anymore squares. I also used a square pattern from this book instead of the one on the pattern because I wanted something a little different. You can use any darn kind of square you want as long as they're all the same size.

I gifted this bag to my mom for Mother's Day, but eventually I plan to make one for myself that's lined with fabric as soon as I learn to use and stop being afraid of my sewing machine.

I used mercerized cotton scrap yarn for this bag, but I think it would be really cool in linen or hemp also. I still have SO MUCH of this yarn left!

Back on the Chain Gang...

I've been working on something easy and fun.

Here's a picture:

So I'm back to crochet and really enjoying it.

I always forget how fast crochet goes!

This yarn is mostly Omega Sinfonia from my stash with a few other random stash yarns worked in, but Sinfonia is one of my favorite mercerized cotton yarns. It's inexpensive, but the fabric it produces is so elegant. I love working with cotton because the stitches come out so crisp and defined so that you can really appreciate the beauty of each stitch. Love the colors too!

The pattern is from Jan Eaton's 200 Crochet Blocks. The square is # 19 Lacy Cross, which is beautiful and also super easy.

These squares are going to be made into something hopefully beautiful and serviceable.

More to come...

Inspiration

As promised, here are some pictures of granny afghans that have inspired me:

I'm leaning towards the first two examples for what I have in mind for my friend. I really like the classic look of the same color in the last row. It looks very vintage and classy if white or off-white is used, as you can see in the last picture, but I want something a little more fun for this particular friend which is why I like the idea of the last color being a true color instead of a neutral. I think the trick of this is to choose a good base color. One that isn't a neutral but can act as one depending on the value. I also really love the picture of just the crazy grannies with no apparent rhyme or reason, but I suspect that this crocheter spent a significant amount of time picking which colors would look best where. Though it's a beautiful blanket, it looks a little too modern for what I want to do. As does this one:


But I LOVE, love, love this one! One day I would like to make one like this for myself. All rugged, natural, earthy, colors. And I like the look of the one color in the middle with the two rows of another color. It makes this pretty sort of flower-like motif. Hmmmm...someday.

I'll leave you with this last picture of a granny square headboard. What a GREAT idea for a little girls room. Actually I would put this in a guestroom, too. It's very warm and homey looking.

This headboard was made by Little Purl of the Orient.
The rest of the pictures I found on Flickr and/or Ravelry.

Grannies Galore

Well, I was going to start this post with a history of the Granny Square, but lo and behold, I couldn't really find one anywhere on the internet. I'm thinking granny squares are one of those things that just ARE. Crochet is notorious for this sort of thing. No one can even really pinpoint when and where crochet first came into being. It just showed up one day.

I can only assume the granny square must have first been done by someone's granny. And really that granny was an ingenious little lady. There are so many variations that are possible that it blows the mind. What I find fascinating is how different they can look depending on size, color choice, yarn choice.

I'll admit, the picture above is somewhat campy. This magazine is from the early 80's when the granny square was just about to go into hibernation after it's heyday in the 60's and 70's. Now it's back again and I've caught the fever. I've been browsing around ravelry and flickr for days now, just ooohing and ahhhing over all the different variations I've seen.

I'm finding myself drawn to the blankets that look sort of vintagey and modern at the same time. I have a friend who is very in to everything 70's and I'd love to make her a granny square throw.
Here are some grannies I found on the side of the road at a place called Lovejoy. I actually asked my husband to climb out of the car and take a picture with his iphone. (What a guy!) The one I really like is the middle one with the white border. I find that you can do almost any kind of crazy color combos with a granny afghan and as long as you do the last row of every granny in the same color it ends up looking very together and posh. I have some plans for what I'm going to do for my friends throw.



But I don't have time now to explain all that so I'll have to wait until the next post. For now I'll just leave you with this..

Just a hint.

vintagecrochet 003, originally uploaded by reneewestberry.

Don't have time right now to do a proper posting, but I wanted to post a little teaser of what's coming up.

I see Granny Squares in your future...