CLF First Ever Book

A few months ago I submitted my pattern for the Very Versatile Vertical Stripe Beanie to be published in the Crochet Liberation Front's First Ever Book. The book is out now and my pattern is on page 54. I received my copy of the book over the weekend and I have been enjoying reading and browsing through this book. All of the patterns in the book were designed by other CLF group members on Ravelry. There are wonderful patterns for socks, hats, bags, toys, tops, scarves and many other items. It will be hard to decide what to work on first. I also love the little articles that people submitted. You can follow this link to find out more about the book or purchase your copy of the book.

In a related note, my hat has been awarded the Hookalicious Award from the group's leader. You can read about it here. It has been exciting to see people use my pattern and make hats of their own. I look forward to seeing more of people's projects as they post them on ravelry. Thanks also for all of the compliments.

Updates galor

I haven't posted for awhile, but I have been busy crocheting. We had a nice visit to Minnesota. My kids got to meet their new cousin. Here he is in the outfit I crocheted for him. It was fun to see him in the outfit. If I had to guess what size it is, it probably turned out to be 2-6 mo. I know the standard sizing is 0-3 and 3-6, but it is a little big for a newborn, so I don't want to say 0-6 months. He was 1 month old and about 12 lbs in this photo. The sweater should fit for quite awhile yet, and I think there is still plenty of room in the pants.

For my daughter's birthday I crocheted a small doll for her, and then my mom helped me make a cake to match the doll. She likes her doll, and loved her cake. One nice thing about frosting a crocheted cake, is that you don't need a steady hand, because you want it to have lots of texture to mimic the stitches.

One of the projects I worked on while in MN, was this sweater for my husband. The pattern is by Robyn Chachula and is from the winter 2007 Interweave Crochet magazine. He chose Lily Chin Park Avenue- 50 % wool, 50 % alpaca yarn for his sweater. Size medium took 13 balls of black and 2 balls of brown. It was a pretty straight-forward pattern to follow. Although, after trying it on, he commented that he'd prefer the neckline to not be so open and square, so I have to take out the collar ribbing, add some stitches in and then redo the collar. I have enough yarn left over to make a scarf and hat.

Now that we've been back for awhile, I've been able to really put my tapestry tortilla warmer to the test. I am very pleased with how it turned out. It keeps them nice and warm, and I don't have to go through lots of towels each time I make tortillas, and I put a little loop on the edge so that I can hang it on the oven, when it is not in use.

Tapestry Tortilla Warmer

We eat a lot of tortillas in my house. We buy the uncooked kind, and cook them on the tortilla pan. I like to keep them warm, and usually use a towel to do so. I wanted to have something dedicated for tortillas, but I didn't really want to go buy a plastic container. I had several small amounts of yarn left, so I decided to make a tapestry crocheted felted tortilla warmer. I didn't have a set pattern in mind, but I kept going seeing where the yarn took me. The two sides are different. I used leftovers from 3 different balls of yarn from 3 different sources, they were all worsted weight, and luckily they all felted ok together. It was about 14" before felting and about 11" after felting. I'm still trying to decide if I'll need to line it or not, but I am pleased with how it turned out. The above photos are the prefelted shots. I haven't had a chance to try it out yet, but the kids think it makes a cool helmet.

Wash cloth for Baby

I know a lot of people that have had or are having babies this year- like over 20. I have been busy making baby gifts for them. Here is a simple pattern for a washcloth or burpcloth for baby. A wash cloth will get a bit more use than a hat, and it is distinctive from the other washcloths, so it can be easily recognized as Baby's cloth.

I used mercerized cotton, Butterfly Super 10, about 1/2 of a ball.
Size G hook.
Gauge: 18 st/ 4" and 17 rows/ 4"
Finished size about 9" square.

Chain 41
Row 1: in second ch from hook make dc, sc in next, *dc in next chain, sc in next; repeat from * across. Ch1, turn
Row 2: dc in first st, sc in next. *dc in next stitch, sc in next. Repeat from * across. (You are always putting a dc in a sc of the row below, and a sc in a dc of the row below).
Repeat row 2 until cloth is square, or desired size. Fasten off, weave in ends.

I have made a couple of these cloths now and I love how the color pools in different patterns.

My summer cardigan

I finally finished my summer cardigan- and it's still summer! I started it the first weekend in May and finished it the first weekend in July. The pattern is Butterscotch Cardigan from the Spring 2008 Interweave Crochet magazine. It was a fairly straight-forward garment to crochet, each piece went by rather quickly. My stitch guage was a little off from what the pattern called for, but since it is worked vertically and I am taller than average, I didn't have to make any adjustments to the length of the garment. This was also my first real experience blocking and it went fairly well, although I might try a string or wires for the center front pieces next time. Seaming went by fairly quickly too- just match up a stitch on one side to a stitch on the other. Sewing in the sleeves was also wonderful, the striped pattern made it really easy to know what stitches to match up. I also loved working with yarn on a cone- each segment of the sweater was made from a single piece of yarn. The yarn is JaggerSpun Zephyr 50-50 Wool Silk lace-weight. It's a little finer than what was called for in the pattern, but I am pleased with the weight of the sweater.

Bamboo Baby Set

I recently made this bamboo baby set for my soon to be born nephew. I chose bamboo because it is soft, and because it will "grow" a bit with the kid, so maybe he'll get some more wear out of it. I was under a bit of a time crunch by the time the yarn arrived and when I wanted to get it mailed. I did this in a week. I was able to send it out to arrive in time for the baby shower. I tried swatching from a couple of books I have with baby sets, but nothing was really coming out very well. In addition, one of the books had a very sorry excuse for a gauge, showing only the stitches per 2 or 4 inches, but not giving the row gauge, nor finished measurements. So I improvised by taking a pair of baby shorts and matched the waist and rise, and added legs. For the sweater, I used measurements from a different pattern book, but created the pattern myself. I took good notes and may try to write up the pattern once I have some feedback on how it fits.

One Blue Ribbon

I went to the County Fair yesterday and entered the "Nimble Fingers Quick Crochet" Contest. This year the pattern was more challenging than last year's, and we had 5 contestants this year. I am happy to say that I won a blue ribbon for coming in first in this year's contest. It was a close competition, the man who came in second was right behind me. The prize this year was some Blue Ribbon Strawberry Jam and a cookbook of the prize winning recipes from the 2007 county fair. I found my two entries on display, but neither of those won a ribbon. I didn't get a chance to look around the display floor too much, but I hope to take another look when we go back another day.

Infinitely finished

I've finished my take on the infinity wrap. I've blocked it once, and woven in all the ends. If I had time, I'd block it again, but alas, entry day for the fair is tomorrow. I was surprised at how much flattening happened when blocking it. If I were to do it again, I think I would stick with more regular color usage instead of my imposed pseudo variegated. I didn't change colors on the mesh part because I didn't want to have to weave in ends into the mesh. I'd also try it with only 2 colors. To recap: vintage size 30 cotton thread in 5 colors, and vintage size 11 steel hook.

A new shaped shell

Well, I finally finished it! This is a shirt that I made from "The Lady who Lunches Sheath" by Lily Chin in Couture Crochet Workshop. Her pattern is a beautiful dress and gloves. I was drawn to this pattern for several reasons, I liked the look of it, but more importantly it involved interesting increase and decrease sequences in the shell pattern stitch. I wanted to learn how to do this type of shaping. I had hoped to make the full dress, but when I was shopping for yarn, I couldn't find enough yarn in any one color to make a dress, but I found enough to make a top. This was done in Vickie Howell "Love" 6 skeins of purple and 1 of white, a bamboo silk blend. The pattern starts from the hem and works upward. It was an interesting challenge starting halfway through the pattern- how many stitches do I have after working through imaginary decreases, where do I put the stitch markers...After a few evenings of math and diagrams, I figured out the adjustments I needed to make. I pretty much followed the pattern from there, but I think I added a few extra rounds to lengthen it. I discovered an error in the shoulder shaping, figured out the problem, and was pleased to get a prompt response from the publisher about the errata. Once I finished the top and shoulder seams I had about half a skein of purple left over, so I decided to add a few rows to the bottom because it was a little on the short side for my tastes. I then trimmed it in white following the details in the pattern.

Fun with Felting

I finally got around to making little swatches for felting. I made a sc square, a dc square, a dc circle, and a dc adult size hat. I should have known better and done this much earlier, but I am so glad I did it now. To make my sc square I chained 11, and starting with second chain from hook, sc in each stitch across to get a swatch 10 sc wide. I sc for 11 rows. Then I chained 16, and then made a dc swatch 10 stitches wide. I did 6 rows of dc. I chained 10 more stitches, then worked 10 dc in 3rd ch from hook. Closed w/ sl stitch in 1st dc. Increased 10 dc evenly for 3 more rounds for a total of 4 rounds and 40 stitches. Then I made my basic dc adult sized hat that goes to the bottom of the ears. I measured each piece and then threw it into the washing machine with a couple of other items to be felted.

Swatch .................Prefelted..... Felted..... % change

sc square 10 sc wide........ 2.75" ......... 2.25" ........... 20 %

............... 11 sc rows .........2.75" .......... 2.5" ............. 10 %

dc square 10 dc wide...... 2.75"........... 2.25" ........... 20 %

.................6 dc rows........ 2.75" .......... 2.25" ........... 20 %

dc circle 4 rounds .......... 4" ................ 3.125" ........ 20 %

The hat is a little hard to measure because it is still damp and drying, and I have to crush it to measure it. But rough measurements suggest it was 8" high when folded flat and 20" in circumference before felting. Post-felting it is about 6" high and 18" in circumference.