Friday, June 9th, 2017 06:42 am
I've kept track of my works-in-progress and works-in-the-queue in various ways, in the past--lists and so on--but yesterday I decided to whip up an Excel spreadsheet about this. No math involved, but Excel is so good for checklists. I'll be keeping tabs on information for each project: start date, deadline, finish date, name of pattern, pattern source, yarn source, etc.

*runs off gleefully to do some crocheting*
Sunday, June 4th, 2017 10:10 pm
Made this guy for another friend's baby!

Saturday, May 20th, 2017 01:33 pm
A childhood friend of mine and his wife are having a baby soon. I'm going to make some things for the baby, probably a little vest-thingy and a couple of pairs of booties. Because I don't have enough projects as it is. (Ha ha ha!)
Tuesday, May 16th, 2017 03:55 pm
This is a Lion Brand pattern called "One-Skein Wrap" and though I'm not using the one-pound skein, and am therefore using more than one skein, I am using a Lion Brand yarn. I am having a great deal of fun working with the soft, fluffy but 100% acrylic Heartland yarn in a dark blue. I want to start taking pics and posting them here.

I say "100% acrylic" because a few years ago I lost my ENTIRE STASH to an infestation of wool-eating moths. I've been too nervous about reintroducing moth-friendly yarn to work in wool blends, never mind 100% wool, since then. Although I have now lived a year in a new apartment and haven't seen a single sign of moths (*knocks on wood*), so I might start taking chances on LB Wool-Ease or Plymouth Encore again. They have been my favorite blends to work with.
Friday, May 12th, 2017 11:17 am
(Third attempt:) Child of a friend of mine. I made the sweater she is wearing. She is now a toddler--the one I'm making a blankie for.

Monday, May 8th, 2017 05:07 pm
I have a niece and three nephews. Oldest Nephew is finishing his first year of college, and I made him a hat and scarf set for his going-to-college present last fall. Niece is heading off to college next fall, and I've selected a pattern for a pillow/cushion cover thingy for her going-to-college present, to decorate her dorm room with. One side is made with super bulky yarn, the other with worsted. I just ordered some Heartland yarn from Lion Brand--enough in Thick and Quick for two pillows, enough in worsted ditto. I then ordered some personalized labels ("made with love by _____") from Herrschners. I love making things for people, especially people I love.
Tuesday, May 2nd, 2017 05:53 pm
Baby Blanket As you wish

I started this blanket almost a year ago and it has given me SO MANY problems, but it's finally done and now I can mail it!

I'm washing it now to make sure it holds together, then I'll be boxing it up to mail it tomorrow!

Also, hello! I was part of a crochet comm on LJ, but I've since moved here to DW.

EDIT: I fixed my link! I was posting from my phone and the html didn't want to work right. :(
Saturday, April 29th, 2017 04:25 pm
I will be getting married next year, and my sisters will be two of my attendants (the third is my BFF, who is a guy). I want to thank them with something nice, and it occurred to me that I could make things for them. I went and browsed Ravelry kind of randomly, and came across a pattern for a lovely, lacy-looking summer wrap. Almost immediately I decided to make two of them, one for each sister, in the same yarn--so, two identical, lovely wraps. Promptly went out and bought the yarn. A very pretty shade of blue, a color all three of us love.

As if I didn't already have too many project on my hooks...

(Now I just need to get or make something for my BFF.)
Wednesday, April 5th, 2017 02:29 pm
Hello! I'm new to Dreamwidth (freshly migrated from LJ, where I was She_of_Emeralds, in case some of you are/were on LJ with me), and just joined this group. I've been crocheting since high school, so about 35 years. I'd love to get to know some of you.

I'm currently working on:

1. a stashbuster afghan for me
2. a toddler blankie for a friend's kid
3. a hat for the wife of another friend
4. a soap-saver
and 5. a nice blue shawl for me. First shawl I will have made, or at least the first one I will have finished. I keep messing things up somehow. So for this one I chose a very simple pattern.

Anyway, hello!
Monday, January 2nd, 2017 05:17 pm
[personal profile] lilliane pointed me to this article featuring clever ways to store yarn. I thought you all might enjoy it as well. Kinda looking at those domed drink cups and sugar holders a little differently now.
Friday, January 8th, 2016 05:49 pm
I keep planning to take photos of my slowly growing stack of completed crochet squares to post here, but I think if I wait to do that, I'll never get around to actually documenting where I'm up to.

So, the project I've been working on steadily in my spare time is to use up an enormous basket worth of 8 ply acrylic yarn by making solid colour 20cm (10 row) granny squares when I have enough for a full square, and 25cm (12 row) granny squares that use up all of a ball and then are finished with either a black or a white border. This has been going since June-2015.

Completed (with the ends sewn in) at this point - 66 * 20cm blocks, 9 * black bordered blocks, 1 * white bordered blocks.

I also have 3 bordered blocks at various stages of 'nearly done' (1 just needs ends sewn in, I'm doing the border on one, and then I'll do the border on the last). And then I can put this aside for a while - I don't have any started, and I have another project that is actually more urgent, but requires more thinking, so  I've been lazy and picking this one up instead.

looking at my last post (Oct 20): I've finished another 23 of the smaller blocks, and 2 of the bigger ones (and that will be five more of the bigger ones by bedtime); I've finished the C2C blanket that needed the ends sewn in; I haven't done anything on the bun nets because every time I can find the right needle, I've moved them Somewhere Sensible again; and I've made trivial progress on the Julie Yeager crochet-along blanket. So, not quite meeting my end of year goals, but at least progress.


Tuesday, December 8th, 2015 11:05 am
pics )

This pendant took about an hour and a half to complete. It's purple crochet thread in a granny square, with seven colors of seed beads on eyepins making a sort of fringe, and a crocheted cord. It turned out all right, though I kind of started out intending to make earrings and not a pendant.

(The other thing in the top pic is not crochet and I need to make a better one anyway.)
Tuesday, October 20th, 2015 05:38 pm
Inspired by [personal profile] ysobel's post from earlier in the week about crochet terminology, I went poking around my crochet Stuff. Which lead me to realise that I have a handful of semi-abandoned project that I should finish up before I try the problem project again with the alternate terminology. 

What I knew I was working on - a laundry basket of donated yarn that I'm turning into either single colour 20cm/10 round granny squares or two colour 25cm/12 round granny squares depending on amount of central colour (if I run out, I finish in either white or black, because those are easy to get more of). Since the beginning of June, I've finished 43 of the smaller ones, and 8 of the bigger ones, not counting the ones that still need the ends sewn in (about three, I think). The plan is to keep going until I'm on leave in January, and then see what I can make from them. 

What I had forgotten about
  • a corner to corner square, which just needs the ends sewn in
  • bun nets (three that I've found, but I think that there are more) which need ends sewn in
  • the Julie Yeager crochet along that was mentioned in March. I foolishly decided to make a whole blanket - I have four four colour squares, each starting with a different one of the colours, and I'm making one of each 'pair' of colours (total of 12) to make a baby blanket. This is more than half complete, but I stopped carrying it as my go to project when I started making mistakes on one of the rows. 
plus one knitting project that I'm not detailing here. I'd love to have all of these done by the end of the year (I'll take the last one away with me in December, because it is fiddly but small)

What about you all? What are you working on? 

Thursday, October 15th, 2015 01:50 pm
UK and US crochet use different terms for most crochet stitches, and there is a lot of overlap in the actual words used. This can be confusing, especially for beginners (or people unaware of the duality).

Generally speaking, chain and slip stitch are the same US and UK, but other than that:

US single crochet (sc) = UK double crochet (dc)
US half double crochet (hdc) = UK half treble (htr)
US double crochet (dc) = UK treble crochet (tr)
US triple crochet (tr or trc) = UK double treble (dtr)

So then, how do you know? Heh.

this got sorta long )
Thursday, June 4th, 2015 03:04 pm
Hello all! I'm new to Dreamwidth, but not to crocheting :P

I've been working on the Coastal Ripple blanket by Attic21. I actually got the kit because, as a 'murrican that was weirdly the cheapest way to get all those skeins of Stylecraft DK. I'm really adoring those colors!

Pictures below!! )

~also crossposted to my personal journal~
Tuesday, March 10th, 2015 02:00 pm
I found this :

http://julieyeagerdesigns.com

Particularly this post :

http://julieyeagerdesigns.com/?p=245

Today is the first day of a clue for her CAL for the square "Fantastic!"

Anyone else following along? I think it's going to be interesting and I plan on starting a few tonight, when I get home from work.
Saturday, December 27th, 2014 06:53 pm
I've actually made a bunch of projects this year, but quite a few were repeats of things that I'd posted about before - the same hat, gloves and cowl for instance. But I've also tried a couple of new things. A Blanket and a Poncho.

I crocheted my sister a blanket. It was a set of simple large squares that were then made into strips and then the strips were sewn together and I crocheted around the outside. I used seven colours - for the squares - purple, maroon, green, turquoise, blue and yellow and for the outside of each square and the outside of the whole blanket a creamy colour.

Underneath the cut - pictures of the blanket and details of the second project - Poncho )

Overall I was pretty pleased with how they turned out. I've also made myself a blanket - when I get chance I'll take photos and load that up as well.
Sunday, September 28th, 2014 03:31 pm
Firstly, thanks for the answers to my questions about how big a skein was. I'm really pleased with the scrap afghan project which is almost finished - I hope to post a picture of the finished blanket later this week (or more likely next weekend) - I'm at the sewing together stage and then all that remains is the final border. It's been a challenge but fun.

I needed something to keep me occupied during an evening away from home and so I tried a cowl - my first ever. I've used Wendy Celtic Tweed effect Chunky yarn (shade 2767) which is like marroons and browns, crocheted with a 10mm hook. It was quick and easy bar one slight problem - hence my question. I'm intending making at least one more cowl and I'd like to see how to get it 'right'.

crocheted cowl


Clicking on the picture links to a larger picture of the same. The pattern starts with a large number of chains which are then slip stitched together and then continues in circles with no turning. Now my problem arose because I ended up with a twist in the initial change, that despite undoing and starting over, I didn't seem to be able to join up without getting another one in there.

Is there something obvious that I'm missing in joining without ending up with a twist? My other thought was to maybe turn at the end of the chains and go back along making my first row (which would make it easier to avoid the twist I think) and then joining and continuing in circles and when I've finished weaving the end of the chains in to close the lower gap, but I'm not sure that will work either.

The Pattern came from the Crochet in Color blog and was called Accidental Cowl.
Tags:
Sunday, August 24th, 2014 05:01 pm
[Content Note/Trigger Warning: Medical, Dental]

A friend of mine is undergoing dental surgery in a little while, and while Medicaid is covering the cost of the actual tooth removal, they apparently consider anesthesia to be "optional" for the procedure and are unlikely to cover it. They're asking for donations to help cover that cost.

I'm offering copies of my original patterns in return for donations of equal value. I'm also offering an advance copy of this Asian dragon pattern, which could definitely still use some editing, for a donation of, say, four dollars, USD? As little as one dollar if you agree to give me feedback on it ;) Also, if you see anything fannish at [community profile] hooked_on_anime_gallery that I don't have the pattern up at [personal profile] hooked_on_anime yet (plus anything fannish on my crochet tag), I'll work on getting that up for a donation of $10.

Anyway, if you're interested at all, you can find out more and/or donate here. Thanks for your time!
Friday, August 8th, 2014 08:25 pm
Just a quick question, I've got a pattern for a scrap afghan (actually a whole book of them) but it is a US book and while it gives equivalents for the stitch names and I've googled worsted weight and it says the nearest equivalent would be Double knitting what I don't seem able to discover is an approximate measure for 'skeins'.

The pattern is vague - the idea being to use up 'scraps' of wool, but it does say 'you will need 15 oz of the main colour and slightly less than a skein in these colours' but I can't figure out how much that will be to know whether I'll have anywhere near enough. Can anyone give me any clues or approximations? Thanks for any help.