Posts filed under 'crochet'
I’ve decided to do a handmade Christmas. Well, mostly. There are a few things I want to get that aren’t handmade, but everyone will be getting at least something that I made. I better get on that.
I can’t exactly describe everything since some of my recipients read this, but it will be a combination of jewelry, sewn stuff, and knitted/crocheted goods. Speaking of sewing - I went to Joann’s saturday for fabric for a gift project and was vastly disappointed by their selection. I was basically looking for some novelty/calico print cottons. I didn’t see anything I really wanted and I’m not paying $5/yd for stuff I don’t really like. I’d rather drop the $9/10 yd on Amy Butler stuff. I guess I will hit up the land of evil to see if they have anything better. I also can’t find a lint comb anywhere!
Saturday I made this cute hat. Excuse the crappy cell phone pic, the real color is much nicer. It’s crocheted with Lion Brand Thick & Quick Woolease. I’m not a fan of acrylic blends but I loved the color. Mustard yellow is my new obsession. This probably took about an hour to do. I am planning on making another one for a gift and if I actually do it I will write up the pattern. In the meantime I need to get knitting.
Anyone have tips for knitting with elastic for yarns that don’t have much inherent elasticity? I’m trying to do a beret with bamboo and it’s not working out. I’m sure the drapey part will look great though. I bought some sewing elastic and I’m going to give knitting with that a try.
December 3rd, 2007
I mentioned recently that I was making some pasties and a lot of my readers were curious as to why and who was I making the pasties for. Well here they are.
I made these as a gift for my friend Christina’s bridal shower. She really enjoyed them.
The pastie is crocheted using pearl cotton and small steel hook. I forget what size. I just made a basic circle doing some non-increasing rows so that it would be slightly cupped. Then I sewed on the lace and beads at the same time. At this point I wondered exactly why I was hand beading a gag gift. At least it looked nice. I made tassels out of a skein of DMC embroidery thread and sewed them on. Voila! Pasties.
Christina enjoyed them and even modeled them for the guests.
September 12th, 2007
I tried my hand at crocheting jewelry this week. At first I was trying to crochet onto some hoops but that wasn’t going well, so I ended up just freeform crocheting. My initial attempts were using 99cent 32ga wire from the crafts store, which gave me an idea of what stitches and hooks to use. Then my 
sterling silver dead soft 30ga wire arrived on monday. I also bought some (too expensive) pink tourmaline beads at the bead shop.
Here is the final product. The box is about 4″ square to give you an idea of scale. I used a G hook and prestrung my beads. I really like the organic feel of crocheted wire, and since you can only buy sterling silver wire in 1 oz spools (I got mine from artbeads.com) I still have plenty more wire (and beads!) to play with.
These are a gift for a friend who told me that I should make Lorene originals rather than copying some stuff I saw in a jewelry shop. Although the necklace I liked was $5000! And, yes I am still planning on making my own version of it.
May 17th, 2007
My friend Amanda’s birthday was this week and I needed to send something off for her so I decided to make her a necklace. She broke her arm a few months ago so I decided to make her an agate necklace. One of the metaphysical properties of agate is healing. I got 2 stands of 4mm beads and on of 8mm beads. I’ve made necklaces before, but after the amazing bead flying incident at fuzzy’s bbq last week I wanted to try out knotting.
The smaller bead section is knotted between every 8 beads. The large bead secion has knots between every 3 beads. I used a bead awl so the knotting was pretty simple to do, but I’m surprised I don’t have a blister on my left index finger. Altogether the necklace is about 49″ long. So it can be single, double or triple wrapped.
I also made up a little pouchette for the necklace. Healing stones made me think of the little crochet bags my mom used to make when I was younger. I used to have a collection of stones I carried in the pouch around my neck. I decided to do a simpler version (my moms had patterns) with #3 pearl cotton. I used a 0 crochet hook and double crochet so it went rather quickly.
I’m sending her the necklace with a wee baggie of sea salt for purification. I hope she likes it.
August 28th, 2006
I’ve been doing mini projects at home lately. I sent some stuff out as a gift so I couldn’t post it, but I think it should have been received by now so…
The turquoise trio..knit and crocheted with knit picks shine sport
There’s a little headband with a crocheted flower, some baby ballet slippers, and a cable knit wristband (with a nod to Heidi for the idea). I love the Icord fastener on this. I got that from Knitting Over the Edge. And I made all three while watching a Yankees game.
Now on to Aunt Flo’s Bag…yes that’s another tampon holder. This one is a bit fancier. It’s knit with knit picks shine worsted. The final verision has a shiny black dome button too.
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the front
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the back
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the inside
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June 19th, 2006
So I got most of my Christmas stuff done. And thankfully the rest I don’t need to finish until next weekend.
So first up is a skein of hand painted yarn for my sister. It’s Lamb’s Pride worsted that I painted using Washfast dye in Magenta and Black. I am so unscientific when I dye..I pretty much eyeball everything but I love the way this came out. I used the leftover dye to paint some roving as well. Now I need to find time to spin that up!
Next up is a Panta for my other sister. The pattern is on craftster.org somewhere. I used Lamb’s Pride worsted and size 8 needles. I also only did 5 repeats.
Last up is a scarf I made for my Grandma in Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk - Orange. I used 3 skeins. I forget what the stitch is called.
December 27th, 2005
I picked up some cheapy yarn at AC Moore’s yarn party. I also got a Lion brand pompom maker set. Yes I know how to make them from scratch, but this was like $2 and then I won’t have to make one everytime.
So then I made a striped hat with a pom-pom that my mom thinks is too small. Then I came home and made a pom-pom for my kitten. I hung it in a doorway and she’s having great fun batting it around.
October 3rd, 2005
I was trying to make a waffle stitch beanie using alternating dc and fpdc but it’s huge pain in the ass to try to do it when you are doing the increases at the top. So I did that using straight dc and then started using the waffle stitch on the non increasing rows. Well..after a few rows I realized it is still a bit of a pain to do and that you couldn’t really see the waffle very well with this yarn. However on the other side the rib was looking really nice. At that point I was bored of the rib/waffle and switched back to regular dc for awhile and then ran out of yarn. I’m using the leftover grey Caron Simply Soft from the Orange/Grey fade beanie. Which was wound into 3 balls. So when I picked up the next ball I decided the ribs would look cute with some beads between them but I didn’t have enough to go in each space. So anyway..I think it came out pretty cute and I’m going to try the waffle again with a bit bigger yarn and hook.
October 1st, 2005
Some cute Amigurmi Animal Patterns
September 23rd, 2005
Crocheted Brimmed Hat
must make this at some point
August 16th, 2005
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