Continuing to Improve My Crochet

 Hi all -

Spring is definitely in the air! We had snow and cold early in the week, but now we are looking at some nice 50-60 degree days. I'm loving the change! 

This week I've continued to work on improving my crochet skills and my understanding of the patterns. My first project was a couple of Easy Breezy Dishtowels designed by Allison Rusterholz:

Easy Breezy Dishtowels

These were the March 2023 crochet projects for the Jimmy Beans Wool Accessory Club. I love this club because you get the yarn for a new project each month along with a knit pattern and a crochet pattern so you can pick your craft (or, if you don't like the accessory, save the yarn for something else). It's fun to get the surprise in the mail and the projects are quick to complete. 

Easy Breezy Dishtowel

This was a simple disk towel to crochet. It was good practice for seeing which stitches are the first and last stitches of each row. If you get mixed up on seeing the stitches, the dish towel will be skewed. It was mostly made of single crochet stitches, but the accent color row was a more complicated stitch so it was good practice for stitches, too. If I make any more of these dish towels, I'll make the towels a bit longer. This pattern was designed to allow you to get two dish towels out of the provided yarn, so the towels were a bit short. It's also good to have different cotton yarns to try for dish towels and dishcloths so I can decide which yarns I like the best in the kitchen. The different yarns feel different and absorb water and wring out differently. I like making things like this for gifts, since I think people find them pretty and useful.

The next project I worked on was the Basic Beanie designed by Stacey Trock:

Basic Beanie

This is one of the projects from the Craftsy "Crocheting in the Round: Mix & Match Hats" class that I purchased years ago. I've been watching my crochet classes in my spare time to help with my learning. I made this out of some very old (1990's) cheap acrylic yarn that I purchased back then for a simple crochet afghan that a friend showed me how to make. (The ball band still had the price tag on it -- $1.27 per skein. ) I hadn't gotten very far before I got side-tracked, then when I got back to the project I had lost touch with the friend and couldn't remember what I was doing so I ended up ripping it out. I've been trying to use up this yarn for several years now. I used the last of the pink yarn in the hat and just had a skein of the mauve left when I finished this hat. I think the pink ran out at just the right place for the design! You can wear the hat as is for a slouchy look, or you can turn up the brim for a more fitted look:

Basic Beanie with brim turned up

Although the yarn was pretty stiff and kind of yucky to work with, the hat is softer and warm.

To continue my learning and to use up more of the acrylic yarn, I next decided to work on a headband. I found a pattern that I thought would be easy, but I ended up having trouble with the construction. The hat was easy to make -- you start at the top with a small circle and then just crochet in a spiral until you are done (making increases in the top of the hat to get the shaping). The headband I found had you start at the center of the back and crochet around until you get back to the center back. At that point, you would connect the two sides, but then would turn the work and go back around in the other direction. This was done to get the desired stitch pattern. I tried to follow the pattern and connect things, but my connection at the back looked really bad so I ended up ripping out the project and I'll try it again some other time. I'm not sure if the problem was my yarn or my lack of crochet proficiency, but both will be improved in the future!

Instead of the headband, I decided to work on a small basket and I found a free pattern for the Hanging Nest Basket from Amanda Corvello Designs:

Hanging Nest Basket

This is a small basket designed to hang on the wall to hold small things like scissors by the sewing machine or sunglasses by the door. I figured this would be a good project for the acrylic yarn since it's stiffer like the cotton yarn you would normally use for baskets and I want to get it used up. The crocheting was a bit fiddly since this yarn splits evenly, but I think the basket turned out pretty well. I still have a half skein of the mauve acrylic yarn to use up, so I'm getting really close to finishing that off!

Finally, to get a break from crochet and from the acrylic yarn, I did a little work on my After the Storm Cardigan designed by Kelly Fowler. I started working on this sweater last summer, but put it aside recently to work on some smaller projects, so it was nice to get it out again. I was in the middle of the ribbing at the bottom of the body so I finished up the ribbing and bound off the body:

After the Storm Cardigan front

After the Storm Cardigan back

It doesn't look much different than last time I shared, but it was a good deal of work. The 1x1 ribbing used takes a bit of time, but the bind off took forever! The pattern suggested a bind off that I'd never tried before -- a ribbed sewn bind off. This bind off is sewn with a darning needle rather than knit. It's designed specifically to be used with 1x1 ribbing. For the knitters out there, it's just like doing a Kitchener stitch, but you just have one fabric. It produced a nice, stretchy edging, but it took forever. Most of the time was spent managing the long piece of yarn I used for the sewing. You need to have a long enough piece of yarn to finish the bind off since it would be difficult to add yarn in the middle of the bind off. Since this is the bottom of a sweater with 10" positive ease made for a larger person, that was a long piece of yarn. Running that yarn through so many stitches roughed up the yarn a lot and it would twist and tangle quite a bit during the stitching. Although the yarn was quite worn, it seemed to keep its integrity, so I think the bind off will hold up just fine with time now that it's done. I don't know if I would use this bind off again for such a long edge. 

Well, that's everything for this week. My niece is traveling from Seattle to Kansas City, so we're going to spend the day together in Denver tomorrow. Lance's lack of mobility (he's 16 now and has a neurological problem with his back legs that makes it difficult for him to walk) means that we can't travel except to visit the vet every other week for acupuncture. So I haven't seen my family since the beginning of January last year. So I'm really looking forward to seeing her! 

Nancy

Mo' Better Cowl Finished

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! We keep moving on towards spring here, with some warm days and some cold, snowy days. I live at a fairly high elevation, so we'll continue to have snow on the ground for a couple more months. I look forward to the snow melting on my deck and being able to sit out there and enjoy my view! But we always need water up here so I welcome any snow that wants to come our way!!

I haven't done much crafting since my last post. But I have been productive in other ways, like finishing my taxes (yuck!). Just not much crafting. The main thing I worked on was my Mo' Better Cowl designed by Aunt Ninny. I was able to finish this cowl:

Mo' Better Cowl

I'm really pleased with how this turned out! I was careful to stop knitting at a point in the yarn that allowed me to match up the color sequence from the end back to the beginning, so, after grafting the ends together, it's extremely difficult to find the grafting line. This cowl is really soft and airy, but I think it will also provide a lot of warmth.

The only other thing I've been working on is my Bountiful Bouquet embroidery:

Bountiful Bouquet

I'm pretty close to having the stem stitching of the outlines finished. Then I'll have to decide how I will use this panel so I can decide whether to add embellishment stitches or leave it the way it is.

That's it for this time. I hope to have more to share next time!

Nancy

Crochet Blanket Progress

 Hi all -

Spring is here! I hope everyone is well and enjoying some warmer weather! I've been enjoying the last vestiges of college basketball -- March Madness. Sadly, Kansas was eliminated in the second round. It was an incredible game, well-played on both sides, and Kansas just couldn't eek it out. But there's still more incredible basketball ahead and there are a couple other Big 12 teams that have made it to the next round, so I have some teams to root for!

I've made good progress on my crochet blanket -- the Juni Throw designed by Kati Petersen. This is the Jimmy Beans Wool 2023 Blanket Club project. Each month, for a small fee, we get a skein of yarn and another section of the pattern. I was able to fix my mistake in the January section and then finish the blanket through the March section:

Juni Throw

Juni Throw -- January section

Juni Throw -- February section

Juni Throw -- March section

This has been a wonderful project! I'm getting much better at figuring out the pattern and figuring out where each stitch goes. I look forward to next month's installment and hope to work on some smaller projects while I wait.

I've also continued to work on my Mo' Better Cowl designed by Aunt Ninny:

Mo' Better Cowl

This yarn is so soft and I know I'll really love the final product!!

Finally, I finished my Aquifer designed by Laura Nelkin:

Aquifer

This is a really long scarf:

Aquifer -- length

Because of the length, it took a lot longer than I expected to finish the edging around the perimeter. But I really love how it turned out!

Aquifer -- detail

This is another lovely light and soft yarn! I really love this scarf!!

That's all of my projects for this time. I've also watched several of my Craftsy classes and there are just so many more things that I want to work on! Even in retirement, there are never enough hours in the day!!

Nancy

Crochet Blanket Started

 Hi all -

For some reason, last week really flew by! Part of it was probably the Big 12 tournament. Without work, I was able to watch every game! And every game was exciting!! Kansas made it into the final, but was beat by Texas in the last game. But it didn't affect their bid for March Madness -- they are still one of the number 1 seeds for that tournament. That fun starts this week! I did get my new back-up disks set up and my first set of backups made so I'm ready to use my new computer operationally. The next big task is to do my taxes. Yuck! This will be the most complicated return I've had to fill out since Google has several compensation methods, but it should be my last complicated return so I just have to get this one over with.

On the project front, I started my crochet blanket project. One of my goals during retirement is to learn to crochet. I've done a little crochet in the past, making a couple of projects from a Craftsy class, but that was several years ago and something like three small, simple patterns so nothing stuck. Jimmy Beans Wool has a blanket club each year where you can make a knit or crochet blanket through the year. For about $25 per month, you get a skein of yarn and another piece of the pattern and by the end of the year you have a blanket made. I liked the crochet blanket (it's not a mystery club so you can see the blanket before you buy it) and I figured that doing all of the stitches each month required for a blanket would be a good way to become semi-proficient with crochet. The crochet pattern is the Juni Throw designed by Katy Petersen. It's one of those classic wave patterns, using different stitches each month. I watched a couple of beginning crochet classes from Craftsy to remind myself of how to do things and then got started on the first month. I started by making a gauge swatch:

Juni Throw gauge swatch

A gauge swatch is a little thing that you stitch up to make sure that your stitches are the same size as the ones the designer made when writing the pattern. You want to try to make your stitches match the stitches of the designer so that your final project is what you expect. If your stitches are too small then you could end up with a blanket that doesn't cover your lap. If your stitches are too big, you will get a bigger blanket, but you could run out of yarn before you can finish it. When you make the gauge swatch, you compare your stitches to the designer's and can then use a bigger or smaller hook to adjust your stitch size. I used a slightly smaller hook than the one suggested in the pattern. I don't normally check gauge for smaller projects and for things that aren't worn, but thought it would be a good idea to check it for my first big crochet project. Once I had gauge I was ready to start on January's skein and pattern. Here's what I have so far:

Juni Throw progress

I was moving along really well (I thought), but when I got to the end of my latest row I was one stitch short of what I should have so I will need to pull out stitches until I figure out where I made my mistake and then start over from there. But I'm learning a lot and it's getting easier, so it's all good! Here's a close up of what the stitches for this month look like:

Juni Throw close-up

I think the stitches are looking good so far and I'm excited to make progress on this. I have the February skein and pattern ready to go when I get January finished and the March installment should arrive today. I'm hoping to catch up on these and then work on this each month when the new installment arrives.

Before starting to work on my crochet blanket, I was doing some organization and ran across a fairly large leftover ball of colorful yarn and decided I should make something from it. I picked the Lemme Hat designed by Laura Nelkin:

Lemme Hat

I was a bit afraid that the colors would hide the texture of the knitting, but I think it looks pretty good. There still is a good amount of this yarn left, but not enough for another hat so I'll be saving it for either a scrap blanket or maybe some colorwork. Color changing yarn like this is fun in colorwork because you get an interesting shift in the colors without having to keep changing yarns (which also means more ends to weave in).

Finally, I also started a simple knitting pattern that I think will be a good thing to work on while watching basketball games. It's the Mo' Better Cowl designed by Aunt Ninny:

Mo' Better Cowl

This is a really simple pattern where you just knit around in a circle and then graft the ends together so you end up with a cowl that is a complete circle. The yarn was another skein that was languishing in my stash. It's really light and fluffy and has a green sparkle twisted with the yarn. I don't know if you can see the sparkle in the picture, but it's subtle and fun. This yarn is a bit more difficult to knit with because it splits easily and has an uneven thickness, but it really is beautiful when it is knit up!

That's everything I've been working on. I'm still getting used to retirement, but I think I really like it! I just have to get used to not having that regular paycheck and I have to figure out what I can afford to spend and what I have to give up. But I'll get that figured out with time. Until then, I'll enjoy March Madness and the glimpses of nice spring weather we're starting to see!

Nancy

New Computer

 Hi all -

Sorry for the delay in posting. I spent a bunch of time moving files from my very, very old Windows laptop to my new Mac. There's a utility that is supposed to copy the files from the Windows computer to the Mac for you, but it didn't work for me, probably because my Windows box is so old that the OS is no longer supported. So I got out my external disks and copied the files by hand. I also ordered some new backup disks for the Mac since I can't write to my Windows disks from the Mac and I don't want to reformat the disks and lose the Windows backups, just in case I need something after I get rid of the Windows box. Then, just to add to the fun, my internet went out for 2 days so I couldn't continue with the computer work. I still need to format the new external drives and do the initial Mac backups, but I'm saving that fun for later. Now I'm still figuring out where to put everything and I'm writing my first blog post using the Mac. It'll take a while to figure out what works best for me on the Mac, but I'm getting there.

One of the fun things that I ran across while transferring files was my downloads of all of my Craftsy classes. I copied a bunch of those to my Mac and tested watching one and everything seems good so one of the things that I'm going to do during my retirement is watch my Craftsy classes and do some of the projects. I also have over a year of shows from The Quilt Show that I haven't watched yet, so I'm looking forward to a lot of inspiration in the coming years!!

But on to my crafting... I did actually get some things done!

First, with the other projects that I've finished recently and the leftover yarn that I've come across while cleaning things up, I had more than enough scripts to finish my Habitation Throw designed by Helen Stewart:

Habitation Throw

I really love how this blanket turned out! It's ugly with all of the different colors, but I love the spongy feel of the yarn and it's the perfect warmth for me. And I love seeing all of these scraps finding a good use!!

Just for fun, I also started (and finished) a new project. I wanted to make something simple and quick so I found some beautiful yarn in my stash and found a pattern. What I chose was the Willow Cowl designed by Amelia Lyon:

Willow Cowl flat

This is a simple knit using only knit, knit 2 together and yarn over stitches, but the result is lovely! There's more variation in the colors that what the pictures show. When worn, the lace sections are wider than the stockinette sections, so they puff out and the cowl lies really nicely:

Willow Cowl as worn

The yarn is a light fingering weight so the cowl is really light, and it is so soft! I think it will be perfect on those spring days when it's not quite long-sleeve T-shirt weather, but is close.

That's about all I have for now. I hope everyone is doing well!!

Nancy

Figuring Things Out

 Hi all -

I've finished my second week of retirement and I'm still figuring things out. I'm going to try to post regularly, once a week, but I haven't figured out which day is the best day for posting so I might be a bit erratic until I figure that out. Before I get started on my projects, I have to say: Congratulations, Chiefs! What a great Super Bowl game!! Now I can concentrate on cheering on my Kansas Jayhawks basketball team. March Madness is getting closer and closer!!

I didn't accomplish as much as I had hoped this week, but it was still a good week. I've been getting some discomfort in my right collar bone and elbow from helping Lance get around so I'm trying to be careful not to aggravate that. Helping Lance is my number 1 priority! And, in case you were worried about it, I did get my chest freezer defrosted and cleaned out. Great to get that done! ;)

I did a little sewing this week, but nothing worth taking a picture of. Lance wears a diaper every night so that I can sleep. Before I started putting a diaper on him, I would wake up any time I heard any movement downstairs in case he needed help getting outside so I wouldn't have a mess to clean up in the morning. The diapers work well, but the stitching was coming out so I reinforced the stitching on all of the diapers so they won't fall apart. Not an exciting project, but it was actually kind of fun to do.

I also continued to work on my After the Storm Cardigan designed by Kelly Fowler:

After the Storm Cardigan front

After the Storm Cardigan back

I've finished the main body and am about half way done with the ribbing. As before, the color is a darker brown that appears in the picture. My pictures of this sweater keep getting washed out.

In my normal "squirrel" fashion, I also started a couple of new projects. Some time ago (last year? the year before?), I purchased a couple of kits for the Simply Soft Hat designed by Amanda Kaffka. I purchased the "Sew Good" version of the hat. This is the version of the pattern with the embroidery. I finished one of the hats:

Simply Soft Hat - Sew Good version 1

I did the knitting for the other hat and still have to do the embroidery:

Simply Soft Hat - Sew Good version 2

The second hat came with black yarn for the embroidery. I'm trying to decide if I want to use the general embroidery design from the pattern for the second hat or if I want to try changing it up a bit. I'm also thinking about looking through my beads to see if I have some bigger beads that I might be able to use in place of the french knots. I think that would be kind of fun!

Finally, I wanted to share a piece of embroidery I've been working on. The design is Bountiful Bouquet designed by Alex Anderson:

Bountiful Bouquet

I've been plugging away at this since last fall, but didn't get a picture of it until now. I'm hoping to make faster progress on this now. I bought this as a kit from The Quilt Show. It came with the printed panel, a collection of embroidery floss, needles and thread conditioner. I've added in embroidery floss from my own collection. I like the colors of the embroidery floss that came with the kit -- the colors are rich and there are beautiful variations in the color along the length of the thread. But the thread is a bit weak and, while I don't have any problems with the thread breaking, pulling the thread through the fabric causes the thread to get a bit hairy so the lines created with this thread aren't as crisp as the lines that I get from my other threads. You can see this best in the little purple flowers. The darker flowers that are closer to the center are using the kit thread while the lighter purple flowers that are further away from the center are using some other threads. I think that the other threads look cleaner. But in the end, it'll all look good and you won't see those little nit-picky things!

That's everything for this week. We had a couple of very windy days which ended up taking out the power yesterday, but today is nice and calm. That wind was bringing in a storm that should get here tonight and bring us some good snow tomorrow. At least, I hope it brings some good snow! We can always use the moisture!

Hope everyone is doing well!

Nancy

Super Bowl Sunday

 Hi all -

Happy Super Bowl Sunday! I loaded up on snacks and am ready to cheer the Kansas City Chiefs to victory!! I'm still getting used to the idea of retirement and working on my schedule. I spent a lot of time in the car and at the vet this week since Buttercup (one of the cats) had dental work on Monday and Lance had his bi-weekly acupuncture on Tuesday. I was a bit worried about Lance before the acupuncture because he seemed to be having a harder time getting around and was turning in circles a lot when he walked, but he seems to be back to normal after the acupuncture. It's amazing how healthy the rest of him can remain while his back legs deteriorate! And he remains the sweetest dog around!!

I don't have a lot of projects to share this week. I did continue to work on my Aquifer scarf designed by Laura Nelkin:

Aquifer

Aquifer close-up

I've finished the body of the scarf and now just need to add the ends. The ends use some kind of crochet stitch so I'll have to watch the video to figure out how to do this. I'll try to get a better close-up picture when I finish the scarf. It's hard to see the beaded section in this picture.

The other project I've been working on is my After the Storm Cardigan designed by Kelly Fowler:

After the Storm Cardigan front

After the Storm Cardigan back

I've made some good progress on this cardigan. The colors in the picture of the front are closest to true. This is a lot of knitting since it's sport weight yarn and an oversized cardigan, but it's pretty simple knitting so I'll probably spend some time on this project during the Super Bowl. I'd really like to get this one finished!

Winter is still here, but it's more tolerable now that the days are getting noticeably longer. It was still light at my house at 6pm last night. Crazy! It also got up to 50 degrees F yesterday, but it's supposed to get back down in the teens next week. That'll give me a chance to defrost the chest freezer since I'll be able to put the food outside while it melts and I clean it up.

Nancy