April Blanket Installment Done

 Hi all -

I hope everyone is doing well! We continue to have our normal spring weather -- beautiful warm days alternating with snow storms. Our latest storm has just started and is supposed to result in another foot or so of snow overnight. We had about 8" of snow a couple of days ago, but most of that melted on the nice days we had in between. This has been a strange winter/spring in that, while we have been getting snow, it's been coming in such a way that I've only had to shovel the driveway once. Very unusual! My back is very grateful, especially since it's been pretty sore from taking care of Lance (my 16-year-old German Shepard mix).

I'm continuing to work on crochet projects. I got my April installment for my crochet blanket (Juni Throw designed by Katy Petersen) and was able to finish that part up in several hours:

Juni Throw

Juni Throw close-up

This time I was able to get an extra repeat out of the skein of yarn and ended with just about a yard of yarn left over. It's nice to get that extra yarn into the project and not have a lot left over! This throw is going to end up pretty heavy with the yarn used, so it should provide a lot of warmth next winter.

When the blanket was finished, I wanted to do some more crochet. I had a small amount of the old mauve acrylic yarn that I've been using up lately, so I looked at headband patterns since I knew I had enough yarn for one of those. I probably would have had enough yarn for a hat, but I wasn't sure and didn't have any comparable yarn to use to complete the project if I ran out of this yarn, so I decided to play it safe. I looked for a pattern that crocheted the headband in the round because I wanted more practice with doing crochet in the round. I started one pattern that had you crochet "in the round," but rather than crocheting in a single direction, you would crochet a row and connect it to the same row on the back, then you would reverse direction for the next row and do the same thing. (This was done to get the desired stitch pattern on the right side of the headband.) I thought this would be a really good pattern to try because it was an easy pattern, but the construction was weird so I could learn a lot from it. I didn't have any problem following the stitch pattern, but I didn't like how it looked at the back where I was doing the joining so I ripped it out and picked a different pattern. I will definitely try this pattern again sometime because I think I'm close to doing it right and I want to figure it out. So, instead, I found another in-the-round crochet headband pattern. This one was more classically constructed and was easier for me to understand. It's the Lee Headband designed by Katie Zastrow:

Lee Headband

I like how this turned out and I'm pleased that I was able to do the more complicated stitches. And it looked much better on the back where the rounds come together:

Lee Headband join close-up

This used up most of the old acrylic yarn so the remainder will just be used in my next scrap blanket.

I also spent a day organizing my little knitting/crochet kits. I have a lot of kits that have accumulated over the years from clubs that I've been a member of (the Jimmy Beans Wool accessory club, Laura Nelkin's "Lola's Choice" and "N Club" clubs, etc). I also have a bunch of kits that I bought from Craftsy/Bluprint over they years when they've had deep sales. These have all gone into a closet waiting for when I would have time to make them. Well, the time is at hand! I reorganized the kits in the closet and cleaned up my Ravelry account so that I can easily see what I have and easily find a kit that I want to work on. (Ravelry is a knitting/crochet Web site that allows you to keep track of the projects you are working on, the projects you will work on in the future, the yarn you have in your stash, the patterns you own and much, much more! And it's all free.....) While organizing I came across a couple of small kits that I bought on sale for just a couple of dollars each that I decided to whip out. The first is the Candy Cane Cowl. This cowl is knit flat, then you seam up the back to make the shape. I've finished the knitting and am currently blocking the cowl:

Candy Cane Cowl

Once it dries, I'll seam up the back. I think I'll also add a line of single crochet around the top and bottom of the cowl to hide where the different colors of yarn are carried between the stripes. I also started the Peaky Beanie:

Peaky Beanie

This picture shows the little bit of progress that I've made so far, but also shows all that was included in the kit. (The knitting needles weren't included, but were necessary for the picture ;-)

That's pretty much it for now. I'm really enjoying having time to work on all of this! Retirement is great!!

Nancy

Scarves

 Hi all -

Spring is definitely in the air! Where I live, this time of year we flip-flop between snow and beautiful spring days. We had another almost a foot of snow last Friday, and now the temperature at my house is 51F so most of the snow is gone. We're supposed to get more snow later this week. For now, I'm enjoying the sunshine! 

This week I mainly worked on a couple of scarves. I had purchased yarn last summer to make a crochet scarf that I had seen on "Knit and Crochet Now!" on PBS. You can get the patterns from the show for free from their Web site. The Web site is part of the Annie's Web site, so I ordered some yarn from them to "pay" for the pattern and for the things that I've learned from their show. They didn't have the yarn recommended in the pattern, but they had some pretty bright yarn of the same weight, so I ordered that. I started making that scarf (the Carnelian Stripe Scarf designed by Lena Skvagerson) this week:

Carnelian Stripe Scarf

I got the first set of rows done and it's going well now, but the start was quite a bear! I found the yarn to be very slick and to split very easily. When I put my hook in the back loop of the chain to make the first stitches, it would distort the neighboring chains. Then when I tried to find the next chain to work into, I couldn't figure out where to put my hook. I tried several times and couldn't get it to work, but then I figured out I could make the chain and then put removable stitch markers in the back loop of each of the chains where I would be making a stitch and the stitch marker would hold the chain in place until I made the stitches. That worked great! I didn't have enough stitch markers to put in all of the chains I would be using before I started, so I put in all of my stitch markers at the beginning of the chain and then would move the markers after working in about 5 or 6 chains until I had all of the chains set up. Because of the way this pattern is worked, the slipperiness of the yarn won't cause problems for the rest of the pattern and I'll just have to be careful about not splitting the yarn as I work. After finishing a row of each of the colors, I decided to put this project aside for a couple of weeks. The Grocery Girls podcast is having a "granny square-along" starting next month and this scarf uses the stitch you use for granny squares so I think it will count for the crochet-along. Since there are prizes available in the crochet-along and the timing works so well, I might as well wait until that starts before finishing this project. I probably won't win anything, but it's always worth a try!

When I put this aside, I decided to try another crochet scarf using the same yarn. I wanted to get a feel for whether the problems I was having were because of the yarn or because of my inexperience with crocheting. I tried starting the Crazy for Cables Scarf designed by Amy D. Brewer. I used the same trick with the stitch markers in the starting chain and that worked well again. But as I got into the pattern, I got confused about where I should be making my stitches. I decided to rip this out and try again some other time, using some yarn that works better for me. Reducing the problems will help me figure things out, but I'll do that at some later time.

But I really wanted to get a handle on how usable this yarn I bought from Annie's will be. So I decided to work on a knit scarf. Since I'm much better at knitting than at crochet, this will give me a better feel for this yarn. So I made the Leaf of Life Knit Scarf designed by Lena Skvagerson:

Leaf of Life Knit Scarf

I had a much better time knitting with this yarn than crocheting with it! It was easier to control the splitting because I'm better at knitting; and the slickness of the yarn didn't bother me because the knitting needles keep the neighboring stitches in place. The result was a really soft and spongy scarf that I think will be a wonderful Christmas present for a family member! Once I finish the first scarf, I'll play around with knitting some of the colors in the other scarf to see how they hold up to knitting. As I've learned from sewing and other crafts, different color dyes affect thread, yarn, etc in different ways. The darker yarn I used for this scarf feels a little less slick than the other colors so that might be part of what made this yarn better. I think the other colors will still work well with knitting, but I need to try it to see for sure.

Finally, I pulled out my Chronos necklace, designed by Laura Nelkin and finished that project:

Chronos

Chronos close-up

I had put this project aside after creating the medallion because I had to dig out a very small double-pointed knitting needle to make the start for the strap as neat as possible and I never got around to finding that. But I knew this would be a quick project to finish and if I finished it by last weekend then I could use it to get another chance to win the big prize for Laura Nelkin's knit-along. The big prize is a set of wonderful knitting needles that I would like to win, but there are a lot of entries so my chances are pretty slim. But it worth a try!!

That's it for this week. I hope everyone is doing well!!

Nancy

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