2 Completed Dishcloths!

Well I had fun making these. One came from a new pattern, using a technique/style/stitch I'd employed before, and the other was a completely new style to me, but had been employed in the Krista throw rug, which is where I snaffled the pattern. 

This one's nice, and is the pattern that I shared on Friday ( from Mon Petit Violon pattern here ). It's a repeated shell motive (sort of), and I've shared a block using this motif from 200 Squares from Jan Eaton.

I like the texture of it, and hopefully I've sewn it tight enough that it wont stretch too much. I've also done a tight dc border to help with this too.

What I found a bit odd was that the cloth wanted to 'buck'.

You can see here that the edges are neat, but the centre is rippled slightly. I'd usually say this is a tension issue, but it started in the first row. Anyway, I like it, and no one's going to notice that it's slightly rippled after it's been used to clean dishes :)

The second one shows the pattern from Week 12 in the Krista rug.

Isn't it nice! And I decided to tackle it (at 10:30pm last night, why I have no idea) because I thought it would make a good dishcloth :) It's also got a dc border, gone around twice actually.

This is worked in the diagonal, which I've not much practice in, so it was really interesting to watch it come together. I LOVE the texture and the way that the blocks change direction!

I'm hoping to whip up another tonight, and do up a few coasters before I send this off on Tuesday :)

Dishcloth yarn of choice

So, this weekend's Dishcloth Yarn of Choice is...

Panda Cotton Blend 8ply

Comes in such a nice variety of colours.

(you'll have to excuse the anemic look of the turquoise ball in the top right hand corner: I'm afraid it had already been sacrificed to the dishcloth!)

Dishcloths

Time to make some dishcloths.

Fathers' Day is next Sunday here, and I'll need to get something into the post for my Dad by Tuesday. So, out with the cotton yarn tomorrow and I'll (try) to whip up some dishcloths. (Try, since I'm never very fast at crocheting anything, and tend to be a little distractable... !!! )

I like the look of this one:

(from Mon Petit Violon )

Isn't it nice! I found it on Ravelry and followed the free pattern link to the blog, Mon Petit Violon which looks lovely :) The pattern seems to be a simple shell repeated, so with some concentration, I should get it done.

What do you think about a pot holder to go with it?

Apologies

I must apologise to you, my loyal followers. I haven't posted anything in almost 10 days.

Last week I spent ALL WEEK finishing up my first multi-piece Amigurumi. I would share it with you, but it is a present, and I would like it to get to its destination before I do. However, it is AWESOME. So, you know, be prepared.

Also, due to some redefined working hours, I will have EXTRA crochet time starting from next week. I'm hoping not for too long, but there will be extra crochet time (ECT) for at least the next few weeks. I'm hoping to have extra projects to share!!

I would like to start producing little amigurumi's to sell as well, so here's hoping!

From tomorrow, back to a post-a-day I am hoping :)

Another spiral coaster...

Whipped up another spiral coaster..

I just love these!

This one I made with 4ply cotton (red) along with the thicker 4ply cotton (white) that I used for the overlay stitches. 

It did buck up i the middle like the previous coaster I made in acrylic, but I was able to pull this one into shape much better. 

Free Pattern: Sprial Coasters

Ahhhhhh...

Well, I had fun doing this last night. Let's start with the pattern.

Thanks to CCC (The Creative Crochet Crew)I found Spiral Coasters/PotHolders by Made In K Town sometime during the week. And how lovely, there's a FREE PATTERN for them :)

How CUTE are these!!!

Now, these are worked in a spiral. I learned how to spiral last weekend, and showed you my effort yesterday. But something ELSE is new to me, and that's the white overlay/surface stitches that she's crocheted onto the coaster. This is me, when I found out about these a few weeks ago:

O.O .... <_< ..... >_> ...... O.o

Happily for me, this pattern explains it SUPER EASY and once you understand how you over-crochet the surface stitches, it becomes really clear.

For my first coaster, I used Panda Magnum, one of the balls I picked up at Lincraft earlier in the week. See how LOVELY a colour it is!!! I love purple :) This is a beautiful eggplant-purple as well, which just makes me want to buy LOTS of balls in this colour and make all the things!! For the white stitches, I've used a ball of 4ply cotton that I have in my stash, that's a little thicker than all my other balls of cotton, so it's hard to use in combination with other cotton colours. Perfect to use in something like this however.

Was really happy with how it turned out, but look at something that I noticed after I finished the surface stitches...

WHOOPS! It's become a cute little hat! The cotton obviously worked up tighter than the acrylic of the Panda Magnum, and it's pulled the coaster inwards, creating a curve.

I simply worked at it, stretching it out a little, and its doing just fine now. It's a little curvy towards the edges now, and I think that's simply a results of the acrylic/cotton combination. I expect it will work itself out as I use it as my new tea coaster.

Think I might do a post on surface stitches: would anyone like a paragraph or two with pictures on that?

Learning how to Spiral....

Spiral crochet has begun to pop up around my field of vision. You spiral amigurumi patterns, cute beanies can be spiraled, and coasters can be spiraled.

I love coasters, I'm learning how to follow amigurumi patterns, and making a hat is on my List Of Things To Learn. So, obviously I'm going to have to learn how to spiral crochet.

Think I could find this easily? Nope. Not on my first search of Ravelry.com. I found some nice projects, and a few patterns. But then I realised "Hey, I got that book out of the library once" when I saw a project based on a piece in "201 Crochet..." and THEN I thought "Oh Wow, I bet Jan Eaton talks about it in her "300 Crochet Techniques"!

And sure enough, she had :)

Not the best attempt, but still, a spiral :)

It's slightly curved at the edges, like I'm making a HAT, but you can't see it in the photo. Still, I guess if I kept going it will work itself out.

The trick is to start with a dc, then a htr, then work tr's around. Start off small, and increase slightly.

Going to attempt a cute coaster I've found later...

Crocheting & Olypmic-watching...

OK, so I have this fantasy that I'll sit down and crochet the WHOLE NIGHT whilst watching the Olympics.

Except, it doesn't really work that way, does it. I get distracted and end up completely fixated on the TV screen and forget the crochet I'm supposed to be doing.

I have a bit of an extra push to work on two things this week, both of which doesn't seem to be happening that much. I really want to finish the little bunny amigurumi ASAP since it's my nephew's birthday next week and I want to post it off. And I want to finish off (or at least get it all joined) the green hexagon rug for my friend. (She's having a bit more intimate time with a hospital and a radiotherapy gun...)

So we'll see how I'm doing over the weekend. I know it's only Thursday, but there are plans :)

Anyone else getting completely distracted by things on the box? Like, oh I don't know, the AWESOME BMX or the rhinestone-blinding-glittering Rhythmic Gymnastics??

Just me, huh? ;-)

hmmmm yarn

Oh dear.

I dropped by Lincraft yesterday evening on the way home from work and bought MORE YARN.

I think I must admit I have a yarn buying problem. Then again, maybe not so much of a big problem: I don't buy 30 balls at once for a project, then go out a month later and buy another 30. That would be bad - I have NO WHERE to store all that!!

I bought three balls of an acrylic to work up the amigurumi I'm working on in a different ply & hook size. Then I bought a ball of CHUNKY yarn to experiment with (hoping to share the results later in the week). I also bought my first ball of Panda Magnum in a delicious plum colour. NO idea what I'll use it for, but it's just looooovely.

Crochet = Healthy!!

No, really.

After posting yesterday about those really comfy awesome looking crochet pods, I spied this article:

Can Crochet Improve Your Immune System?

It's an except from a book called Crochet Saved My Life, and I found the article on Crochet Concupiscence.

It talks about how the immune system suffers under stress, and how crochet can help relieve that stress.

As frustrating as I can find crochet sometimes, I do find crochet very restful and UNstressful, especially when just making something simple that you don't have to follow a complicated pattern to complete.

How about you? Do you find crochet reduces your stress?

Crocheted Nets

Oh boy, I just LOVE the idea of these:

Found over on Crochet Concupiscence they are part of an installation in New York (follow the link for more details)

Working hard...

I've spent the afternoon working on my amigurumi bunny for my nephew. He's ONE this month, and very cute. I loved my bunny that I got when I was two, so I figure he might like a bunny a bit younger :)

But, I don't know. I've worked it using two strands of a 4ply cotton and it seems awfully hard and rigid. And I'm going to run out of cotton and I really don't want to because I can't go buy more till the end of the week, and I want to finish it this week.

So, I undid my bunny body, after struggling with it all afternoon. Then I worked it up in about 2 hours using the single strand. SO MUCH EASIER. Now I'm worried he'll be too loosey-goosey.

...

I'm hopeless. I'm going to try and find some happy soft thicker acrylic on the way home from work this week.

Some Flowers...

My Mum likes sending my things she finds in magazines. I like getting letters, so she's always sending across articles about the town I live in (becoming quite a little foodie town & it's a popular town to write articles about), and every now and then something arty. This week she sent me something great: it's a single page from a Better Homes & Garden magazine. I've since discovered it's from June 2009, and it's a "Field of Flowers" crocheted rug, made up of, you guessed it, flowers. No, really!

SarahLondon talked about it on her blog: "Field of Crocheted Flowers" back in 2009.

(picture from http://sarahlondon.wordpress.com/ )

Anyway, I worked up two different versions of the flower pattern in two different yarns.

Cute, huh.

This one's using Moda Vera Snuggle, 8ply, with a 4mm hook. 

This on'e using Moda Vera Marvel, 5ply I believe, with a 4mm hook.

The flowers themselves do curl slightly, which actually really works with a decorative flower.

I'd like to make a few more and cover a cushion. Don't think I could do a whole rug. The rug needs 480 flowers, which uses 60 balls of the yarn she uses in the project. O.O That's a LOT of flowers. 

Week 25: Krista Spot-Sampler Rug

Well, a bit surprisingly, it's the last week of the Krista "Spot Sampler" rug. Spotlight have combined block 25 with the joining instructions for the rug. Here's their block:

Here's the instrcutions.

I am so glad I decided to follow this crochet-along for the rug, even though I've stopped (yes) making up the squares. (When I realised I wasn't going to sew them together and actually make the rug, I decided to stop wasting the yarn, since I have "wasted" (ie, not doing anything with the work) so much of it already this year.) I have made NEW FRIENDS at the Krista Crochet Group and it's a joy being able to interact daily with other crochet fiends. (As well as all of you I reach out to every day!!) I've learned how to work new patterns in crochet and practiced new and unfamiliar stitches. Which is the entire point of a sampler rug!! :) 

This will be the last post for the Krista Rug. Thank you for following.

Keep Calm...

Spied on Crochetime for her Terrific Tuesday.

LOVE IT. Especially when we think about how large our yarn stash pile can grow... one ball is never enough, and one ball will never really add to the pile...

With the Olympics in London this week and next, seems a bit cross-appropriate :) 

Happy Horsey Birthday!

I'm not sure if this tradition is kept up anywhere else, but today in Australia, August 1st is traditionally Horses Birthday :)

This is a pretty cute little Amigurumi pattern for a horse :) Available here.