I'm on the hunt...

Why does it seem like I'm always on the hunt for discontinued makeup or the perfect pair of shoes? After getting out of the ASPCA on Saturday (where I saw the cutest little kittens ever, ever--they fit into the palm of my hand!!!), Brad and I went to Roosevelt Field mall out on Long Island. Brad needed to get a present for his aunt and uncle, and I needed to find my favorite lipstick. It's not just any shade of lipstick mind you--it is the perfect, perfect shade of red--it's deep and has a really beautiful blue/cool undertone (I know the ladies understand the importance of getting a red lipstick that is not too orange and not too brown). This was perfect. It makes your lips look like ripe cherries. It was by this company called Alchemy and the name is (approprietly enough) Devil's Claw. Well I dragged poor Bradley in and out of Sephora, Bloomingdales, Macy's, and Nordstom's and no one--no one--had anything even close--not even Channel! I am distraught. I did search on eBay and Googled it and my search turned up nadda--apparently the company is out of business. Ugh. To make up for my disheartening lipstick search, Hubby got me some drop dead gorgeous peep-toe black patent-leather shoes that I will post a picture of as soon as I get a pedicure.

In happy news, I bought more sock yarn yesterday. I went to this sweet little yarn shop in Park Slope called Stitch Therapy--lovely people in there. They don't have a ton of yarn, but what they do have is beautiful. (I checked out Knit-A-Way too and though I was impressed with their selection, I didn't like the vibe--and they're more expensive than necessary. They were selling Karabella merino at $10 a skein--the same yarn I can get at Knitty City for $8.) Not that I've finished the socks I'm currently working on, but that doesn't matter--this yarn was too yummy to pass up. Not to mention having the Hubby with me to pick out the colors of his next pair of socks makes things easy and fun. Here it is:

It's from a Welsh company called Jitterbug. 100% merino wool and it's so freaking soft. I can't wait to knit with it. Has anyone ever used this company before? I'm hoping that they'll be self-patterning like my beautiful Koigu, but I won't be devastated if they aren't.

Smallest Swatch Ever

After frogging my first swatch half-way through because it was so obviously too big, I had a tiny strand of yarn that I couldn't use because I (like a big brute) pulled too hard and broke it. So I'm looking at my beautiful yarn, saying to myself, "What can I possibly use this for?" Hence, I grabbed my tiny #1 needles and I give you (drumroll, please, the smallest swatch ever (only 8 stitches across!!!)



And before you ask, yes. I am so anal retentive that each yarn band gets an index card with a snippet of the yarn. This time I decided to go even more nuts and actually make a swatch, because, well, I'm nuts.

Might as well face it, I'm addicted to yarn

Just got back from my lunch hour, and what did I do? After picking up a falafel sandwich, I walked over to Knitty City and picked up Stitch N' Bitch: The Knitter's Handbook, 2 skeins of absolutely beautiful red soy-silk yarn, a set of #7 needles, a knit counter, and those little rubber thingies that go on the ends of needles so you don't poke someone's eye out. It is sort of dangerous to have such a nice yarn shop so close to my office. The temptation is terrible. I can't go in there and not buy something.

While I was off on Columbus day, I sorted through a bunch of yarn, rolling a few long oblong skeins into balls, and making room for the yarn stash I bought last weekend. Now I just bought more. More yarn. With the amount of yarn I have right now, I could probably knit/crochet socks, sweaters, and blankets for my whole block. I'm already thinking of converting the bushel we got when we went apple picking two weekends ago into a new yarn storage container (surely it would be perfect--just line that bad boy with calico in a cute print a viola! Yarn storgage!), and god-forbid I should finish the container before buying yarn to store in it. Too much yarn. I have too much yarn. Then again, is there ever such thing as too much yarn?

Grrrr...What about me?

I'm in a fairly crabby mood today and I've come to the conclusion that it is because I rarely do/craft nice things for myself. There are other reasons beyond that, but that is the main reason at this very moment. My mood is probably caused (besides the PMS) by me going to Knitty City during lunch, and while browsing, all I could think about was what I needed to get for future projects for other people. Now mind you, I love making things for people I love. I really do. It makes me happy to make something for someone and give it to them and see how much they like it too (case in point--Viv's scarf which was fun to do [because I got to work with a new stitch] and since she's one of my dearest friends, truly a pleasure). It's one of my favorite things in the world. However, probably because I'm working on yet another baby blanket (this one isn't even one I'm going to be giving--it's one my mom is going to be giving to someone), I'm feeling grumpy and annoyed and generally bored out of my goddamned mind with blankets. I think I might be posting quite a lot of the "I hate making this blanket" type of blogs until I finish it.

Anyway, the point? I'm going to purchase new yarn this weekend and commence making a cute bolero sweater for myself before I finish working on the dreaded blanket because if I don't, I might tell my mom that she can stick the baby blanket where the sun doesn't shine. And that my dear readers, is just not an option.

Another freaking blanket...

I finished (well, almost) the present for Vivian last night and had the Hubby start helping roll yarn balls for the next baby blanket. I'm going to pretty much make the same exact blanket I did for Olessia and Roman, but this time, I won't enjoy it half as much because it's not really a new project for me, and I'm quite sick of making blankets. I'm not doing the green, blue, and multi though--this time I'm using cream, light blue, and a slightly darker blue. Really pretty, but I think it will be a very long time before I willingly crochet anything else blue--especially not a blanket! After this one, no more blankets. I need at least six months before the concept of making a blanket becomes remotely enticing. It's fall! I've got scarves, sweaters, and hats to make!

The Latest Baby Blanket--New Pics!

I meant to post these earlier, but I just got around to uploading them yesterday.

This baby blanket is for my friends Olessia and Roman. Olessia is due in November, so it's done in plenty of time! As I mentioned in an earlier post, I used Bernat Cotton Tots yarn, and it worked up so soft and so quickly that I decided to use it again on my next baby blanket project! I cannot explain how much I love this yarn. I wish that it came in more colors because I would use it for other things besides baby blankets.

This is a basic granny-square pattern; the main square alternates three rows of each color, three times (multi, blue, green), and then the three squares at either side of the square. I crochet-joined everything together. The boarder is three rows of single crochet in the multi yarn.

I love, love, love the way this blanket turned out and cannot wait to give it to Olessia and Roman.

Now onto my next blanket--for a boy again. I really cannot wait for someone to have a girl so I can switch to pinks and purples for awhile. Though I love blue, green, and yellow, I have to admit, I'm getting sort of bored from working with those colors so much.

The good thing is that I usually take a break between blanket projects to work on other, smaller things. Right now I'm working on a birthday present for my friend Vivian. When it's finished (and after I give it to her), I'll post pictures of it. Then it'll be back to blue and cream yarn, and hopefully the last baby boy blanket for awhile.

Update on next baby blanket!

This weekend I bought the yarn to get started on Olessia's baby blanket--it's absolutely beautiful yarn--Bernat Cotton Tots:


I'm using Sweet Green, Little Boy Blue, and Wonder Dreams (a light blue, light green, pale yellow, and white blend). I love this yarn because it is 100% cotton and so soft. I think it will wear really well too.

Tuesday night, Brad and I started yarn ball rolling while watching TV. After I had a ball of each color, I looked through my hooks to find the one that the label recommended--4.5 mm/US 7. I didn't have it. I tried a 4.0 hook. Too tight. Then I tried a 5.0 hook. Too loose. Sigh. So began a quest for a 4.5 hook. I could special order it from Michael's or Susan Bates, but that could take a while. I wanted to get started right away! So I checke the yarn shop, The Yarn Company, right down the block from my office, but since it's a knitter-friendly shop, they don't really cater much to us happy hookers. I pressed on and walked down to this new place that my google search for yarn turned up: Knitty City. There, I met an awesome lady named Amanda who not only went out of her way to unearth the strange hook that noone else seemed to carry, but she was also told me that they do intermediate crochet classes! Score! I need to get another person to go with me, but they do have intermediate crochet classes. I am so excited! Now I'll be able to bring my dilemmas to Amanda whenever they come up, and hopefully I'll get to go to a class soon.

Happily, last night I not only started on Olessia's baby blanket, but I also mananged to figure out a motif called "Italian motif" which uses the dreaded puff stitch. I'm happy to say that I figured it out, but won't be making blankets with this motif any time soon. Way too intricate--at the most, I think it might make a nice shawl...hmmmm, now who can I make one of those for?

My first baby blanket!

No, I'm not pregnant. It's not for me. I cannot even explain to you how many people I know who are pregnant this year--and this blanket is for my friends James and Maria. Their baby boy is due in September. Now that I've finished this blanket, I need to get started on my next one...November and January due dates are fast approaching! :-)





I used four skeins of the Bernat yarn in blue (2) and yellow (2) and a 4.0 crochet hook (to get the stitches nice and compact). It's a basic granny square project so it pretty much speaks for itself--3 rows of each color alternating 4 times. I connected everything using crab stitching instead of a tapestry needle, which I think gives it a nice finished look.

This blanket didn't take me all that long, so I'm hoping that the next one won't be too bad either. Although for my next project, I would really like to do something besides the granny square thing because, to be honest, I'm sort of bored with it. It's hard figuring things out though--I think I might need to find myself a class because although Anna taught me the basic single crochet stitches, I figured out double and triple crochet on my own and also figured out how to do the granny squares through a lot of trial and error. We'll see what happens. I think I might make a mini-blanket for one of the cat beds in the cool zig-zag stitch I've been trying to figure out, just to see how it goes. Once I really get a feel for it, then I can attempt the next baby blanket. The one thing that worries me is how big the blankets tend to get--I do a lot of crocheting on the subway going back and forth to work (1 hour and ten minutes there, usually 50-55 minutes home--don't ask me why it's less; I have no idea) so that's my best crochet time. It's harder to crochet at home because the cats are into everything and I don't want to get the projects full of cat hair. We'll see what happens. I am just excited to try and learn more stitches and patterns!

By the way, if anyone knows of crochet classes/workshops that go on in NYC or Brooklyn, please let me know! I'm dying for some crochet camaraderie!

The infamous yoga mat bag!

I finally took and uploaded pictures of the infamous yoga mat bag. Can I tell you how long the darn thing took me to make? Around a month! I've completed baby blankets in that amount of time. However, it's probably my own fault--I used a tiny crochet hook--only a 2.75 and Lion Microspun yarn in teal, lime green, purple, and lavender. I crocheted a large round (there are 8 rows in the base of the bag) and then made the body of the bag separately. Crochet a chain of 104, and then add on enough rows of double crochet to cover the body of the yoga mat, with some extra to spare (I like to have space so I can throw a hand towel and my yoga pants in the bag). I did 80 rows, and then an additional 4 for the top of the bag to fold over and make a closure (use a tapestry needle to sew the top closed). The strap also crocheted--I chained 160, and then made a row in each color used on the bag (4 rows total). There is also a pocket on the inside of the bag to keep hair clip, lip gloss, and other do-dads you might need after class. All & all, I am really happy with the way this project turned out and I've gotten lots of compliments on my bag!
More pics to come!
xoxo
the krafty gal

Crochet Flowers...

I'm working on a new crochet project that started sort of as an accident. I wanted to crochet myself a yoga mat bag, but didn't have a pattern, so I thought I could just figure it out as I went along. I started out trying to crochet in rounds--which was a lot more complicated than I thougt it would be! Instead of the circle coming out flat, I kept getting wrinkly circles! Then I noticed that the wrinkly circles were actually very pretty, and I got an idea...why not turn them into flowers and use them as embelishments for bags/purses/pins? Seemed like a good idea, so I got to work making flowers!

While creating the flowers, I thought it would be a good idea to make leaves and stems as well, but I had no idea how to make leaves--so I figured it out by trial and error--and came up with a good pattern to follow. I basically chain stiched 12 stitches, then did one slip stich, 2 sc, 2 hdc, 2 dc, 1 tc, 1 dc, 1 hdc, 2 sc into one sticth. I then repeated the pattern going in th opposite direction (2 sc into one stich, 1 hdc, 1 dc, 1 tc, 2 dc, 2 hdc, 2 sc, 1 ss). I then did the other side of the leaf, following the same pattern. After the leaf was complete, I slip stiched down the center of the leaf to make it look like the veins of the leaf. the stems are just slip stiched chains. This is what one of the flowers and leaves look like:



After I had three flowers made, I started thinking about what kind of bag to attach them to. At first I thought I wanted to crochet a bag and attach them, but since this was my first attempt, I thought it would be good to go with something already made. The flowers themselves were teal and lavander, with light green leaves and stems, so I thought that a black background would match the best, and also be the most practical...so Brad and I headed over to American Apparel to purchase a bag that would work.

I've attached the flowers I've already made with straight pins, but I still have some stems and leaves to finish making. This is what my project is looking like so far, but I am far from finished. As soon as the bag is complete, I'll post pictures of it:

Scarves, scarves, and more scarves...

Of course, as a crochet beginner, the first projects I took on were of the scarf variety. I crocheted my little heart out during all of December to make sure I had some comfy, cozy homemade presents to give my loved ones. I experimented with various types of yarn, and thanks to feedback from my mom, I've decided that I do not like the Lion's Brand Homespun. It sheds all over everything! I prefer working with chenille and cotton thus far for scarves because they just hold their shape nicely and are very soft.
Here's a sample of a recently-made scarf:


I made this one as a prize for a poetry contest my husband and I ran at our last poetry reading. Here's Will, the recipent of the scarf!