tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56920951082269003742024-03-05T09:02:49.834-08:00Stitch This, Freud!Sigmund Freud felt that women shouldn't do needlework because it encouraged them to think - well too bad for him!Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-82454464222274837592013-09-01T14:00:00.000-07:002013-09-01T14:25:13.244-07:00Avoiding Cat's Cradle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Has this ever happened to you? Ok, probably your cat hasn't <i>actually</i> been suspended in mid-air like this, but it sure is true that cats<i> love</i> yarn. It's instinctual I think - they love things that roll (like that neat ball of yarn you just rolled up), they love soft textures, they love things that dangle, and they especially love things that twitch and move as if they're alive! Just like the yarn you're working with as you knit or crochet.<br />
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There are certainly times when I've had to stop crocheting because Nikko was in too playful of a mood and would constantly attack my yarn. Luckily though, that's pretty rare. Usually he watches me intently for a while, and gives a half-hearted swat at the dancing strand of yarn, then curls up in my lap or beside me (or on top of whatever I'm working on, of course!) and falls asleep. One of my in-laws' kittens, Cheeky, can be much more of a trouble maker - he will not only attack my yarn, he'll start trying to eat it, so that it gets all slobbery. Yuck! And his claws are much sharper than Nikko's are, so he can really do some damage to the yarn if he digs his claws in.<br />
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However, Nikko is not always an angel. About a year ago I decided that my yarn supplies were in terrible shape, and I started rolling up the tangled mess into neat balls of yarn. I came home from work the next day and stopped dead in my tracks. The apartment was covered in yarn! An entire ball had been unraveled around, over, and under every piece of furniture, as you can see here.<br />
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I spluttered in frustration, cursing, and Deep, who was sitting on the couch, looked over at me standing by the door looking aghast, and said "What?" He'd been sitting there the whole time, unaware of what my normally sweet kitty was doing to my yarn! And here is the culprit himself, looking very innocent:<br />
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So I spent the next 10 minutes crawling around the apartment rolling the yarn back up, which of course Nikko thought was another fun game!<br />
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I ranted about this incident to my friends at my stitch group that night, thankful that at least they understood my annoyance.<br />
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Then, I came home from work the next day, to find almost exactly the same scene, in a different colour of yarn!<br />
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Ok, I know, fool me twice, shame on me. I felt very silly, and so I vowed to find a better storage solution for my yarn and on-the-go projects than just throwing them into my reusable shopping bags.<br />
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Below is a list of what I have learned and done to keep my yarn stash and projects organized and useable. Whether you have pets or young children or spend any time around either, or just want to get your chaotic stash in order, these tips may be useful to you too!<br />
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<b>Tip #1: Tie off all balls of yarn - no exceptions!</b><br />
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The first change I made after these incidents was that I now ALWAYS tie off the ends of any yarn I roll up - that way if he gets at my yarn, it can roll around without unravelling into a chaotic mess. I have also found that it helps to keep all of my stashes and projects in much better order - untied balls or skeins of yarn seem to just naturally become messy over time – it's entropy I guess.<br />
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<b>Tip #2: Invest in a few cases and bags for your current projects, in different sizes</b><br />
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When this yarn incident occurred, I had recently seen someone knitting next to me during a boring work meeting (of course I was jealous because I hadn't thought to bring my crochet along), with her needles and yarn neatly tucked into a small plastic flexible case that closed with snaps, which she had said she'd picked up at a local dollar store. I thought it was a great idea, and I planned to keep an eye out for something like that, but at the time there wasn't any particular urgency to my search.<br />
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Now however, I had a mission! I spent the next week or two combing through every dollar store and bargain/thrift store in the city, looking for something similar.<br />
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It took me a surprisingly long time to find what I was looking for. I think it was partly because I was looking for the bag or case itself as a product, rather than <i>something that a product comes in</i>. I wanted a simple case that was clear so I could see what was in it (and easily find the right colour of yarn, or that invaluable tapestry needle), whereas most pencil cases and similar sized bags are opaque.<br />
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My first successful finds were a couple of cosmetics cases that work well for medium size products, like this one:<br />
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It's a nice size for carrying a couple of smallish projects in, or at least most of the supplies for a medium-size project like a baby blanket. It's also good for projects that require lots of colours, but where the completed portions don't need to be with you at all times, such as blanket squares. <br />
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The best part of getting this case was revealed on the the first night I had it: I put several balls of yarn that I was currently using into it, and had it sitting on the coffee table. Nikko came over to investigate, and immediately tried to get at the yarn through the clear side, and then the mesh side - it was hilarious to watch how confused he was, it was as though he had encountered a force field! Since this was only a week or so after he unrolled my yarn all over he apartment, I was extremely pleased to have foiled another attempt! Even if I hadn't closed the zippers, all he could do was reach a paw in and bat at them - he couldn't get the yarn out to make a mess. Triumph was sweet.<br />
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I was quite happy with this case, and it was certainly much more portable than the one and only (large) project bag I had before, but I was still hoping to find something really small and portable that I could tuck into my purse and have with me anywhere. I did pick up a smaller cosmetics case as well, but it was still a bit too bulky, and, let's face it, I always have several projects on the go, so several cases would be necessary.<br />
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Over the next couple of weeks I kept my eyes open, and I finally found the perfect solution in the "travel sized" section of the local Zellers (a store like K-mart for you Americans) - the bag that this little travel container kit came in. I picked up one in purple, then went back a week or two later for a green one, and more recently I picked up this pink one when the original purple one eventually developed a small hole. It's the perfect size for most small projects, or projects that have small components (amigurumi, phone cases, one blanket square, etc.). It's also lovely that it is clear, so I can quickly check if I've got all the necessary supplies in this particular bag before heading out the door.<br />
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It easily fits into my largish purse with plenty of room to spare for wallet etc. And if I pack it just right, I can fit it into my smaller MEC (Mountain Equipment Co-op - a Canadian outdoor outfitting store) purse that I use when travelling. I've been known to take one of these little bags, with a small project in it, pretty much everywhere I go - concerts, meetings, conferences, doctor's appointments, on buses and planes... </div>
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Once I had this revelation about looking for the bags products come in, rather than looking to purchase the bag itself, I started noticing them more frequently. Here is one I got at a dollar store – it also contained little bottles for travel sized shampoo etc. It's the smallest bag I have, and I use it mostly for storing various notions - safety eyes, needles, thread, extra hooks of various sizes, etc. </div>
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A little while later I realized that I needed a larger project bag (but something a bit smaller than the original large project bag that I keep my biggest projects in). In particular for the times when I needed to bring lots of different supplies for one project, such as on road trips etc. I found this bag at the discount yarn/fabric/craft/everything-under-the-sun store that exists only in Ontario, <a href="http://www.lensmill.com/">Len's Mill Store</a>. It's a great size for more complex projects, and I like that it has a range of pockets that can be used to keep track of printed pattern pages, scissors, hooks, needles, and any other notions. And as an added bonus, I can actually fit my computer in this bag if necessary (it's an 11 inch, very thin laptop), which can make it easier to keep everything in one place.<br />
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Here you can see that I have it mostly filled with many balls of yarn of all the colours required for the <a href="http://stitchthisfreud.blogspot.ca/2013/07/the-big-surprise-project-revealed-part-1.html">big wedding blanket project</a>. This was the bag that I brought with me on the road trip across the country last fall - and it was enough yarn to keep me going for a couple of weeks until the rest of our stuff arrived on the moving truck.<br />
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Here you can see me making use of all of my small-to-medium project bags in preparation for visiting family over Xmas. Each bag contains one or more projects (mostly Xmas presents in the making), and the small one at the bottom includes all the assorted notions I needed for various projects. It was a little difficult to fit these all into my luggage, and several went into my carry-on, but it worked out really well, and I never lacked for yarn or supplies!</div>
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<b>Tip #3: Invest in a few pairs of safety scissors.</b><br />
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I know, this tip doesn't really have to do with keeping your stash organized and away from pets and small children, but it will make your crafting life easier, so I'll include it anyway.<br />
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I don't know about you, but I always want to be able to work on my projects on the plane. Depending on the size and type of your project, that may not require scissors during the plane ride, but it's such a giant pain not to have scissors when you need them, that I try to be prepared anyway. I have picked up a few pairs of rounded "safety scissors" from dollar stores or wherever else I see them, and I always keep one in each of my different project bags. That way no matter where I am, and which project I'm working on, I always have a pair of scissors with me. And I can easily throw any project bag into my carry on, and know that I shouldn't get hassled at security.<br />
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Word to the wise: always be pre-emptive about bringing out the scissors and asking about them in a non-threatening way – and make it clear that you're happy to surrender them if necessary. To date I haven't had anyone take issue with these scissors, but the one time I forgot to get them out of my backpack it did slow things down as they had to pull me aside and dig them out and take a look. I think the rule is that the blade has to be under a certain length, and they can't have pointed tips, and safety scissors seem to always meet these criteria. Plus, they cost me about $2 so if they take them away, I'm not going to cry about it.<br />
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Plus - I recently found these amazing animal scissors at the dollar store - aren't they awesome?! They make me happy every time I use them.<br />
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<b>Tip #4: Don't Slip into Bad Habits</b><br />
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Two nights ago, when I had 95% of this post written, I came home to find this unfortunately familiar sight in my living room:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipjv3hwNUBISztkgwKB_rC50Fpfe08JnG5zZ41fujZfeBlBTi_9_gX18dl99HmWT1sN1S8UA2RKHDD9cKjrcDKjjHQZ1uf2W6vKRhXl2TARnbmEqO3Km6XTUbLrH4bsdgqGywhXRhZBiI/s1600/IMG_4989.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipjv3hwNUBISztkgwKB_rC50Fpfe08JnG5zZ41fujZfeBlBTi_9_gX18dl99HmWT1sN1S8UA2RKHDD9cKjrcDKjjHQZ1uf2W6vKRhXl2TARnbmEqO3Km6XTUbLrH4bsdgqGywhXRhZBiI/s400/IMG_4989.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Earlier that day I had been rolling up a skein of yarn into small balls so that they would be easy to tuck into my project bags, and I had gone out for the evening before putting the yarn away. I had to laugh at myself. I obviously should have known better, but I had become sloppy, and my helpful cat reminded me of the consequences.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkpMM_IJGexcrRl9Ovk_p-cIP2Vq4cgAHpzvOh9TM6KoFjHprvpfDbJn4nXCETLzv9XWHZ7pXOatYuBZdMQSzAR9I6KHRCnih-pRshyphenhyphenDVAy6dWAJyalrRMC7b_47XY4A4sdAz4xYBcmmo/s1600/IMG_4992.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkpMM_IJGexcrRl9Ovk_p-cIP2Vq4cgAHpzvOh9TM6KoFjHprvpfDbJn4nXCETLzv9XWHZ7pXOatYuBZdMQSzAR9I6KHRCnih-pRshyphenhyphenDVAy6dWAJyalrRMC7b_47XY4A4sdAz4xYBcmmo/s400/IMG_4992.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
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That's all for now, keep crafting!Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-81115962140804149092013-08-30T09:11:00.001-07:002013-08-30T09:11:38.920-07:00Summer 2013 Update: AugustIt's almost the end of August and we have just arrived back in Regina from our summer in Ontario - besides the <a href="http://stitchthisfreud.blogspot.ca/2013/08/graceful-mandala-crocheted-wall-hanging.html">Graceful Mandala</a> and <a href="http://stitchthisfreud.blogspot.ca/2013/08/a-shop-by-any-other-name.html">changing the name and logo</a> for the shop, what have I been up to this month?<br />
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<b>Jewelry</b><br />
<br />
As mentioned in this post, I have been planning for a while now to expand the items in my shop beyond just crochet, to include wire and glass jewelry. So when I was packing for this trip I made sure to grab my wire jewelry tools and supplies. Unfortunately I forgot some of the supplies, so I was limited in what I could create during the trip. I made a few pairs of earrings, and a bracelet. I spent a couple of mornings taking nice photos of the new pieces, and posted the new Etsy items just before I changed my shop name.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPADLvOtNAPNVQYWTB5I8C0mm-DOSl3YTwPXYkMv8zMuPcRonJUZ7l0B6MoCPv61yCIMVhAVWPzqr_ZvdhBuHL6O6DoArO8TAUOHxaV_Y30IicwD4T0QEz2PSUjKBWMGICNm77vleAod0/s1600/DSC_0017.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPADLvOtNAPNVQYWTB5I8C0mm-DOSl3YTwPXYkMv8zMuPcRonJUZ7l0B6MoCPv61yCIMVhAVWPzqr_ZvdhBuHL6O6DoArO8TAUOHxaV_Y30IicwD4T0QEz2PSUjKBWMGICNm77vleAod0/s320/DSC_0017.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/159961429/earth-tones-upcycled-drop-earrings?ref=shop_home_active">Earth Tone Drop Earrings</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAM-IizIQgha81o4ERDEvBdtu82KH_aZMnJ08s4qXQHIumZ64aT2tIcQw541mU3Y8I4ucsuhCfY0p_z_gGVZtUCoXs0NI4zPvI2voiUIjRAB96SV43cZJcwco_7YgMo2FSad8Opn8YgLI/s1600/DSC_0336.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAM-IizIQgha81o4ERDEvBdtu82KH_aZMnJ08s4qXQHIumZ64aT2tIcQw541mU3Y8I4ucsuhCfY0p_z_gGVZtUCoXs0NI4zPvI2voiUIjRAB96SV43cZJcwco_7YgMo2FSad8Opn8YgLI/s320/DSC_0336.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/159963053/earth-tones-upcycled-dangling-hoop?ref=listing-shop-header-2">Earth Tone Dangling Hoop Earrings</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL53iPpxOUllbW7N_olMNGCLnJssdfzZHvbaTsy9Lfdj9Ylcmpln1qLUBUbRszFnCQV6pzsQZV-40tzboAIvySxXMxT9el7zR_oOnQf2Cfi_1cDzHcG5Y9yJhhFXH08gtYkYXWk3uzr4w/s1600/DSC_0424.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL53iPpxOUllbW7N_olMNGCLnJssdfzZHvbaTsy9Lfdj9Ylcmpln1qLUBUbRszFnCQV6pzsQZV-40tzboAIvySxXMxT9el7zR_oOnQf2Cfi_1cDzHcG5Y9yJhhFXH08gtYkYXWk3uzr4w/s320/DSC_0424.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/159955408/northern-lights-wire-and-bead-bracelet?ref=listing-shop-header-4">Northern Lights Bracelet</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOIADRxsNLdJcVSoa2N_cTUL0aeFkMKjlvzC9LweaaHuNyDEzLwDxBZ_OqqmWhEtpzO4vVHK-AYmUS-ZkBbf1Pt7WnKv1vesm3gejR3BVmNnQldtjE3uvsKricSC-oa3YvCdq3Ex-iyLE/s1600/DSC_0324*.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOIADRxsNLdJcVSoa2N_cTUL0aeFkMKjlvzC9LweaaHuNyDEzLwDxBZ_OqqmWhEtpzO4vVHK-AYmUS-ZkBbf1Pt7WnKv1vesm3gejR3BVmNnQldtjE3uvsKricSC-oa3YvCdq3Ex-iyLE/s320/DSC_0324*.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/159963539/split-prism-rainbow-drop-earrings?ref=related-2">Split Prism Rainbow Drop Earrings</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYE2k8hXpqqK78M3bm51rhmdihXTyEOAp-Ot0QP_iFyHrw7FssFUOBtQUPCNdiGGhoAw0rW3n9IBPgZH5SyaPVM31y32-lgi4abHKk0W_eRFiGrbCQP8C2NKVCJYdrct5dF06DUo0muZo/s1600/DSC_0111*.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYE2k8hXpqqK78M3bm51rhmdihXTyEOAp-Ot0QP_iFyHrw7FssFUOBtQUPCNdiGGhoAw0rW3n9IBPgZH5SyaPVM31y32-lgi4abHKk0W_eRFiGrbCQP8C2NKVCJYdrct5dF06DUo0muZo/s320/DSC_0111*.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/159952690/sweetheart-dangling-earrings?ref=related-3">Sweetheart Drop Earrings</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxL-x00h4n8LyWjrClv4V5MsOm2IZhm5RlDaIDoGpLWCzaan_gffFwDP9Do7IEJyaiJo8t3xY1MwVs2xbt3ST6bFcp-vJAhlYNhZpQMU1vqySwRxpE6Et7gxF37PkBeibe1mDzbjIREyU/s1600/DSC_0068*.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxL-x00h4n8LyWjrClv4V5MsOm2IZhm5RlDaIDoGpLWCzaan_gffFwDP9Do7IEJyaiJo8t3xY1MwVs2xbt3ST6bFcp-vJAhlYNhZpQMU1vqySwRxpE6Et7gxF37PkBeibe1mDzbjIREyU/s320/DSC_0068*.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/159962547/sweetheart-dangling-hoop-earrings?ref=related-3">Sweetheart Dangling Hoop Earrings</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiBnXvlFR3njvydPHO31h4K3Frvjsq8r6KT7Jtc25DkEkoMTFGQSQVUGAPkYRbLxsBklnYmLaU9elRd3UuECx_5cijdKJqRhP6BOvUY0jtg65WH41hXkErkEjoyEHPUapP_PGt3kNohpI/s1600/DSC_0379.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiBnXvlFR3njvydPHO31h4K3Frvjsq8r6KT7Jtc25DkEkoMTFGQSQVUGAPkYRbLxsBklnYmLaU9elRd3UuECx_5cijdKJqRhP6BOvUY0jtg65WH41hXkErkEjoyEHPUapP_PGt3kNohpI/s320/DSC_0379.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/159951104/violet-orb-upcycled-drop-earrings?ref=listing-shop-header-3">Violet Orb Drop Earrings</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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The jewelry selection still feels pretty sparse and I will definitely want to add some more items now that I am back home, but it's a start for now. I'm also planning to order some coloured stainless steel wire (it's much stronger and more durable than copper), and I may also branch out into silver wire and semi-precious stones. I'm looking forward to working on this more over the next couple of weeks now that we're home in Regina.<br />
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<b>Rainbow Converse Booties - A Pattern and a Colour Variation</b><br />
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This month I finally finished writing up my pattern for the Rainbow Converse booties. I was really impressed with Etsy's new instant download system for PDFs when I posted the Golf Club Covers earlier this summer, so I wanted to do the same for my converse booties pattern.<br />
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I've actually had the pattern mostly written up for a long time, but I knew there were several tricky parts where a picture would be much more helpful than a written description. So I wanted to include lots of pictures - after fighting with formatting in Word, I ended up with over 30 pictures embedded in the pattern. I also included a text-only version of the pattern for those who might want to print out just one or two pages, or display it on their phone or tablet. It sure took a long time (and quite a few fits of swearing) to get the formatting to work right, but I'm really happy with how it turned out.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicY74mtOmTOYtmVXdrMEaqruznT8Tw3Yi6vi8KHa8rApPi4HCiDVOrTkWBhKeXezkfF73VeTV4CAPLky9yDBviLlhIvYLEaUm73teW0yiJhfo9UdFkEyAt93UcLWXMkDfoOwozlYUWjyE/s1600/Front+page+of+Converse+pattern+only-page-001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicY74mtOmTOYtmVXdrMEaqruznT8Tw3Yi6vi8KHa8rApPi4HCiDVOrTkWBhKeXezkfF73VeTV4CAPLky9yDBviLlhIvYLEaUm73teW0yiJhfo9UdFkEyAt93UcLWXMkDfoOwozlYUWjyE/s400/Front+page+of+Converse+pattern+only-page-001.jpg" width="304" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/159053304/pdf-pattern-for-converse-style-bright?ref=related-6">Pattern available in my Esty Store now</a></td></tr>
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I have also finally gotten around to making an inverted colour variant of these booties - with the red at the top instead of the bottom. This is usually the way I prefer to see and make rainbows, and I'm really not sure why I made the original booties the opposite way around. Here are the two versions (original on the right, new on the left) - I can't decided which I like better. What do you think? In any case, both versions are <a href="http://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/118948779/converse-style-bright-rainbow-baby?ref=shop_home_active">available in my shop</a>!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirhaq9qxgCl9xarBIoyUEN5Zc226DfPcL78PEO2BOLadakr37Gk9_vOL3V6PPxLKDwtj86T59EwmgI2HzhQyjiz6Cebj7A8oR6wgS7pvEpUG_AiP0qH5UKqy1DWJtQwEk-dT0npw-AyW0/s1600/IMG_4967.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirhaq9qxgCl9xarBIoyUEN5Zc226DfPcL78PEO2BOLadakr37Gk9_vOL3V6PPxLKDwtj86T59EwmgI2HzhQyjiz6Cebj7A8oR6wgS7pvEpUG_AiP0qH5UKqy1DWJtQwEk-dT0npw-AyW0/s400/IMG_4967.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These little guys still need their stars and laces...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b>Coffee Cup Cozies</b><br />
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At one point during this trip we stopped to get coffee at a local coffee shop, and I noticed that even when using one of those little cardboard bands around my cup, my London Fog (a delicious tea latte made with Earl Grey tea and vanilla, for those of you who haven't tried this magical beverage) was still almost too hot to hold. This got me thinking that a crocheted coffee cup cozy would be much more effective - plus it would be reusable, and stylish!<br />
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Later that day at the beach I started a prototype. I started with a chain that I joined into a circle, and did continuous rounds of single crochet (double crochet would have been too loose and wouldn't protect the hands as much I think...), adding a few increases every few rounds to make it slightly wider at the top. This first prototype was about the same height as those cardboard tubes in the store. Later when I went to make the second one, in a different colour, I decided to try making it taller so it would be more comfortable to hold. Here is the comparison of the first two versions:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGxKceCyYjzpI6FPpjWvorTf_0SyMzLL5A4OpD2dlnqYcBX-QZ4_IQKF8Mx_TM1L9FeUQ5mqbhs2FWYxTai7yT-39JbKsOeEcA70kaq5oCvtB-r8cTkcmX4QIrxIIsyfWMFwrHWe6agh8/s1600/IMG_4772.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGxKceCyYjzpI6FPpjWvorTf_0SyMzLL5A4OpD2dlnqYcBX-QZ4_IQKF8Mx_TM1L9FeUQ5mqbhs2FWYxTai7yT-39JbKsOeEcA70kaq5oCvtB-r8cTkcmX4QIrxIIsyfWMFwrHWe6agh8/s320/IMG_4772.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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I asked my Facebook fans about which they liked better and the consensus seemed to be the taller one (as I suspected), so I kept that size for the rest of the colours. I had to pick up a few more types of sock yarn to make a nice selection, plus, I knew I wouldn't have Len's Mill Store once we got back to Regina - I had to take advantage of their selection and prices while I could! Each colour is a slightly different weight and stretchy-ness of course so I had to keep checking each new colour against the finished ones, and testing it out on a trusty Tim's cup.<br />
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I also played around a little bit with an adjustable model of the coffee cup cosies, for use on mugs with handles and strangely sized mugs... I will probably come back to this idea later. For now I like this simple one-size-fits-all model. Here are the colour combinations I have made so far, <a href="http://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/160353726/crocheted-coffee-cup-cozy-made-to-order?ref=listing-shop-header-0">all available in the shop</a>:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSeXjKy-ktJs43TNN-53q7U3pxuy4RpfJ4fC4YyM6BxkTj6mfi9Ezq2LWnWLJ_QYgFn3hPSq5fVY26LDE02rgBCAIfc27cM6DV8S0p2448Hsu5c_AGF3RX5O0K1EnH_51nn4DyiwQhE1I/s1600/DSC_0085.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSeXjKy-ktJs43TNN-53q7U3pxuy4RpfJ4fC4YyM6BxkTj6mfi9Ezq2LWnWLJ_QYgFn3hPSq5fVY26LDE02rgBCAIfc27cM6DV8S0p2448Hsu5c_AGF3RX5O0K1EnH_51nn4DyiwQhE1I/s320/DSC_0085.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All the colours</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7kwFrYgpFZUfV7f-27yoLbNQCHG6T1K4ni2SIJ2H5vC3_qrQotro0FZvNtabI8pfP3SI63NxCIjPXwGyl261Rq3DRZbd8lRIC6WH7KDqXrKOHLzZqDpnwe60XTzNruOZWhcTyTWTgUhU/s1600/DSC_0089.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7kwFrYgpFZUfV7f-27yoLbNQCHG6T1K4ni2SIJ2H5vC3_qrQotro0FZvNtabI8pfP3SI63NxCIjPXwGyl261Rq3DRZbd8lRIC6WH7KDqXrKOHLzZqDpnwe60XTzNruOZWhcTyTWTgUhU/s320/DSC_0089.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Blue Moon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0jsM_TlnNeyYSS8ruA1Zp5tOGPwTutm0aSL0VGp2tkp1sFL7r7yeFTI-Pi11-W2XA2-jdJD7Cj9jaufe-EUr2uhUwT716aPklWVL8vmSslm_X4tevOtnfOGFtVptqxtJi3TXO9R2ijX0/s1600/DSC_0052.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0jsM_TlnNeyYSS8ruA1Zp5tOGPwTutm0aSL0VGp2tkp1sFL7r7yeFTI-Pi11-W2XA2-jdJD7Cj9jaufe-EUr2uhUwT716aPklWVL8vmSslm_X4tevOtnfOGFtVptqxtJi3TXO9R2ijX0/s320/DSC_0052.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Garden Flowers</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVQNCAAd_Q8f8B808b2lDBjHat4kCaT523lkdSCCyY0Qymr07ROCehBkthE2p2znJL1yOmd_5dFHpBmpZLjL-hEHNZTflILT6O3mKyKz-qkQU36hyphenhyphenYlP21fqxqGbS5LrX7fxCXtUPA8kw/s1600/DSC_0060.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVQNCAAd_Q8f8B808b2lDBjHat4kCaT523lkdSCCyY0Qymr07ROCehBkthE2p2znJL1yOmd_5dFHpBmpZLjL-hEHNZTflILT6O3mKyKz-qkQU36hyphenhyphenYlP21fqxqGbS5LrX7fxCXtUPA8kw/s320/DSC_0060.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Creamsicle </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOiCki490LfmArnrWSUqT8-5FqSBdY4xwSn_hRfPRoP-Wl0ZgbB_Qh8VScAlWqnhFsL7strOZkbTLB-RjbTPJOhUqDId51WpsRK3GO78dPR8smpmFK-CFIMhKYToaJvZPqQ08SYkdcl6w/s1600/DSC_0066.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOiCki490LfmArnrWSUqT8-5FqSBdY4xwSn_hRfPRoP-Wl0ZgbB_Qh8VScAlWqnhFsL7strOZkbTLB-RjbTPJOhUqDId51WpsRK3GO78dPR8smpmFK-CFIMhKYToaJvZPqQ08SYkdcl6w/s320/DSC_0066.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Light Rainbow</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs-7GgeQ_I9SIGXL1cysCJa9yJeY5AjE-Qq8_B8hrd16u7Qjy-SHg99ZKcyDclN2ccGCMWaf2y9wcS3ui0RJ7L6TapHlOPXKk3j1Yafh9hKmeCJ2XqoDt_b8aoFNVPICdcMEMenvOrwh8/s1600/DSC_0068.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs-7GgeQ_I9SIGXL1cysCJa9yJeY5AjE-Qq8_B8hrd16u7Qjy-SHg99ZKcyDclN2ccGCMWaf2y9wcS3ui0RJ7L6TapHlOPXKk3j1Yafh9hKmeCJ2XqoDt_b8aoFNVPICdcMEMenvOrwh8/s320/DSC_0068.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dark Rainbow</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF3Dw7TECwEDjPEy5MZ19n6aql4IP5iDqkosM0y_9cui4iZbhwSx0Yl-fvvLRyQ1W0Ed1HV9c1FvIf5Ip1prLqtW39uzeL6J43iFX1rL5IyusSBqnTaTjRDq6LmAsIhc-4Yas6phBL9HM/s1600/DSC_0108.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhF3Dw7TECwEDjPEy5MZ19n6aql4IP5iDqkosM0y_9cui4iZbhwSx0Yl-fvvLRyQ1W0Ed1HV9c1FvIf5Ip1prLqtW39uzeL6J43iFX1rL5IyusSBqnTaTjRDq6LmAsIhc-4Yas6phBL9HM/s320/DSC_0108.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Purple Iris</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWlNqN-lMJNXdoj53fE1dcGCCKwr88kDvzmkzzAFljaIR8FXZfbky9V4-EPmmQdTaOOgHEZSwGmNuW-D0MyAgTneBUbwT8gcjngV3mLz6q7YmXRGL6DSLan9dc6IzeCDhpvzhNP-XwL8I/s1600/DSC_0116.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWlNqN-lMJNXdoj53fE1dcGCCKwr88kDvzmkzzAFljaIR8FXZfbky9V4-EPmmQdTaOOgHEZSwGmNuW-D0MyAgTneBUbwT8gcjngV3mLz6q7YmXRGL6DSLan9dc6IzeCDhpvzhNP-XwL8I/s320/DSC_0116.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Green with Envy</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<b>Square Blanket Progress</b><br />
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I have continued to work on the knitted square blanket from this post, though it's been out on the back burner during these other projects. I just finished the second piece - doesn't it look nice so far?.<br />
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Ah well, it's not for the shop or a gift, it's just for me, so I think it's fine to leave on the back burner for a while. I will probably be more motivated to work on it once it's a bit chillier. I'm sure the ladies at my Saturday stitch group will be happy to see me knitting for once (I'm in the minority as a crocheter) - plus they can help save me when I inevitably mess it up again!<br />
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<b>Alpaca Birthday Sweater</b><br />
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Another project that I brought with me this summer is a lovely pattern made in amazing baby Alpaca yarn that my in-laws gave me for my birthday last year (that would be September 2012 for those keeping track). I didn't get a chance to start working on this sweater until Xmas time last year, and it has been a sort of in-between project: something that is easy to pick up at any time, and fits nicely in a small project bag so it's easy to keep with me, but it hasn't gotten any concentrated attention from me to this point.<br />
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It's been the same on this trip - I've worked on it from time to time, but I haven't focused on it at all. I put a stitch marker in at the start of this trip, and now, when we've just arrived home, you can see that I've certainly made some progress, but not a lot.<br />
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In my defence it is very fine yarn and a 3.00mm hook, all in single crochet, so it does take forever to do each round. I will need to get going on this soon though, if I want to wear it this winter! I promise a more thorough post about this project and pattern when it's closer to completion.<br />
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That's it for now, keep crafting!</div>
Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-28429272617163696642013-08-28T07:28:00.000-07:002013-08-29T22:15:55.058-07:00Summer 2013 Update: July<i>(Note: this post was written at the end of July, I'm just late posting it...)</i><br />
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Recently I've been catching up on blog posts about projects from the last few months plus a couple of recent posts - but you may be wondering what I've been up to since the school year ended.<br />
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Well I sure haven't been idle on the crafting front! Here is a quick update on some of my recent projects, besides the <a href="http://stitchthisfreud.blogspot.ca/2013/08/a-detour-into-knitting.html">knitting project</a> that I've already posted about.<br />
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Once I finished the <a href="http://stitchthisfreud.blogspot.ca/2013/07/a-dad-inspired-project.html">golf club covers</a> for my Dad, I realized that I was running out of time before our summer road trip to Ontario, so I had to get organized about what to bring with me, and what to finish before I left. Here's some of what I've been working on (besides the knitted blanket which you've already heard about).<br />
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<b>"Named in the Light of the Seven" - Bright Rainbow Blanket</b><br />
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Ever since I picked up the bright rainbow yarn in December, I have been wanting to make a bright rainbow baby blanket. So once I was done the <a href="http://stitchthisfreud.blogspot.ca/2013/07/the-big-surprise-project-revealed-part-1.html">massive wedding blanket project</a>, I decided to start work on a baby blanket for some friends in Regina who were expecting in early July. I decided this would be the time for this bright baby blanket, and I also decided to make it a 7-colour rainbow (you know, ROYGBIV like a real rainbow).<br />
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I also decided to design the pattern to use the number 7 as much as possible. I'd been considering this kind of design for a while, ever since I'd heard of Christian prayer shawl patterns that used the number 3 over and over (for the Father, Son and Holy Spirit), and also of Wiccan patterns that also used the number 3, but in this case it was for the 3 aspects of the goddess - maiden, mother and crone. Apparently in both cases the working of the design then becomes a type of prayer or meditation.<br />
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I was intrigued by this idea, and wanted to try something in 7s, partly for the 7 principles of Unitarian Universalism, which I belong to. These principles are often equated with the 7 colours of the rainbow - here is a simplified summary of them using ROYGBIV:<br />
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R - Respect All People<br />
O - Offer kind and fair treatment to all<br />
Y - Yearn to Accept and Learn About Ourselves and Others<br />
G - Grow by Exploring What is True and Right<br />
B - Believe in our Ideas and Act on Them<br />
I - Insist on Freedom, Justice, and Peace for all People<br />
V - Value our home, Earth, that we share with all living beings<br />
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Also, since reading and watching the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Game_of_Thrones">Game of Thrones</a> series (which I am listening to again on audiobook this summer as I craft), where the mainstream religion has <a href="http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Faith_of_the_Seven">7 gods</a> (mother, maiden, crone, father, smith, warrior, stranger), the number 7 comes up over and over again, and rainbows are used to represent this faith. Children born to families who worship the Seven are said to be "Named in the light of the Seven". Plus, their peace banners are rainbow-striped - isn't that cool?<br />
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So I figured this 7 colour blanket would appeal to Game of Thrones fans and Unitarians alike, plus anyone who likes the scientific accuracy of having all the colours of a real rainbow.<br />
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Anyway, enough background...<br />
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Usually my <a href="http://stitchthisfreud.blogspot.ca/2012/02/zig-zag-blankets-galore.html">zigzag baby blankets</a> are made with 6 stitches on each side of a point, so for this blanket made in 7s, I added a stitch to each section. I also made sure that the bottom edge had 7 points. Usually the width of the stripes on my blankets varies, (I think I have used 5 or 6 rows per stripe in the past for rainbows) so of course I increased that to 7, as well as adding an indigo-coloured yarn.<br />
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I actually started this blanket while in Germany for my friend's wedding, but it got set aside during the craziness at the end of the school year. I picked it up again at the end of June and was hoping to get it finished before we left for Ontario for the summer, since our friends' baby would be born in early July.<br />
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As soon as I had worked through one set of the 7 colours, I realized that this blanket would have different dimensions than usual. In order to fit in two repeats of the rainbow pattern it would be longer than usual, but the same width.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPSDNwWEkOG0OgYKXCkZDMZFMTG0Qbsv0V5d2PhSCkeXKr3eEgbaGJc1WA2WunS6Py79rOE5HIMpTYGE8dBFfmJ_Iva0ZDOW_tif2zWpWkgTaVUgvdkOx_c-VpeZ4u2u2frUIMmZtn6GM/s1600/IMG_4250.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPSDNwWEkOG0OgYKXCkZDMZFMTG0Qbsv0V5d2PhSCkeXKr3eEgbaGJc1WA2WunS6Py79rOE5HIMpTYGE8dBFfmJ_Iva0ZDOW_tif2zWpWkgTaVUgvdkOx_c-VpeZ4u2u2frUIMmZtn6GM/s320/IMG_4250.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wow, you're really helping me take pictures of the blanket Nikko... good thing you're cute!</td></tr>
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I didn't get it finished before we left, but I finally completed it in the first week that we were out east, and shipped it back to Regina. I think it turned out pretty well, though next time I would make it wider to make it seem less long and skinny. I can do this while still maintaining the pattern of 7s by counting 7 tops of points (at the purple end), instead of 7 bottom points (the red end) See, if you count in this picture there are 7 points at the red end but only 6 at the purple end - next time I would make it 8 at the red end and 7 at the purple end). The indigo is also a lot darker than the other colours, so I might also look for a shade in a similar yarn that would blend more smoothly.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sorry for the poor lighting, this was taken inside</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Outside, with a Muskoka chair for scale</td></tr>
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When I get a picture of the new little guy with this blanket, I will post it here as an edit.<br />
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<b>Treehouse Boutique Inventory</b><br />
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This summer I heard of a little shop that just opened in North Bay Ontario, called Treehouse Boutique, that specializes in showcasing work by Canadian artisans.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.treehouse-boutique.ca/">http://www.treehouse-boutique.ca</a></td></tr>
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When I first heard about it through <a href="http://www.handmadesask.com/">Handmade Saskatchewan</a> in June, I considered getting involved, but I was so busy that I didn't have time to think much about it, beyond "liking" their Facebook page. Then in early July the owner started asking about artists who made things other than jewelry (I guess her store was mostly jewelry at that point), so I contacted her, and right away she seemed very interested. She was intrigued by the laptop cases but since there are so many different sizes of laptops, it seemed impractical. We decided to start with some phone cases, and some baby booties.<br />
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When we had this conversation I was visiting some friends who live on Lake Huron, so I didn't have access to my usual craft stores. I tried the cute little local yarn shop in town called Docknits, and I was able to find some nice colours of "superwash" wool sock yarn (for the phone cases), for a reasonable price.<br />
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A couple of days later we left for Miami because Deep had an academic conference to attend there, and I was tagging along for the cheap(ish) trip to Florida. I had a great time working on 3 different sizes of phone cases (iPhone 4/4S, iPhone 5, and Blackberry curve) during all the talks, and while out with friends for meals and drinks.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Crochet makes academic talks so much more interesting... </td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Crocheting while at a fancy cocktail bar with some friends!</td></tr>
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Once back from Miami, I needed to organize all the items to send to Treehouse, and I had to attach tags with item names, codes, and prices. Pricing things was interesting - I needed to increase the prices compared to my Etsy store because due to the consignment model Treehouse uses, the artist (that's me!) gets 55% of the shop price, so in order to cover my materials and shipping costs, and to pay for my time, the shop price has to be higher. Hopefully the increased exposure in the shop will make all this worth it!<br />
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I had a hard time finding tags at first (couldn't find anything at Staples, and at Michaels a small package was quite expensive and no choice of paper colour or type). Then I discovered a punch at Michaels that I could use to cut out my own tags out of any paper. It was pricier for the few tags I needed at this point, but I knew that over time it would be cheaper as well as much more flexible.<br />
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At this point I had a nice collection of phone cases in the 3 sizes and 4 colour combinations.<br />
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I had also just made a set of solid-colour baby booties to add to my Etsy store, so I decided to send those along too.</div>
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Here are all the items all ready to go to the shop, just in time for a festival in North Bay at the beginning of August.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDLr4vncudSgpcnflgcROusq4ylFhqQZ81xvjU2oKy0BFhCt56KQ6irUZ3MkXgjGk4KHVgM1aIJGhP71fV_qeafCYZ5sKIrgn3HGCXp3WA5fLh0Gft2NHPWLYzE9bES6e2gDLjbh5uRyo/s1600/IMG_4443*.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDLr4vncudSgpcnflgcROusq4ylFhqQZ81xvjU2oKy0BFhCt56KQ6irUZ3MkXgjGk4KHVgM1aIJGhP71fV_qeafCYZ5sKIrgn3HGCXp3WA5fLh0Gft2NHPWLYzE9bES6e2gDLjbh5uRyo/s640/IMG_4443*.JPG" width="640" /></a>Wish me luck and good sales in this new shop :)<br />
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Keep crafting!<br />
<br />Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-27591181085488595142013-08-15T18:32:00.002-07:002013-08-21T04:57:30.087-07:00A Shop by Any Other Name...<i>Now that I have changed my shop name and posted these new banners and the new logo, I can post this story behind the name and logo change - as well as my tips for others planning the same thing.</i><br />
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Several months ago I decided that I wanted to change the name of my Etsy shop to something more general, since I wanted to expand my products beyond just crochet. In particular, I wanted to add wire jewelry and these glass stones that have pictures or words embedded in them. <br />
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I started trying to come up with names that would be both original and meaningfully connected to me. I came up with a few, mostly inspired by my field work with hummingbirds a few years ago. Once I had some ideas, I posted on my Facebook page to see what others thought, and I got a few suggestions (one of my friends added Dream Nest to my original poll, and clearly it took off):<br />
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I decided that my friends and family were onto something with Dream Nest and decided to start working on logo ideas - and then I got a full time teaching job! For the next few months it was all I could do to keep up with the few orders that came in, and I even had to put my shop on Holiday mode to keep from being overwhelmed. Once summer rolled around I decided to finally get working on this transition to a new name. I started working on some new items in the wire and glass categories, and returned to thinking about a logo. <br />
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Back in January I was thinking about using a photograph or a real wire and yarn nest as the basis for my logo, but the reality of making such a nest was much harder than I had imagined, so now I decided to give in an have a graphic designer make me a proper logo. I searched etsy for a likely designer, and found one (<a href="https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/StyleGraphicDesign?ref=l2-shopheader-name">StyleGraphicDesign</a>) who would do all the design work first and then only charge when the logo is ready and the customer is happy with it. All at a reasonable price of about $50. <br />
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I described what I wanted:<br />
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<span style="background-color: #f5f5f1;">"</span><span style="background-color: #f5f5f1; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">I'm thinking of a bird's nest, ideally made to look like it's made with wire (silver or coloured) and yarn with round pieces/balls of glass embedded, if that doesn't look too busy. Not sure if I want a bird to be near the nest or not... maybe. If so, it should be a hummingbird in rusty red with a white breast patch (I used to study rufous hummingbirds) - or the silhouette of a hummingbird is probably easier.</span><span style="background-color: #f5f5f1; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"> "</span><br />
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and over a couple of days of back and forth, I was quite pleased with the logo, and went for it. Here is the finished product - nice huh?<br />
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<b>There's always a catch...</b><br />
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If you've been following my blog I'm sure you are well aware that nothing ever goes exactly as planned for me, so of course there <i>was</i> a minor hang-up.... I had forgotten to Google the name before finalizing the logo! (In my defence I really thought I had done this back in January... Now I realize that I had searched for the name on Etsy, but not on the rest of the web!) Turns out that if you google "dream nest" or "the dream nest" you get a bunch of real-estate related hits! I guess that makes sense, now that I think of it, but it hadn't occurred to me before. I also tried "dreamy nest" which came up with something called "dreamy nest designs" - clearly I couldn't use this name without confusing my customers and getting folks lost along the way!<br />
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If I had only done this crucial google search before finalizing my logo order, it would have been no big deal, just one more edit in the consultation process. But since it was already finalized, I had to request a change to the finished logo, which cost me another $20 - a stupidity tax I guess! <br />
After some more careful web searching and double checking on Etsy, I decided on Dream Nest Creations, which yields much less confusing search results, and is actually more descriptive. I requested the name change from the graphic designer, and after one more round of drafts and feedback, I finally had the logo I had been looking for! I am actually happier with it than with the original, so I guess it was all for the best. Sure is annoying when life catches up with you and gives you a smack upside the head for being silly though!<br />
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Next on my to do list before unveiling the new logo and officially changing the name was to make myself some banners and profile pictures for Etsy and Facebook, and all that good stuff. With such a lovely logo to start with, this should be easy, right?<br />
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Back when I made my first Etsy banner, I found <a href="https://www.etsy.com/teams/7722/discussions/discuss/5222913/page/1">this post </a>on the Etsy forums about making an Etsy banner with Powerpoint. This appealed to me because I have actually used Powerpoint for formatting and creating layouts that combine images and text before - this is how most academics make their posters for conferences, which I've done three times now, and I've also used it to make snazzy photo collages as well. That's how I made this first Etsy Banner - looks not too bad for a program almost everyone has, huh?<br />
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So I tried to do the same process again for the new banner with the shop name and logo - and I realized that no matter what I did, the text came out looking quite bad - look at how pixellated it is!<br />
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Actually... I guess it doesn't look that bad here... but at normal size it <i>does</i> look really pixellated, and that was NOT how I wanted to debut my new shop name! Especially after I had spent so much time finding and downloading new fonts so it would look <i>just right</i>.<br />
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After some fighting with GIMP (a piece of image editing software I already have, but as it turns out it is not at all intuitive to use), then some Google searches and finally some discussions with some much more graphic-design-savvy friends, someone (thanks Ryan!) suggested that I try a fairly simple editing software tool called Acorn, which has a 14 day free trial, and is WAY more reasonably priced than Photoshop if I end up deciding to buy it in the end.<br />
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I downloaded the software one morning, by the end of the same day I had made several versions of a banner that I am much happier with, as well as a Facebook cover photo, profile picture, and an ad for the Handmade Saskatchewan blog. It is actually really nice to use, and I am loving the results. I'm certainly making the most of my free trial, and I may actually break down and buy it when the trial is up.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjttGxHLfe5Tc9yOazW6WXVHqoSIxw7wDfjSqUkLp4N7Q87T-d2WBQ-2wTbdcRvj_Vs_OWOdU240XriDfoeCyaz4NinkIR5r1dyCo3YmfHY-pCcBkLw7ttBAh171JN8Ov5kWcLJP8tY6mU/s1600/Dream+Nest+Creations+Banner+1d.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="84" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjttGxHLfe5Tc9yOazW6WXVHqoSIxw7wDfjSqUkLp4N7Q87T-d2WBQ-2wTbdcRvj_Vs_OWOdU240XriDfoeCyaz4NinkIR5r1dyCo3YmfHY-pCcBkLw7ttBAh171JN8Ov5kWcLJP8tY6mU/s640/Dream+Nest+Creations+Banner+1d.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My new Etsy banner</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijiFT973ZV-e90f_wUaTHmWfbqixGMmAH-Ey6gVri0LFGejva6lud5CMdE62PLY6aHQ3Loq0Wy0PshyphenhyphenMWLdFERuDUofnuVhQ2bWuIHTtTc1n1S0C-LWq2R447yCK2M-arGNYpyTZDcEio/s1600/Facebook+Profile+Logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijiFT973ZV-e90f_wUaTHmWfbqixGMmAH-Ey6gVri0LFGejva6lud5CMdE62PLY6aHQ3Loq0Wy0PshyphenhyphenMWLdFERuDUofnuVhQ2bWuIHTtTc1n1S0C-LWq2R447yCK2M-arGNYpyTZDcEio/s1600/Facebook+Profile+Logo.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My new Facebook profile picture</td></tr>
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So, after this whole ordeal, I have the following tips to share with the Etsy/Online Shop community:<br />
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<b>1 - Google your shop name!</b> Even if you think you did before, make sure you try it again before you finalize a logo!</div>
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<b>2 - Ask a nice graphic designer on Etsy to make you a lovely logo.</b> You should be able to get one for about $50, and try to find someone who will do the design and feedback process <i>before</i> you buy. I used <a href="https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/StyleGraphicDesign?ref=l2-shopheader-name">StyleGraphicDesign</a>.</div>
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<b>3 - Get some cool original fonts rather than using the basic ones everyone has</b> - it will help you stand out. I recommend Google fonts. Plus I love their new preview sentence that includes all the letters of the alphabet: "Grumpy wizards make toxic brew for the evil Queen and Jack" - isn't that way more fun than the old one about a lazy dog and a fox? Once you've downloaded the fonts you will need to install them to be able to use them - <br />
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<b>4 - Ask a couple of helpful friends to give you feedback on the fonts and layout</b> - It's hard to be impartial and to choose between all the different versions you have come up with. My friends' feedback has been invaluable.<br />
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<b>5 - Choose your editing program</b> - If you have InDesign or PhotoShop and know how to use them, then by all means, use one of them. For the rest of us, I suggest trying Powerpoint (see the tutorial <a href="https://www.etsy.com/teams/7722/discussions/discuss/5222913/page/1">here</a> - but make sure to read at least the first 3 posts as there is a correction), but if it doesn't produce the results you are looking for (text tends to be blurry or pixellated) then I suggest downloading the free trial of <a href="http://www.flyingmeat.com/acorn/">Acorn</a> and see how you like it.<br />
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I hope this is helpful to some of you out there.<br />
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Keep crafting!<br />
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PS: If you haven't seen my new shop name in action, you can <a href="http://www.dreamnestcreations.etsy.com/">visit it now</a> - plus for the next month everything in the shop is 10% off - just use the coupon code NEWNAME1</div>
Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-4265669523509901632013-08-15T08:01:00.001-07:002013-09-04T21:30:25.566-07:00Graceful Mandala crocheted wall hanging - Free Pattern<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>The Story of the Graceful Mandala </b><br />
<i>(or go straight to the pattern below)</i><br />
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This summer my cousin lost her newborn baby, and I wanted to send her and her family some sort of sympathy gift. I wanted something peaceful and or meditative in feeling, and since this family is very much into Yoga and meditation, I decided to make a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandala">Mandala</a>, which is a complex circular design that is sometimes described as "a support for the meditating person."<br />
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I looked online for various patterns (searching for things like "lace wall hanging" and "sympathy pattern"), but nothing really matched what I was looking for. I found one or two that seemed like possibilities, but the instructions were very confusing. When I asked my mother in law for help deciphering one of these patterns, she offered me some patterns for lace doilies instead. I tried the one below (intending to make the centre section, not the whole thing), but since I was using colourful sport weight yarn and a 4mm hook, rather than crochet cotton and a tiny hook, these patterns were too floppy and didn't have the right feeling. I was picturing the end result as something that could be used as a small wall hanging, and this pattern was so floppy that it there was no way it would be able to keep its shape while hanging on the wall.<br />
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So after a few tries, I gave up on this pattern and all the others, and starting working from scratch. I started with a circle of double crochet and started working outward from there, changing colours and adding spaces and varying the height of stitches to create more intricate patterns, while still maintaining enough structure to help the whole thing keep its shape. I've recorded the pattern I created as I went, and I wanted to post it here for anyone else who may want to create their own crochet Mandala.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nikko helping by batting around the ball of yarn</td></tr>
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Of course, when I was mostly done this project I finally did a google search for "crochet mandala" and found lots of designs (including <a href="http://pinterest.com/annoocrochet/crochet-mandala-inspiration/">this whole Pinterest board</a>) - silly me for using the wrong search terms I guess! Ah well, I like the fact that this pattern came to me organically while thinking of my cousin and her loss. I hope it will be the support for meditation that she needs, and a reminder of the little life that was lost too soon.<br />
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Here's the finished product:<br />
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<br />
<b>Graceful Mandala Pattern </b><br />
<i>(This mandala was made with Patons Canadiana acrylic yarn)</i><br />
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Ch 3 with first colour (Green)<br />
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Rnd 1: (Green) 9 DC into 3rd ch from hook, join with sl, fasten off and weave in ends<br />
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Rnd 2: (Blue row 1) join to any dc, ch 5, DC in next st. [Ch 2, DC in next st] repeat around and join to third ch in original set.<br />
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Rnd 3: (Blue Row 2) [2 sc into ch 2 sp, 2 sc into dc] repeat around. On sc into last one, and slip st into next st.<br />
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Rnd 4: (Purple row 1) without fastening off blue, switch to purple with a chain st. Ch 4 more, then skip 2 and sl into third sc. (Ch 5, skip 2, sl into third sc) repeat around. In the last set, you will have 1 extra sc, so sl into it as usual, then sl into base of first purple ch to complete the round. <br />
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Rnd 5: (Purple Row 2) (ch 5, sc into next sl) repeat around <br />
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Rnd 6: (Dark blue row 1) - attach to a sc, then 6 ch, and DC into next sc. (4ch then dc into next sc) around to end. Last one, ch 4, then join to 2nd ch in starting chain<br />
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Rnd 7: (Dark blue Row 2) 4 sc into space, then sc2tog into that space and the next one. Repeat around and slip into first sc.<br />
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Rnd 8: (Dark blue Row 3) ch 1, sc into base of ch, 1 sc in each sc around, but 2 sc into each sc2tog. Slip st to join.<br />
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Rnd 9: (Light Blue row 1) join light blue, ch 1, sc, ch 2, DC, ch 2, sc, (sc, ch 2, dc, ch 2, sc) repeat around.<br />
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Rnd 10: (Purple row 1) join to any sc at the end of a hump (the first sc of any two sc in a row), and ch 4(counts as 1 dc and 1 ch), then sc into the dc at the top of the hump. (Ch 1, then dc into the first sc of the pair, ch 1, and sc to the DC at the top), repeat around and join with a slip st to the third ch in starting chain.<br />
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Rnd 11: (Purple Row 2) Sc in each st and ch 1 space around<br />
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Rnd 12: (Red row 1) join to any sc, sc. (Skip 1 st, 5 hdc in the next sc, skip 1 st, sc) - 1 shell made. Repeat shells around. May have to skip 1 extra stitch before starting last shell. Sl to join. Fasten off and weave in ends<br />
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Rnd 13: (Purple row 1) join to any sc, ch 3. 2 hdc in same st (sc into BLO of middle stitch in shell, then 5 hdc into both loops of next sc) repeat around. <br />
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Rnd 14: (Dark blue row 1) join at the top of a shell. Sc in each dc, and sc2tog over each sc. Repeat around.<br />
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Rnd 15: (Light blue row 1) Join into the bottom of a dip. Chain 2, then sc in each of the next 4 st. (Hdc into the next dip, sc into each of next 4 st) repeat around.<br />
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Rnd 16: (Green row 1) Join to any st. Sc into every stitch around. Fasten off.Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-85365814919603300202013-08-02T07:44:00.000-07:002013-08-02T07:50:25.164-07:00A Detour into KnittingThis summer we drove back to Ontario for most of July and August. Since Deep always drives the whole way on road trips, I knew I would have lots of time for crafting in the car (assuming a certain kitty didn't freak out the whole way...). And of course there were those seven weeks of vacation time in Ontario to plan for, so I had to think carefully about what projects to bring with me. I felt a little like Goldilocks – this project is too big, this one is too small... I needed something that would be <i>just right.</i><br />
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I finally decided to start a really neat knitted (yes, knit, not crochet!) blanket for which I had picked up all the yarn over a year ago.<br />
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<a href="http://www.knitting-warehouse.com/free_knitting_patterns/Bernat/BabyCoordinatesChunky/Bernat_BabyCoordinatesChunky479_kn_4squaresblanket.en_US.pdf">Bernat 4 Squares Blanket</a> </div>
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As you can see, the pattern is for a blanket with concentric squares of 3 different vibrant colours, separated by narrower squares in white. I think it's a really striking pattern. I originally saw it in a big yarn store as one of those free tear-off patterns (from Bernat) posted right on the shelves with the yarn. I admired it a few times, but the yarn they suggested (Bernat Baby Coordinates Chunky) was pretty pricey, (and it was that specific colour combination that really caught my eye, so I didn't want to substitute another yarn) so I decided to wait for a sale and consider it again at that point.<br />
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Some weeks later I came across this same yarn at my favourite cheap Ontario yarn store (<i>Len's Mill Store</i>), and it was selling for less than half regular price! I didn't see all the colours I needed, but I figured it would be easy to pick up three of the colours at that point, and then go pick up the last colour (the bright green) at regular price at one of the chain stores. I purchased several skeins (such a great price!) and felt very clever... Until I returned to each of the other yarn stores and <b>could not find</b> the last couple of skeins for this project! Not only was I unable to find the green I was looking for, but all the yarns seemed to have disappeared entirely from the usual stores! And I'm not talking about the yarn being sold out either - just completely gone. Vanished. As if the yarn never existed... and the pattern was gone too!<br />
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Suddenly I started wondering if there was a <i>reason</i> the yarn has been so cheap – had the yarn been discontinued while I had all but one colour for this blanket? This was starting to feel suspiciously like the time my bridesmaid dresses were discontinued when 3 of my 4 bridesmaids had bought them - ack! What the heck was I supposed to do now? I decided to take a few deep breaths and be patient and keep my eyes open. Maybe the stores were just rearranging their shelves and the yarn would appear again. Maybe the green yarn would show up at Len's Mill... maybe it would work out somehow. After a couple of weeks of practicing patience, it occurred to me that I should have asked my friends in other cities to look for this missing yarn – maybe it was still stocked in other cities? At this point it was probably too late to try this though...<br />
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When I had almost given up hope, I was walking through Zellers (while they were having their clearance sales) and saw both the missing pattern and the missing yarn on an "end cap" display at the end of the aisle. I stopped in my tracks and dug through the display until I found the elusive green yarn! Yay! The blanket wasn't doomed after all! (For the record, the bridesmaid dress situation worked out in the end too.) I was barely able to keep myself from dancing down the aisle in Zellers in joy as I bought the required skeins, plus one extra just to be safe.<br />
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Anyway – so over a year ago I finally got the yarn for this blanket, why didn't I start it right away? I had a million things on the go at the time, and then we moved, and then I made the wedding blanket... in short, I didn't get to starting this blanket.<br />
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There was also some considerable apprehension because knitting is not really my thing - crochet comes easily to me and is relaxing, whereas knitting tends to make me nervous. I mean, with crochet, if you drop a stitch, it's just one stitch (or maybe two or three) - but the potential for catastrophe with knitting is much higher, as a single dropped stitch can ruin the whole project! Even though this project was almost entirely straight knit stitch (plus a decrease on every other row), it would be the largest knitting project I'd ever done, and so I figured some practice was in order first. For a few months I dedicated one of my little project bags to a set of circular needles, and in my spare time I made a couple of blanket squares with straight knitting to build up my muscle memory and my confidence.<br />
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<b>Back to the Present</b><br />
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Ok, so we're finally caught up to this summer. I packed up most of the yarn into this project bag (and the rest into my suitcase, in case I got that far), and we headed across the country. The good thing about this project is that it is made in 4 square pieces (one for each corner) that are stitched together at the end. I figured this would make the project more manageable on the road, as I could pack away each square as I finished it, and it wouldn't grow too large for my project bag or to work on comfortably in the car.<br />
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I started off the first morning of our drive with a couple of rows on my practice square to remind my fingers how knitting works, and then I pulled out my pattern and my brand new 6 mm circular knitting needles (courtesy of my local yarn shop in Regina, <i>Golden Willow</i>), and started casting on - turns out my fingers did remember how to do this! Since I'm terrible at remembering to count stitches, I used stitch markers every 20 stitches from each end, and a marker of a different colour for the point where I would need to decrease. This excessive use of stitch markers later gained me some raised eyebrows from my mother-in-law who is an expert knitter, but what can you do?<br />
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So I did my first row, and got to the part in the second row where the pattern says "Sl1, K2tog, psso" - and I realized that I really should have gotten some lessons on this from my knitting friends before I left town! Luckily, this is the digital age, and I had the power of the internet in my hand – so I spent a ridiculously long time looking up instructions and diagrams for a slip stitch (everyone assumes you already know how to do this, I guess). Once I found them, it was easy to find K2tog and psso. Thank you internet! Here is my progress after only a couple of hours. You can see in the top left that the corner is even starting to take shape – yay!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnbJ-tHIBC9BSbrSRW6d_33t8WbbpKM_xCbvOw6f1MJ_y8k3S6l7-EeVxEKW1vj4fYoBnrIdGkxWFkyAyyYcnCgr7Ey2CJHO9Zxs5qI1J6ILNde04uUQ5JinTkVmqLO8JAFKbRnWW2LmQ/s1600/IMG_4154.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnbJ-tHIBC9BSbrSRW6d_33t8WbbpKM_xCbvOw6f1MJ_y8k3S6l7-EeVxEKW1vj4fYoBnrIdGkxWFkyAyyYcnCgr7Ey2CJHO9Zxs5qI1J6ILNde04uUQ5JinTkVmqLO8JAFKbRnWW2LmQ/s320/IMG_4154.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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And here is the progress partway through the second day – I successfully changed colours and luckily no major mishaps....<br />
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On the third day of the drive something startled me in the middle of a stitch and I jerked my hands, and looked down to find that I had dropped a stitch! And to my horror, it had already run down a couple of rows! I know, experienced knitters say all you have to do is "un-knit" and "re-knit" to fix this, but remember, this was my first real knitting project, and I had no idea what these things mean, let alone how to do them! I tried to stop panicking, after all we would arrive at my in-laws place that evening, so I put my needle caps (or whatever you call those things that stop stitches from slipping off your needles) back on, carefully put the project in the bag, and sent a plea to the knitting gods that it wouldn't get any worse.<br />
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That night after dinner, I pulled out the project and asked my mother in law for her help – and she worked magic. I saw this mystical un-knitting process in action (though I still do not claim to understand how it works!), and within a few minutes my project was back in order. A little while later though, I realized that I had made a mistake somewhere a few rounds earlier, because my decrease and straight knit rows were out of whack. Thankfully, she was able to work some even more complex knitting magic that involved pulling back a couple of rows, but then un-knitting a few more just in the middle, and reconstructing the whole pattern where I had gone wrong! (see below).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBBJAugmLD-LpaopWxjLbBR-B1dOFJ9kv8i7mmZLSyDEQb8MECKHOLMnDOEWb5DjsxhamwjQKsiVvV4oW-6m4vKsSOPM1D-SJeH3zlVhDgPDUQrp3430Qy7xtzLab3UHQxrDjR3vxjv6Q/s1600/IMG_4205*.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBBJAugmLD-LpaopWxjLbBR-B1dOFJ9kv8i7mmZLSyDEQb8MECKHOLMnDOEWb5DjsxhamwjQKsiVvV4oW-6m4vKsSOPM1D-SJeH3zlVhDgPDUQrp3430Qy7xtzLab3UHQxrDjR3vxjv6Q/s320/IMG_4205*.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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After a few tries, we had it back in order! At this point I decided that it was past time to try using a "lifeline" – where you thread a piece of scrap yarn through all the stitches in your current row, so that if anything goes wrong, you know you can at least pull back to that point without losing any further stitches. The idea of putting in a lifeline always seems to occur right AFTER a catastrophe, but at least when you're done fixing your mess, you can ensure you won't have to re-do that section again! If you look carefully in the picture below, you can see a piece of yellow yarn sticking out near the top of the green stripe – that's my first life line. Over the next few days I made pretty good progress with this project, until I got distracted by other projects (see my Summer Update post).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGmJRAk6wcQF1fa5kFJ5WxTBR_cpygC9vR8MTo04kJK57sI1-b9RM5wuVhw7boXjB5YzUPSjB9Aughn4dxdSISaGn-IGQzxB6LAClVw0kAFgx9gYrTogEea8LWo6nCSwO4sx0Y_0r0BuI/s1600/IMG_4229*.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGmJRAk6wcQF1fa5kFJ5WxTBR_cpygC9vR8MTo04kJK57sI1-b9RM5wuVhw7boXjB5YzUPSjB9Aughn4dxdSISaGn-IGQzxB6LAClVw0kAFgx9gYrTogEea8LWo6nCSwO4sx0Y_0r0BuI/s320/IMG_4229*.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
Then this project got set aside for a couple of weeks straight, while we flew down to Florida for a conference (obviously I didn't have room for this extra bag on the plane), and then went on a short within-Ontario road trip when we got back to Canada. A couple of days ago I pulled out this project again, only to find that I had made yet another mistake – I had skipped two decreases, because I had been too caught up in conversation the last time I was working on this project! So I spent part of an evening working back 3 or 4 rows to fix the problem myself. Once I was back to where I had started, i figured it was time for a second life line. Here are a couple of shots of the process. I just used a tapestry needle and some scrap yarn (yellow in these pictures), and carefully threaded it through each stitch in the current row.<br />
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Ta-da! You can see the two yellow strands on the far left, those are the two completed life lines. In theory I could have taken out the older lifeline once I had the new one in, but this seemed unnecessary.<br />
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Once I had the second lifeline in, and the project was back on track, I really started moving. It seemed to be progressing much more quickly – partly because my technique was getting significantly better, but mostly because the rows were getting shorter. Here is a shot of my progress late the next morning, as I sat at the kitchen table listening to my audiobook and with my kitty to keep me company. As you can see, at this point I had already completed a whole new coloured stripe and was almost on to the next one. The way it was working up so quickly, I became determined to finish it that day.<br />
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That afternoon it was just too nice outside to stay inside any longer. So I set up a chair in the shade under one of the apple trees in the backyard at my in-laws' place, got my audiobook going again, and got to work in the lovely warm-but-not-too-sticky-for-once afternoon. Here is a shot from where I sat, during a brief period of cloud cover when the shadows weren't too dark for a picture. </div>
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A little while later I got up to get something, and came back to find I had a visitor – Oreo, the extremely friendly cat from next door, had decided to join me under my tree! Doesn't this look like a lovely spot to spend the afternoon?<br />
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And *drumroll* later that afternoon I finished the first section of the blanket – here it is! Obviously it needs to be blocked, and there are quite a few ends to weave in, but I'm so proud. I finished my first major knitting project, and I did it without pulling out any of my hair! I did put in a third lifeline, as you can see, but I didn't end up needing any of them, thankfully.<br />
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Now I'm about 12 rows into the next section, so I better get back to it! I will post about this project again once I've got all four sections complete, as I start putting it together.<br />
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Keep crafting!<br />
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Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-6380686901307639982013-07-15T08:34:00.001-07:002013-07-15T08:34:49.633-07:00A Dad-Inspired ProjectOver the past year as I have started up this blog and then my Etsy shop my Dad has been a huge supporter. He's my proofreader for this blog (he makes sure that no typos or autocorrect goofs make it onto the published post!), and is always arguing for me to set my prices to value my time as well as the material costs. In short, he's all a girl could ask for in a supportive Dad! [Awww] <i><--- That's a comment from him when he proofread this post, hehe!</i><br />
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A couple of times over the last year when I was thinking of new items to add, he has suggested head covers for golf clubs. I don't golf myself so I hadn't realized, but I guess the "woods" (now made of metal, but originally made from wood) are covered with a decorative enamel on the non-hitting surfaces that can easily get scratched when the clubs bump into each other, and the larger driver has the same issue. So most golfers have a set of head covers, usually made from some type of cloth, to protect the woods and the driver. The head covers for the woods always have numbers on them so the golfer can tell which club is which without taking off each cover. The other clubs, the "irons" don't have this enamel so they usually don't require covers. <br />
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When my Dad's birthday came around this year (in mid-May) and I asked what he would like for his birthday, he reminded me about the head cover idea. I got his colour requests (royal blue with a silver stripe to match his golf bag which is navy and silver, with a royal blue towel), and my Mum took some measurements of his clubs for me (they live in Calgary, which is an 8 hour drive away), and I got started. <br />
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I scoured the net for any free patterns that I could use to get a general idea of the construction of a golf club head cover. I knew it would need a narrow neck part, and a larger head part, but the neck would need to either open up or be stretchy enough to allow the club head to fit through. I was surprised at the lack of patterns out there (there probably would have been more knitting patterns of course) - all I could find was <a href="http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/L0142AD.html">this lion brand one-size-fits-all pattern</a>. It looked ok, but since it was the same for the driver and the woods, it was a huge bulbous thing that would be tight on the driver but incredibly floppy on the others.<br />
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I made one according to that pattern (but using my colours and making the stripe vertical instead of horizontal), just to see how it would turn out, and then went in search of a set of golf clubs to try it on. The ribbed effect for the neck worked well to give the required flexibility to get the club in, and then retracted to hang nicely around the shaft of the club. As I suspected though, the head was large enough for the driver but way oversized on the woods. It was also symmetrical, which worked fine for the almost spherical driver, but I figured that an asymmetrical cover made with a smaller hook would fit the woods much more neatly.<br />
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Here is the first one:<br />
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I then spent an afternoon at my stitch group trying to re-work the pattern for the woods, and after a few attempts I was quite pleased with it, and started to make another. Partway through the second one I decided to try a narrower stripe (2 rows instead of 3 in the cuff, and 2 stitches instead of 3 in the head) - and was much happier with the look.<br />
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Here is the first one with the wide stripe:<br />
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During a video call with my parents I showed my dad the prototypes and he agreed that the thinner stripe was more of what he wanted, so I stuck with that for the next two covers. This of course meant that I had to re-do both the first of the smaller covers, and the original cover for the driver, so that they would all match. I took this opportunity to adjust the driver pattern some more to be wider and less tall, to fit the shape of the driver more closely. <br />
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Here are the finished covers before adding the numbers:<br />
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Finally I made the black chains and stitched them on for the numbers. I considered making a "D" for the driver cover but finally decided against it since the driver is so much obviously larger.<br />
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Here is the picture of the finished set that I texted to my dad to let him know they were done:<br />
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My parents came for a visit a few days later, and here are the covers on the clubs:<br />
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And here he is with his new club covers, heading off on a golfing trip.<br />
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I think they turned out pretty well - though they sure are hard to get a good picture of! I've decided to name these covers after my Dad, Mich - though I used the more common spelling of Mitch to avoid confusing people - since they wouldn't exist without him :)<br />
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I have just finished writing up a polished version of my finalized pattern, and it's now available on my Etsy store: <a href="https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/156239426/mitch-golf-club-cover-pattern-to-crochet?ref=shop_home_feat">https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/156239426/mitch-golf-club-cover-pattern-to-crochet?ref=shop_home_feat </a><br />
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Like the pattern but don't have time to make them? The custom covers are also available on my Etsy store:<br />
<a href="https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/156335134/custom-mitch-golf-club-cover-made-to?ref=shop_home_active">https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/156335134/custom-mitch-golf-club-cover-made-to?ref=shop_home_active</a><br />
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<br />Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-65606826807104848472013-07-13T09:10:00.000-07:002013-07-13T17:25:44.203-07:00Big Surprise Project Revealed - Part 4 (The Home Stretch)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqa2AGl214IRdqLEJUZX96CX_Zjfpr1FjJG8SN54qc_KeEZm3-p5aXgd_Y-loDAy1jZqsJm65bwtvzWlMUZJLOChmGMCL4QuSqV-Kgxs-MKsH2-nFvAMeibHmpq5K9PeTQRi5hp7FdMQs/s1600/IMG_2558.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqa2AGl214IRdqLEJUZX96CX_Zjfpr1FjJG8SN54qc_KeEZm3-p5aXgd_Y-loDAy1jZqsJm65bwtvzWlMUZJLOChmGMCL4QuSqV-Kgxs-MKsH2-nFvAMeibHmpq5K9PeTQRi5hp7FdMQs/s320/IMG_2558.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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I can't believe how long it has taken me to finish up these four posts and get them posted so you can read this saga. The end of the school year really kept me busy, so I haven't had any time to work on the blog at all - Sorry! Anyway, it's time to finish off this story and show you the end product!</span><br />
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<b>More Delays...</b></span><br />
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After my last post in November, the truck did finally arrive in Regina (two full weeks after we did) with all of our stuff, so I finally had the rest of the yarn I was waiting on. But by then I was under the wire for making a baby gift for a baby due in early December (the <b>star</b> blanket) and then getting to work on Xmas presents for several of my family and friends (see this <b>post</b>). Also during the holidays I got three orders for items from my Etsy store.</span><br />
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Finally I got back home after travelling during the holidays, and then promptly got a full time teaching job and moved to our new house! This didn't leave much time for crafting. And amazingly, when I did have time, I was scrambling to finish a few more orders from my Etsy store. A good problem to have of course, but I ended up having to put my shop on Holiday Mode so that I could focus my limited crafting time on creating this blanket in time.</span><br />
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By this time it was early March and I was starting to get worried, since I had only about 40% of the squares made for the full blanket pattern I was planning, and we would be leaving for the wedding on May 1. Each night when I was done marking and planning for the next day, I would work on it a bit more, and I took a small project bag with me everywhere. I did my best to use all those typically wasted minutes waiting for appointments and meetings, and I even made a couple of squares while listening to the keynote presentation at Teacher's Convention! I was spending all day each Saturday at the local yarn store <i>The Golden Willow</i>, at their drop-in stitching group, which was good for my productivity, and was also a good motivator. The ladies there were all very supportive, and each time I showed up they excitedly asked how it was going and how close I was now - unfortunately they seemed a little worried it wasn't progressing faster, and frankly so was I.</span><br />
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Here is a shot of the squares I was finishing up on March 29th - when these last two blocks were finished, I was done all the squares of this type. However there were still two more types that weren't quite done yet.. and one had so many left to do...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But finally Spring Break arrived (the first week of April this year), and I vowed to make some major strides during the week off school. My resolve to focus on this project was helped by the fact that I had a bad fall on the first weekend and bruised my tailbone, so other tasks (like finishing the last of the unpacking, an organizing a couple of rooms in the house) were put on hold since I couldn't bend over painlessly. Lots of movies and TV episodes and audio books kept me going while I powered through square after square (sitting on a pillow the whole time).</span><br />
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During Spring Break I decided to start blocking the squares I had so far, so that I could begin assembly. Since this was acrylic yarn rather than a natural fibre, and crochet rather than knitting, I knew that blocking wouldn't be nearly as dramatic as it could be otherwise, but my squares varied in size a fair bit, so I figured it was worth a try. I scoured the Internet for some tips, and found <a href="http://a-modicum-of-ingenuity.blogspot.ca/2012/03/tutorial-blocking-acrylic-yarn.html">this great tutorial</a> for blocking acrylic yarn. I didn't use her method for making the board, instead I picked up a couple of foam floor mats, and a pile of pins. Using a measuring tape and permanent marker, I mapped out squares on the foam mats, stretched and pinned the squares into place, and then sprayed them with water. I used a cloth to absorb the extra water, and left them to dry over night. While waiting for them to dry I was of course still working on the remaining squares.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first six squares being blocked</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> As usual, anything on the floor (or on the bed, or couch, or table...) is fair game for Nikko to investigate and/or sit on.</span></div>
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After two or three days I had enough squares blocked to start assembly. Using my pattern plan, I laid out the squares for the first few rows on my living room floor. Then I picked up the squares for each row in order and bagged and labelled them for easy access.</span><br />
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To assemble each row I used the dark brown yarn (one of the colours that was least used in the squares), and single crocheted the edge of one square to the other while holding them wrong-sides together to make a raised seam. I was hoping that the dark brown raised seams would unify the various designs, and give a many-paned-window effect.</span><br />
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Here are the first few rows all assembled and ready to be joined to each other – starting to look like part of a blanket!</span><br />
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I used the same method to attach the rows to each other, but the seams were much larger and required lots of pins to ensure the blocks lined up just right. Here is the picture of the first two rows that I finished assembling - I was so excited to get to this point...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nikko seems to approve of the blanket so far...</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxKPjaUcyiRqS0DUzRCMosGHhVPsNj48mJZVC2rWKi3ga1cyKzW2e4mfhJoLGLMVxA2sWvgTMcHzLhfjxt_SOWe7_JesCcgJS2OhXneou5DmoZ-nml0SbPZrkrydryxSrnvHW8ccH1-FM/s1600/IMG_2436rotated.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxKPjaUcyiRqS0DUzRCMosGHhVPsNj48mJZVC2rWKi3ga1cyKzW2e4mfhJoLGLMVxA2sWvgTMcHzLhfjxt_SOWe7_JesCcgJS2OhXneou5DmoZ-nml0SbPZrkrydryxSrnvHW8ccH1-FM/s400/IMG_2436rotated.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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A friend from the stitching group invited me over for a crafting date during the week, and I put the first few rows together at her place. Here is the blanket after spending the afternoon at her place - the first six rows were in place. It was INCREDIBLY hard not to post this picture on Facebook or on here as soon as I took it. I was so glad finally to have something to show for my months of work, but I couldn't tell the world, just a few friends locally, to avoid spoiling the surprise!</span><br />
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By now I had decided that I probably would not make it to the full length I had originally planned (11 rows long), and that maybe that would have been too long anyway. Instead I figured that I would make a perfect square (7 x 7 squares) and then add two or three more rows beyond that, and see how far I got before I ran out of time and had to switch to finishing: making a border and weaving in the last ends.</span><br />
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A couple of days later I took this picture and then the next day at school I showed it to someone proudly and then nearly had a heart attack - what happened to my beautiful diagonal pattern?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As I looked at this picture, I thought that I has somehow mixed up the pattern on several rows, and I couldn't figure out how it had happened - I had been so careful! That night when I went home and took a look, I realized that I had simply attached the most recent vertical row (on the far right in this picture) on the wrong edge of the blanket! I had marked the wrong corner as the starting point (you can see a bit of orange yarn hanging off the block in the top left corner - I had meant to mark the same block in the top right, but somehow got the blanket turned around! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So luckily it was only one seam that I had to rip out and I moved the offending row to its proper place:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVq9enTpvbKecdEy4H3UyPMUcmJYUhooc8eb4X51o-NWiVOnRIQg5azsMj6QshlfaLYfs4gZtMmCK7zmInCEF4-Q4THGegE_fLALP9X8CZPz9wZBrjuw725BJltlVsagFMkyJGqQbkZjk/s1600/IMG_2455.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVq9enTpvbKecdEy4H3UyPMUcmJYUhooc8eb4X51o-NWiVOnRIQg5azsMj6QshlfaLYfs4gZtMmCK7zmInCEF4-Q4THGegE_fLALP9X8CZPz9wZBrjuw725BJltlVsagFMkyJGqQbkZjk/s400/IMG_2455.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now I had a perfect square, and knew that if all else failed, I could stop here, weave in the ends and put a border on, and I would be happy the with the result. This was very good for my stress levels. I still planned to add a couple more rows, but it was nice to know I could stop at any time and it would be ok.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After Spring Break ended of course I was busy again, but I kept carrying my little project bag with me everywhere, and I did by best to finish up the last few squares - the striped block is the one that I had the least of, and it was holding up getting any further on this project. Here's Nikko lying beside me in bed on a weekend morning watching me finish one of these last squares.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On April 20th, I was just one square away from being able to attach my last two rows:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPH_udWIRHS2sC-CDDWLRzkrJJEAC-xBW6uGNxHY4oKAEexUjw-G-dWQCXatPxiP91AqqDFTyvW83NvHmA_pf3dfRKX-OTfC_pZwbGy7rzY_P3MarwipkWxmGuaw-4SKrisbblKpt0LEE/s1600/IMG_2503.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPH_udWIRHS2sC-CDDWLRzkrJJEAC-xBW6uGNxHY4oKAEexUjw-G-dWQCXatPxiP91AqqDFTyvW83NvHmA_pf3dfRKX-OTfC_pZwbGy7rzY_P3MarwipkWxmGuaw-4SKrisbblKpt0LEE/s320/IMG_2503.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I got it finished later that day, and attached, and then I got to work weaving in the ends from the assembly, and making one final round of the dark brown around the outside before I began my border. Here I am trying to work on this during a board game with a friend who was visiting from out of town that weekend. Oh yeah and of course Nikko was trying to sit on the blanket while I worked - not particularly helpful, but cute as always.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Brown edging done - Nikko looks like he approves of the blanket:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVGeNbELRKZNgr8vKpiB_3pi2vop8BFDQkfNB1x00GXRwNWXB-4lFQzCXmb2POBnpfzxP9yUrrbjNU3CmT53mTBiNYPF8BUbRgk1U_7JoAw2htjb562UyFuNvsRQx1fDdM2c-1K563nV8/s1600/IMG_2513.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVGeNbELRKZNgr8vKpiB_3pi2vop8BFDQkfNB1x00GXRwNWXB-4lFQzCXmb2POBnpfzxP9yUrrbjNU3CmT53mTBiNYPF8BUbRgk1U_7JoAw2htjb562UyFuNvsRQx1fDdM2c-1K563nV8/s320/IMG_2513.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here we go - all ready for the border! </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4oaBYKZLQhbuh8teUcn_g33iqN0JB2fGmK93wQGYq5XeqBGVa_F_QMkhm2bRMJCAvZyQk4OjACEhcwpVpdq0dKg882dvQKDontlpBUwh2gE7WbMxPBna6w9N2lhh9mW1qq_BKkUVSYtQ/s1600/IMG_2524.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4oaBYKZLQhbuh8teUcn_g33iqN0JB2fGmK93wQGYq5XeqBGVa_F_QMkhm2bRMJCAvZyQk4OjACEhcwpVpdq0dKg882dvQKDontlpBUwh2gE7WbMxPBna6w9N2lhh9mW1qq_BKkUVSYtQ/s320/IMG_2524.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I had almost finished the assembly, I consulted with the ladies at my stitch group to decide on a border. We all agreed that it should be a pretty simple border in one of the brighter colours from the blanket (bright blue, green, or orange) - and finally decided to go with the orange since it is the bride's favourite colour. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So once the brown pre-border row was done, I selected my go-to-simple-border (#114) from the pattern book <i>Around the Corner</i>, got out my bright orange yarn and got to work:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I finished the blanket (the last of the border, and then weaving in the last few ends) on the Saturday before our Wednesday trip, at my stitch group. What a relief to have it done! Then I packed it up for the trip (it literally took up half of my suitcase) as you can see below:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With this all-important project done, I proceeded to run around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to finish EVERYTHING ELSE I had to do before I left – like all the preparations and sub plans for being away from my four high school classes for four days, and frantically searching for Deep's passport, which turned out to be expired (thank goodness for living in a city with a proper passport office and being able to pay for last minute service!), and packing up everything else we'd need for the trip....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We finally arrived at my in-laws (we had an overnight layover in Toronto and they live two hours away so we stayed with them) and I realized I had no pictures of the whole finished blanket, so we took one before leaving for the airport. You can see my mother-in-law and two of my in-laws' four cats in the picture with me.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie9DNolR1Ea7dUgrpsY3LKCkFr7bEyU4s_atAjecGqpBw-vLMyipoa9aBIoJCcY3TwXj4tscRWcQwSx0urWChvceuPtVdrTiJtpbP15PxO8_aeAm7mBkbexRtB9jpmYX-CDpntpKqIedU/s1600/IMG_2572.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEie9DNolR1Ea7dUgrpsY3LKCkFr7bEyU4s_atAjecGqpBw-vLMyipoa9aBIoJCcY3TwXj4tscRWcQwSx0urWChvceuPtVdrTiJtpbP15PxO8_aeAm7mBkbexRtB9jpmYX-CDpntpKqIedU/s640/IMG_2572.JPG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In Germany At Last!</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When we arrived in Germany and got to our friends' apartment in Halle, I was bursting with excitement to give them the blanket. Her fiancé was out for a bit (trying to find parking for their rental van), and I had intended to wait until they were both there, but finally I couldn't wait anymore. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I brought the blanket into the living room I got exactly the reaction I was hoping for: something along the lines of "Holy &*$% Christine! I can't believe this!" She is a crocheter herself, so I knew she would appreciate the amount of work and love that had gone into this blanket. It was nice to hear it though!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It turned out that we were short on blankets that night at her place, so she actually slept with the new blanket, and pronounced it nice and warm. All throughout the visit the bride and groom and her family kept commenting on the blanket - I'm glad it was such a hit!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Shortly after getting the blanket...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the morning of the wedding...</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUygRH19Rk3CzllHp49z0BtO35zVC2SDSu0sYDZ_87LVjZQsouICcnRDWDbQmScl4k9tP-ZqJjcf59eyfDIW01Ty5BjFEnm5ji8pMSHFrhNMwT_vz573MyFEE9VSrnp5oefjCUdelyElE/s1600/IMG_2653.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUygRH19Rk3CzllHp49z0BtO35zVC2SDSu0sYDZ_87LVjZQsouICcnRDWDbQmScl4k9tP-ZqJjcf59eyfDIW01Ty5BjFEnm5ji8pMSHFrhNMwT_vz573MyFEE9VSrnp5oefjCUdelyElE/s400/IMG_2653.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After the wedding...</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgidLfDidJbv1mH2LxSe7EMiIExzfntvxcS_VBMYsVJSbtaYXeCxYjfbJpJtCjo1j967vklJ7LBGzDyfP_0xgRTkDeifknLQlgzVc49GMBvG8RGPnAlx5fEE_MeKrqrq3mEkNj52UPigwI/s1600/Chris+and+Jess+after+wedding.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgidLfDidJbv1mH2LxSe7EMiIExzfntvxcS_VBMYsVJSbtaYXeCxYjfbJpJtCjo1j967vklJ7LBGzDyfP_0xgRTkDeifknLQlgzVc49GMBvG8RGPnAlx5fEE_MeKrqrq3mEkNj52UPigwI/s400/Chris+and+Jess+after+wedding.jpg" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And of course, here's the happy couple – aren't they adorable?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Recently in an email from the bride I got the following note:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>P.S. Christine your blanket is on our couch and I use it every day to cuddle up and watch episodes of 30 Rock, Big Bang, Community and, of course, Star Trek :)</i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222;">Makes me feel all warm and happy inside that a piece of me is with her and keeping her company all the way over in Germany - that was the whole point after all.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's a picture from today of the two of them - so painfully cute!</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRTA3Trm6LKIwp64G_oGebnovoJ36BxxutaX3uuMrqH2ezSF5boiUXoCfi64IEI8gAdV4CbNWSKJmYU2v3IwJfuoWglE_5Uv-Y21ywfPpsIfNYPOll7juMI9V7UIeUrsoe6VlpUAOAiE0/s1600/Martin+and+Jessica+with+blanket.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="470" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRTA3Trm6LKIwp64G_oGebnovoJ36BxxutaX3uuMrqH2ezSF5boiUXoCfi64IEI8gAdV4CbNWSKJmYU2v3IwJfuoWglE_5Uv-Y21ywfPpsIfNYPOll7juMI9V7UIeUrsoe6VlpUAOAiE0/s640/Martin+and+Jessica+with+blanket.jpg" width="640" /></span></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And one final picture of the whole blanket:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRToMXR-iV29DPnLgcFH-VZUYNLXQNTF_Qt7fVB3GYoJPsNTCb1qpDZAKQhHC99MRCzyg7H9foeCl5-mrVb1Hjj_WQfYV3OiQGW0gtGW0-7TrcEEDBUrvTio6_83NQzf_cAzspEhWYEZU/s1600/IMG_3042.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRToMXR-iV29DPnLgcFH-VZUYNLXQNTF_Qt7fVB3GYoJPsNTCb1qpDZAKQhHC99MRCzyg7H9foeCl5-mrVb1Hjj_WQfYV3OiQGW0gtGW0-7TrcEEDBUrvTio6_83NQzf_cAzspEhWYEZU/s640/IMG_3042.JPG" width="640" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222;">Well that's the saga, thanks for reading this far.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #222222;"><br /></span><span style="color: #222222;">Keep crafting!</span></span>Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-60435891159178530492013-07-13T08:32:00.000-07:002013-07-13T17:30:17.510-07:00The Big Surprise Project Revealed - Part 2<b>October 2013</b><br />
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Once I had the colours and the yarn for this project, I had to decide on which blocks to make, and with which colours, and then how many of each block and how to lay out the whole blanket! Suddenly this was feeling a bit overwhelming, but I pushed through, trying to focus on one thing at a time.<br />
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<b>Selecting the Blocks</b><br />
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I pulled out my trusty <i>200 Crochet Blocks</i> book (I've made such good use of that book!), and immediately decided on a few favourite blocks from <a href="http://stitchthisfreud.blogspot.ca/2012/02/stitch-for-good-community-handcrafts.html">the group project</a> - particularly the <i>Into the Blue</i> (the blue concentric circles below), <i>Fretwork</i> (the bright blue and green and brown granny-square one below), and <i>Begonia</i> (the brown and green one with a flower in the centre below) patterns.<br />
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Next I searched through the book for a couple of blocks that would go well with those three. I decided on <i>Willow</i> (the two-tone green one below), and <i>Ziz-zag Bobbles</i> (the striped one).<br />
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<b>Designing the Layout</b><br />
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I took a picture of each of the squares from the pattern book, and loaded them into Powerpoint, and played around with them, creating a few different designs to see what might work. I knew these wouldn't be the final colours, but it was something to start with.<br />
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Design #1 is a sort of checkerboard pattern, pretty straight forward and balanced.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJCCQwZYWY5CoVqP2FnwMa9QXQb0W_bCnPk5dp5cbAimM0g6tbEIsIQqgfs9vRJFPMtMPmcuLTZOT4P4-0E2tZoTqyDQPa5hSlJHDc4ALxonKreYWmW3EcBxLweVxdvzAMZhExhXwNWsE/s1600/Slide1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJCCQwZYWY5CoVqP2FnwMa9QXQb0W_bCnPk5dp5cbAimM0g6tbEIsIQqgfs9vRJFPMtMPmcuLTZOT4P4-0E2tZoTqyDQPa5hSlJHDc4ALxonKreYWmW3EcBxLweVxdvzAMZhExhXwNWsE/s400/Slide1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Design #2 is a diagonal pattern, using the striped square to create a braided or herringbone look:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFihWrM7tf-4e47OEnXu9dKEe86-pNvia5PjgrPpbaVWg3yNaQnZ8tt3vmltmhE6TcyOi91Sm77Wv7ut2GOolFTYV0P0owqIrBqTXH5Q0NDaulFlsQ-mW7VsouCw_EWOSXLrdJ7wDO5Pk/s1600/Slide3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFihWrM7tf-4e47OEnXu9dKEe86-pNvia5PjgrPpbaVWg3yNaQnZ8tt3vmltmhE6TcyOi91Sm77Wv7ut2GOolFTYV0P0owqIrBqTXH5Q0NDaulFlsQ-mW7VsouCw_EWOSXLrdJ7wDO5Pk/s400/Slide3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Design #3 is inspired by a picture frame.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT-N8Kkh60Y7L2c5vW9Tv3TteCytgyupayt7VMGdICz3q5x9p2T7gTuM9kugt3LwG0k05QHFt58DR97p8C6FTjqDHQpkXkgm12E8Ln20XnkUQkeGTknfnDWIcYZa8Y4qkMAIYnBFETEkI/s1600/Slide4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT-N8Kkh60Y7L2c5vW9Tv3TteCytgyupayt7VMGdICz3q5x9p2T7gTuM9kugt3LwG0k05QHFt58DR97p8C6FTjqDHQpkXkgm12E8Ln20XnkUQkeGTknfnDWIcYZa8Y4qkMAIYnBFETEkI/s400/Slide4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
I sent these three layouts (in black-and-white versions to avoid confusion from the not-yet-finalized colours) via email to my mother and to a couple of friends to get their feedback - and of course they all had very different opinions! I finally decided that design #1 was a bit too boring and "normal", and design #3 would look better as a rug. I thought that the diagonals on design #2 would look like they were flowing, and would look interesting when draped over a couch or a lap (which would be the main uses for a blanket like this, rather than spread out like a quilt). I decided that #2, or some variation on it, would be my starting point, but that no final decision could be made until I had decided on the colours for each square.<br />
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<b>Selecting Colours for the Blocks</b><br />
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The colour scheme on the <i>Fretwork</i> pattern (bright blue, with a couple of shades of green and brown) as well as the colour scheme of the <i>Begonia</i> pattern (burnt orange, green and brown), had been the main inspirations for the yarns I had picked. So I decided to first try to replicate those squares.<br />
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I started with the <i>Begonia</i> pattern (see below), which has always been my favourite. I tried to replicate the colour scheme in the book, but my first two tries both fell flat (see first and second below). My colours were too different from those in the book, and the greens were too much of a contrast. So after consulting with my mother-in-law, I came up with the design on the right, which I was quite pleased with. It gives the earthy effect I was hoping for, and it includes those little punches of bright orange and green to liven things up a bit.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2uZ5aDYWlYnIBPqYJiFqwKegQSDwvP7pseYoyEREVdFsBumDr_o6bbAfF10vV9R6flFEux-mdn25CXhJ5YCKUyTwKn_vw_uElG-wWYpbXicDvw4iXhhJwdB3dXQZC_jWEOl_RMPQvXns/s1600/P1040672.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2uZ5aDYWlYnIBPqYJiFqwKegQSDwvP7pseYoyEREVdFsBumDr_o6bbAfF10vV9R6flFEux-mdn25CXhJ5YCKUyTwKn_vw_uElG-wWYpbXicDvw4iXhhJwdB3dXQZC_jWEOl_RMPQvXns/s400/P1040672.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Here's the final result (same as on the right above, but better lighting) - I have a feeling this one will be my favourite block...</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0f1M9c8kkEyQaSzA6kspxZaUpRQQCgtydvCBRB5En1Va94u5t-eNUbXQ6iwa1foKtip3SzlSyXKAonS_TInEydvz-e6VbhhhS2z7V86Mv_gcda8bW1agQZtjnxh-ga5HJr5VIGJBdWAI/s1600/IMG_0152.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="227" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0f1M9c8kkEyQaSzA6kspxZaUpRQQCgtydvCBRB5En1Va94u5t-eNUbXQ6iwa1foKtip3SzlSyXKAonS_TInEydvz-e6VbhhhS2z7V86Mv_gcda8bW1agQZtjnxh-ga5HJr5VIGJBdWAI/s320/IMG_0152.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Next I started on colours for the "<i>Into the Blue</i>" block - which should probably be re-named as "into the green" or "into the earth" with this colour scheme - and again ran into the problem of the bright green and dark green being so different that the effect is jarring.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBcRPA_ew18z_Dkw-4YEjrZKiqIbNOgsOwsnwZ0mxf1M_Yi6kA7g7_P5lGtMDZSNTJquv5MMc806rPwnip_ISNnQLnTb1eBa_3WgbWPde_1xZK3cBzhpA0o-5M55quRdUsbospid31vfo/s1600/IMG_0148.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBcRPA_ew18z_Dkw-4YEjrZKiqIbNOgsOwsnwZ0mxf1M_Yi6kA7g7_P5lGtMDZSNTJquv5MMc806rPwnip_ISNnQLnTb1eBa_3WgbWPde_1xZK3cBzhpA0o-5M55quRdUsbospid31vfo/s320/IMG_0148.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
So I went out and picked up two more greens to add to my yarn supply for this project. I got a medium dusty green (seen as the main colour below), and a lighter medium almost yellowish dusty green. I made the square below and felt better about it, but it still wasn't quite right. I set it aside for the time being and started to work on the other blocks.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDtfeopGQ_LhGKymJ6Tyu9dwHI8C7ZhQcCtmM2Tu8jgDf3Nmrg_dmqeoV7GP_cARhdDmBW1ataJ8CzBLHdFBNyyMTdStFFsyzZ5mkpg2c3a1DgGrXIe8ahfN9YeMDU9SB3aDNON8NV_JQ/s1600/IMG_0153.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDtfeopGQ_LhGKymJ6Tyu9dwHI8C7ZhQcCtmM2Tu8jgDf3Nmrg_dmqeoV7GP_cARhdDmBW1ataJ8CzBLHdFBNyyMTdStFFsyzZ5mkpg2c3a1DgGrXIe8ahfN9YeMDU9SB3aDNON8NV_JQ/s320/IMG_0153.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Thankfully the other squares went more smoothly overall.<br />
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For the <i>Fretwork</i> square I again tried to match the colours from the original pattern, this time with much more success. the only glitch was that it turns out that the beautiful bright blue is a much lighter weight yarn than the rest - I think it is closer to sock weight that worsted! So I ended up using two strands together and a slightly smaller hook for that part of the pattern. It was such a relief to have it work out the first time!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZv4pbkTC-Q2UpOo6tE0gnQZFfuLdUtaGFZq5PJk9O-7eUgykX8HyUZKeMmQq1zMgSP-euym7lkGquIihiKvHGUBhCb20R0_pN_OryPc8mYWLIvrn7lI1eGyUxSNK0wLMv4so3xiPLuW0/s1600/IMG_0146.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZv4pbkTC-Q2UpOo6tE0gnQZFfuLdUtaGFZq5PJk9O-7eUgykX8HyUZKeMmQq1zMgSP-euym7lkGquIihiKvHGUBhCb20R0_pN_OryPc8mYWLIvrn7lI1eGyUxSNK0wLMv4so3xiPLuW0/s320/IMG_0146.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Next on the list was the <i>Willow</i> block. The first 3 colours went in and seemed to fit, but I originally did the edging with the dark green - and it was a bit <i>too</i> green. I also realized that I hadn't used the dark blue yet, so I gave that a try. It seemed to tie the colours together nicely, but I found that the block was a little small - so I added a third row of single crochet to the edging, and that did the trick.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwAtZgBgYbmIXQ95pJ5JOqbQTeia2rQYCEuiSzxUKs8rp1tCh6Rj3ysyM92BtXa_m0vQ-5tAyU0-GER6xq1FioJdTg22aMaeBgsHuwKSzeVRSiZ1BVelQWxgNOzSTJMt9Es98tQqz_1ME/s1600/IMG_0149.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwAtZgBgYbmIXQ95pJ5JOqbQTeia2rQYCEuiSzxUKs8rp1tCh6Rj3ysyM92BtXa_m0vQ-5tAyU0-GER6xq1FioJdTg22aMaeBgsHuwKSzeVRSiZ1BVelQWxgNOzSTJMt9Es98tQqz_1ME/s320/IMG_0149.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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The last block was the one I was least excited to make - unlike the other four (which are made in the round, and with mostly double crochet stitches), this one is made in rows, of almost entirely single crochet. That means it's painfully slow to make in comparison! I knew I wanted this square to include the orange (the bride's favourite colour), and probably green and brown - but which green and which brown should I use? I experimented with several combinations, including using the orange for one of the larger sections, and pink for the stripes, but I finally settled for this combination, with the lighter brown, the "darker medium" green, and of course the orange for those highlight stripes.</div>
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The other annoying thing about making this square was getting the sizing right. It kept coming out too thin and tall. I tried taking out a row or two, but because of the 3 sections of this pattern, I had to take out 6 rows to keep the section even - one on each end of each wide stripe. But then I had an incredibly short and fat square instead, and the pattern was all distorted. So much for that idea! Instead I tried playing around with my tension and hook size. Did I mention that the brown was a bit thicker than the others, and the orange was a bit thinner? That made things even more complex. Finally I seemed to find a combination that worked - but every time I tried it, it seemed to come out a little differently. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to try my best with this one, and try blocking it at the end...?</div>
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Ok, so now I had four blocks sorted out, and one almost finished (the "<i>Into the Blue</i>" block that I was still not quite happy with above). Here are the blocks all together so far. Looking pretty good, except for that bright green centre on the Into the Blue block; that definitely had to go. </div>
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Instead of making a whole new square to try something new, I made a new centre (using the lighter medium green) and laid it on top of the already-made square. Ah-ha! I think that will do it.</div>
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And here is the finished square - finally!<br />
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The five final blocks - at last!</div>
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Once I had these blocks finalized, I took pictures of each of them and loaded them back into Powerpoint, and re-created Design #2 with the real colours. Looks ok, but I think the striped block is overpowering, and frankly after making each of the starting squares, I knew that it was going to be my least favourite square to make (and the slowest), so the idea of making so many extra of the design was a little painful. So I needed to create a design that would keep the diagonal idea, without over-loading on any one square.<br />
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The arrangement of the other four squares in the above design was a bit complicated, so I decided to keep it simple and use a diagonal line of each of the five squares. Of course this plan calls for 77 blocks (7 x 11) - time to take a deep breath and get started!</div>
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Unfortunately now that I've got this finally figured out, we need to start packing for the big move. I'll have to pack up most of my yarn, but leave out enough of each colour to keep me going on the road.<br />
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That's it for now, keep crafting!Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-49918347919699602172013-07-13T07:27:00.000-07:002013-07-13T17:10:42.916-07:00The Big Surprise Project Revealed - Part 3Well, after many delays along the way, I've finally (in early November) gotten into the swing of making the squares for this blanket.<br />
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<b>Delays? How could there be delays?</b><br />
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Well, as I mentioned in Part 1 & 2, it took me quite a while to settle on yarns, and colour patterns for each square, and then the overall layout of the blanket, which would determine how many I would need of each square. So that took me into mid October.<br />
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Then we moved halfway across the country, so packing, organizing, cleaning, and wrapping things up took up lots of my time at the end of the month. Not a whole lot of time left for crafting, though I did try to do a bit each evening to unwind.<br />
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Leading up to the move I <span style="-webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969);">carefully </span>planned which yarns (and how much of them) to bring with me in the car (rather than sending in the moving truck), because I envisioned having four days of the drive to work on this project. As I mentioned in<a href="http://stitchthisfreud.blogspot.ca/2012/11/road-trip-safari.html"> <b style="font-style: italic;">this post</b></a>, my husband loves to drive and hates being a passenger, so I thought I would have lots of time to crochet (four whole days!). So, I packed all the various colours needed for this project (that was 10 if you're keeping track) into one of my shoulder bag carrying cases, and gave up about half of my minimal leg room in the car so it could be accessible throughout the trip.<br />
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Turned out that I didn't get much chance to work on this project on the drive after all - first we decided to go a different route, which shortened the trip by a day. Then our cat was crazy for a good chunk of the trip, so that kept my hands and attention busy a lot of the time. And in the time when the cat was calm and/or sleeping, I spent a chunk of it making the animals mentioned in <b><i><a href="http://stitchthisfreud.blogspot.ca/2012/11/road-trip-safari.html">this post</a></i></b>. Given how few squares I made on the trip – one, maybe one and a half? – I felt more than a little silly for bringing so much yarn with me in the car, and having very cramped leg room as a result, when a much smaller bag would have done the trick and been much more convenient.<br />
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Anyway ... we arrived in Saskatchewan at our new place about a week ago, and since then I've made more progress in terms of actual squares produced than I did in the last three months combined! I don't have a job here yet, and most of our stuff is still on the moving truck <i>en route</i> to us, so the unpacking is stalled for now... which leaves me with time to get into a productive pattern and really race through making these squares! I've gotten to the point where I've internalized most of the pattern for four of the five squares, and I can make the same square several at a time by batch-making each step. Here you can see I'm making four of the same square at once:<br />
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Since the truck has been delayed (the main highway through northern Ontario was completely washed out for several days), and I've become so productive, I am now extremely glad that I brought as much yarn as I did! At this rate I may well still run out of a couple of key colours before the rest of my stash gets here, so I'm very thankful I didn't leave myself with even less!<br />
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Here are all the total squares I've made in the last week alone (eleven finished, eight more at least part-way done) - not too shabby, huh?<br />
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That's it for now - keep crafting!<br />
<br />Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-19433006482563531092013-07-11T10:02:00.000-07:002013-07-13T17:10:29.851-07:00The Big Surprise Project Revealed - Part 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Ok, so it's early October 2012, and I've been working on this surprise project since the end of August (see <a href="http://stitchthisfreud.blogspot.ca/2012/09/one-last-post-before-bed-shh-its.html">this post</a>). Since this project is a surprise I won't post these entries until I've already given it away, in May 2013.; but since this is the largest crochet project I've ever done on my own, I wanted to keep track of my progress along the way.<br />
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One of my very best friends (she's in the picture with me above) is getting married in May 2013 in Europe. Our plan is to attend the wedding, but as my husband and I are both starting new jobs in the next few weeks, we don't know for sure if we'll be able to get the time off yet. Just in case we can't attend, I wanted to have an amazing and personal gift to give them to make up for not being there. And if we <i>can</i> go, well it will still be an amazing and personal gift, but I'll get to see them open it!<br />
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Back when I was working on blanket squares for the <a href="http://stitchthisfreud.blogspot.ca/2012/02/stitch-for-good-community-handcrafts.html">group blanket</a> that my handcrafts group <i>Stitch for Good</i> was making together, the bride-to-be mentioned how lovely it would be to have a blanket like that one. At the time I said something non-committal but I mentally filed it away as an epic gift idea. <br />
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When she announced that she was engaged (to a lovely guy who is perfect for her, happily) and they set the date, I began plotting to make them a blanket from squares like the one she had commented on. Nine months should be enough time... right?<br />
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The biggest crochet project I had done to date was that group blanket project, for which I only made about one quarter of the squares. So this will clearly be a bigger undertaking (especially since this one will be a larger blanket too), but also I'll be able to avoid some of the headaches that came with that group project (much more consistent gauge, for one), so overall I was excited to get going.<br />
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First I needed to choose colours for the blanket, get the yarn, select which patterns I would use for the squares, and then decide how to arrange them into a coherent pattern for the overall project.<br />
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Let's start with colours. They are both very down-to-earth people, they both do research on plant genetics, and they enjoy being outdoors, so greens and browns (earth tones) came to mind, and so I decided that the "main" colours would be several shades of greens and browns. They also both have a lovely sense of humour and are a bit quirky, so I also wanted to include some brighter highlight colours. Her favourite colour is orange, so that had to be included of course. <br />
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So with these general ideas in mind, I started poking around in yarn shops and craft stores to see what options would be available, without breaking the bank. While I was considering this, one of our local craft stores had a big sale on mill-end bags of yarn – which is already the cheapest way to get yarn - a discount of $2 off each bag. So I went to have a look at their offerings (the biggest selection of mill ends I've ever seen) to see if I could find anything that would work for me.<br />
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They had a couple of shades of green, and a nice orange, and also some blues and a pink that I thought would work well. They didn't have any browns though, so I settled on getting some "big ball" skeins of two different browns, to go with the mill end yarns. As far as I could tell all of the mill end bags seemed about the same weight and same fibre content, but they never tell you anything on those bags, so it was a bit of a gamble, but what's life without a little risk, right?<br />
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To be continued...<br />
<br />Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-91828161124638207762013-01-22T05:17:00.000-08:002013-09-01T13:36:39.910-07:00Xmas Gift Crafts Part 1 - Slippers Great and SmallOk, now that all the gifts have been given, I can finally tell you about all the projects I've been working on! So here is a brief showcase of some of the gifts I made for family and close friends this year. I've split this post into 3 parts to make each post a reasonable length.<br />
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<b>Xmas crafts Part 1: Slippers Galore!</b><br />
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I made four pairs of slippers for gifts this year - for both my parents and both my in-laws.<br />
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<b>Quick and Chunky Slippers:</b><br />
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For my mother and my father-in-law, I made these chunky bootie-type slippers, using bulky weight yarn, using <a href="http://stitchthisfreud.blogspot.ca/2013/01/finding-perfect-slipper-boot-pattern.html">this pattern I discovered and adapted for myself before the holidays</a>. I used the same type of yarn as I had for my own pair of slippers (Loops & Threads Charisma), selecting different colours for each of them. Most of the Charisma yarn is in multi-colour skeins, which makes for really interesting designs on the slippers, with a relatively simple pattern. I chose a Grey, Black and Brown yarn for my Father-in-law, and a lovely earthy yarn in Greens and Browns for my Mum.<br />
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Here's how these two pairs of slippers turned out:<br />
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Grey, Black and Brown Slippers in Men's size 8 for my Father-in-law<br />
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Green and Brown slippers in Women's size 9 for my Mum<br />
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<b>Lizzie Slippers:</b><br />
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For my mother in law, who is often too hot even in the winter, I knew she wouldn't like the thick, chunky slippers. So I made her a pair of <a href="http://goodknits.com/blog/lizzie/">Lizzie slippers</a> instead. These come from a great pattern on one of my favourite craft blogs <a href="http://goodknits.com/">http://goodknits.com</a><br />
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They're just so sweet and stylish and original! One of these days I'll have a chance to make a pair for myself!<br />
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<b>An Ill-Fated Project:</b><br />
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I was originally planning to make the same type of Chunky slippers for my dad too, but at the end of November he mentioned that he had worn right through the soles of some slippers that a family friend had knit for him a while ago - so I picked up some of these leather slipper soles (called Boye "Starting Points", found at many craft stores), to make a pair of slippers with really durable soles.<br />
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I had picked up the largest size of these soles available, which was labelled "Large - Women's sizes 7-9, Men's sizes 6-8." Since my Dad's feet are size 9.5 or 10, I had a sinking feeling about how this would turn out. However when I measured them against charts I found online of foot length by shoe size, it seemed possible that they <i>might</i> work out afterall - (maybe the manufacturers were off a bit in their sizing...). So I crossed my fingers and made them anyways, hoping for the best.<br />
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I intended to find a pattern for them online that I could at least use to get me started. Turns out that the only patterns I could find for these slipper soles was <a href="http://www.simplicity.com/t-free-knitting-and-crochet-patterns-for-slippers.aspx">this list</a> - most of which are knitting patterns, and the couple that were crochet patterns didn't appeal to me at all.<br />
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Therefore, I had no choice to make up my own pattern. Luckily my friend in Regina has a pair of slippers that she bought (and loves), which are built on soles similar to these ones, so I could at least take a look at hers to get an idea of how to start. It turns out that her slippers actually only used half of the teeny-tiny holes that are punched around the edge, and they clearly cut them to be bigger. I was planning to try using all of the holes, so I clearly had to change my pattern significantly from what had been used for her slippers – unsurprisingly it turned out quite differently. I am quite happy with how the pattern turned out, and I will post it here as soon as I've had a chance to write it out properly.<br />
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Unfortunately, while I was working on these slippers I managed to break one of my lovely wooden Harmony crochet hooks (which were a birthday present this year) while using it to try to get the yarn through those tiny holes - arg! Word to the wise - <i>always</i> use a <i>metal</i> hook when dealing with a tiny hole in leather!<br />
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Despite my concerns about sizing, and the crochet hook tragedy, here is how they turned out:<br />
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Unfortunately, that was not the end of the story - my worst fears about this present came true, and they didn't fit. Yes, he could get them on his feet, but they pinched his toes and were uncomfortable to wear. Not exactly the feelings you want from a new pair of slippers! ARG - So much for that present!<br />
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Over the next few days I searched online and everywhere I could think of for a larger size of this type of slipper sole, with no success. I finally decided to make another pair of the same Chunky slippers that I'd made for my Mum and Father-in-law, and then sew some sort of fabric or other material to the bottoms to reinforce the soles.<br />
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I made tracings of my Dad's feet, and got to work on the slippers. I adjusted the pattern from the largest size I'd made so far (Women's size 9), and luckily my Dad was around while I worked on it, so I could get him to try them on as I worked. After a couple of adjustments, I got the sizing right for the basic slipper. These slippers stretch out quite a bit as your wear them, so I couldn't attach the soles right away, since the slippers weren't the right shape yet. I had him wear them for a few hours to stretch them out, and then I was ready to reinforce the soles.<br />
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I was originally going to try some faux suede fabric, but I was concerned that this material wouldn't be flexible/stretchy enough to be comfortable. Then someone at my Saturday stitching group mentioned that she had successfully used this rubberized material (the stuff that you can use under carpets, or to line drawers, or to help open jars) for this same purpose. This sounded like a better solution, so I tracked some down - I found it at a dollar store, though I'm sure lots of other places would have it too.<br />
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Then, I used the same tracings to cut out some of the material, cutting it a bit larger than the tracings to allow a bit of flexibility when attaching it, and make it less likely that he'd feel the edge of the soles as he wore the slippers.<br />
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With a bit of stretching and fiddling, I got the soles pinned in place, and then stitched them on by hand. I also did some stitching across the middle of the soles so they would stay in place on the bottom of the slipper, rather than getting folded or pinched on the bottom.</div>
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Here my dad is modelling his new slippers with their reinforced soles. Looking good!<br />
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And here is a shot of my parents and I all wearing our matching finished slippers. Look at all those cozy toes!<br />
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After making these slippers for my Dad, I think I may need to add some of that reinforcing material to my slippers, as I'm starting to wear through them too. In fact, it might need to become a regular part of the pattern.<br />
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Edit: These slippers (with the non-slip soles) are now <a href="https://www.etsy.com/ca/listing/161373935/thick-and-chunky-slipper-booties-with?">available in my etsy shop</a><br />
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Ok, that's it for slippers – more types of xmas gifts are to come in two more posts.<br />
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Keep crafting!<br />
<br />Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-39378169712960333412013-01-04T18:38:00.001-08:002013-01-22T07:26:02.886-08:00Finding the Perfect Slipper-Boot Pattern<br />
What is a more obvious practical item to crochet or knit when the weather gets cold than slippers? Okay, okay maybe a scarf is more obvious – and to tell you the truth, the first year or so that I crocheted I made almost exclusively scarves (and simple blanket squares)... but when you're sitting there crocheting and your toes get cold, it's not a big leap to think "Hmm... I could make myself some slippers!"<br />
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Last year my mother-in-law knit me some lovely thick & warm slipper-booties for xmas, and it was a perfect present! Their house is quite chilly, so it is now almost a ritual that I put on those slippers as soon as I walk in the door to their house and leave them on until bedtime – in fact I keep them at their place so I can't forget to bring them when I visit!<br />
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Sometime later a friend expressed interest in making some slippers, so I did a quick Google search and found this list of 5 patterns - <a href="http://whipup.net/2011/07/14/5-crochet-slippers-to-make/">http://whipup.net/2011/07/14/5-crochet-slippers-to-make/</a><br />
I particualrly love the mary jane slipper pattern - it's very simple, and works great. Look at this link: <a href="http://goodknits.com/blog/mary-jane-slippers/" target="_blank">http://goodknits.com/blog/mary-jane-slippers/ </a>(Great name for the blog too, huh? "Oh my good knits!" - so clever.) When I first found this pattern one of my friends whom I had recently taught to crochet immediately started making them for herself and for her family members, and they've been a hit!<br />
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The first pair that I made for myself were way too big – I kept thinking that I wanted them to be comfy, not pinching my toes, so I made them a little loose... and of course as soon as I wore them for an afternoon, they stretched out so much that they were falling off my feet! So I started over, making them quite a bit tighter, and they worked out much better, and became my everyday slippers.<br />
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As much as I liked the look of these slippers, they aren't the most practical for keeping your toes toasty on really cold evenings - what I really wanted was to make myself a crocheted equivalent to the knitted booties that I had left back in Ontario at my in-law's place. It was surprisingly hard to find a crochet pattern for adult-sized booties in a chunky yarn! Finally after lots of searching, I found this cheap pattern for some quick & chunky slipper boots – or as the pattern calls them, "Serenity Forest Slippers" – <b> </b><a href="http://www.free-crochet.com/detail.html?code=FC01044&cat_id=332">http://www.free-crochet.com/detail.html?code=FC01044&cat_id=332</a><br />
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I gave them a try and Hooray! Exactly what I was looking for! Made with bulky weight yarn, these worked up really quickly (I made a pair in an evening). I have a couple of issues with the original pattern though, so I adapted it a fair bit - I will try to get it written up and posted it here soon. Meanwhile, here is the finished product, made with Loops and Threads Charisma yarn, which is a lovely soft and chunky acrylic that comes in a great range of multi-coloured skeins.<br />
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These have been a real success – I wear them almost constantly when I'm at home, and I'll even bring them with me to friends' homes when we visit, to keep my toes nice and cozy :) And as you'll soon see – once I get my Christmas present posts finished – I made a few pairs of these for Christmas presents!<br />
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Keep crafting!<br />
<br />Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-82688449618329914472013-01-04T08:14:00.003-08:002013-01-04T09:42:18.098-08:00Taking care of businessIt is amazing sometimes the way things work out. It's a bit hard to believe, but between the time that I completed those Converse booties, informed my friend, and posted them here, but before she completed the sale on my Etsy store, someone beat her to being my first official sale! <br />
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I woke up Sunday morning to a request from a potential buyer to waive shipping fees since she also lives in Regina, so I set up a local delivery code that I can provide to local buyers to receive free shipping (why didn't I think of this before?), and before I knew it I had my first sale!<br />
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She had requested a smartphone sock, like these ones that I made for my husband's phone (black, for the iPhone 5), and for my phone (purple & blue, for the iPhone 4/4S). <br />
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I had made these back in the fall when we first got these new phones, using sock yarn to keep them quite slim, but still providing protection from scratches and small impacts. In fact, I decided to make the one for my phone after I took it into a cave with me at work (I used to lead Outdoor Ed field trips) so that I could check the time, and I dropped it in the cave, slightly damaging the casing. Luckily I had other, unrelated problems with the phone and they replaced it (apparently without noticing the small dent in the phone) – at which point I decided a case was required to prevent a repeat of the same mishap!<br />
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Back to the current item:<br />
On my store I had posted images of all the socks yarns that are easily available to me, and customers are asked to select from this image. She selected colour 2 from the variegated yarn options you can see below.<br />
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With these variegated sock yarns it's always a bit of a mystery what the pattern will look like in the end. I kept my fingers crossed that my buyer had noticed that there was a significant amount of yellow in the yarn, and wouldn't be surprised or disappointed about it!<br />
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I worked on this case in the drive back to Regina from my parents' place in Calgary, on Tuesday (yes we travelled on New Year's day), and put the finishing touches on it yesterday. <br />
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Here it is, the finished <a href="https://www.etsy.com/listing/116439091/iphone-sock-crocheted-case-for-iphone-or">custom-made phone sock</a>.<br />
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Then I had to figure out how I would package my finished items so that they looked nice when they arrived. I decided to wrap them in tissue paper, to keep them neat and tidy and somewhat protected inside the shipping envelope (in most cases, though obviously this one isn't being shipped so it was delivered just in the tissue paper). Here it is all ready for delivery:<br />
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As you can see, I also made myself some basic business cards to include with each order - including a little word cloud (<a href="http://www.wordle.net/">www.wordle.net</a>) I created about my store. I will probably order some professionally made cards eventually, but I think these will do nicely for now! Here's a close up:<br />
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Since this was a local delivery item, I dropped it off at her house (she was at work at the time) and she got it last night. She sent me this comment, which made me quite happy about my first sale:<br />
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"Got it! Thank you very much! It looks great, and fits my phone snugly. Very impressed! I could see myself bugging you for another in the future"<br />
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I guess with this sale I'm officially in business!<br />
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Keep crafting!<br />
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PS: You can find this item on my Etsy store <a href="https://www.etsy.com/listing/116439091/iphone-sock-crocheted-case-for-iphone-or">here</a>Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-80983069248529613052012-12-30T08:36:00.002-08:002013-01-04T08:16:44.499-08:00By Request: Converse-Style Rainbow Baby BootiesI've just completed my first order by request - and here they are! Converse-style rainbow baby booties!<br />
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When I recently posted my <a href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.183736745099856.43771.176365285837002&type=1">"Rainbow Collection"</a> of items (with the tag line "Kick the Pink and Blue Habit - Give Baby a Rainbow!) on my <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DreamyCrochet">Facebook shop page</a>, a friend immediately suggested some brightly rainbow coloured items, to add to the pastel rainbow items I already had.<br />
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I thought this was a great idea, and one I've been wanting to explore, so I picked up several skeins of nice and soft, brightly coloured yarn at a nearby store while visiting my in-laws for the holidays. I was itching to make something with these gorgeous colours – the colours are so juicy and luscious I could eat them! – but I didn't know what to start with.<br />
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So of course, it was time to use the power of Facebook. I posted a call for requests for my first bright-rainbow items, and within an hour I had a request, (from the same friend who requested the bright colours in the first place), for "rainbow baby booties! with a white star on the side (like where the converse spot goes)" - AND an offer to buy the first pair! This is my first custom order so I was very excited, and I wanted to get working on them right away.<br />
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First I looked up a baby shoe size chart, since she requested a 0-6 months size:<br />
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Then I did some Google-image search reconnaissance to remind myself of the key elements of the Converse style - white soles, white cap-toe, white laces, and a white circle/star on the side. Seems totally doable! </div>
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I worked up some white soles from my baby bootie pattern, and checked the size against the chart. Then I started altering my pattern to create the cap-toe effect. The first pair I made the toe was too large, so I started over. I didn't have any white in the same yarn as the rainbow stripes, so I used some Xmas yarn that has a silver thread in it, which produced a sparkly effect. When is it ever a problem to have a little extra sparkle? I did pick up some plain white yarn, so the next pair I make probably won't have the sparkle.</div>
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I tried crocheting a star to stick on the side, but I couldn't make one small enough with the yarn I had, so I embroidered one instead. The first attempt (which I made on the shoe with the extra large toe, to practise on), was a bit bulky using white yarn, so I tried embroidery floss and a regular sewing needle instead of a yarn needle to give me a bit more precision, which was a major improvement. Looking at the star it felt unfinished without the circle, so I added a circle around the star, and yup, that was the look I was going for! </div>
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Finally, I added the little embroidered laces, and the effect was complete! Here they are!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVMsYHdbTIo89tTN8svIvXd5Fa6Yxc7qFFJ4hNHJUw5Y13cf42-NCpq_unWllRm4kCuJOfQVtBImasfOy6rpQ6mo9VEW3uG_jeYZ6FMDLqsfcngWIuO_5YyGvlzzjrVqj7GuXJbD-WLGI/s1600/IMG_1663**.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVMsYHdbTIo89tTN8svIvXd5Fa6Yxc7qFFJ4hNHJUw5Y13cf42-NCpq_unWllRm4kCuJOfQVtBImasfOy6rpQ6mo9VEW3uG_jeYZ6FMDLqsfcngWIuO_5YyGvlzzjrVqj7GuXJbD-WLGI/s320/IMG_1663**.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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I was visiting some friends while I was working on these, and they recognized without me telling them that they were Converse style, so I count that as a win! </div>
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I've now let my friend know that they're ready, and I posted the item in my store so she can order them, and I can get my first sale in the Etsy shop.</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 13.999999046325684px;"><br /></span></span>Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-65915358948686897112012-12-18T08:33:00.002-08:002013-01-22T05:39:42.363-08:00Introducing: The Star Blanket<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaN4x45GZ3nQmeiVMU7QNK0NSBBDnRuxkFxkc7ua7gS_6X0_TPk2aUT0thfiAkhqUHBD9YW32DEE35hfR5iS6JeNvNX8LH8lsjTEmOjkJJ5SzM6Hu0_bzWiqG8NV_3CypQy6XHQE4gL-8/s1600/IMG_1237.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaN4x45GZ3nQmeiVMU7QNK0NSBBDnRuxkFxkc7ua7gS_6X0_TPk2aUT0thfiAkhqUHBD9YW32DEE35hfR5iS6JeNvNX8LH8lsjTEmOjkJJ5SzM6Hu0_bzWiqG8NV_3CypQy6XHQE4gL-8/s400/IMG_1237.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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One of my close friends that I grew up with just had her second baby on Friday. I had made her son a blanket (the first one I'd ever made – <a href="http://stitchthisfreud.blogspot.ca/2012/02/my-first-baby-blanket.html">see it here</a>), so when I heard she was expecting again, I knew I had to make a special blanket for her daughter as well.<br />
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I've had lots of success with my zigzag blankets, but I was wanting to branch out and try something new for a while, and I thought this would be a good time. I've had a pattern for a star shaped blanket for over a year now, and it was burning a hole in my project bag. Finally I was going to get to try it out!<br />
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As soon as we arrived in Regina after our cross-continent trek, I was itching to get started on this lovely star blanket. The problem though, was that most of my yarn – including all of the baby yarn I wanted to use for this project – was still packed in a box, that that box was on a moving truck somewhere between Ontario and Saskatchewan... and it was taking forever to arrive!<br />
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So for the first two weeks we lived here, I had to content myself with the super-secret project I was working on, which was the only project (besides the little critters), that I had brought yarn for. But I was running out of time to get this star blanket made and sent off to my friend before the baby arrived, <i>and</i> I was running out of the yarn I had brought with me!<br />
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Finally, two weeks to the day after we arrived, the truck came, at 8:45 pm! Since we're planning to move to our new house early in the new year, most of the boxes stayed packed, or at least mostly packed. One of the first things I dug out of the boxes though, (thank goodness we made a spreadsheet listing the contents of the boxes) was my stash of baby yarn in all different colours! <br />
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I agonized a bit about a colour scheme. I was pretty sure I wanted to do another rainbow, but I wasn't sure how many rows the blanket would turn out to be when I was happy with the size, and I didn't have the same amount of each colour, so I wanted to make sure I would be using them up in a logical way, while still staying in rainbow order (seeing rainbow colours in the wrong order drives me crazy!) I eventually decided to start with blue at the centre, then purple before starting the sequence over with pink.<br />
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Here are some shots of the blanket along the way:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX9tZBp3aI-44W5wqQsmfpT5_JhOV3vDIFENe-VKKeE9XREEJCWIlILxvHal2mWz82XTwrjQf3_P_56sD8TqEupKuvBlEIzpLIn3KEgWWPKssunDvbquPeK4JzVakQjc9rRPmkdsE8Zho/s1600/IMG_1181.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX9tZBp3aI-44W5wqQsmfpT5_JhOV3vDIFENe-VKKeE9XREEJCWIlILxvHal2mWz82XTwrjQf3_P_56sD8TqEupKuvBlEIzpLIn3KEgWWPKssunDvbquPeK4JzVakQjc9rRPmkdsE8Zho/s320/IMG_1181.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">After one evening's work - already looks like a star</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX55vXE2L_yT9S9aHvX47xTx62elrcKIGM9zdxB0h96d7bItn07GfmBw32UkDOPR-gF5m2anKg06dJlmh5vHUEWp5QHDPvgzKvRF3FTI58Gohmyo13p7oGLtknT_gYremm12JPJuFGzuA/s1600/IMG_1183.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjX55vXE2L_yT9S9aHvX47xTx62elrcKIGM9zdxB0h96d7bItn07GfmBw32UkDOPR-gF5m2anKg06dJlmh5vHUEWp5QHDPvgzKvRF3FTI58Gohmyo13p7oGLtknT_gYremm12JPJuFGzuA/s320/IMG_1183.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDqu1yXBQNoIO92muhZu89UofXhdvNdn-bGrc_dlDl6vx6ejb4a642ENrenIwBoEkDmL0mXqF_edv5AKBZ1DFwEGsp7seUFEhLsU7jM6e0MAJqgBnsA_Q8Bd7aH3bbHWEVxBlXjyBBMCo/s1600/IMG_1232.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDqu1yXBQNoIO92muhZu89UofXhdvNdn-bGrc_dlDl6vx6ejb4a642ENrenIwBoEkDmL0mXqF_edv5AKBZ1DFwEGsp7seUFEhLsU7jM6e0MAJqgBnsA_Q8Bd7aH3bbHWEVxBlXjyBBMCo/s320/IMG_1232.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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This design was very gratifying, especially at first - I got all the way from blue to yellow (as seen in the first shot above) in one evening – ah double crochet I love how you work up so quickly! And oh yeah, those centre rounds are really short (that's probably more relevant than it being dc...). Of course after that each row started to take noticeably longer to finish, but I was tight for time (not only did I have to finish it asap so I could get in in the mail to ship across the country before her mid-December due date, but I also couldn't work on any Christmas presents until this was finished!) so I took this project with me everywhere. And I mean everywhere.<br />
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I even worked on it when we were at a live show where our friends' band Jesse and the Dandelions was playing! Here's proof – I'm sitting at one of the few booths in the venue (almost everyone had to stand), surrounded by flashing lights and smoke from a smoke machine, and yup, I'm crocheting! I sure know how to have fun!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ3BIBp8-de7Xie5vfSvLjXPw_LV6S8e06Lveifiw6-URJ8Ov-bp7tfjXRMk1Olr_0CzJrHOgyB99ZMwvz4De0e_b49f_mxy9k4GcLuiewhA4HttoOJbMsn7M0XZvzvig0Iqh5dXqdztw/s1600/IMG_1206.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ3BIBp8-de7Xie5vfSvLjXPw_LV6S8e06Lveifiw6-URJ8Ov-bp7tfjXRMk1Olr_0CzJrHOgyB99ZMwvz4De0e_b49f_mxy9k4GcLuiewhA4HttoOJbMsn7M0XZvzvig0Iqh5dXqdztw/s320/IMG_1206.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLEkOzxJUN2mcRU2aZL1NwlgF1B___p68p1LIzLniEDP08BvJ1gcyon6Od3K8QPmDcuCdZWBXpSM7DxHtcnZef19HGFm1Sckwv5l7JMTVrU2ASY3j14Up2dwbf_ig-DuzWHjmVMfyKrmk/s1600/IMG_1210.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLEkOzxJUN2mcRU2aZL1NwlgF1B___p68p1LIzLniEDP08BvJ1gcyon6Od3K8QPmDcuCdZWBXpSM7DxHtcnZef19HGFm1Sckwv5l7JMTVrU2ASY3j14Up2dwbf_ig-DuzWHjmVMfyKrmk/s320/IMG_1210.JPG" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a></div>
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I had a couple of issues with the pattern. It was a bit hard to tell where the middle of the row on each side was, (where the decreases had to happen for the inward points) – but I didn't realize this at first so I wasn't as careful as I should have been... which led to ripping it out and redoing it in some cases, and making adjustments in later rows in other less severe cases. I'm sure no one but another avid crocheter would even notice now of course, but I was definitely more careful in later rounds!<br />
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In the end it measured 37 inches from tip to tip, and had 24 rows, for 12 stripes of colour, for a complete double rainbow (although the sequence began in an unconventional spot). It takes a bit of coaching to get it to lay perfectly flat, though it was easier after I washed it and laid it flat to dry (no real point in properly blocking it since it's acrylic yarn, but lying flat to dry does help).<br />
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I'm very pleased with how it turned out, and I will definitely be making more star blankets in the future. Here is the whole thing:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv3Ao_hwkdI1B47WDbvbXAQuftLhldeNBfX33E5eRNY6ApyRIuT8_NSHXV7_mb_sLfkh29sGj4Gx7hUeFdOY06xhv2hC-Z1vlKtWzzlRi0YzBtu38Vcr_4nrl0kIsSiryI0s_ePWjbfGA/s1600/IMG_1234.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="550" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv3Ao_hwkdI1B47WDbvbXAQuftLhldeNBfX33E5eRNY6ApyRIuT8_NSHXV7_mb_sLfkh29sGj4Gx7hUeFdOY06xhv2hC-Z1vlKtWzzlRi0YzBtu38Vcr_4nrl0kIsSiryI0s_ePWjbfGA/s640/IMG_1234.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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And here are some close-up shots - I love the colours:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikZgTv62mylv7WOVZRHLUm4qDPKUZGNzAQsDs68eISMqfI9nr09VD_fQYAJ6131xmTlpC482PtxRDRW8kfwf2WtWho2TYH3TdRLqZiJd33Mxj4uw79nFqO8Ttb4KZRf4r7wyvXulID6D0/s1600/IMG_1240.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikZgTv62mylv7WOVZRHLUm4qDPKUZGNzAQsDs68eISMqfI9nr09VD_fQYAJ6131xmTlpC482PtxRDRW8kfwf2WtWho2TYH3TdRLqZiJd33Mxj4uw79nFqO8Ttb4KZRf4r7wyvXulID6D0/s320/IMG_1240.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglb5KoGaE7LfJRwHfPvLvEuXF1ZdQtsee0X9sfL-z7xwz4s103oiyF0Z2FwQDBoCZg_8RG34mFwc1MmxZeWtXRuFpvs-7UJcDQyzhuL2-p54mTPvPfXPZcs_OS3BTF-BixB1-2Bn-sv1o/s1600/IMG_1246.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglb5KoGaE7LfJRwHfPvLvEuXF1ZdQtsee0X9sfL-z7xwz4s103oiyF0Z2FwQDBoCZg_8RG34mFwc1MmxZeWtXRuFpvs-7UJcDQyzhuL2-p54mTPvPfXPZcs_OS3BTF-BixB1-2Bn-sv1o/s320/IMG_1246.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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I folded it up into a 6-layer pile of points and mailed it across the country, with enough time to arrive before the baby:</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKj0U7B_RyEso4pn22PWiRgSNYGaDZY1rS-Eg0W0_PZG8KlJSpZyLl_rMJLYR1TteM4bdD8qGNkUSAH17h_Pu9zihKmemk7bjqgiMi5Zi-B6EWkbhfm5fb3ws8_ZfDIL3wp1Pucsq1G7Q/s1600/IMG_1242.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKj0U7B_RyEso4pn22PWiRgSNYGaDZY1rS-Eg0W0_PZG8KlJSpZyLl_rMJLYR1TteM4bdD8qGNkUSAH17h_Pu9zihKmemk7bjqgiMi5Zi-B6EWkbhfm5fb3ws8_ZfDIL3wp1Pucsq1G7Q/s320/IMG_1242.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Folded up neatly into points</td></tr>
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And here are the obligatory shots of the little one with her blanket:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia31Y_iyYSP8-73enYnntLcvrw_3zxSRiZBjL40jLVLEf1fKqu33ZKCKbbuTzpSFJ89_p6-kM5C-6Z1Jg28FUsMihHB7iw8Bcr3PY6opPxw0-XeCGgpeFb7xDKGVZWB1iHBkQ5JgclS-w/s1600/mary-steph+star+blanket+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia31Y_iyYSP8-73enYnntLcvrw_3zxSRiZBjL40jLVLEf1fKqu33ZKCKbbuTzpSFJ89_p6-kM5C-6Z1Jg28FUsMihHB7iw8Bcr3PY6opPxw0-XeCGgpeFb7xDKGVZWB1iHBkQ5JgclS-w/s400/mary-steph+star+blanket+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Keep crafting!<br />
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PS: you can find this blanket on my Etsy store, <a href="https://www.etsy.com/listing/118576081/37-inch-rainbow-star-baby-blanket-made">here</a>Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-29966173627907777252012-12-03T14:00:00.003-08:002012-12-03T14:07:13.847-08:00Geeky Gifts - More Amigurumi<br />
So as I mentioned in my last post, I got hooked on Amigurumi a couple of years ago around xmas time.<br />
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Over the next few months I tried out some animals from the same book I got the hippo and giraffe from <a href="http://stitchthisfreud.blogspot.ca/2012/11/road-trip-safari.html" target="_blank">this post</a> - I started with the hippo, then I tried an elephant (I don't have pictures of either of these guys unfortunately, since I gave them away before I thought to take a picture), and they were very sweet.<br />
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But as the holidays started to approach, I began thinking of what awesome amigurumi I wanted to make for Deep that year, to follow-up on the Squid Thing and the little jellyfish. I started searching online for amigurumi patterns and inspiration.<br />
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I discovered this blog, <a href="http://geekcentralstation.blogspot.ca/" target="_blank">Geek Central Station</a>, originally because of the tutorials and free patterns, and then I became obsessed with all the amazing little characters this girl and her boyfriend make. I think I read every single post in her blog at the time (and unfortunately, it looks like she hasn't updated her blog at all since then).<br />
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Some of the little dudes (as she calls them) are from games or movies or TV shows that I'm unfamiliar with, but the little Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Firefly, and Futurama characters are so excellent! Honestly I think I spent an entire day reading her blog, always wanting to see what she created next! The crochet part of her little dudes are actually pretty simple (they're almost all the same, with a few exceptions), it's the amazing felt clothing and Sculpey accessories that really make them special. If you want to check them all out, here is the link to all her posts labelled "amigurumi" - keep hitting "older posts" when you get to the end of the page, there are a LOT of pages of posts<br />
<a href="http://geekcentralstation.blogspot.ca/search/label/amigurumi" target="_blank">http://geekcentralstation.blogspot.ca/search/label/amigurumi</a><br />
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I toyed with the idea of making Luke, Leia, and Han - and started making Leia from her pattern, but I was surprised by how large it was turning out. I tend to like amigurumi best when they're tiny enough to fit in the palm of your hand, so I gave up on that and decided to keep looking for something different.<br />
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Around the same time (leading up to the holidays last year) I was looking through the knitting and crochet books in Chapters, looking for inspiration for a gift for my friend Jenn (again, names are changed for privacy); who was also into crochet, and had also started making animals from the same pattern book I was using. Suddenly I found this book called Creepy Cute Crochet, and knew I HAD to get it for her. Not only were they super cute, but she also has a younger sister who has a sort of morbid sense of humour, and I knew she would want to make a least one of these little creatures for her sister. In fact, she ended up making one for each of her sisters :)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq42sRZo_AppeS86d1fA5_s0LNvnXca8p7CUSvegNbdrnPnXVeRuiY1tflpOUB_BBbUte6rfN8D-c6dvSA5WJ42xNcObWhsPUubSurhmnGSCrEt5j0sZSTmAWU43BnBcwSuCr9Zr2-K2o/s1600/creepy-cute-crochet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq42sRZo_AppeS86d1fA5_s0LNvnXca8p7CUSvegNbdrnPnXVeRuiY1tflpOUB_BBbUte6rfN8D-c6dvSA5WJ42xNcObWhsPUubSurhmnGSCrEt5j0sZSTmAWU43BnBcwSuCr9Zr2-K2o/s320/creepy-cute-crochet.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
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One of the patterns in this book was for a "Cthulhu" (something I hadn't heard of before at the time - you can see what it is here: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu</a>) which is some sort of creature with tentacles coming out of its face. When I saw the little crochet version in this book, I immediately thought "If I made that in pink yarn, it would be a perfect little Dr. Zoidberg from Futurama! So I made a few notes from the pattern in her book, so that I could make a little Dr. Zoidberg - we love Futurama, and have seen all of the episodes several times now.<br />
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Turned out that I had some intense pink yarn in my stash at home already, so I whipped up a little Zoidberg. I know, I know, he doesn't have enough face-tentacles, but really, how was I supposed to fit more tentacles on that tiny face? Also, I probably should have attempted to make little claws for his hands, but that seemed like a lot of work... by the time I was at that stage with this guy, I was more excited about the other character I was making (see below), so I wanted to spend more time and energy on that one, rather than trying to figure out claw-hands.<br />
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I made his little lab coat out of felt, and his little stethoscope (which even comes off) and his adorable anime-style eyes, out of Sculpey - both material choices were of course inspired by the Geek Central Station characters. They're nowhere near as precise and amazing as the ones those two make, but I think they're not too bad for my first amigurumi with clothes and accessories!<br />
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The design for the Sculpey eyes also came from the Creepy Cute Crochet book - it's part of what makes those characters so amazingly cute. I had learned my lesson from the first burnt botton-eye from the Squid Thing the year before, so I made several pairs of eyes (in different styles, including the big ball style from Futurama) and cooked them REALLY slowly in the oven, so they wouldn't burn, and then tried the various different styles on him, but non really worked except these ultra-cute ones, so I went with them, even though they aren't terribly accurate to the show.<br />
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Since his body is essentially a ball, he had a tendency to tip over, so I added some poly-fill pellets at the bottom to make him a little more stable. In hind sight I probably should have added more, since he's still pretty tippy - but then Zoidberg is pretty bumbling and klutzy, so it sort of works. Right?<br />
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I still wanted to make a Star Wars amigurumi - Deep loves Star Wars, much more than he likes Futurama. So I started poking around online for other star wars patterns, and I came across a <a href="http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=362683.0" target="_blank">free pattern for R2D2</a> - and I started making him... I was about half way through when I stumbled upon <a href="http://technabob.com/blog/2009/02/13/the-cutest-crochet-r2d2-you-will-see-today/" target="_blank">this post</a> - for a much more amazing R2D2, so I immediately tracked down the creator on Etsy, ordered the pattern, and started over.<br />
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It's actually amazing how many Star Wars patterns there are on Etsy - I particularly like <a href="http://www.etsy.com/listing/66328788/pdfs-of-all-14-star-wars-mini-amigurumi" target="_blank">this set</a>. Ah well, maybe another year. By the time I started over with this new R2D2 pattern, I was really cutting it close. In fact, even though I had the crochet part (which is fairly simple, except the legs, but they're pretty quick too) done a couple of days before xmas, I spent all day on xmas eve doing all the fiddly bits with felt and beads and silver ribbon that make this guy really special.<br />
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Again, I was very thankful for the way Deep is quite oblivious to what I'm working on 90% of the time, since I was doing all of this while sitting in a chair next to the couch he was on, while we watched movies all day. I just sort of twisted my body so that I was blocking what I was doing - got quite a crick in my back and neck as a result - but it worked! The pattern I had ordered had a page you could print out that had the exact size and shape of the little felt bits - I wish I had been able to use an exacto knife or something though, instead of scissors - those little pieces on the front were really tough! Anyways, here he is, definitely the coolest amigurumi I've made so far - this one impresses people more than anything else I've made. And so cute!<br />
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Here are all the amigurumi that I've given Deep (minus the little jellyfish which is still packed in a box so far - and Zoidberg's stethoscope seems to have gone missing too...) to date, all hanging out on a shelf together. Huge difference in size, huh?</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrOFrQfc_NEJ96sZTW5_8WroVnFJn1mNI7-E8Q_dYSJdRsVxqsGLXLRDOA2-akGUgPdusXXfddT-6Gd1Etc7EP7teTlj_XQcmJ7xGXJFGhPgbV0YhIpzdHln3vR1uV2w_FsF142kdsEZc/s1600/IMG_1312.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrOFrQfc_NEJ96sZTW5_8WroVnFJn1mNI7-E8Q_dYSJdRsVxqsGLXLRDOA2-akGUgPdusXXfddT-6Gd1Etc7EP7teTlj_XQcmJ7xGXJFGhPgbV0YhIpzdHln3vR1uV2w_FsF142kdsEZc/s400/IMG_1312.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Now before you start judging me by the books on this shelf, these books belong to the owners of the house we're renting for a few months, so none of them are ours. But they're just travel books anyways, so that's ok - there are much stranger books in this house, trust me.<br />
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Ok, back to working on this year's holiday presents. Posts about those to come after the 25th!<br />
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Keep crafting!Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-69266918397504405852012-12-03T13:36:00.002-08:002012-12-03T13:50:21.063-08:00How I got Hooked on AmigurumiWell at this time of year, as I'm up to my ears in projects that are destined to be presents for loved ones this holiday season, I REALLY want to post about those projects I have on the go... but of course<br />
since most of my family and close friends are readers of this blog, that would certainly spoil the surprises! So I have to be patient and wait until AFTER I've given these gifts, to tell you about them. But rest assured, those posts are coming.<br />
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Therefore, I'll have to satisfy my urge to share by telling you about the Amigurumi I've made in previous years.<br />
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<br />
<b>What the heck is an Amigurumi?</b><br />
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Amigurumi is a Japanese word meaning a crocheted or knitted stuffed toy. As this Wikipedia article says, the "pervading aesthetic of amigurumi is cuteness" - that is, they are created particularly<br />
because they're adorable! Apparently, the most common items for sale on Etsy are Amigurumi or Amigurumi patterns - so clearly they've become very popular recently, and for good reason. Beyond being adorable, they're very quick to work up, and make great little gifts, especially when it's a reference to something that person really likes, or that you share an interest in. Of course they also make great toys for small children, as you can see in <a href="http://stitchthisfreud.blogspot.ca/2012/11/road-trip-safari.html" target="_blank">this post.</a><br />
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<b>My First Amigurumi</b><br />
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The first Amigurumi that I made was a creature from the movie Coraline. Deep and I love Coraline - it's such an excellent movie. If you haven't seen it (and I've realized recently that too few people<br />
have seen it!) then I suggest you give it a try next time you're looking for a good movie. It's a clay-mation movie, but it's not for young children, it's actually quite dark and a bit creepy - but definitely excellent.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdGMI6ACOg6tI-GeexsDeshZvYT3_Bb9WpcBbu7B6JsIYjmb2qkC1TZZzSOX6XeGba2caYfuUEViYFQcchOAUSvWtKQCyAEgHcjWFGRWuIMdiaAdVolR6A3l66PEojZjT8d0vn0i4s4AE/s1600/coraline+squid+thing.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdGMI6ACOg6tI-GeexsDeshZvYT3_Bb9WpcBbu7B6JsIYjmb2qkC1TZZzSOX6XeGba2caYfuUEViYFQcchOAUSvWtKQCyAEgHcjWFGRWuIMdiaAdVolR6A3l66PEojZjT8d0vn0i4s4AE/s1600/coraline+squid+thing.jpeg" /></a>Anyways, a couple of years ago, when we were watching Coraline for about the 4th time - showing it to another friend who hadn't seen it yet - we noticed a strange octopus or squid-like stuffed animal on the shelf in Coraline's room, with one big button eye. Deep decided that this creature was really interesting, and a few minutes later he announced excitedly that he had found a crochet pattern online to make this creature (you can find it here <a href="http://blog.joanofdark.com/2009/02/weird-octopus-cyclops-kitty-thing-from.html">http://blog.joanofdark.com/2009/02/weird-octopus-cyclops-kitty-thing-from.html</a>). I laughed and said I'd make it for him for Xmas if he wanted, and he was very, very pleased by this idea.<br />
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That December we were moving east from Alberta to Ontario, driving across the country (this was before we got Nikko, so it was a much less painful drive with no stir-crazy kitty in the car) - so I made<br />
sure that I had some lovely bright blue yarn with me in the car, and some stuffing, and of course my crochet hooks and this pattern, so that I could spend the long days in the car working on this creature.<br />
Again, this was my first time making anything 3D (besides little baby hats), so I didn't know what to expect, but I gave it a try. For one thing, I didn't know, as I do now, that with amigurumi patterns, you<br />
don't join the rounds with a slip stitch and then start a new round, you just keep going around and around to avoid making a seam - so there is an awkward seam at the back of this creature as a result.<br />
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I had also never heard of the "magic circle" technique before, so I had to look it up online one night at our motel. This is an alternative method for starting crochet projects in the round, that allows you to adjust the size of the starting opening. Googling "magic circle crochet" will provide several video and picture tutorials on this method, which is a great trick to know for amigurumi projects, and anything else made in the round.<br />
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AND, I also didn't read the pattern carefully enough to see that this pattern was for a felted creature (which, if your'e not aware, means that you make it out of wool, and make it extra large, and then put<br />
the finished item in hot water afterwards to shrink it and cause the fibres to felt together) - so I was shocked at how large it was becoming - especially since I hadn't made it out of wool, so I couldn't felt it anyways. But Deep thought the extra large size was a bonus, so I kept going. I had just about finished the head/body part (it looked quite a lot like a bright blue misshapen rugby ball), when I realized that I was almost completely out of yarn - again due to the fact that I was imaging a much smaller finished product. So much for finishing this project on the drive!<br />
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Once we got to my in-laws place in Ontario, I had to go to a couple of different craft stores before I managed to get more of the same yarn (one place didn't carry it at all, another had the right yarn, but not the right colour..), and I also picked up some Sculpey to make the button eye. I had picked up some overlarge buttons to use for the eye before we left, but since I'd grossly underestimated the size of the creature, they were all clearly much too small.<br />
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So I made the legs, and the "ears" (as described in the pattern, which refers to this creature as an octopus-kitty, though another reader pointed out that it's actually a squid, and those are fins, not<br />
kitty-ears), and it was starting to come together. This required learning another new technique - picking up stitches. This is where you literally use your crochet hook to grab a stitch in your already<br />
finished section, and start crocheting into that as if it were your previous row - this allows you to create pieces that stick out from the original piece in one step, instead of making the new body part<br />
separately and sewing it on at the end. As you can see in the pictures below, the legs didn't end up being all the same size, but since it is a quirky creature to begin with, I think that kind of fits with its<br />
"personality"... right?<br />
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Finally, I had to make the single giant button eye. I'd never really used Sculpey before, so I was a little apprehensive, but I made a giant button, and put it in the oven.... actually, I tried the toaster<br />
oven first, using the instructions on the side of the package - and it burnt. It came out looking like a burnt button-shaped cookie! Luckily I had only used about half of the package of Sculpey (it's a big<br />
eye!), so I bravely made another button, and used the real oven this time.. and a much lower temperature and watched it like a hawk. Finally I took it out and let it cool, and it was hard! And not burnt! Success!<br />
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I used some black yarn to attach the eye, and voila! Here is the finished "Coraline Squid Thing" as we call it:<br />
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Also while I was experimenting with the Sculpey, I realized that the package said "Glow in the Dark"! I had intended to buy something that was simply off-white, but apparently that colour I'd selected was<br />
actually glow in the dark - what a bonus. So this strange creature from a slightly creepy movie, gives off an eerie greenish glow when the lights are turned out!<br />
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Here is the squid-thing sitting next to Nikko, for some perspective on its final size. You should know that Nikko is a fairly small cat too. I'd love to include a picture of the eye glowing, but I don't think I<br />
could get a good shot of that.<br />
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This squid thing now tends to live on a book shelf, and often it gets shown off to people who come over to our place for the first time. You know how people often check out the books at someone's house, to get an indication of their personalities? Well whenever they do that at our house, they see this creepy dude too - It's actually a pretty good indication of how quirky we are!<br />
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<b>Some Aquatic Friends for the Squid-Thing</b><br />
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Fast-forward a couple of months, and Deep's birthday was approaching fast. I was trying to think of something small and fun to give him as a surprise, besides whatever it was that he had asked for (asked-for presents are a bit anti-climactic to give since they aren't a surprise). While exploring Etsy with a friend I had just taught to crochet, I stumbled on a pattern for little crocheted Jellyfish! [Whoa<br />
- I just searched Etsy for "jellyfish pattern" to try and find the shop so I could provide a link to it... wow there are a LOT of crocheted jellyfish on Etsy now! Unfortunately I can't find the listing again to post the link here - but here is her website <a href="http://aliciakachmar.com/">http://aliciakachmar.com/</a>] They were so sweet and adorable, and I thought they'd make some nice litte friends for the Squid Thing, so I decided to make a little pod of jellyfish for Deep for his birthday.<br />
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Good thing he is a bit oblivious and doesn't pay close attention to what I'm crocheting most of the time, because I made two out of the three while we watched movies, with me sitting right next to him! I made the third on the morning of his birthday, before he'd gotten out of bed.<br />
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They were a perfect little surprise, and they now keep the Squid Thing company on the shelf.<br />
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Unfortunately in our most recently move, one of the three little guys has gotten separated from the others, and is packed some where in one of the still-packed boxes so here are the two I could find this<br />
morning:<br />
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The pink and turquoise one is made with thinner yarn, either sport weight or baby (I can't remember which now), so he turned out a bit smaller than the red and blue one which was made with worsted weight.<br />
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I love the way the little tentacles curl up on their own - it's a long row of chain stitches and then a single row of single crochet, and then you just give them a little twist and they stay that way!<br />
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Nikko is clearly too sleepy to be particularly interested in this little guy at the moment. We have to keep them up on a shelf he can't reach, or they get tend to get batted all around the house.<br />
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After these two projects, I was definitely hooked on these Amigurumi - one of my favourite things about crochet is how perfectly it lends itself to creating 3D shapes, and how flexible it is, so you can make pretty much any shape you can think of. Of course you can make 3D shapes, including stuffed animals etc, with knitting too, but it requires double-pointed needles and just overall seems like a lot more work (largely because I haven't tried it yet, but it must be trickier!).<br />
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As a result, there are a lot of great crochet patterns out there for amigurumi, in books, on Etsy, and on various craft blogs, but it's much harder to find patterns for knitted animals and creatures. A friend of mine, who has recently opened a Zibbet online store (<a href="http://www.zibbet.com/elephantemporium" target="_blank">The Elephant Emporium</a>) where she sells the knitted animals that she designs and makes (I'm very impressed), has told me that she is jealous of crocheters because we have so many more great patterns for amigurumi available to us. It's pretty rare that there are more patterns any category for crochet than for knitting, since there are so many more knitters out there; so if you love these amigurumi, it's a great reason to learn to crochet!<br />
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More amigurumi posts coming soon...<br />
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Keep crafting!Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-70045791359219685442012-11-28T16:23:00.002-08:002012-12-02T13:12:35.093-08:00The Great Leap<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRHaWybs7rYeoxu5FS9D54BBC8q707opCyRV4EdbpdsvtgT2vqtU6dMB3dIWkUBgESLpz-MU8EZvJU9dYGzRN635792kdgaV5pQJgMfm5RM8cEXQ2JpalzvMGH7xoUtcw8AleQKhgPzEI/s1600/P1040838*.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRHaWybs7rYeoxu5FS9D54BBC8q707opCyRV4EdbpdsvtgT2vqtU6dMB3dIWkUBgESLpz-MU8EZvJU9dYGzRN635792kdgaV5pQJgMfm5RM8cEXQ2JpalzvMGH7xoUtcw8AleQKhgPzEI/s400/P1040838*.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Well, I've been considering opening an online shop for some of my original crochet creations for several months now, and I've finally done it.<br />
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I've got an Etsy Shop:<br />
http://www.etsy.com/shop/dreamycrochet<br />
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I hope the name isn't too sappy... if you hate it and have suggestions for a better store name, please let me know. "StitchThisFreud!" was too long unfortunately.<br />
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I've also made a matching Facebook Fan Page, since almost everyone I know spends a decent chunk of their time on Facebook these days...<br />
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https://www.facebook.com/DreamyCrochet<br />
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So if you like what you've been seeing here on my blog, then you might want to check out my shop, or pass it on to a friend or family member. I'll keep adding new items as I create them - but first I have to make it through the Holiday Gift-Making Madness period.... more blog posts to come after that too!<br />
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Keep crafting!Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-53344427746520681912012-11-18T16:28:00.003-08:002012-12-03T14:05:06.872-08:00Road Trip SafariWe recently moved from Guelph, Ontario, to Regina, Saskatchewan. That is a really long way, more than half the width of Canada, if you’re keeping track. And we decided to drive, so that we could take our car with us without having to ship it (especially when paying by weight…), and so that we could bring our cat without taking him on a plane.<br />
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As it turns out, my husband Deep loves to drive and really hates being a passenger, whereas I would much rather do something fun like crochet, than be the driver. So even though I always offer to take a turn now and then, it was a safe bet before we left that he would drive the whole way (he did). So, I packed up a bunch of yarn for a couple of different projects (including yarn for the super-secret project that you will hear all the details about in a few months when it's not a surprise anymore) into one of my shoulder bag carrying cases, and gave up about 1/2 of my already minimal leg room in the car so it could be accessible throughout the trip.<br />
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However I didn't get much chance to crochet on the drive after all. There were two main reasons:<br />
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First of all, we decided at the last minute to go through the US instead of through Canada (north of Lake Superior) as we'd originally planned. This was beacuase the Trans Canada Highway was washed out (!!!) near one isolated community, and there is basically no way around that section of road. And it would be at least a week before the road would be fixed. So our best option was to go south of the Great Lakes, through the US. This change in plans actually resulted in 3 days of driving instead of 4, which was a much better deal, but obviously cut down on crochet time.<br />
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Secondly, our (usually friendly and cuddly) cat Nikko, who happens to hate car rides, acted slightly to moderately insane for maybe 50% of the drive. This involved him complaining loudly using very strange noises, all while exploring the car full of our stuff. As a result, I had to keep my hands available for a large chunk of the time, in order to be able to deal with him... you know, little things like keeping him from leaping under the pedals (and thereby killing us all), or attempting to quiet him down to avoid making the driver completely crazy from frustration and annoyance.<br />
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So… needless to say, I didn’t end up with very much time to crochet. There were times when he finally fell asleep, or at least was calm for a while, and during those times I could finally crochet. I used most of this limited time to make a couple of gifts for some friends’ kids in Regina. And that is what this post is really about (I bet you were starting to wonder...)<br />
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We didn’t know many people before we got to Regina, but the one family we knew best was a couple where the husband is now one of Deep's co-workers. They have two very sweet children: a girl who is 4, and a boy who is almost 2. They have been really great for the last few months, making us feel like we would have a community when we arrived, and being really excited that we were on our way. So we thought it would be nice to show up with some kind of small gift for the kids when we finally made it to town. Of course, since I'm crafty, I decided to make something cute and crocheted.<br />
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Before I left, I made sure that my craft bag that was in the car with me contained my handy little pattern book of adorable amigurumi (that is, small knitted or crochet creatures) animals (this book from Lion Brand: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Crochet-Critters-Leisure-Vannas-Choice/dp/1601404956">http://www.amazon.com/Crochet-Critters-Leisure-Vannas-Choice/dp/1601404956</a>), a few different fun colours of yarn, and some polyfil beads and some fibrefil stuffing.<br />
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After some deliberation (they're all so painfully cute!), I decided to make a purple hippo and a yellow and orange giraffe. Here you can see me working on the hippo, with Nikko (finally!) asleep in my lap.<br />
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I almost didn't have enough stuffing, so I used more of the beads that I usually would, which made it a bit more difficult to manage in the car, with no flat surfaces and so much potential to spill them everywhere. I thought we were going to have to stop at a craft store for some more stuffing when we got to town, but I just managed to make it work with what I had. The upside of this is that they ended up being a little more stable (particularly the giraffe, who is a bit top-heavy as you can see), so that's good.<br />
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I also forgot to pack any of the tiny buttons that I usually use for eyes, so I had to improvise with some black yarn. I guess these eyes are a bit more baby-safe anyway, so that's a bonus.<br />
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Here they are, the night we got to town, all ready to meet the kids!<br />
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We had this family over for dinner the second night we were in town, and I told the kids I had a surprise for them. I pulled out the animals, and while the girl was trying to decide which one she wanted, the little guy came running over and grabbed the giraffe by the neck - It was so cute! The kids played with them all evening, clearly they were a hit. The next day I was told that the little girl had fallen asleep holding the hippo to her chest. She even came up to me the next day and thanked me in a shy voice for making her the hippo - very sweet!<br />
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Here is a shot of the two of them holding their new friends. Aren't they cute?<br />
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I'll post more about my previous amigurumi creations later, so stay tuned.<br />
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Keep crafting!Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-70578833295806094302012-11-12T09:04:00.000-08:002013-01-04T09:43:30.755-08:00Crocheted laptop & tablet sleeves for everyone!<div>
Shortly after I made the crocheted laptop sleeve for myself (see the previous post), I started getting compliments on it, and even a few requests.</div>
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My aunt saw my case while we were visiting them in the early spring of 2011, and I offered to make one for her laptop if she'd like. She seemed tickled pink by the idea, so I made a note of the size and model of her laptop, and took her requests for colours - Teal and Grey/Silver.</div>
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I tracked down some yarns in the right colours (sometimes it's really hard to find the right shade of silver/grey yarn - have you noticed the same thing?) and got to work right away... and then got side-tracked. I'll come back to this project in a moment....</div>
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One of the things that side-tracked me was the idea of making a case like this as a surprise gift for my really good friend who we'd recently moved far away from. {Ok, since I'll probably mention this friend a few times throughout my blog, let's give her a code name now... let's go with Jennifer.} She loves the colour orange, and I had this ball of really unique variegated orange yarn that I had set aside to use for a gift for her. So I decided to use it as one of the 3 strands in a case for her laptop. Unfortunately this turned out to be an ill-fated project...</div>
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I got some orange solid-colour yarn to compliment the variegated stuff, and some yellow and some pink as possible other combinations, since the special yarn included both yellow and pink highlights. I selected one of them (I don't remember which...), and started working. When I started, I asked Deep "Jennifer has exactly the same laptop as you, right?" and he said "Yes" - so I started working on the case, using his 13 inch Macbook Pro as a guide (can you see where this is going...?). </div>
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One evening a week or two later I was working on this case and was maybe 3/4 done, while my brother-in-law and in-laws were over for the evening. My brother in law has the same laptop, so at one point I asked to borrow it to check the sizing, thinking I could finish it and send it by the next day. At this point Deep says casually "You know Jennifer's computer is the 15 inch, right?" (apparently when I had asked if they had the same laptop, he had thought I meant the same type, not the same size). My heart stopped. </div>
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I cursed and fumed for a few minutes, feeling like an idiot for not being more careful when I started (or for asking more specific questions)... then went and looked up the dimensions of the 15 inch laptop online and concluded that there was no way on earth this case would be able to stretch that much. And I started to pull it out. My father in law said something about how much he liked pulling things out, and I handed it over to him. At least I didn't have to pull out all that work myself... so I tried to ignore the gleeful expression on his face as he did it. Then I rolled the 3-strand "yarn" (since for this pattern you work with 3 strands as if they were one) into a big ball so I could begin again.</div>
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I started over, this time adjusting the pattern to make it large enough for a 15 inch laptop. I got maybe halfway through the significantly larger case, and realized that I was definitely going to run out of that ball of special yarn. I searched everywhere for that yarn again - the original ball was from my mother-in-law's yarn stash, so I have no idea where it came from - or for something that would be similar enough to be able to substitute. But I had no luck. So I pulled it out all over again. This time though, I had to untangle the triple yarn into the 3 colours, since I had to switch out another strand for the original special yarn I was intending to use for this project. A friend and I spent an entire evening pulling it out a bit at a time and untangling the 3 yarns and rolling them each into a neat ball. </div>
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Finally it was time to start over, for the 3rd and hopefully last time. I decided to just use the orange, yellow, and pink solid yarns. I would save that ball of special yarn for another project, another time. By this time Jennifer's birthday was approaching quickly, so I decided that it was too late to have this be a random out-of-the-blue "Thinking of you" kind of present, and that I would make it a birthday present instead. Her friend was planning a surprise birthday party for her, so I arranged that I would mail the case to another friend, so that she could give it to Jennifer at the surprise party. I scrambled to get it finished in time, and paid the procrastination tax of expensive shipping to get it there in time. Just before I sent it, I wanted to double check that it would actually fit, so I walked into a nearby electronics store, and tried it out on one of the floor models when none of the sales people were looking.</div>
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The surprise party worked out well, and Jennifer was very pleased with the case. Here's a couple of pictures of it:</div>
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She uses it all the time. And, as it turns out, last year it actually saved her computer - when she slipped on some icy steps and her backpack went flying, and fell so hard onto the pavement she was sure her computer was toast. But luckily it was in its cozy case, and it ended up having only minor dings - but it still worked just fine. I think that's pretty good testimonial for these cases, if I do say so myself. I'm glad all that trouble in making it paid off in the end, with a well-loved and apparently very useful gift!</div>
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Back to the case I was making for my Aunt. When the ill-fated project was finally finished, I eventually got back around to finishing the case for my aunt. A friend had the same model laptop as my aunt, so i tested the size on his when he came over for dinner one evening. I had intended to mail it to her, but instead I ended up bringing it to her in person when we went to visit the family cottage that summer. Here's how it turned out. I quite like the colours - the teal really stands out nicely against the silver and charcoal. Very sophisticated I think.</div>
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Then last Christmas I decided to make cases for my parents too - a green and blue one for my Mum's new-to-her 13 inch Macbook Air (so a larger version of mine), and a brown and grey case for my dad's iPad. By this time I realized that the cases tend to stretch out a fair bit over time, so I made their cases quite a bit tighter. Again I went to Future Shop to try out the cases. This time I told the sales guys what I was doing, a bit sheepishly "I made this for my Mom for Christmas and I want to make sure it will fit - is it ok if I try it on here?" - they were actually really friendly and helpful about it and were quite impressed that I had made it myself. It was trickier to try on the iPad, since the locking mechanism on the iPads in the store is on the back, instead of at one end, but I could at least try it on the bottom third or so, so I knew it would go on - but there was no doubt it would be snug!</div>
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I wasn't able to go home for the holidays last year, so we opened presents with my parents over video-conference at my in-laws place. The cases fit! Later my dad said that he'd gotten a few comments on his nice hand-made iPad case from store clerks etc., and he's always very proud to say his daughter made it for him. :) And yes, thankfully they did stretch out enough to make them a little easier to use!</div>
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A few months ago a friend of mine who was on a volunteer board with me got a new iPad, and he loved it and brought it to meetings with him and everything. But then I saw then he was carrying it around in the box that it had come in. I asked him about this and he said he didn't want it to get damaged, and he didn't have a case for it yet. So of course I made him a blue case for it that weekend, so he could start enjoying the portability of his new device. He must have thought my original offer wasn't serious, because he was very surprised when I showed up with it at our next meeting.</div>
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And finally, when Deep got a new computer (he had managed to drive over his old one with our car, so the screen was all cracked, but miraculously it still worked for a few months until the new model that he wanted came out), he asked me to make him a crocheted sleeve for it. I generally don't offer to make him crocheted things very often, since he has a particular sense of style and I don't want to end up with a situation where I work really hard on something that he won't really like but he will feel guilty enough to use it occasionally. So I was pleasantly surprised when he asked for this, and made this nice blue and grey case, which he does actually use all the time:<br />
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So, long story short, I've made quite a few of these cases, in pretty well every size and colour you can think of. I've also taught a couple of friends the pattern so they have made cases for themselves. They definitely seem to be a hit!</div>
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I've been thinking that I may open an Etsy store soon, to sell these custom-made cases, since there does seem to be some demand for them. I guess we'll see how that goes!</div>
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Keep crafting!</div>
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PS: You can find these items on my <a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/DreamyCrochet">Etsy Store</a></div>
Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-54658556972351607022012-11-07T18:58:00.000-08:002013-01-04T09:45:31.984-08:00A Cozy Sweater for my Laptop...In 2010 I was given a brand-new computer for Xmas... it was a lovely surprise (my husband Deep is notoriously terrible at keeping surprises, so I was really impressed!), especially since it was a super tiny computer that had just come out (the 11 in Macbook Air), which is similar in size to a Netbook, but a full computer. Since I do lots of travelling and my volunteer work often involves meetings etc, having a REALLY light, super-portable computer was a major plus for me. In fact, it still is a major plus - I still love this computer to death, and I'm using it right now to write this post!<br />
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I was really excited to use it lots and take it everywhere.... but then I realized that I didn't have a case for it. In fact, almost no stores had a case for it yet! Sure there were lots of cases for larger computers (obviously too big), and there were cases for netbooks (the wrong dimensions, my computer is longer and narrower), so unless I wanted to shell out the big bucks for one at the Apple store, I was going to have to order one online (and wait weeks for it to arrive), or wait months for them to show up in various different stores for a decent price.<br />
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Or of course, I could make one! (duh!)<br />
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I'd seen plenty of patterns for knitted phone or ipod cases/sleeves (sometimes called ipod socks), etc - it couldn't be that hard to make a crocheted or knitted laptop case, right?<br />
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So I started googling, and found this <a href="http://yoonie-at-home.blogspot.ca/2009_11_01_archive.html" target="_blank">awesome blog by another crafter</a>, who made these cool three-toned laptop cases, and offered a pattern. Well ok it was a description of a general method for making these sleeves, rather than a pattern exactly, but I gave it a try - with my own modifications of course, and I loved it!<br />
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Here is the purple sleeve I made for my laptop - the one that started it all:<br />
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For this one I used 3 strands as suggested in the pattern I had found, a dark blue, and two shades of purple (purple is my favourite colour, as you'll soon learn). The three strands not only gave it a neat variegated effect, it also meant that the case was thicker and softer - more padding to protect my shiny new laptop. I used a really big hook (11mm or 11.5mm I think) with this thick three-strand yarn, so it worked up really quickly. I used some jumbo snaps to close the flap, and finished off the edge with the darker purple yarn, and voila!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSbm6d4qbe-TtHAT3TggdK5zHLJ3vlBHC3_ERBAq-OlCsZ5u5Vfn1TNMcuVXc-e9csP07o3O5Gkphy9rV7fUjI5l1Q4tf7GGvkg0lhbALQQeo0ibD8kYxrOlkNakl_RVVXHvktkzvfP5I/s1600/IMG_0379.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSbm6d4qbe-TtHAT3TggdK5zHLJ3vlBHC3_ERBAq-OlCsZ5u5Vfn1TNMcuVXc-e9csP07o3O5Gkphy9rV7fUjI5l1Q4tf7GGvkg0lhbALQQeo0ibD8kYxrOlkNakl_RVVXHvktkzvfP5I/s320/IMG_0379.JPG" width="320" /></a>It started out quite snug, but over the last 1.5 years it has stretched out quite a bit, so when I've made other cases, I have adjusted my pattern a bit to make it more snug to start.<br />
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It's still going strong almost 2 years later - I still use it most of the time. There are some times when I need it to be really slim, and so I have a neoprene sleeve (ordered online) that I use then, but most of the time I much prefer my fun purple crocheted sleeve, plus it keeps my computer more protected, as we found out last winter...<br />
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Once I started using this case, I started getting requests from others to make one for them - but that's a story for another post.<br />
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Keep crafting!<br />
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Update: You can find this item on my <a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/DreamyCrochet">Etsy Store</a>Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-53231877020578188942012-09-08T21:40:00.002-07:002012-09-09T06:15:41.054-07:00One last post before bed - SHH it's a Surprise!Ok, I should really be heading to bed now, but I just wanted to share some of my excitement about a big project I've just started.<br />
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It's a surprise, so I can't even tell you about it yet, but I went on a yarn-buying rampage this week to get the yarn for it (yay for mill-ends bags!) - and here is the pile of yarn I came home with:<br />
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That's a whole lotta yarn!<br />
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This is the biggest project I've done yet, so I'm both scared and excited by it... and I wish I could say more about my plans, but SHHHH it's a surprise! I promise I'll take pictures and give you all the details once it's finished, but for now you'll have to be patient...Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-71869888979590308862012-09-08T21:25:00.001-07:002013-01-04T09:44:29.604-08:00Updates on the Baby-Crochet FrontWow I can't believe it's been about 6 months since I posted anything - whoops!<br />
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I've been busy with work, with volunteering, and of course with vacations (lots of time spent on the beach...) so I haven't had much time to post. It's not that I've stopped crocheting though - not at all.<br />
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<b>More Zigzags...</b><br />
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In fact, I've made 2 more zigzag baby blankets since my last post about those.<br />
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First, I made one for my cousin-let (which I mentioned in a previous post - younger brother of the first recipient of a zigzag blanket), who was born in March. Amazingly, I actually finished the blanket and mailed it out to them BEFORE he was born! Here he is at a couple of weeks old (I think), all cuddled up in the blanket - isn't he sweet? And here's a shot of me holding the blanket just before I shipped it off. Hmmm... ignore my messy apartment in the background, ok?<br />
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For this blanket I used the same yarn as the other zigzag blankets - it's so lovely and soft and it comes in great colours. As usual even though I knew they were expecting a boy, I refuse to go uber blue for boys and uber pink for girls (Incidentally, did you know that the opposite used to be the norm? Blue was considered to be a feminine colour, and pink, as a lighter form of red, was considered to be masculine - funny how societal norms change over time, huh??). However, since his sister's did include pink (though it was mostly purple and white), I thought his should have SOME blue - So I used a couple of shades of blue, one really pale and one quite dark, plus a creamy green (this colour always makes me think of lime sorbet...), and white.<br />
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My previous blankets of this design have all had stripes that were the same width, however with the intense dark blue colour here, it was too overpowering in a big stripe, and would have been way too blue, so I varied the widths of the stripes, with a wide light blue, then only 1 row of dark blue, then a medium green and medium white stripe before starting the pattern again. Finally I used a basic border of the dark blue to finish it off.<br />
I am quite happy with how it came out - what do you think?<br />
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Next, I made another one for a staff member at the organization that I volunteer on the board for, who has recently gone on parental leave, so it as kind of a congratulations/going away gift from the board. Her baby (we didn't know the sex ahead of time, but it was a boy) arrived in June, and of course he came early, so the blanket was a few days behind the baby - so much for being on time huh?<br />
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Partly because I love rainbows, partly because we didn't know the sex ahead of time, and partly because theirs is a GBLT family, I decided to go with another rainbow blanket, very similar to the first rainbow one I made last summer. What I did change this time though, was adding a more decorative border. I have a great book called <a href="http://www.amazon.ca/Around-Corner-Crochet-Borders-Instructions/dp/1603425381" target="_blank">Around the Corner Crochet Borders</a>, and since the blanket was late anyways.... I don't have a picture of the baby with his blanket yet, but here are some shots of the blanket and a close up of the border:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxeJ6g6HuZImWNuu-9SyA5wt-feF8LQJmvoF1JDvvlRvv1_iz7yZFV8lkpgGeBDLsah3jpUQAKSFD9RQzCayEjjZLsL23kSAF2Fvqa7uaVg5OVlwa4agWif5LuxWBIJSyilxw7zd6kFhU/s1600/P1070495.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxeJ6g6HuZImWNuu-9SyA5wt-feF8LQJmvoF1JDvvlRvv1_iz7yZFV8lkpgGeBDLsah3jpUQAKSFD9RQzCayEjjZLsL23kSAF2Fvqa7uaVg5OVlwa4agWif5LuxWBIJSyilxw7zd6kFhU/s320/P1070495.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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It was a bit challenging to adapt a border pattern that does a great job of 90 degree corners - for a zigzag edging...<br />
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<b>Rainbow Booties!</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1bL-rSV4-W6ZMLPgw5q14ZTQIEvMZ5SlxL0NIHUzpv_XuETdHRqChMS1QZKb7ChSOcBFQKY8DlKzb-QO9X_GyRLYUnUWvRuQS1lpypt_WxcqdfDXZT2OAkfQWVQynVIpGsFZ2sOgZFi8/s1600/DSC_0410.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1bL-rSV4-W6ZMLPgw5q14ZTQIEvMZ5SlxL0NIHUzpv_XuETdHRqChMS1QZKb7ChSOcBFQKY8DlKzb-QO9X_GyRLYUnUWvRuQS1lpypt_WxcqdfDXZT2OAkfQWVQynVIpGsFZ2sOgZFi8/s400/DSC_0410.JPG" width="267" /></a>Last spring we went back to Alberta for a visit, and I knew we would be seeing some friends who have just had their first child. I was up to my ears in the two baby blankets above, and I knew I wouldn't have time to make one for them, but I wanted to have a present to bring. So I decided to make their little guy a set of these painfully adorable baby booties - again in a rainbow pattern because I love rainbows, and they are another GBLT family.<br />
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I used the same yarn as for the blankets above, and this<a href="http://www.redheart.com/free-patterns/baby-boots" target="_blank"> free pattern</a> from Red Heart. They would have been really quick to work up - I did one boot during a meeting (I think I may have been somewhat distracting... oops!) - however I managed to switch hook sizes between one boot and the other, so I made 2 sizes by accident! So then I made one more of each size of course, and ended up with 2 pairs! Here is a picture of the booties, and of course one of the little guy modelling them for all of you, while being held by one of his very proud moms!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaiJ8idnCzb69M7SIWjugP9ojaLZmmupPifwsellpfc8Hah3MwZ68EMtFPRSuDCUKtquekBn9FCxzUVdnh8Ysu6rbRMTFLFFxvBmevRxz7r68HWqL-G-W3H-hcmK9vZecsNcMjeDX2NwQ/s1600/P1060963.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaiJ8idnCzb69M7SIWjugP9ojaLZmmupPifwsellpfc8Hah3MwZ68EMtFPRSuDCUKtquekBn9FCxzUVdnh8Ysu6rbRMTFLFFxvBmevRxz7r68HWqL-G-W3H-hcmK9vZecsNcMjeDX2NwQ/s320/P1060963.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
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<b>Other Projects...</b><br />
I've also been working a lot on my full sized afghan - which I will save for a whole post of its own later - but man it is a whole lot more work do make a full sized blanket than to make a baby-sized blanket, or tiny baby booties! Ah one of the many reasons I love crocheting for babies!<br />
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Update: You can find these items on my <a href="http://www.etsy.com/shop/DreamyCrochet">Etsy Store</a>Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5692095108226900374.post-57671381680515408682012-02-22T20:16:00.000-08:002012-11-09T11:48:29.753-08:00Yarn Bombing - Activism and Social Statements in Yarn<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxfFiaWjsnVXjiKPVq1YTU6HcsTCqG5Wp6Reo4ODEy6GzN4OPHGMyBoRbFciZG2kcP2jsaLjT7o8GRWnAEbRscVWZgdXuNv68-6pT_ifxGeIgVJAL5Mfz8d5Uzw5FqUe4b_8SplDwo2bc/s1600/yarnbombCastle.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxfFiaWjsnVXjiKPVq1YTU6HcsTCqG5Wp6Reo4ODEy6GzN4OPHGMyBoRbFciZG2kcP2jsaLjT7o8GRWnAEbRscVWZgdXuNv68-6pT_ifxGeIgVJAL5Mfz8d5Uzw5FqUe4b_8SplDwo2bc/s400/yarnbombCastle.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Yarn Bombed Trees in the Castle Crown Wilderness Area: <a href="http://stopcastlelogging.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/castle-yarn-bombing/">http://stopcastlelogging.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/castle-yarn-bombing/</a></span><br />
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Have you ever heard of yarn-bombing? It's graffiti made out of yarn - either knitted or crocheted. Sometimes it's created simply to beautify an area, sometimes to make a social statement, sometimes as a protest, and sometimes as a tribute or memorial.<br />
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I love the idea of using yarn to decorate public spaces, and to make social and political statements. It's fresh, original, creative, light-hearted, eye-catching, and non-violent. The recent yarn-bombing of the Castle Crown Wilderness area (pictured above - this is a beautiful and ecologically important wilderness area in South Western Alberta, where I spent 2 summers doing research on hummingbird behaviour; it's one of my very favourite places) reminded me of this neat phenomenon, that I wanted to share with you.<br />
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Here is another fantastic picture that I love, of a Yarn Bomb of the famous Wall Street Bull:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNYGJHPYfeqGcHT_La0dPT5mKh0S6siHpYSU6YnnybSos1gRSdW5Kx5Ck_OAhT43exL_Yxr5mOQbkXBsf70I5MZNnEejzrCNULWytxrZYMALHOjloDf1K92uB_VooQzBiSvbZ4Xvwe1Dg/s1600/yarn-bombed+wall+street+bull.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNYGJHPYfeqGcHT_La0dPT5mKh0S6siHpYSU6YnnybSos1gRSdW5Kx5Ck_OAhT43exL_Yxr5mOQbkXBsf70I5MZNnEejzrCNULWytxrZYMALHOjloDf1K92uB_VooQzBiSvbZ4Xvwe1Dg/s320/yarn-bombed+wall+street+bull.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">(from Knit Spirit: <a href="http://knitspirit.tumblr.com/post/2496039589/wall-street-bull-warms-up-with-custom-crochet">http://knitspirit.tumblr.com/post/2496039589/wall-street-bull-warms-up-with-custom-crochet</a>)</span><br />
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Here are a few other Yarn-Bombing examples and websites that I like:<br />
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The YarnBombing blog - tonnes of great pictures of projects from all over.<br />
I think this blogger is based in Vancouver - gotta love the Canadian connection :)<br />
<a href="http://yarnbombing.com/">http://yarnbombing.com/</a><br />
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A recent Yarn Bombing protest against the logging in the Castle Crown Wilderness Area <br />
(a beautiful and ecologically important wilderness area in South Western Alberta, where I spent 2 summers doing research on hummingbird behaviour):<br />
<a href="http://stopcastlelogging.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/castle-yarn-bombing/">http://stopcastlelogging.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/castle-yarn-bombing/</a><br />
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A famous yarn-bomber in LA calls herself "Captain Hook" (love it!). She makes outfits for public statues in LA:<br />
<a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/04/25/135705721/crochet-vandals-do-graffiti-like-your-grandma">http://www.npr.org/2011/04/25/135705721/crochet-vandals-do-graffiti-like-your-grandma</a><br />
You can watch her and her accomplice in action in this video:<br />
<a href="http://vimeo.com/22832301">http://vimeo.com/22832301</a><br />
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Last year Yarn-bomers from all over Canada made cherry blossoms which were used to decorate the historic home of Japanese-Canadian Author, Joy Kogawa:<br />
<a href="http://yarnbombing.com/category/historic-joy-kogawa-house">http://yarnbombing.com/category/historic-joy-kogawa-house</a><br />
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Art Installation - 99 Trees in Austin<br />
<a href="http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/99-yarn-bombed-trees-by-knitta-142211">http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/99-yarn-bombed-trees-by-knitta-142211</a><br />
I also love the pseudonym of the artist - KnittaPlease :)<br />
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There is even a book on Yarn-bombing. It's something of a How-to for folks who want to give it a try.<br />
<a href="http://www.arsenalpulp.com/bookinfo.php?index=294">http://www.arsenalpulp.com/bookinfo.php?index=294</a><br />
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Apparently there is also an International Yarn Bombing Day - this year it is on June 11, 2012. Maybe I'll participate this year...Crafty Chrishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02334562934286677724noreply@blogger.com0