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Wednesday, February 13, 2013

crochet hearts

Its Valentine's day tommorow. I was looking for a fun little day project and came across these hearts. The design is extremely similar to the pop heart, I think I posted a pic of atleast one in some previous posts. That heart is about 6x5 in  and the patter can be found here.

The hearts I made today are smaller, They measure 3x2 in when using worsted weight yarn and an F hook. They fit in the palm of your hand and are really cute. The Crochet 3D Heart seems the perfect lil extra gift topper.

croceht ravens hat and scarf

My youngest son tried to swipe one of the beanies I'd made so I asked him what colors he liked and I'd make him one. He wore his ravens colors proudly to school that friday, the entire school participates in Ravens fridays. The Ravens won the superbowl that sunday. Yay! After that  my baby decided he wanted a scarf like his brothers to match his Ravens hat. One woven crochet plaid ish scarf coming up.




My kids have big heads. The scarf is approx 8 in wide and  4 1/2 ft long. He said not too long. I think it turned out great. He gets compliments on it. But that could be just cause it Ravens colors.

crochet hats

My youngest son's class was having a contest to help the girl scouts of the school. They were suppling the local college volunteers with winter weather items, toiletries, and small comforts for the homeless during the cold weather to come. They were to go out on Feb 1st and distribute these items to any apparent homeless that would take them. I decided that instead of a trip to the dollar store for junk like I was expecting others to do I would make beanie hats out of some of my larger scraps. But its after Feb 1st you say, yeah as common with this school we get a big pretty flyer telling us the min. amount of info and then never hear anything else about it. Apparntly it was the girls scouts providing the "party" for the winning class and I believe thier cause, the college fellows expected to walk around in the city at night among homeless persons didnt pan out. Which I only found out as I tried to track down to whom we were supposed to give our "donations" too. What I found was a teacher going through a very small box separating what could be used in classrooms (like baby wipes and hand sanatiser... really) and tossing "dollar store" hats and gloves into the lost and found (which they usually dole out to the kids) So ..... my hats.



 This was a good experience I learned serveral things. Like if you boarder the hat in slip stitches to add a row of color the hat doesn't stretch as much as the sc does. Or that a few decreases, which should be done in the dc row not the sc with make a baggy hat fit better. And That a few extra dc around rows before the stripes will  make the hat fit well over your ears instead of across.

This last hat was an experiment. A combination of dc and sl stitches done in the back st only as a rectangular piece. Then you slip stitch down the long end and you have a tube. I made an I cord and wove it through open chains on one end of the tube. Now you can wear this piece as a cowl (neck warmer) or pull the string tight and tie it in a bow at the top to wear as a hat. Its made from some soft dk weight yarn leftover from someone else making a baby blanket.

The other hats are red heart yarn. acrylic

crochet celtic knot

I saw a piece of jewelry online that was a woven Celtic knot. I thought I wonder if I could do that in crochet. I tried it with chains but it just looked funky. Then i found a video about making I chords in crochet. I made a large one


It's laying on top of my camera case and is about the size of a belt buckle. Pretty good for my first try but its so big I'm not sure what to do with it. It's made with 2 long cords one of each color. I suppose it would look decent as a ladies belt. I made a smaller one that fit around my wrist and my son confiscated it to go with his other red and black pieces. I made another in baby yarn in white and baby blue. It's a smaller knot as well.



This has potential with refined yarns, threads and such. I made another knot recently but since I'm just posting I'll include its picture here, It was made with baby weight yarn in pink but a larger hook.It has open spaces so I tacked the overlapping points together. It's also kinda large and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it.


I suppose I could snip the ends and wear it as a pin. Valentines day is tomorrow.

Jim's Woven crochet scarf - Plaid ish

My son wanted his scarf to be 1) red and black, 2)Long so he could toss an end over his shoulder (he demonstrates a hair shake and artfully tossing something over his shoulder... I know right.) , 3) it should have fringe, and 4) the only picture he was able to present me to give me an ideal was plaid.

I've seen plaid done in crochet. my mother made a throw that had rows chain stitched across the top of the blanket. But son, plaid has more colors shall we use white or gray? No , black and red. Hmm OK. I see this woven crochet. it's a lattice work of dc and spaces then you weave strands of yarn though the openings. That looks....interesting. I find at my local Walmart that they carry jack shit in the way of yarn anymore. Red heart has a brand there called Love..something. It's soft and will due for my son's fantastic scarf. His scarf is 7 in wide and really long. (a bit shorter then mine so about 71/2 ft) I alternated the length of the red and black sections in a pattern. And then used a larger hook to make a chain the length of the scarf and wove it through the opening. I alternated which bars the chains would go over and under as well. I think we may have achieved a better look if the chains had all been woven in the same pattern but my son loved the scarf as is!



I think it is pretty nifty too. I made him a hat to match. Slouchy beanie hats are all the rage. Mine was a combination that and a braids hat.
 It was meant to be worn with the wide ribbed (black) part around the top of your head to the bottom back, like a headband, with the back of the hat slouching down. My son flips the ribbed section inside ad pulls it down over his head. he must look like a target from above and I bet the double layer makes it really warm on his forehead. But he wears it so I'm HAPPY. Both pieces are nice and soft.
 
**edited 4/2015**
Hat strongly based on the All grown up striped slouch hat credited to Brea on the Moogly blog. The striping was different and the camel stitch (raised chain) was only done on the very last row before brim. There is also a tutorial on crocheting on a brim or ribbed cuff that is excellent in written and video form. I'm adding these notes after 2 yrs. because my son wears this hat daily in all weather and its time for a new one. I began this blog to keep all my crochet notes in one place and wouldn't you know I had to go digging for the specifics of this hat.
 
James' version Slouchy Hat
I hook
Magic circle, ch 3 to start each round, 12 dc, with a sl st to join each round.[1dc] x12 (12st)
[2dc] x12 (24st)
[1dc, 2dc] x12 (36st)
[2dc, 2dc] x12 (48st)
[3dc, 2dc] x 12 (60st)
[5dc, 2dc] x 10 (70st)
dc around for 8 rounds
camel stitch sc around
Add Brim/Cuff (ch9 to start, hdc in Back Loops in second ch from hook, 7 hdc in bl, sc2tog along brim, 8hdc bl, ch1 turn, repeat around, whip stitch first and last rows)
 
Stripes: 3 black, 2 red, 3 bl, 6 red. black brim
 
This makes a LARGE hat. James' head is 24"
Measurements were taken from the well used hat
End of 3rd black row across (hat folded flat as in last picture) - 5 1/4"
End of 6th black row  - 12"
Bottom of brim - 15 1/2"
2 rows dc 1"
brim top to bottom (8st + join) 2 1/2" 4 rows of hdc of brim (across) 1 5/8"
 
James has requested a Panda hat. Yes , yes white with black ears and a flip down brim with eye holes. He'll be 20 this year, sigh. check April 2015 for Panda hat.
 

Practice scarf - galaxy stitch

So my son wants ME to make him a scarf. My crochet was still packed away and I knew where these needles were and a ball of yarn that no one was using so I thought HEY I'll knit something. Now it's not that I can't knit its just that it takes more attention then I have to give. I prefer crochet. After I get the pattern down I can practically crochet in my sleep. Its relaxing, repetitive, and conducive to thinking about other stuff or nothing at all. Knitting is not. I crochet rather fast. after an hour of knitting I have 4 inches by 5in of slanted garter stitch. No, its not supposed to be slanted and damn I've dropped a stitch and I'll never find it. Gahhhh. Frog that. That is why I don't knit. Although I must remind myself by attempting a project every few years.

So I pull up hundreds of pictures of scarfs while my son sits at the PC next to me and he periodically shakes and/or nods his head at a picture. That goes well. I find a stitch I'm maybe interested in. The person is actually making a scarf using it in a tutorial. I watch. I haven't purchased the yarn for my son's scarf yet. It's special and I don't have anything worthy in my stash. So I have this ideal of a scarf for myself.  It is very long, thin, and multi colored. So I dig out my leftover bag of yarn balls and begin my scarf of many colors using this new stitch. The galaxy stitch is pretty looking from both sides, and provided you use similar weight yarn has a nice clean edge that doesn't require a boarder.  It is also dense. So here are pictures of my scarf.


The scarf is over 8ft long. It's often worn folded in half with the loose ends through the other end.
It is 7 galaxy stitches across. It's very warm. I have this big bag of balls of left over yarn. I really just began pulling out the medium and small balls and worked through the ball. There were 2 lighter weight yarns, they alter the gauge too much to use as is. So I unwound them took both ends together and crochet with it as a double strand till there was no more. An excellent project for getting rid of those tiny scraps of yarn. A friend called it my Doctor Who scarf.  I love the stitch and it would make a wonderful winter baby blanket but not quite what my son was looking for in his scarf.

Baby sneakers and Angel WIP

Oh My it's Feb. already! I've been doing nothing for months. Shameful, I know. Well I made some crochet pumpkins and a witch or two for Halloween..

For my son's birthday in Nov. I made a sort of a Batman dress up set. Black fingerless gauntlets, black mask, and black boots (slippers). There was of course a yellow utility belt with pouches, slots for tiny crochet bat shaped "throwing stars"and a pair of crochet wrist shackles and key. Would you believe the key took the longest to figure out. I had pictures, they somehow disappeared off my camera. If I can find it I will add pictures at a later date. I will say that I could have done some things better. Like the yellow belt tied around the waist and I made it very light to do so, but it was still a bit heave and if done again I would get an old work belt and wrap the crochet around it, Or maybe just add the emblem and pouches if the belt were black and in decent shape. I also made the mask to tie around the head. It resembled an extended cat eye mask and although it was OK I would probably make it into more of something resembling a ski mask with the opening for the nose down to the chin. The key took awhile to shape like I wanted. I have made earrings of thread before and stiffened them by spraying with starch and ironing. I mistakenly tried this with the key, made of worsted weight yarn, it drastically flattened and was so limp it folded like paper. I made a second key with the same yarn and very tight stitches instead.

I made my aunt a "Bath and Beauty" set for x-mas. A soap saver, scrubbie, washable facial puffs, and a shower puff made to lie flat to dry. Gifted it in a pretty slanted rib stitch bag made in variegated Christmas yarn with braided gold yarn ties.

Sometime between my last entry and Halloween I made some baby shoes. I was on a baby trip for awhile and have plenty of the items just collecting dust. These Lil shoes were so cute though. The pattern was found on raverly, free of course. Try searching "Baby Converse" I left the emblems off the ones I made but they are still so cute. They never made it to their intended baby feet so they're in a bag in my projects box now.





Then I had this ideal for a gift for my mother. She likes angels and I wanted to make one in crochet. It never got finished, because well I start out with the best of intentions then I remember my mother never likes anything I make...so yeah. Here are the WIP pics.





I made the dolls body first. Its just crochet and a bit of stuffing. Then the dress which is made of something between a yarn and a ribbon material. The face and eyes are hand stitched embroidery thread. Its a Christmas angel so the thing on her arm is a furred muff made with balky yarn. A large red bow and thread holly leaves and gold thread accents (berries?...) The hat is the bulky fluffy yarn with the flat top the same shiny ribbon of the dress, The mess of strings are just that. I made thread roses to accent the hat and dress and you see some of them pinned on as I wasn't sure of the placement yet. There is a white rose pinned to her shoulder as well because I was going to place roses along the neckline. They took away from the shape of the dress though. She didn't get hair yet. I wanted to make her strawberry blond and couldn't find the shade I wanted in my stash. I was also considering making her fuzzy boots to match the muff and hat. Oh and the wings, I have yet to find the perfect wings for her, I will probably do something in white thread.  If she ever gets finished. Then what would I do with her.

So then my little corner of the world became much smaller as this is the area the Christmas tree stands in for the 2 weeks or so its up. The recliner that I usually hide my small stash and WIP behind gets moved to make way for the tree. So I clean up all my stuff and pack it into a container till its safe to bring back the recliner. Which didn't really happen until Jan. when my oldest son asked for a scarf. Which will be the post after next. So all those weeks away I was playing WOW. World of Warcraft an online multi player game. I have to admit I've been addicted for awhile though I didn't think my infatuation would outlast the obliteration of my guild. I spent alot of time playing before this guild and will continue now that its gone. I'm quite sad though. But on to the next post so we can get all updated like.