Look what I got!

My mother was cleaning out a bookcase yesterday and came upon a few old crochet books. I'm proud to say that they now live in my bookcase. I know that they are old enough to be public domain, and I plan to scan them all in the near future. And I will not be charging $8.95 a piece to share them with the rest of the world.

From vintage

I also got most of another book of edgings. There's no cover; it goes from page 3-14, then 19-30.


What's most interesting to me is that amongst all the edging patterns there are several pages without instruction. I guess the author just wanted to inspire crocheters with really complicated designs? Or maybe she just wanted to show off? I wonder if that might be the key to finding out who the designer is...

Happy Halloween!

I have grown to love Halloween. Not because I like the candy (although I do like candy), and not because I love witches and ghouls and cobwebs and black lights, either. I have grown to love dressing my kids up for Halloween. Nige is still a little young to get creative, and he always wants to be a super hero (Spider Man this year). But Nora, she has really gotten into the fun of thinking up something and making it happen. Last year she was Rapunzel, and kids still love to use the long blond wig when they play dress up.

This year, she originally wanted to be a frog. Her teacher loves frogs, so it seemed logical to her. But then we went to a friend's birthday party, and all the kids got plastic animal noses. Nora got an elephant's trunk, and right then the final costume decision was made. First off, I bought gray sweatpants and a sweatshirt and a skein of gray yarn. I went back to the old standby, the single crochet beanie. It is typically fairly cold on Halloween night here, so I like this stocking-cap-as-pattern thing. I used craft felt to make the ears (cut 4 elephant ear-shaped pieces, the sewed two layers together, and flipped inside out). I just whip-stitched the ears to the hat.


The feet proved to be more of a challenge. Originally I was going to use a round cardboard oatmeal container cut on half to make the hands, but the other felt I had was really dark gray, and we couldn't find a good way to attach to her hands and still allow her to do school things and hold the trick-or-treat bag at night. So back to the drawing board. At 6:30 last night I decided to knit them. (I'm a horrible procrastinator, but I do work well under pressure)


I started out by casting on 28 stitches and knit 12 rows of 2x2 ribbing on US5 needles. (I have a tendency to knit ribbing very loosely, so I go small on the needles)
Row 13: (kfb, k3) to end [35 stitches]
Row 14: knit across
Row 15: (k4, kfb) to end [42 stitches]
Row 16: knit across
Row 17: (kfb, k5) to end [49 stitches]
Row 18: bind off loosely, leaving last loop on needle
Grab a 5.5mm crochet hook and transfer the last loop to the hook, ch3, turn
double crochet into each of the bound-off stitches, ch3, turn
dc 4 more rows.
weave in ends.

If I were to do this again, I might skip the last inc row and stick with 42 stitches, as they are a little unwieldy, then do a few more rows of double crochet. And I think I'd switch to single crochet after the ribbing instead of the garter stitch, because it's so much faster. I finished these about 20 minutes before Nora had to head off to school this morning, I'll probably chain stitch some pink toenails onto them before T-0-Ting tonight.

If anyone wants to visit them on Ravelry, here are the links to the hat and to the feet.

I've been busy!

That's not exactly a truthitude. I've only been busy playing with yarn. The house is a mess, the roof still has a hole in it and the dishes aren't done. But the fruits of my labor are much more picturesque.

First up, some beautiful bamboo yarn barf. A friend of mine, who is an experienced wool roving and yarn dyer, tried out some bamboo yarn, to see if she wanted to branch out from wool. Unfortunately, when she tried to re-skein the yarn after dyeing, she found that it had turned itself in to many tiny tangled "yarnlets." She got one hank sorted out, then gave up and sent me the rest.

I figured that she really was exaggerating about how badly the yarn had held up, but hoo boy, she was right! I spent an entire evening of watching tv trying to get together one hank, and it was no picnic. The thing was in no fewer than ten pieces. A sane woman would give up, but the stuff is just so darn pretty that I'll probably find a way to use it anyway.

And hot off the presses, folks, a summer sweater for me. I started this in March, but then got sidetracked, and worried about length and sleeves and decoragtive finishing a lot. I finally got sick of knowing it was there, undone, and pulled it out this morning. I realized that I didn't like the look of the sleeve I had done, so I pulled it out and left just the sleeve cap. I also forwent the decorative edging I had planned, and did just a simple single crochet border. I really still ought to get a cute little frog closure for it, but I'm calling this baby done. I might even wear it to church this Sunday. :)

Pattern: created by Knitware sweater design software.
Yarn: Knitpicks Shine Sport, color: Cream
Hook: US H/5.0 mm

Sorry about the deer-in-the-headlights look, it's hard to pose for a portrait taken by a six year old. But don't you like my new hair cut?

oops- sunburn

I took the kids swimming yesterday. They had a blast. There were lots of blow-up flaties and googles and flippers. Both kids are itching to go back right now. In a rare instance of good parenting, I managed to slather both of them with sunblock. In a not so rare instance of run-of-the-mill stupidity, I forgot to slather my self with same. So now I have a upper-torso sunburn. At least I was wearing a hat, so my face is largely unaffected. As the optimist that I am, I'm thinking 'Hey, at least it will even out the awesome farmer's tan I've been rocking this summer." I hope it doesn't peel and go all away, just leaving a flaky and unattractive farmer's tan.

I have been trying to work on my many UFO's lately. The problem with working on stuff like that is there is no spark, no drive to get going. So I'm all too happy to sit around playing on the internet or cleaning the house and not knitting or crocheting. I have promised myself to have finished at least two projects before the Olympics. I'm not great at meeting self-imposed deadlines, but now that I've put it here, maybe I'll do better. :)

Name that contraption

Hey you-- with your mind in the gutter-- it's not what you think. That's a Banana Bunker. It'll keep your lunch nanner from getting all bruised in transit. Pretty cool, eh?

We're all healthy now in the Deplume household, although I'm still not totally unpacked. Life is just as busy as before we left, with dentist appointments, t-ball games, story time at the library, and on and on and on. Once stuff settles, I promise a few more vacation pictures.

And by the way, I crocheted a hat while on vacation. Right now it looks really ugly. I'm hoping that blocking will prove itself a miracle once again. Cross your fingers for me!

The lengths I will go to avoid housework

Earlier today, I happened upon some miniature hats and sweaters that someone on Ravelry made for her dollhouse. I was in awe. I could not imagine the skill it must take to knit sweaters in such a teeny scale. I shared the find with my e-pals*. They were duly impressed, and several of them said how they could never do it. At first I agreed that it was beyond my skills.

And then I realized that I needed to do laundry and figure out supper. At that exact moment, I decided that I really needed to see if it was all that impossible. I pulled out a size 1 steel hook, and some peacock blue size5 pearl cotton (both from the charity shop down the street) and went to work. A little while later, I had this:


One index-finger-sized hat. I'm pretty proud of myself. Although the family will not feel that same pride when there's no food on the table tonight at dinner. I suppose I'd better get something going on that front.




*E-pal: noun. An acquaintance acquired via the internet. Some of these e-pals can graduate to "true friend" status by exchanging phone numbers or actually meeting.

WIP Wednesday.

I have never before actually taken a picture of a Work In Progress on a Wednesday, and might never manage to again, so I'm taking this opportunity to show off my latest creation, a crocheted summer sweater. I created the pattern using Knitware, a pattern generation software. I'm just using the demo version right now, but if I continue to want to make more sweaters this way, I just might fork over the moolah to buy it. Of course that could change me from casual yarn user to full blown fiber addict. It's a big step for me. ;)

Anyway, back to the project. I'm doing a top-down, raglan cardigan, crocheted in Knitpicks Shine Sport yarn and a 5mm hook. I had to rip it back to the first row two times, wasting several hours of my life, primarily due to my resistance to stitch markers. I got over that, and on the third try, got it figured out. I'm now one row into the body, so I was able to try it on and find that it fits. :) After all the "will it fit???" worries of knitting my first sweater, I really am sold on this one-piece construction.


If my wrist and thumb hold out, I just may have this sucker done in time for warm weather.

A whole week later

And I still don't have much to report. I'm attempting to be better about housework, leaving less time for the computer and the yarn. But I still managed to get a couple of things figured out this week.

First, I tackled crochet charts. I'm a big fan of knitting from charts, so I knew that I'd prefer crocheting from charts, too. But they are (for lack of a better term) fluffier than knit charts. They are, more or less, a picture of the stitches in the right positions. Knit charts are kinda the same, but in a much more controlled, linear way. It took a few tries to find the right sort of intro project, but I found a fairly simple pattern and went to work. There were a couple of false starts, but I got eventually the hang of it. It's a good thing that I took the picture when I did, too, because The Nige frogged it about 10 minutes later while my attention was directed elsewhere. Ah, life with a boy.


Then I got curious about this foundation chain thing that the real crocheters are always going on about. For those of you not familiar with it, it's making your chain and the first row of SC all at the same time. I think of it as the counterpart to the long tail cast on in knitting, which gives you a row of knit stitches and the cast-on in one fell swoop. I really really dislike trying to crochet into the chain, so the foundation is a must-know technique, as far as I am concerned. :) After a little googling, I found a great clear tutorial on it. In just a bit, here's what I had:


Go there and learn it. I insist. Really worth a couple of yards of yarn and a few minutes of your time. I know there are other methods out there for this, but I'm not savvy enough to know when they are needed. For now I'll bask in the glow of a new trick learned.

I'm nearing the home stretch on completing Otis from Knitty.com, and looking forward to seeing if it fits. I hope so. That much stockinette better not be for naught.

I promise to update again in less than a week. I have some thoughts clanging around in my head, and I need to write them down here before they start crowding out the more important info, like appointments and shopping lists and first-aid techniques.

Sunny and cold with a side of Awesome

It was 4.8 degrees (Farenheit) out this morning. I drove the girl to school. As militant as I am about walking the three blocks to school in the morning instead of wasting gasoline and polluting the air, 5 is really really cold. I'm happy that our trusty little car started this morning and got us to school sans frostbite. We'll probably walk to story time at the Library this afternoon, though. It's only a block-and-a-half away and the temp should have risen to a balmy 15 by then. And it's sunny. A good dose of Vitamin D and fresh air is good for the soul.

You know what else is good for the soul? Laughter. And Mr. Deplume and I have had no shortage of laughter in our lives since I found this:


Yes, there is a whole line of Awesome products at Cub Foods. I snickered when I found it in the grocery aisle, and it causes a little giddy glee each time I take the box from the drawer and pull out a length of its awesome shiny film. Who thought up the brand name "Awesome"? Whoever it is, I'm like to thank him or her. Or them. Do you suppose it was a whole committee at the household products company that came up with it? Or is there a company named "Awesome Products"? However it was named, it is like, totally genius.

Now onto the non-genius stuff; the shawl that I made for my girl. It is fraught with mistakes, including a general misunderstanding of how how crochet. But I learned a lot while making it, and it is soft and purple and Miss Nora likes it.



Pattern: Half-Moon Shawl
Yarn: Caron Simply Soft in "Grape"
Hook: H/5.0 mm

I've been doing it wrong

I was so sure that I was the quickest crochet study on the planet. A prodigy, if you will. But then last night, I came to a realization: I've been doing it wrong. I know a few posts ago I talked about doing it wrong in a tongue-in-cheek manner, but this time I mean it. How embarrassing. I've been only picking up the front loop of the stitch, à la knitting. I didn't realize until last night that you're supposed to pick up both loops. argh. The worst part is that I realized it AFTER asking a really stupid bonehead question about it in public. On Ravelry, the single-largest conglomeration of fiber folk on the planet. What a maroon I am.

I hate being a maroon.

But at least I can be grateful that I've figured out the right way to do it for the future. Off to pick a pattern for the next project. I'm so very addicted to yarn (I'm obviously also grateful for sheep).

In which I hurt myself

YSHA* will be here this afternoon to conduct its investigation. It's all very tragic (and painful), but I'll try to recount the events of yesterday so you can all learn from my mistakes.

Yesterday at 8 AM, I saw this on Ravelry, and realized that Nora's (store bought Princess) Valentines for the big kindergarten V-day party were woefully inadequate. They simply would not do. She'd be the laughing stock of her class. So I immediately set out to make hearts for her 14 classmates.

This would not have been a problem, except that my church's knitting group meets on Wednesday mornings. So I packed up my stuff and The Nige, and we went to the coffee shop for cookies and coffee and yarn. There, I worked on Nora's purple shawl for 2 hours. Kinda. When at a coffee shop with a 3-year-old, there's as much kid wrangling as there is knitting or crocheting. Maybe more.

So when we got home, I had to sit down and make 13 hearts (the first had been made at 8am, about 5 minutes after the first pattern sighting). I picked out some boyish yarns, some girlish yarns, and got to work. This is where the pain comes in. When working with teeny projects, it turns out that I hold the work very tightly with my left thumb and middle finger. So by 4 PM, my left thumb was atrophied and generally useless. My right wrist was tender, but not all that bad, considering the excessive crochet to which it had been subjected.

And then I got up to move a plastic file box full of art supplies. My right hand, in its weakened state, slipped off the top of the box, pulling my right fingernail back ever so slightly. You know how sometimes you hurt yourself and don't really know it until later? This is one of those times. As the night wore on, My hands began to wither and throb. My index finger is bruised, my knuckles are stiff, and my left thumb is still not working.

But look how cute they are. It was worth it, right?

Pattern: Crochet Valentine from Crochet Today
Hook: G/4.0 mm
Yarn: leftovers and vintage wool from the charity shop.

Note: In a lovely instance of serendipity, I already had a stack of crochet books checked out from the library, and now I can read them without feeling the urge to break out the yarn and sticks or hooks.











*Yarnitational Safety and Health Administration

Yeeee-uck

Last Friday we got 6 inches of snow. The kids and Daddy built a snowman. Now it is three days later, we've got rain and fog. And slush everywhere. Blech. And our poor snowman is shrinking. At least we have a good portrait of him in his youth.


I made some more progress on the crocheted half-moon shawl, but then last night, at the beginning of the 4th quarter of the Superbowl, tragedy struck. Yep, my worst enemy reared its ugly hea:, yarn barf. I worked at it for way too long, and I don't know if I made it better or worse. If I had a Wal-Mart close by, I'd just go buy a new skein of Simply Soft and be done with it. I might still do that. But not today. I'll instead work on cleaning the house. urgh.

I always knew I had latent hooker tendencies

Gosh, it's been too long since I've updated you, bloggie-dear. I apologize for neglecting you. I promise to take better care of you in the future.

And now for the post. I'm being pulled to the dark side: crochet. I tried many times to get the hang of it, and just couldn't. It was so bad that I avoided knitting patterns that had crocheted edgings on them. I was a sorry sorry case. Then, for Halloween, I managed a single crochet had for my daughter's costume. It wasn't too bad. The workmanship wasn't great, but it was still much faster than knitting the same thing. I'm a rather slow knitter, so that speed stuck in the back of my head.

This last week, I entered a stash-busting game on a message board, and figured that I'd never get any points if I tried to start and complete any knitting projects. Heck, a knitted dishcloth takes me two days. So I dove into some "how to crochet" videos and gave it another shot. I picked a pattern that consisted of only single and double crochet, and went to work. In only two hours, I had a completed object. TWO HOURS! This crochet thing just might have something to it after all.

Here's the rub. I cannot hook worth a damn when I do it like the people on the videos (and in the books). I have to hold the yarn in my right hand. It doesn't surprise me, as I cannot knit continental very well, either. I'm probably going to give myself carpal tunnel syndrome doing it that way, but I don't care. I'm managing to make stitches and follow a pattern, and it doesn't suck!

I won't bother posting a picture of the "spa cloth" I did on Tuesday, but you can look it up on Ravelry if you want. Yesterday I started a shawl for Nora. She's been wanting one, and even has the yarn picked out. I don't know how far the "good" yarn will go, so I started out on some acrylic that I had in the cupboard, and she likes that too. It's purple. Nora likes purple.


Pattern: Half-Moon Shawl by Lion Brand
Yarn: Caron Simply Soft, in bright purple.
Hook: 5.0mm

What's wrong with this picture?

I found some great new reusable shopping bags at the entry of the grocery today, so I picked up 5 of them. I've had a couple of nylon ones for awhile now, which are nice, but they run $5-7 a piece, and these new ones were $.99 each. I'm really happy to have the option now in my tiny burg. Since I was only picking up a few things, I only needed one of the bags. I had the kids and a gallon of milk plus the groceries to deal with, so the checker bagged the extra bags for me. I almost told her to take the plastic bag back and just let me carry the others (or let Rapunzel carry them), but the sight was so funny, I just let it ride.

Is it sad that my first thought was "I cannot wait to put this in the blog"??


In bigger news, I finished the girl's Halloween costume. last night. That's like 12 hours to spare! See? proof positive that I am not a procrastinator (a fibber, though, I seem to be). I made the flannel dress, hat, and hair, and my mama made the satin shrug and overskirt. I'm particularly proud of the wig. It started out a crocheted beanie, then I latch-hooked 100 pieces of "hair" to it. It is my very first successful attempt at crochet, as well as my triumphant return to latch hooking, a skill which I mastered as a kid, then laid to the side until now. Thank goodness I made all those odd rug kits in the 1970's, eh?

There are more pictures here. And of course at Ravelry.

My mama made the "Dooperman" costume. The boy is in love. He's worn it nearly every day since he got it last week.