New Moon Changes

OK, it isn’t really a ‘new moon’s! It is a catchy title though, right? I took these two pics on the way home from work. I just thought the clear sky and the mix of bare and evergreen trees with the moon hanging above them was a beautiful sight!

Speaking if beautiful sites… OK. Full disclosure (and slight change of subject): I’m combining my blogs together. So if you go back in the archives you’ll see a lot of posts on yarn crafts and sewing. You might see a few more pop up that are about books and their covers. I decided to just follow all my interests on As Is. I mean, really, they’re all integrated in my life so why seperate them when I’m blogging? I’ll be simplifying my categories and looking for a theme that makes all the subjects I have and will be covering look good. If you have any suggestions feel free to drop me a line!

Cool Crochet. 08/08/10.

I’ve been browsing Anthropologie for the last little while looking for a mirror that was featured in one of my old magazines. Found the mirror.

Then I found this beautiful, crocheted, gold and silverd plated cuff.

Now THAT is cool crochet.

Big Bow is finished!

So, I pushed through tonight and finished the sweater… well, the crocheting part anyway. I’ve still got to weave in ends, block, and add buttons. But the hard work is done! Phew!

Cool Crochet.

Seems like an oxymoron to a lot of people, myself included at times. It’s rough for me to reconcile how exceptionally cool knit patterns often are with how uncool most crochet patterns are.

Luckily for me and many other crocheters out there crochet is having quite the resurgence and the designers out there are upping the ante.

I’d like to share some things that are on my queue or favorites list at Ravelry… to fill in the gaps in me actually not working on many projects right now.

Front of capelet...

Designer: Bernadette Ambergen

Pattern: Asymmetrical Capelet

This one actually looks pretty simple to make and it’s so pretty and feminine but modern at the same time. It would be an extra special touch for a crafty bride… I bet it would be no problem at all to dress it up with a shiny or metallic yarn and bead and a beautiful broach instead of a button.

The pattern is $5.00 or buy one already made from the designer’s Etsy store.

 

Layering Cardi by Elena Malo

Designer: Elena Malo

Pattern: Layering Cardi

This pattern was featured in the Jan/Feb 2009 Crochet Today! Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to figure out how to lay hands on back issues of this mag… so if anyone knows how, please leave me a note. I’m really interested in taking a crack at this one.

While I was cruising the project profiles for this cardi, I noticed that a few people made it with long sleeves or put more buttons on the yoke. Either way it’s a cool looking sweater and a big step up from Big Bow. 

 

...if only I were a pattern!

Designer: Madame Cam

Pattern: Supervillain

This is one of the coolest sweaters I’ve seen in a crochet pattern; it’s modern, edgy and retro-cool at the same time. This sweater was designed by a teenager (!) who is only really designing stuff for herself but it was too cool not to share in this post about cool crochet. She’s on Ravelry under madamecam and her Urban Armor design is killer. I think it would look better in a solid or better yet a tone on tone (say black velvet and silk) but the bones of an awesome freaking design are there. This young lady give me hope that crochet really can be as killer cool as knitting always seems to be. She could be crochet’s answer to a knitwear design giant like Wenlan Chia.

I hope that more designer’s come up with some really edgy, modern stuff for us crocheter’s because doily sweaters are not it.

NaNoWriMo.

This month is National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000 word novel during the thirty days of November. You write roughly 1,667 words a day to stay on goal.

I am participating again as I have every year for the past couple of years. Because of that I probably won’t be posting a lot of stuff on crocheting or other yarn related things. I am still giving my Mom’s sweater a go. Nearly finished too… Only the left sleeve to be done. I’ll get to that this weekend.

In the meantime… if there is anyone out there actually reading my blog (I have deep moments of doubt about that!) the reason I’m so terribly inconsistent of late is that I’m NaNo-ing.

Happy writing to those who are doing the do. Happy crocheting, knitting, felting, or weaving to the rest!

Cardi! … and some scarves too…

So, I’ve been neglecting my blog duties.

I can admit it.

In my defense I’ve actually been working on a couple of projects.

First is The Millie Cardigan from Vintage Crochet by Susan Cropper . The pattern is by Alicia Paulson, and it’s worked from the yoke down, which is SUPER easy! It’s all single and double crochet. I’ve decided to use ribbon instead of fabric strips for the ties and I’m going to make “toggle” closures with the ribbon and decorative buttons isntead of just having it tie to close. I may also crochet some flowers and vines on it too. I really want to make it up special as it’s a gift for my friend Jen. It is the LATEST birthday present ever… she probably won’t actually get the sweater til sometime in August. Her birthday was in February. Oy.

Scarf pattern from Interweave Crochet Winter 2008.

Second, is a scarf project from my completely abused Winter 2008 issue of Interweave Crochet. It’s called Mitered Squares and it’s by a designer named Annette Petavy. The pattern is single crochet in the front loop only with a regular decrease in the center of each row. The name of the pattern pretty much says it all. Anyway, with a little counting and a stitch marker, this scarf works up in no time.

For the Mitered Squares project I’m using Jo-Ann Fabrics Debbie Mumm Traditions in Purple,  instead of the recommended yarn(South West Trading Company Karaoke). The Debbie Mumm isn’t very thick so I used a size G hook instead of a K hook (as recommended). I’m not having any problems working it up. 

I’d like to try using these mitered squares for a blanket. I actually think the Traditions yarn would work up nice. I’m so in love with variagated yarn right now! But that is also another post.

A Family Affair

I’m happy to announce to the world that the person who taught me to crochet was none other than my Gram Nash. I was just a wee girl and I thought the little frilly dresses she made for those once ubiquitous toilet paper holder dolls was the best thing ever. I wanted to do it too and my Gram showed me how.

I played around with crochet for a few years… into my preteens and even tried to teach myself how to knit. I was so proud when I finally learned how to do stockinette properly (Hey! Purling is HARD darn it!). But of course, as happens with so many of us I let go of it to pursue other things – bands and boys being chief among them. Still, if I picked up a hook, I knew I could always rely on my Gram, even though she’s a lefty and I have to reverse everything to get it right, to see me through any snarls.

Now cut to a few years later (no, I will not tell you exactly how many…) and I’ve once again picked up a hook. When I showed my Gram the project that I was working on her eyes sort of started to get a certain gleam… so I asked, casually, if she wanted to work on some projects together and she agreed! So we’re off tomorrow to go drool over yarn and hopefully pick out something cool… because you can never have enough yarn, right? I mean, a day of yarn stashing, working the craft, and hanging with your Grammy… what more do you need?

WIP, Part Three

This is a late night post… So, I’m not going to wax poetic. I just wanted to share my first progress picture. I will admit that it looks a right mess but I reserve the right to claim that WIPs are exempt from looking perfect.

This is what happens when you crochet in a dark hole...

My pitiful camera phone does the pretty teal color of the yarn no justice… Still you get an idea of what the rows look like, if nothing else. At this point I’m about 10 rows from working on the right front panel. A last minute decision: no bow. My mom wants me to make one of these for her so I’ll tackle the bow when I work on hers this Spring.

See you next week, YarnThings!

WIP, Part Two (and future projects too…)

In the days leading up to Seattle YarnThings first meeting, I’m working steadily on my cardi and hoping that it comes out resembling something close to designer Julia Vaconsin’s original idea. So far, so good. And the amount of yarn I have is looking pretty fabulous… I don’t think I’m going to run out before I’m finished like I thought I was.

So, now that Big Bow Cardigan is going so well, I’m looking toward my next project already. I’m still enamored of making clothing, which means I’ll probably make another sweater but I also looking at possibly doing a skirt or coat next.

Some possibilities:

Icelandic Turtleneck from Crochet Me edited by Kim Werker

Or:

herringbone-skirt by Elissa Sugashita/Knitscene Fall 2007

It’s kind of a hard decision but those are my top two picks for my next project. In the meantime, I’m continuing on my Big Bow Cardigan and it’s going really well. It’s amazing how calm and peaceful I feel after even a few minutes working on it. It’s nice to have a creative outlet back in my life again.

Personal Fabric

I was working my crochet on the bus today and my hands were dry… It seems like dry hands cause you to feel every twist of thread in a strand of yarn, doesn’t it? I know I did… and it got me wondering about something I thought about a few days ago while I was working on my project at home.

I was watching one of the CSI shows  and they were talking about epithelials, the skin cells that slough off our bodies when we touch things, and how they were found on some object that was relevant to their case.

It got me thinking this:

Every time I touch this skein of yarn and wind it around my hand, pulling up loops to create the fabric, I’m leaving a little bit of me behind. It’s not just my skill (or lack of it!) as a crafter that goes into, not just my time, not just my effort – but actual small bits of me that hold my very DNA are being woven in as well.

That might gross some people out… but not me. I was kind of awed by the thought. I don’t think anyone who picks up a crochet hook or a set of knitting needles ever thought of what they do as being anything other than personal. To me those little skin cells are physical reminders of the love, the heart, the soul we put into every project our hands touch. And yeah, they probably all get wiped away when we wash or block those projects but I’d like to think that just a little bit of me is locked in and will stay with whoever holds or wears that piece.

There is nothing more personal than that.