Wednesday, August 31, 2016

The Fall Nandina Shawlette

So, it's like this.

I craft.
I sew.
I cross stitch.

I CROCHET.

It all is important to me.

I am also cleaning and purging a lot of things. It's time. And its beginning to be very effective. The clean corners give me space to breathe.

Enough preliminary information.

I cleaned out an embarrassingly piled up corner of my kitchen. It's an awkward little space that I have hated for 20+ years and we pile stuff there. I dragged it all out and went through it an item at a time. And I found YARN (imagine that)

What to do?
Stash it - nope, did not ever seriously consider it.
Sell it - nope there too, I loved this combo of colors so much
And it was good yarn. 
Only option left was MAKE SOMETHING. 

But what? And this other project is not done. Hmm!

So I left it on the table by my chair and I studied and I designed in my head and I worked on finishing the big project I was working on and the car project I was working on too. 

And then I finished the car project and I started the head designed thing with this. 
And it looked like CRAP. 
Yes crap. 

So I frogged and regrouped. 
Enter Ravelry search. 

I found this free pattern over there.
And boy does it live up to its name. 

After the first four rows, I was off and running. 
It became the car project, because it was so easy. 
I changed my yarn colors at whim.
And it was fun. 

I call mine the The Fall Nandina Triangle Shawl, because the color remind me of the Nandina bush fall colors.  that link goes to my ravelry project page with notes about the yarn if anyone is interested. 

Below are some of my pictures of the thing. 


Just started - and that orange could easily be worn as hunters safety orange, it is that bright. 
A row of single crochet and a row of double crochet --- repeat.



I really love these colors so freaking much. 


 

And the yarn is so wonderful, both to work with and that the finished object feels like.


The japanese maple tree is starting its fall color showing. and the multicolor areas have this wonderfulness of color in them.



It even matches the pretty color of my new car.



I added a button for securing this.
The button allows for closing it in any of the double crochet openings, making this very easy to secure. 

And --- I listed this on my facebook and Instagram as a give away. 

People have been very generous to me over the years and I am returning that favor now. 


Monday, August 22, 2016

Still on my hook .....


The four points blanket is still being worked on. I am very much "over" all these rows after rows of single crochet. But it is turning out really cool. I have decided that it will still be a gift, just not a baby gift. This will turn into a very adult sized sofa blanket and I will post pictures here in full color once it is finished. But not on my facebook, because the recipient does follow me there. I can rightfully cover up with a single panel of this one.  One of the repeated questions on the PurlSoho.com post with the pattern was how to make this bigger than baby sized. Easiest way ---- change the yarn to a larger one. I have/will use 8 skeins of worsted weight yarn and it is wonderful.

 THE PERFECT SNUGGLY WEIGHT 



In my Serenity location, I have these on deck. My friend Vicki is leading a wonderful project - THE KINDNESS QUILT and she invited me to create a square. Well I am stash busting and I crocheted these four very different squares. I will begin embellishing them for the project. I have some ideas that I think will make these really pretty when they are finished. 

Embellishing will feed my creativity as well. It's not just crochet, this will let the "artist" in me have a bit of fun. 


And last there is this brightness. Yes it is damned near safety orange. This is the car project. I keep a box in my front seat with a project that I can do a few stitches on in the bank drive thru, or fast food drive thru, or even to grab when I will be riding with a friend. 

This is a triangular shawl pattern that I found for free on Ravelry. It's the Oh So Simple Wrap pattern and it is so easy. I am making it from 4 balls of a cotton blend yarn that I found while I was cleaning the corner in the kitchen. (Let's not talk about how long they were buried in that corner.)
I refused to add this yarn to the stash, so it spent a few days beside me while I worked on all that single crochet. I spent those days "designing in my head", then when it moved to the car project box, that designing was not working out. I went on the search for a project that I could easily pick up and put down, Where I could change colors as I wanted and that could expand or contract in size depending on the yarn I had. I could have done an old fashioned granny square shawl, but I wanted something with slightly more style. This is turning out to be perfect. 

I sure hope you are having a wonderful day.

Remember LIFE IS CRAZY BEAUTIFUL