A New WIP

Can you guess what it might be?

Spring cleaning has hit the house... or at least when I'm not resting an inflamed tendon in my right foot. I do as much as I can, sit for a while, and get up and try a little something else. Time consuming, but so far effective.

That's all that's been happening around here. How are things in your part of the world?

Finally Finished!

There were mistakes in the pattern. I made mistakes as I worked and had to correct them. I ran out of yarn, despite the pattern requirements showing me that I had more than enough, and had to find a coordinating yarn to finish with. But it's done.

Now I need to find a pattern to use up the use up the remaining brown yarn. Oh darn! ;-)

Happy Easter, for those who celebrate. See you next weekend!

WIPs and Chains

I've been sick and in pain all week. I can testify that crocheting while fevered is hard. Currently I'm working on row 8 for the third time. But it's looking gorgeous. I've found two mistakes in the pattern and noted them on Ravelry.

Until we get test results back, we won't know for sure what's going on. I do know that the fevers are due to internal silliness and not a virus or bacteria that can spread. Various test start happening this week. This is what happens when you can't see your doctor until a Friday. Better than not seeing one at all.

I'm going to go curl up and watch a movie or something. Maybe try finishing row 8 or maybe not.

See you next week!

Running Behind, But Yarn!

FuzzyHusband and I took a trip south this weekend to see "the wee nephew and co." We're just getting back, and since I forgot to prep a filler post for this morning, I'm running late.

These towels have been lingering in my stash for a while. I needed to find the correct colors of cotton.

Then I made a second purple newsboy hat for our favorite bartender. The look on her face when I "magically" pulled out of my bag was priceless. She'd been admiring my hair for weeks and I had another skein of the yarn left.

Another towel set that had been waiting for the right yarn to be found. Love the colors on these.

And now for the current WIP:

This will be a bed jacket for Grandma. I found the pattern on Ravelry and the yarn's been moving around with me for over a decade. It's 50/50 wool and mohair. 

Now for something fun and different! I finally got the chance to catch up with my hairdresser. We did something fun and crazy with my hair on Friday!

That's all for this weekend. It's getting late and I still have things to do before bed. See you next weekend!

Yarn Errata

Didn't get much in the way of complex projects worked on this week. Spent lots of time in the planning stages for a couple future projects.

I did get a quick little cowl done.

And a few towels.

Oh and a jellyfish!

And LOTS ore towels!

I've got a big sewing project that will take the majority of my time this week. Here's hoping I can pull it off in time for its deadline. See you next weekend!

Hats, Owls, and Flowers

I'm finally feeling more human again. The month of February was unkind to my immune system. As a result I'm trying to catch up on cleaning and chores and have less time to play. But I've still been productive!

First off, I got the buttons for the newsboy hat. I had a good rummage through my stash and came up with this pair.

Then a lone skein of seafoam colored wool jumped into my cart while I was wandering around JoAnn Fabrics. After a Ravelry search, I found a free pattern by the same company that made the yarn. This one was a lot of fun to work up! So many neat textures! Also, the buttons I used on this hat were from my stash. They had been an option for the newsboy cap.

I had a little bit of the seafoam yarn left over, so I decided to finally try out this fun owl pattern. Not bad for a first try at amigurumi!

I'd been meaning to learn how to make the African flower hexagon motifs I've been seeing everywhere and finally got around to trying them. I used some leftover kitchen cotton and went to town. There are actually two motifs that are stacked and attached via single crochets around the edges. Made for a nice hotpad in the kitchen.

I've got a few WIPs happening right now. One is an amigurumi, which I've discovered is a workout for one's hands. I can only do so much on one of those figures before my hands need a rest. There's also a quartet of towels and a quick cowl.

Jellyfish amigurumi  is a free Ravelry download.

Cowl is a free pattern online found via Ravelry.

Towels are my own pattern.

That's it for now. Hoping to finish up the cowl, do a few more rounds on the jellyfish, and maybe get going on these towels... all in between loads of laundry. See you next week!

Not Cotton?

A little change of pace from working with kitchen cottons this week. First up was this lovely shawl using some Noro yarn that's been stashed for 15 years. If it looks familiar, that's because I worked this pattern a couple of weeks ago in a different yarn. 

This scarf is made from a free Lion Brand pattern. It's called Ripple Scarf. 

This shawl was started a few years ago and got packed away when it was half-finished. It's done now! The pattern is Lion Brand's Prayer Shawl Healing Shawl.

This cloche isn't technically finished yet. The crochet's done, but FuzzyHusband is going to laser cut some leather flower petals for me. The center of the flower will be the button that's laying on the upturned section of hat brim. Then it will be finished! But since the crocheting is complete, I figured I'd post it. The pattern was a free find on Ravelry. The link to the pattern website is here.

Another free Ravelry find! This fun newsboy hat pattern can be found here. This was worked in some of the leftover yarn from the prayer shawl. I need to find some buttons to sew on either end of the band above the brim.

That's all for this week. I've still been fighting off a cough that won't die, so I'm going to try and take it easy. See you all next week!

Kitchen Cotton Everywhere!

I finished up the towels on Monday.

FuzzyHusband surprised me by taking Valentine's Day off from work, so we got to spend the day together. I did start a new project while we hung out at a new coffee house. It took me longer than I thought it would. I had to keep resting my hands. But the finished effect is really nice. I found the pattern on Ravelry, but it's published on a crocheting blog in Australia. If you like it, you can check it out here. 

After finishing the tea cozy, I thought it might be nice to have a matching trivet. I started with this pattern and modified the last round because I was running very low on the green.

That's all for this week. I've got a several more projects queued up. We'll see how many I can get done between now and next Sunday.

Are You Noticing A Trend?

I was happily working through my stash at a good clip when I got hit with a nasty head cold. I finished the scarf Sunday night and was feeling fine. 

Monday I decided to dig out my stash of kitchen cotton yarn and towels. I picked out a few things to get started on and got to work. Tuesday I started feeling really sick and I was having trouble keeping count of my stitches.

Not wanting my productivity thwarted, on Wednesday I pulled out a hibernating project of dish scrubbers that needed sewn up.

By Thursday after much rest and fluids I could crochet again without issue and finished up all eight towels that I'd been trying to work on earlier.

I also was able to go through the bin I keep the kitchen cotton in and update my stash info on Ravelry so I wouldn't keep buying the same things over and over. Plus I untangled a couple of skeins whose labels had popped off and turned into tangled messes. Those got wound into center pull balls too. I love my trusty yarn winder!

Friday I read through a few patterns and tried to decide what to play with next. I didn't have the correct size hooks for any of my top choices, so I randomly picked something short and sweet from my Ravelry queue.

It doesn't quite fit the shape of our dishsoap bottle, but it's enough to keep the drips at bay. Plus it was fun and used another 12 grams of kitchen cotton from my stash of partial skeins.

Yesterday I finally felt well enough to venture outside. The sun was out and it was unseasonably warm, so I wanted to take advantage of it. FuzzyHusband drove us around for some fun errands and I treated myself to a pair of kitchen towels and some coordinating Sugar'n Cream cottons.

I was able to finish two of the four crochet tops yesterday.

The other two have their blanket stitch foundations done and are ready to be finished.

I guess I know what I"m doing for a little bit today, at least once the laundry's put away. ;-)

See you next weekend!

More Yarn!

I finished up my Twisted Canyon Wave last Monday. Very pleased with how it turned out. Free pattern from Lion Brand can be found here. 

When that piece was finished I had two choices. A skein of Plymouth Encore Boucle that I wanted to turn into ear warmers, or going through the mystery bag of stuff that I posted about last week. I chose the ear warmers. Pattern is called Amelia Chunky Ear Warmer with Buttons and can be downloaded from Ravelry.

 Then I had no choice but to dig through that bag. One thing I found was a pair of fingerless gloves that were about half done. The pattern had been free on Ravelry about 3 years ago, but has since been removed. Happily I had printed the instructions so I could finish them!

I also found two skeins of Red Heart Unforgettable that I seriously don't remember buying. A browse through Ravelry's pattern database led me to Coraline in the Wine Country and couple of days later I had this shawl. It still needs to be blocked, but it used up most of the two skeins, leaving very little left over.

 Once I was done with the mystery bag's contents, I was able to reward myself with the cabled cowl I wanted to make myself with some Misti Alpaca yarn I bought last weekend. Such a fun and gorgeous pattern! The Alexis Cowl pattern can be found on Ravelry. Side note, it's by the same designer who created the ear warmer pattern that I used. Apparently I like her style.

Saturday morning rolled around and I found myself on a long car ride. Happily I packed yarn from my stash! I worked up another pair of the Country Owl Wrist Warmers in some Plymouth Encore that I'd discovered. It was left over after only using 9 grams from the skein in a project years ago.

Then I started in on this lovely thing. It's going to be a dressy scarf. I've made this pattern before and it is still fun to play with. The Unforgettable One-Skien Scarf pattern can be found here. It's designed to use one skein of Red Heart's Unforgettable yarn. I have to admit it's probably the loveliest easy-to-find 100% acrylic yarn that I've felt. I still have another skein in my stash that I need to find a use for.

That's all for this week. Lots of finished items made mostly from materials that's been stashed for at least 3 years. I'll hopefully get to treat myself to some new yarn to make another infinity scarf from the same pattern I posted about last week. But first I've got a few more things to finish from the stash. See you next week!