Long Time, No Posts, and Big Changes!

It's been nearly a year, and I feel horrible about that.  Life, family, and work took over all things for a while, and then enough time passed that I forgot.  I know, I'm a horrible blogger.

After I finished my niece's jacket and hat, I didn't have much time for all things crafty.  Then, in October, my mother told me about a shawl she had attempted to make for her mother.  As crocheting is not Mom's first craft choice, she got stuck.  First she asked for help and set then directions.  Then, at Christmas, she just handed me the box of supplies and asked me to make it for her, to give to her mother.

The pattern is called the Pearl River Lace Wrap. Here's a link to the designer's (Doris Chan) blog entry.  The pictures below came from Doris Chan's site.  The pattern is available as a free download at NaturallyCaron.com.

  

I'm slowly working my way through this.  It's been a little challenging.  I've never worked without a foundation chain before (this one starts with foundation single crochet (US)) or broomstick lace.  I figured out the foundation stitch row (actually kind of liked it by the end of the row).  The bobble/popcorn/cluster stitches are fine, but the broomstick!  Using that gigantic plastic knitting needle to pull up the lace loops while managing the hook, lead thread and cloth is frustrating and keeping everything straight for 2 rows without twisting it is hard when you start that first row!  I can only manage about a 1/2 row of the broomstick lace rows before my hands cramp up.

So it's going. SLOWLY, but going.

Part of the slow process, too, is that I keep getting distracted by other craft ideas.  We found out in October that we're pregnant with our little girl (due in June!) and I keep finding baby things that I want to make, too!  And I rediscovered my bobbin lace pillow during one of my recent cleaning fits, so look for a future post on bobbin lace, too.

Of course, all of that can wait until after I finish Mom's Pearl River wrap.  I made a self-imposed deadline on that project of Easter weekend (when I'll be visiting my parents) which will give Mom enough time to get it to her mother by Mother's Day.

One versus two....

20 years ago, my maternal grandmother (Grandma) taught me to crochet.  I quickly hooked my way through dozens of wash clothes.  Some had shell stitches, some were plain.  Slip stitch, chains, singles, half, and doubles.  One had the front-post/back-post double crochet stitches -it's still one of my favorite patterns.  A few of them were given as gifts; the rest resided in my mother's kitchen cabinet.  The following summer, my paternal grandmother (Gammy) recognized my interest in all-things-stringy and thought that knitting would be the perfect next step.

So Gammy sat me down with some green cotton yarn and a pair of steel, baby blue needles. She diligently showed me how to wrap the yarn and hold the needles.  She told me which way the yarn had to be carried for the knit and purl stitches, and explained how the yarn-overs towards the edges would leave a little space next to the border stitches.  She tried (and I do mean tried) to teach me to knit.  I sat there for four hours trying to force the yarn into the nubby, stretchy, stitched piece that my grandmother expected.  Each stitch (to me, at least) was a horrendous exercise in finger Olympics and tendon strength tests.  My hands hurt so bad that my fingers cramped that night!  Needless to say, the knitting lesson did not go well.  It would be fifteen years before I even thought to pick up knitting needles again.

The second time around, I taught myself.  I am still frustratingly slow at knitting.  Actually, it's more like aggravatingly slow - tortoise-type speed through a molasses pit in February.  But I have managed to cast on correctly two different projects, maintain proper spacing and gauge, and even completed one project!  The other has been on the needles for 4+ years.

I liked the knitted look of pieces for the lacy look some stitches left and the greater stretch inherent in knitted works, as opposed to crochet.  So imagine my surprise when I came across Tunisian crochet recently.  It looked soft and stretchy!  As I have been wanting to expand my crochet efforts, I researched the different stitches, hooks, patterns, etc...  Looked for different projects from beginner to more advanced, then headed off to the shop for some yarn and the extended hooks.

My first attempt at TC (besides little swatches) is a shawl.  I found this delightfully colored shawl pattern based on Doris Chan's All Shawl in Tunisian Crochet pattern.  Here's the link to the pattern I'm following: http://thelaughingwillow.blogspot.com/2011/07/funny-thing-happened.html

Things are going..... slowly.  First, the hook is LONG.  I keep bumping it into the arm of my chair, no matter how many times I shift to the left.  Second, I'm just slower at this; probably because it's new to me and probably because I tend to be interrupted more often now (cat, dog, family members).  So it progresses more slowly.  I also changed the pattern after I got about 12 rows in.  At 25 rows in, the shawl has turned into nearly a full-circle shawl instead of a half-circle. Each row takes about an hour at this point and I fear that I'm only half way done!  Eeks!

I'll post pictures soon, just been really busy lately!

Project Wrap Up

With the recent baby-boom among my friends and family, I've been making little baby things.  Luckily, they've all been for girls (yeah! for frilly things).  I like baby projects - the yarn is typically softer and the pieces take less time to complete.  The one thing that I don't enjoy is weaving in all of the ends from the parts of the pieces.  Between the starting tail, ending tail and joining threads, some seams had six threads to weave in!




Here's the most recent project, with all of the ends woven in.  I'm pretty happy with the results.  I absolutely loved the yarn - Caron Simply Soft Grey Heather.  Yeah, it's acrylic, but I do like the color.  I don't have access to a great yarn shop, so I have to make do with what's available locally.

 


The jacket is a free pattern from Lion's Brand - available here.  The hat also started from a free pattern - which I lost the link to - but I modified the flower pattern using the 'magic' starting ring and changed the stitches to add double petals.  I added some coordinating buttons to the jacket and center of the flower and it's done!  This set is for my niece who is not quite a year old.  I made another set from these patterns in a slightly thicker yarn in a light yellow-green color for a friend's newborn.



Now that this project is finished, I'm contemplating the next....  I have been finding some really great looking pieces using charts (which I've never used before) and I've also recently picked up a tunisian crochet hook, which has been interesting to play with.

Slip knots

Photo/Image credits:  Slip knot: http://www.smart-knit-crocheting.com/images/Chain.jpg

I started crocheting just over 20 years ago, when I was a pre-teen or early teenager.  My maternal grandmother was always fiddling with yarn and a little metal hook, making afghans or dish clothes or doilies.  One winter, she had made each family member a little crocheted angel, starched into form, to hang on the Christmas tree.  I'm not sure how those first lessons went, but I have been 'hooking' along, more or less, ever since.

She started my lessons with dish clothes, since they were rather simple and could be finished quickly.  I remember using soft cotton yarn with fruity, variegated colors. I liked watching how the colors would meld and blend and make their own patterns with in cloth.  My early pieces, I'm sure, were no where near perfect, but they were passable.  My mother faithfully used the dish clothes at the kitchen sink and I continued to make more, working on tension (I held the threads far too tight) and gauging (still an issue), until I had enough that were better to gift my aunts and grandmothers with their own sets of dish clothes the following holiday season.  After tiring of the dish clothes, I jumped to thread crochet - doilies, my own set of starched angels, and dresses for 11.5 inch dolls.  One of the doll dresses even won a grand champion ribbon at the county fair.

My favorite pattern of the dish cloths produced a cloth that was thick and knubby - great for really scrubbing pots and pans.  It was also thick enough to set hot plates on at dinner time.  It was full of front and back post double crochets (US).  I made that particular pattern so often that it was soon memorized.

Fast forward a number of years, during which I had to set down the hooks for a long time while dealing with Carpal Tunnel in both hands, college, grad school, teaching and starting a family, I have recently rediscovered my love of crochet.  I finished my graduate studies at the end of 2012.  I picked up my unfinished projects at New Years.  In three months, I have made an afghan, a shawl, a cowl-hood-scarf thing, and two toddler sweaters and hats.  I will likely start the third sweater/hat set soon (my family and friends are currently undergoing a bit of a baby boom! Four children under the age of 2, and three of them girls!).

One thing that makes me smile each time I start a new project is making the slip knot.  Why?  Is it because the knot is the start of a new project, a new adventure?  Possibly.  The feeling of being able to create something? Maybe.  Is it the little song that plays in my head that my grandmother taught me to remember how to make a slip knot?  Most definitely.

Up and around and down the other side, the ribbon circles the thumb.
The hook comes in, under the mark, and brings the ribbon back through.

Does it rhyme?  No, not really.  But it was easy to remember.  She always taught me to hold the tail of my thread with my fingers against my palm, take the thread around my thumb, and lay it down the back of my hand.  This made an "X" in the thread between my thumb and my first finger.  The hook went under the X, caught the thread on the back of my hand, and I would pull the hook back through.  I looked at different methods of how people start their slip knots and tried several of them when I started the recent round of projects.  Although they all produce the same result, Grandma's way just seemed more fun.  And whimsical.

Blessings!