Crocheting - Simply & Fabulously

Long time, no see...

2011-03-25T09:15:00.000-07:00

Egads! Forgot I had a blog over here. Have been (mostly) keeping up with my crochet projects over in Ravelry, but really should catch up here.

Some recent projects to share (pictures to follow):

- for Paul: black liturgical stole for Ash Wednesday & Good Friday

- for co-workers: three little baby sweaters (pink for a girl born end of December, blue for boy born in January, green for baby due in February)

- for Stephen: amigurumi "Sackboy" (a la Little BIG Planet video game)

- for Eugene: odds and ends hat (Stephen designed)

- for Stephen: "black seed" hat (suitable for bicycle jousting)

- for Paul: blue liturgical stole for Advent

- for Mom: red, lacy, "fiesta" shawl with pineapple motif

- for Stephanie: overly square, multi-green, lap blanket/shawl (based on classic Shetland shawl)

- for Virginia: half round circular, multi-blue, shawl (based on classic Pineapple doilies)

Sure there's more, as I think of 'em...

2010-02-05T21:11:00.000-08:00

Just whipped up a lovely little sweetheart bag for the "Hearts for Haiti" raffle and fundraiser at River Gods in Cambridge MA being held this Valentine's day. Fun Lion Suede yarn, very soft and warm fuzzy, worked with size J/10-6.00MM hook.

On Ravelry

2009-05-30T19:55:00.001-07:00

I think you actually have to be a member before you can access my pages there, but in case you are in Ravelry, here's where you'd find my profile and projects:
http://www.ravelry.com/people/suedown

Symmetry and Patterns

2009-05-29T18:01:00.000-07:00

I almost never work from an actual pattern though I do like to look at them for inspiration. I'm also totally into patterns, though, as in mathematical patterns.

I also really like symmetry and find myself probably making my work harder for myself than is really necessary. Like the mirror-image pockets for my current jacket project, for example. It's only a matter of time before I'll find myself learning to crochet left-handed just so's I can really truly make symmetrical pieces to go with my right-handed pieces, I suppose...

Pockets, Gravity & Stitches

2009-05-29T07:07:00.000-07:00

I made a few sample pieces, playing around with hook sizes, some solid sc swatches and some sc-ch combo swatches, and experimented with connecting seams between pieces and between stitches. Both the solid sc and the sc-ch swatches have much more "give" (or stretch) pulling across what would normally be "top-to-bottom" than "side-to-side" and as I said in my earlier post, it's all about the pockets. I want to be able to put keys, cell phone, wallet, water bottle, and any number of other odds and ends a mom ends up carrying around with her in my pockets, so I wouldn't want to have too much "give" in response to weight pulling downward, which means I'm going to be working my rows top to bottom, instead of side to side, for the body of my jacket, particularly where my pockets will be situated.

Fittingly enough, then, I started with the pockets, shown below.
Here's my pattern notes for them.

Pockets:

start with blue, G hook, ch 42

switch to F hook for sc work

row 1. sc in 2nd ch from hook working in back spine loops of ch, continue sc across to end [41sc]
row 2. ch 1, turn, (do ch 1, turn at the beginning of every row of solid sc unless otherwise indicated) and sc in each sc across [41sc]

row 3. 39 sc plus 1 dec sc at end of row (yo pull up loop in 40th sc, yo pull up loop in 41st sc, then yo and thru all 3 loops on hook) [40sc]

switch to ombre for next 10 rows

rows 4. to 13. continue working 1 dec sc at end of every other row (odd numbered rows) [row 4: 40sc; rows 5&6: 39sc; rows 7&8: 38sc; rows 9&10: 37sc; rows 11& 12: 36sc; row 13: 35 sc]

switch to blue for next 4 rows

row 14. sc across [35sc]
row 15. 33 sc plus 1 dec sc at end row [34sc]
row 16. work 1 dec at beginning of row (skip working in first sc) [33sc]
row 17. [33 sc]

switch to ombre for next 10 rows

rows 18. to 27. continue working 1 dec sc at beginning of every other row (even numbered rows) [rows 18&19: 32sc; rows 20&21: 31sc; rows 22&23: 30sc; rows 24&25: 29sc; rows 26-27: 28 sc]

switch to blue for next 3 rows

row 28. work 1 dec at beg of row [27 sc]
rows 29&30: [27 sc]

finish off.
work second pocket in mirror reverse, with decreases at beginning of rows instead of ends of rows and vice versa. (to achieve symmetry in the natural ridges that appear in solid sc stitching.)

It's All About the Pockets

2009-05-28T17:58:00.000-07:00

I have an old fav batik jacket that I have been wearing long past worn out. I plan on using it as a pattern guide for shape and sizing to finally crochet something specifically for me. My plan is to blog about this project while I work on it, rather than to simply throw up some pix after completion, which is pretty much all that I've done with other projects. (And which, btw, have also pretty much all been for other folks, too.)

For me, it’s all about the pockets, which need to be practical and well able to accommodate all my stuff without needing to ever carry a purse. I have found working in solid sc with cotton yarn yields a very firm fabric. I've had great success making potholders and microwave oven mitts, for example. I was at A.C. Moore a couple of weeks ago, it was just before Mother's Day, and this Bernat cotton yarn was on sale, so I bought 3 skeins of Country Blue (solid) and 4 skeins of Cottage Blues (ombre) which I plan on using for a light-weight, 3 season jacket.

Using solid sc will form the structural foundation of my jacket and the pockets themselves. Then, I plan to make the rest of the jacket in alternating sc & ch (with sc worked in ch space of previous rows) for a more fluid and flexible fabric. The sc-ch combo is another fav of mine, I've made an entire queen size bedspread with it.

Elsewhere

2009-05-27T08:31:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to let you know - you, the anonymous, presumed reader and follower of this blog - that I've been keeping more up-to-date with my crochet projects inside of a Facebook crochet group and within the Ravelry knitters & crocheters social networking site.

Someday someone will figure out a way for us to simultaneously update multiple places and personas...

Baby Fabulous

2009-01-04T09:12:00.000-08:00

So, my cousins Laura & Michelle had Baby Fabulous this past fall. Colin was born in September and recently Michelle posted pictures of him in his turquoise hat and jacket I made last spring for their baby shower. Somewhere I have detail pix, too, but did want to post these right away.

Happy New Year 2009

2009-01-03T09:13:00.000-08:00

Been busy making those hats and will have more pictures soon!

This is Cody in his new hat - he picked out the crazy peacock blue fun fur yarn that is used for the trim - with his new "freeloader" fork.

Hats

2008-12-06T12:51:00.001-08:00

Last winter was afghans, this year is hats. Steph and Cody picked out yarns last night that I'll be using for theirs. Did a nifty cherry red hat last week - Stephen helped design it, giving me instructions like "it has to have ear flaps that are really long and go to here" (as he pointed to his ankles) and a "fuzzy pom pom on the top" - and as it took shape we concurred that it was definitely an Andy hat. Happened to be Andy's birthday last week, too, and when he dropped by last night he was happy to have it. Andy needs hat just as Andy needs food! (We did all have some pecan pie, too.) Meanwhile, Caz had gone and bought himself a hat (looks like a crazy English lady?) but I've already made him his share of hats over the years. Anyways, luckily for Andy, I had a limited amount of the red yarn so his hat doesn't get tangled in his bicycle spokes, though he was excited about having the "earflaps flying behind him" as he couriers through Boston - along with the option of wrapping and tying if it gets too cold.

Just finished a hat for my mother-in-law. Charlie picked out the sparkly yarn. This was worked from base up to crown using a size D (or 3 size) hook with Bernat's light weight Crystal Cream color "Shimmer" yarn. I typically do a lot of my crochet in a worsted weight (especially afghans) with at least an F or G size hook, so this was finer work than I'm used to doing.

Also have been trying to work out some gloves to match (may have to settle for mittens) but ended up giving myself grief by trying to use the same ripple pattern as the hat. I'll probably have to settle for a simpler stitch pattern for the gloves, in order to be successful with fingers holes and thumb shaping though. My first prototype came out huge and clunky and not at all elegant. After the gloves, a scarf - to match both the hat and the gloves - will be easy, of course.

Egads!

2008-09-01T19:55:00.000-07:00

Has it really been two weeks since I last posted?

Too busy enjoying those last days of summer! Went to Canobie Lake Park (in NH) to celebrate our son's 9th birthday (he and his buddy: "best birthday party evah!") this past weekend. Spent the rest of it rearranging furniture and cleaning in order to set up a dedicated home office space (not yet done with this project) since trying to do my new independent consulting work gig at the kitchen table isn't cutting it.

Anyhow, was prompted to post just now as I received an email from my mom (she's a knitter, not a crocheter) with a scan of a newspaper article featuring her and her weekly knitting group.

Here it is. Enjoy!

Days of Summer

2008-08-17T18:03:00.000-07:00

The weather was perfect today. It was that perfect day of summer and bittersweet as you realize summer will be over in just a few weeks. Memorial Drive was closed to traffic and Stephen got his new bike yesterday, so there was biking. The public pool at Magazine Beach closes after today, so there was swimming. It was tax free weekend in Massachusetts, so there was shopping.

No crocheting this weekend. Just a crotchety cat, Greta Garbo.

Argyle Attacks

2008-08-15T07:12:00.000-07:00

Always best to do a practice swath. For my argyle pattern, I learned two things from working out a practice piece. One, changing colors isn't always as obvious as you'd think and the direction in which you're working makes a difference. Two, the diamonds and the crisscrosses count out slightly differently and this needs to be taken into account.

I used some old grey heather (background), light grey (crisscrossing), burgundy (first diamond), and navy blue (second diamond) yarns for my practice piece. You'll see that on "the front" there are bits of wrong colors peeping through and, of course, "the back" is quite a mess. Also, as I got to the top of my navy diamond, it bumped up into where my burgundy diamond wanted to be, so adjustment would be needed.

[pic here]

Graph paper and colored pencils are definitely a great help, too!

Sleeve Construction

2008-08-14T13:16:00.000-07:00

I find myself with new crochet challenges all the time since I don't generally work from patterns. Earlier this year, I made two baby sweaters. The sleeves were easy raglan and not particularly fitted. However, now I'm working on Albert's sweater, and will be doing set in sleeves.

Anyone with experience or recommendations out there? I'd initially started working the sleeves in rounds (from wrist end up towards shoulder end) but found the increases didn't always behave the way I thought they would. Now, I'm experimenting with working in rows that run the length of the sleeve, from shoulder to wrist as it were.

Here's a pic of what I think half a sleeve will be. Anyone been down this path before?

Stitch Details: alternating sc & ch combo

2008-08-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

Does anyone out there know whether there is an actual formal name for this stitch combination? It's made up of simply alternating single crochet (sc) and chain (ch) stitches, with each sc worked into each ch space of the preceding row.

What I especially like about this stitch combo:

the resulting fabric looks the same front and back
the gauge up-and-down for two rows is the same as the gauge left-to-right for each sc+ch/ch+sc set of two stitches
it works up quickly (especially compared to solid sc)
it has a nice drape (also especially compared to solid sc)

Another cool thing about this stitch combo that I lucked into on Albert's sweater is that I found by working the sc+ch in an H hook, I could work solid sc with an F hook as a binding trim stitch and get a nice one-to-one correlation between the stitches. The detail below shows the back of the sweater where two of my argyle panels (made with H hook in the sc+ch combo stitch) are edged with sc rows (made with F hook, working in front loops only) and joined to each other and the sweater yoke (also in sc F hook rows).

Argyle Details

2008-08-11T07:46:00.000-07:00

The interesting thing about argyle is that it takes on very different looks depending on the color combination chosen. The same three colors (on same background) mixed and matched yield different results. These are some detail pix from the sweater I'm making for Albert. The ones above use the brightest color, tangerine, for the crisscrossing lines. The ones below use the wine red or the teal for the accent instead.

Unfortunately, I don't think these photos show the full vibrancy of the colors I'm using, and there appear to be differences depending on whether I use a flash or not. (The deep plum heather background color should be the same on all of these, for example.)

Turning 50

2008-08-10T11:21:00.000-07:00

I didn't post yesterday, was at a birthday party in Rockport for a friend's 50th birthday celebration. She's the mom of one of my son's best buddies ever. Last weekend two of my sons and I were in D.C. to celebrate the 50th birthday of their godfather, Albert. I'm working on a sweater for him, didn't finish it quite in time as I ran into sleeve construction issues. Also had been planning on using the 10 hour car drive, but we ended up driving all night so the light wasn't conducive to crocheting. Albert's sweater is deep plum heather with an argyle pattern in wine red, tangerine orange, and bright teal. The fun part was figuring out how to do an argyle -- a pattern specific to knitting -- in crochet.

The body of this sweater is created out of four rectangular panels with the argyle design, a finer gauge stitch for a shoulder-neck yoke piece, and the finer gauge stitch for sides and edging. For the panels and the sleeves, I'm using an H size crochet hook alternating single crochet (sc) and chain (ch) stitches, with the sc stitches worked into the ch spaces of each proceeding row. This creates a nicely draping fabric. For the yoke and edge bindings, I'm using a smaller F size crochet hook in solid sc (with increases and decreases as warranted) worked only in front loops. This creates a nice ridge pattern in a tighter, firmer fabric for strength and to hold the sweater's shaping against too much stretch.

Mojo Jojo

2008-08-08T09:52:00.001-07:00

Just a quick post today, about the photo at the top of this blog. That's Mojo, Stephen's kitty, sleeping on a throw I made for Stephen in December. It's a very simple one, just a giant single granny square made with a multicolored yarn and some black for contrast. Took me two or three evenings to complete. Stephen picked out the yarn himself and Mojo has decided it contrasts very nicely with his reticulated tiger fur and makes the couch even more comfortable.

Squares & Zig Zags

2008-08-07T07:22:00.000-07:00

Last Thanksgiving when my folks were in town, I had my mom pick out colors for her afghan. We went with Red Heart Super Saver 7 oz skeins of medium weight 4 ply yarns from Coats & Clark available at A.C. Moore. They were on sale and I knew from my experience with Grammie Pubz' afghan, that I would need quite a few.

My mom chose Dusty Rose, Rose Pink, Country Blue, and Light Grey. She'd also wanted a charcoal grey for accent, but we hadn't found one dark enough and I ended up using Black instead. I do like the way the black sets off the other colors so well.

I'd also recently picked up a couple of crochet books and asked my mom to look through them for ideas of what she might want.

She found a few different patterns for square blocks that she liked in "200 Crochet blocks for blankets, throws, and afghans: Crochet square to mix and match" by Jan Eaton.

She also found an afghan she liked in "40 Favorite Ripple Afghans: The Best Contest Designs from 'Crochet With Heart' Magazine" published by Leisure Arts.

There were simple, 4 3/4" small squares in the "Granny's Ripple" afghan but the "Chocolate Box" block ended up at at about 8" square and the "Patriotic Sunburst" block ended up at about 6" square. There were two or three other square blocks to choose from, as well, but I thought limiting to two designs -- one with square motif and one with a round motif -- so I had some creative hybrid design work to do.

After crocheting all my squares, I worked the afghan in three "strips" which I then combined into the whole. These strips had zig zag edges, of course, so interlocking them to be stitched together was a bit tricky. Plus, I had to design triangular, half-squares for the middle strip.

I hope you enjoy these few pix of the end result. I'd be happy to post some more detailed instructions for the stitch work I ended up doing. If anyone out there is interested, just let me know.

Ciao for now!

A Simple Slip Knot

2008-08-06T08:13:00.000-07:00

Every crochet project starts with a simple slip knot. I learned to crochet in junior high school. My mom was a knitter, but I found that the commitment to an entire row of active stitches on a knitting needle was too much for me. I liked the closure of any individual crochet stitch, and how at any given time you'd end up with a single loop on your hook so that your work could be stopped or started at a moment's notice. I also enjoyed the flexibility of crochet to work in rows for straight lines, to work in rounds for circles, to switch up stitches for increases in height and/or width at whim.

When I was younger, my major crocheted projects -- that I can recall -- included:

a full size bedspread done entirely in single crochet of wide bands of white, yellow, and orange (okay, I'll admit, this was the seventies, after all)
a pile of crazy, elaborate grannie squares (which I never did assemble into an afghan) in lime green, hot pink, bright turquoise, and deep purple
a stuffed mouse and a stuffed turtle (which I creatively named "Esuom" and "Eltrut")
a set of Valentine heart pillows (I'm not sure my first boyfriend ever really knew what to make of these)

Then there were many non-crocheting years, with one notable exception: a crocheted Cleopatra wig made one year for a Fourth of July excursion on the Charles. I'll have to track down a picture of that for a whole post of its own.

Last fall, I took up the art of crochet again when it occurred to me that an appropriate Christmas gift for my mother-in-law would be something hand made. Inspired by the colors in a new woven oriental rug in her living room, and supported by the success of Red Sox and the many ensuing hours of play-off and world series games, I was able to complete an entire granny square afghan by Thanksgiving. So, when my parents visited from New York for turkey day, I took my mom to the craft store and had her pick out the colors for an afghan for her Christmas present, too.

Since then I've pretty much continuously been working on one or more projects at any given time. I hope to post pictures, tips, patterns, etc. for all of these as I am able. I'd also welcome any discussions and feedback from other crocheters in cyberspace.

Ciao for now!