Owl Dishcloths for My Sister

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First I should apologize for my long absence, school has been busier than ever lately and as the semester starts to wind down I have more time to craft and be creative.  I thought I'd post an old project that I just got around to finishing. My sister and I have started a habit of sending each other little gifts occasionally, hers are from her shopping adventures and mine are from my crafting exploits.

I found the pattern for the little owl dishcloth here, and I honestly can't remember whether I used a pattern for the big one.  It's just a garter stitch border of 4 stitches around a stockinette center. My owl looks a lot angrier than the one on the pattern website, probably because the eyes are smaller.  This project also reminded me of the importance of blocking before photographing!  I tried without blocking and it was terrible.

I love the way they turned out, and hopefully Alyssa will enjoy them too!  I still can't believe she's old enough to need dishcloths!  I can't help but remember back when I used to knit and crochet little outfits for our Build-a-Bears back when we were little, and now all my work is so adult!

Little Crochet Snowflake Earrings

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For Christmas I made the tiniest crochet snowflake earrings for my Mom and sister.  The pattern I used can be found here.  Please note it uses UK terms (if you read dc in UK terms, make a sc in US terms). The real challenge with these earrings isn't the pattern, it's working with tatting cotton.  I used a magnifying light to help me see and save my eyes.  I also stiffened them with some glue and water while I blocked them, and painted them with a light coat of sparkly nail polish to make them shimmer.

My First Visit to a LYS

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It occurred to me this past week that for as long as I've been knitting and crocheting, I've never actually been to a yarn store. (Local Yarn Store or LYS according to the internet)  So I went over to The Knitting Nest in South Austin and bought some Cascade Yarns 220 Superwash in navy and some ChiaoGoo circular needles in size 6 to make a hat for my boyfriend.

I haven't done much so far, but I'm using a modified version of this pattern from Ravelry.  By modified I mean changing the number of stitches to account for the fact that this yarn is a little lighter than worsted, and using a special technique to prevent the gap between the knit and purl stitches that plaques my ribbing.  I will post details when I'm done!

Irish Crochet Cross Bookmark

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It's been way too long since I've posted (a whole week) because it's been way too long since I've had time to do any knitting or crochet!  Last weekend I finished this bookmark for my grandmother, and I had to wait to post it until it arrived so it would be a surprise!  She was thrilled, though I'm sure she would have been even more thrilled if it had been on time.  She taught me to crochet and knit when I was a child, so getting handmade presents has some additional meaning.

I didn't create a pattern because I had to improvise a little, but maybe someday I'll recreate it and write up what I did.

I used DMC's Cordonnet in No 40, with a size 11 steel hook.

I started with a base chain that formed the shape of the cross.  When I had just started the second round it looked like this:

That is, it looked hilariously bad! 

So after I finished the second round, I went ahead and blocked it to give it more shape and help me correctly assess the number of stitches I needed.

Before Blocking

After Blocking

 The cross was starting to take shape!  I used a lot of tugging on the PC (padding cord) at this point to help the shape.

The next 2 rounds created this:

And with one more round of blocking, a flower for the center (from the Go-To Book for Irish Crochet), and the addition of a tassel, I finally arrived at my cross bookmark! I can not stress enough the importance of using padding cord in the second and last rounds.  It helped me create the cross shape when the yarn wasn't stiff enough to do it by itself.

It was a very fulfilling design process because I had such a clear idea of what I wanted, but I had never made a bookmark.  Unlike my flower motifs, which are the product of moderate experience with making flowers, the cross had its beginnings in my imagination.

Cherry Blossom Motif

Hi readers! The pattern associated with this post has moved to http://whatimadelastweekend.com/2024/01/07/cherry-blossom-motif/ Please look there for new updates.

I'm designing an Irish Crochet piece (finally!!!)with cherry blossoms all over it, and I couldn't find just the right flower motif to make it look right.  Let me be clear that were plenty of beautiful ones on Ravelry, they just weren't what I was looking for: flatish, detailed and thread friendly. So I spent the afternoon designing my own!  As usual, I'm sharing the pattern (at bottom of page)

So here is a picture of real cherry blossoms for comparison (with source and permission of course!):

"Spring in Somerville, NJ - 2012 File 3" by Siddharth Mallya - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Here is my first attempt with size 10 white thread (unknown brand) and DMC Tatting Cotton in plum for the center:

And my final pattern piece with DMC Cordonnet No 30 blanc and the same tatting thread in the center.

And because I love thread size comparisons, here's one of those!

And finally, a picture of a rough concept for the final design.  I plan to create stems just overloaded with the little version of the flowers, just like real cherry trees! I'm also planning to design a separate motif for the buds so I can have a few of those as well.  Please excuse the wrinkled fabric I pinned it to.

Pattern has moved to http://whatimadelastweekend.com/2024/01/07/cherry-blossom-motif/ for current review and support. Thank you!

The Littlest Crochet Flower

Hi readers! The pattern associated with this post has moved to http://whatimadelastweekend.com/2024/01/07/the-littlest-crochet-flower-pattern/ Please look there for new updates.

My Irish Crochet materials finally arrived!

From Top Left: DMC Cardonnet Special 30 in white, DMC Cardonnet Special 40 in white, DMC tatting cotton (size 80) in medium plum, Boye steel crochet hooks in sizes 7, 11, 12 and 14.

For anyone who's not familiar with crochet thread sizes, the higher the number, the thinner the thread.  The same goes for the hooks, the higher the number, the smaller the hook!

The first thing I did was create a teeny tiny flower motif using the tatting cotton.

Yes, that's my thumb!

For comparison, here it is next to a flower of extremely similar pattern (the big one has a few more stitches in each petal) where the big one is done in what I think is size 10 thread (it was just in my stash and I didn't have a label).  

It was much more difficult to crochet with the size 80 thread!  It was a welcome challenge though, as I haven't felt challenged by the grab-the-yarn-and-pull-it-through process since I was a kid.


I had to adjust the pattern for the thread size (80) and hook size (14).  Here's a pattern for those sizes of thread and hook, which is based on my tiny flower motif pattern (the bigger motif in the picture).  I realized that for these sizes, you didn't need 25 double crochet in the initial loop, so it's reduced to 20, and the rest of the pattern is appropriately scaled:

Progress: Crochet Creche

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I've been working on a project for my mom.  We picked out the yarn together last Christmas and the goal is for me to have it all crocheted by Thanksgiving so it can go up with the Christmas decorations right afterward.  You can find the pattern here.  (unfortunately due to copyright laws I can't post a picture of what my project is supposed to look like)

I was surprised to start crocheting and realize the figurines are HUGE.  Well, they're pretty big.  See below picture of my hand+donkey.

9/16/2014
So far I've finished the donkey and baby Jesus, minus facial details.  I'm waiting on the details because they're my weakness and I want to dedicate an entire day/afternoon to getting them perfect, not rushing to move on to the next piece.

Next up: Mary!