Some Inspiration!

Sorry I haven't got any new pictures up, I use my boy's computer to upload my pictures and I haven't been over there much, what with end of semester workload and all....but here's some ideas I've been pondering for projects that may inspire you too!

Isn't this knitted sheep dishcloth cute? I don't think I'll use it for a dishcloth, since I have some concerns about the sanitariness of cotton cloths, (although they must be the most satisfying projects ever!)but imagine a pillow or bag, or even sweater with this little guy on it! I'm not sure about the technique of knitting bobble stitches, but I imagine a crochet popcorn stitch would work just as well.

http://www.knittingknonsense.com/bobbles_sheep.html



My old school pal and new roommate Brittany wants me to teach her to crochet because-get this- she wants to crochet herself a full-body catsuit. The mind boggles. I'm pretty sure I actually have a pattern like that in one of my old magazines, too....
She's also crazy about these ferociously ugly knee-length lace-up knitted moccasin things I have a pattern for (which I bought at Goodwill just because I couldn't believe what I was seeing). I foresee that my projects may soon be worthy of Stitchy McYarnpants' museum.


I lopped off my hair last night, and I'll admit it, I was surreptitiously trying to look like Amelie Poulain...at least it wasn't Jennifer Aniston or anything. So now, I look good in hats! Unfairly cute, even, if I do say so myself. So expect a bunch of cotton summer beanies to be surfacing soon!

I'm going to see Salman Rushdie speak tomorrow at the University of Buffalo. (!!!!!)Brittany's sister is a student there and she scored us free tickets! How lucky am I!

Just so I remember..

I did nothing but play with yarn yesterday, and I finished Marnie McLean's ribbon choker, a snail keychain based on Missa of Midnight Knitter's, a kerchief, and made some progress on the circle pillow for Brittany. I also started crocheting a jute backpack, which doesn't feel nice but will be very sturdy. I'm thinking of making a bag out of my leaf squares.....I really enjoy doing them, it's so much fun to watch the leaf appear. I'll put up some pictures later on.

Magic Ball Knitalong scarf.

Crocheted strawberry purse.

Salon Capelet from Interweave Crochet...

Easy peasy cardigan...

A lot of hours went into these babies.

So here's what I've been up to:

The black cardigan, (which looks tons better in person! And not nearly as chubby on me! It really looks fantastic!) was the easiest garment to knit you can imagine. I got the pattern from the book Teen Knitting Club, by Wenger, Abrams and Lasher. I highly recommend this book to any beginning knitter. All the projects are classy and nifty and EASY. I finished this cardigan in three days and didn't get confused once. It would look better if I had used better yarn..I used Caron Natura or something like that,100% awful acrylic from the D&K Store, 63 cents a skein, on size 13 needles....I figured since it was my first attempt at knitting a sweater I'd keep it cheap. It actually feels pretty good and I'm very happy with it. I'll be making more.

But not as happy as I am with my Salon Capelet!! I bought the Interweave Knits Crochet magazine from Ebay and this capelet turned out even better than I expected. It also looks a lot better in person..the drape is so beautiful! I used recycled cotton yarn and a G hook, and left off the popcorns....but I love this capelet. Now I just want to find the perfect pin to keep it closed with. It took me roughly eight hours of work.

The strawberry bag is a copy of a knitted one on Craftster, which didn't turn out as nicely as the original, but I still like it. I feel extremely...whimsical. The pattern really isn't a pattern at all...it's just the same as all my other patterns....you know, crochet in the round. Same thing.

The scarf is from a knitalong, the idea is that you tie together all your bits of scrap yarn and make something out of your resulting mutant yarn monster ball. I am very very pleased with mine, except that it curls like a mother, despite my best blocking efforts, so I essentially have a tube scarf. But it's pretty. Very Pretty.

Currently I'm practicing knitting embossed leaf squares, and working on an extremely vintage round knitted pillow for a friend. It's from a booklet I got from Ebay...wait til you see this thing. It doesn't get more 70's than this....

So do you like my stuff? =)

A Wonderful Freebie

This is really great! I'm dead serious, this is a 58-page FREE pdf book of 20 vintage crochet patterns.

http://crochetandknitting.com/craftbooks/vintage.htm

Go check it out! How lucky are we!

Just to clarify..

Those gorgeous free-form creations are NOT mine. I can't believe anyone thought they could be..=) (Although thanks for your faith in me!) I said they were what I WANTED my stuff to look like. I should have been more specific about where they came from, but what I did was make the pictures into links to the creator's page. I thought that would make it apparent but I guess I was too casual...I'm sorry, Marlo! I admire your work so much, I would never try to take credit for it! From now on I will state specifically to click on the picture to go to the creator's page. I feel terrible! What a misunderstanding....

A Random Plan

Free form crochet is amazing. Even though the whole point is to be random and not have a plan, it still takes a lot of artistic sense and practice, I think, because so far I'm disappointed with my shrine attempts. I think the problem may be that I'm only using one weight of yarn. I want it to look like a bunch of jewels scattered together, like this:

I shall attempt it again today! Instead of writing a research report for Adolescent Development! Which is just supposed to teach us how to cite online articles! Which I have done no less than twenty times since the ninth grade! I worked in the college library database, for heaven's sake...sigh.....

Not really. I'll write it. It should be easy since I really, really could do it in my sleep. Like most people, I can tell when I'm being given busywork, and it makes me feel condescended to. I am not crabbier than your average college student. I hope.

I finished the front of Olivia (or should I call it Twelfth Night? Any thoughts?) last night. I'm crocheting it in worsted weight black,in a mesh stitch, so it's not as delicate as I'd like, but I have discovered this about myself: I cannot knit anything that requires me to cast on more than 100 stitches, or crochet anything that I cannot finish within three days. It is simply a limitation I have to accept.

Olivia is essentially going to be a shrug, but the main difference is the scallops at the bottom and lace border it's going to have. It will be a lovely thing. I read that the Trevor Nunn film was set in the 1800's, so that makes it Victorian. Amazing how sexy that clothing is, considering that no one was supposed to know about sex!

I love Ben Kingsley

I saw Twelfth Night, and in addition to being in awe of Ben Kingsley's performance as Feste, I want to look just like Helena Bonham Carter's Olivia. Add that to also wanting to look like Amelie...so I want to make that black lacy thing she's wearing here:


Except add sleeves. And how on earth did they get her hair to form that messy mass on top of her head, with no visible means of support? How??

Lana Grossa

http://www.lanagrossa.com/service/mdm/index.html
This site's free patterns are glorious (the pics are down there). Will I make them? Probably not....maybe...would I love to? Oh yes.

But I need to get started on my mom and sister's birthday presents, because they're both in April. I'm pretty sure they don't read this blog, so I'll tell you what I'm making for them (also so I don't forget). For Laura I'm making a crocheted wall cd holder, from this free pattern here:
http://members.aol.com/cillcrochets/cdwallpock.html

I'm thinking fuzzy white yarn with maybe forget-me-nots embroidered on it. Or bunnies. Or something girly like that. She'll be fifteen (look out, world), but in my head she stopped growing at nine.

I have to find a pattern for a sweater for mom, it has to be hip enough to satisfy me, yet not offend the Mom sensibilities. She's a very conservative dresser, and I'm...well...not.I'm going to check the library for this one. I want it to be a cardigan, preferably slightly fitted, with a lace panel down each side of the front. It will also be fuzzy white. Because that's the only yarn I have enough of, and I have enough of it to make an elephant sweater.

I wish I knew some elephants.

I also added a finished projects gallery button down at the bottom...there's probably some things there I haven't posted. I just sort of threw it together when I was cleaning out my digital camera folder. I know Jimmy the cat and Marlo the Demon Gopher are in there...

Oooooo..*faints* http://www.whiteliesdesigns.com/patterns/lcardigans/139.html

Ooooo I want I want I want...http://www.whiteliesdesigns.com/patterns/lpullovers/110.html

Here's the back.

I made this out of recycled cotton yarn I bought on Ebay. The dear woman frogged all these sweaters and then sold the yarn for 99 cents a sweater lot!

I'm Almost Ashamed

I have so many finished objects that I wonder where I found the time to do it all. I have to admit it's because I end up spending about three hours a week on homework, as opposed to ten on yarn. But I do spend eight hours a day AT school, so presumably some education is osmosing into me. I haven't missed any assignments or classes or anything. So my projects, which I think I will post pictures of as they get finished rather than all at once, start with the Brave New Bra Top from he Interweave Knits Crochet issue, which bears the stigmata of being the only pattern I've ever actually bought. Wow. And, ironically, it is also a pattern I wouldn't recommend to anyone who doesn't already design clothing for a living (in which case you could make something more glorious anyway, so why bother?). This thing looks so smooth and cute in the picture, but when I finished it and put it on, it looked like I
stored about six walnuts in each bra cup for kicks. Lumpy? I looked deformed. The elephant boobitis syndrome. SO I sewed a dart up the middle of each cup. I haven't tried it on yet, but I really hope it helps...it was a lot of work, and I think a lot more difficult than it had to be. It was like the designer went to any lengths to avoid cutting and reattaching yarn, and sometimes you just have to break down and do that.

I'm also doing the Hug Shrug from Magknits, and I was absolutely stumped on my first two tries--I know how to do ribbing, and it wasn't working with the decreases. So I'm skipping the ribbing, using larger needles, and just doing it in stockinette. I'm using brown brushed acrylic, which I got a huge bag of from Ebay for $7. Mixed colors and I can pretend it's wool! I can if I want!*wipes tear*

Moulin Rouge corset: Almost done. Like four rows of crochet shells away. So that pattern I will put up as soon as I'm done, and it will be my very first knit crochet combo.
On that note, are all you crocheters mad at me for defecting to knitting? =) Hardly anyone comments any more. I swear I still like crocheting better! It's just that I had so many crocheted toys around that I wanted to try something else, and after long searching decided that crochet just isn't the best for clothing, because it doesn't stretch. So I'm just using knitting to make clothes.

My next big idea is actually going to be crochet--I want to try shrines. A pair of them, Fire and Water. I want to use all my Red Heart and free form to make them, and the Fire one will have my clay sculpture of Ganesha in it, (although I want to try crocheting him too)a sun, dandelions and books. The Water one will have a tree on each side of it, and a crocheted dryad inside.

I was sketching out my ideas for all this in Environmental biology this morning, because the teacher was talking about population and it was really getting to me. She said that if the human population continues to grow at the rate it is now, in 35 years the earth will have more people on it than it can actually support with its resources.So what are we supposed to do about that? Be like China and tell people they can't have families? Euthanasia? There doesn't seem to be a
solution here, at least not one I can accept. I felt like I had to do something to reaffirm that every human being is valuable and deserves a chance to exist...and the shrines will do that. Somehow. I can't explain it. Art for art's sake, I guess.
If anyone's reading this, (and I know you are) please tell what you think about this. It's really bothering me.

On a more cheerful subject, my brother made me a web button, so if you want to link to me, you can use it! It's at the bottom of the page..and that's a lucky cat in the corner, if you can't tell. It's so small, it's a little fuzzy.

Le Patternle, with Flapperjakk's blessing

This is based on Kristin's (Flapperjakk) knitted hat, which you can see both on Craftster: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=23248.new#new

And on her blog, i heart wool and sharp pointy sticks, which is down there in my links. Isn't she an amazing designer?

Here's my wimpy easy crochet one. =)

Ingredients:
I used brushed acrylic baby yarn. 1 skein Main color and a little white.
Black ribbon
G hook

1. Ch 3, join to form a ring.
2. Ch 3, 11 dc in ring, join.
3. Ch 3, ( counts as first dc now and forever) 2 dc in each dc. Join.
4. Ch 3, dc in same sp, fpdc (front post double crochet) in next dc, 2 dc in next dc. Continue around: 2 dc, fpdc, 2 dc. Join.
5. Ch 3, 2 dc in next, fpdc in fpdc,1 dc in next. Continue around: 2 dc, fpdc, 1 dc. Join.
6.Ch 3, dc in next, fpdc, 2 dc in next. Continue: dc in next 2, fpdc, 2 dc in next. Join.
7. Ch 3, dc in next 2, fpdc, 2 dc in next. Continue: dc in next 3, fpdc, 2 dc in next. Join.
8. Ch 3, do a round even in dc, fpdc in each fpdc. Join.
9-11. Repeat 8.
12. Sc in next stitch, dc in next. Repeat around. Join.
13. Dc in first sc, sc in next dc. Continue: sc in every dc, dc in every sc. Join. End off main color.
14. Attach white, *ch 3, skip one stitch, sc in next four stitches* around. Join.
15. Slip stitch into next ch 3 space, *3 sc in space. Ch 4, 3 sc in next space.* around. Join.
16. Starting at first sc of a 3 sc group, *ch 3, 4 sc in ch 4 space.* around. Join.
17. 3 sc in ch 3 sp, sc in first sc of 4 sc group, decrease over next two sc, sc in next sc. Go around even in sc except do the decrease in the 4 sc group every third group. End off white.
18. Join main color. Repeat rounds 12-13 until brim is as long as you'd like- I did 3 rows. End off.

Then thread a ribbon through the big eyelets and enjoy!

Ditto.

My crochet version of Flapperjakk's hat..the Gwennabe Zim.