Yarn Picture!

I bet you can see why I love this yarn. So many colors! Actually this picture is still a bit washed out as the main color is a deep blue toned pink. I swear when I went to check out the yarn outlet last weekend I was planning to leave with nothing but a pattern or two. Ha!

I was almost out the door when I noticed the little basket in the corner with about a dozen random skeins of sock yarn. When I saw this beauty with its accent colors in shades of pink, blue, purple, gold, orange, yellow and a touch of green I was done for. I am so curious to see how it handles the larger stitches of crochet (as compared to knit)!

And just for fun...
Gratuitous cat picture I ran across while uploading. Peneenah doing one of her jungle cat imitations. She loves to hang out under the branches of my big living room plant. Day or night there is a good chance that during the summer, she'll be laying in the shade!

Randoms

I'm feeling guilty for not updating more frequently so thought I'd give "randoms" a try!

• The Noro shawl is done, but pictures aren't ready yet. Not for lack of trying on my part. First it was the rain and now it is that none of the pictures did it justice. I think I need to enlist some help to get good pics of this one!
• With the cooler weather this cabled hat (Ravelry link) has started knocking on my to do list. I have the right weight of alpaca in blue and also in green. Looking at the completed projects, I think I will use ribbing for the cuff of the hat rather than continuing the pattern.
• Last weekend I finally made it to one of the semi-local yarn outlet shops I have been meaning to visit for more than a year. Sorry, no decent photos yet of these. I fell in love with a sock yarn that is merino, bamboo, and nylon which is destined to be a shawl. It has a lovely soft hand. It will be way down on the stitch list, but that is no hardship. I can admire (and pet) the yarn in the mean time! Also, I picked up a pattern book with some nice basic baby sweaters that should come in handy down the road.
• My father's scarf continues to grow in little bits. The deadline is looming, so I have to get going!

I think that will do it for now. Pictures soon, I promise!

Desire

I've been on a shawl making kick for a while now. Lacey, thin, thick, big, small, long... love them all. But, the mojo is changing direction. I've been fighting it off since I have projects I need to finish. I have stash yarn I want to use up before buying more. I fear, however, that the time is rapidly approaching when I say "to heck with it" and begin anew.

What's tugging at my brain? Baby blankets!

First there was this beauty for which I actually found some nice naturally colored cotton. This Tiramisu Baby Blanket is a free pattern generously offered by Alicia Paulson.

I just love how sophisticated this natural yarn and brown ribbon look together! I'm not usually one to put ribbons on baby blankets, but for this one I'll make an exception.

I've resisted the Tiramisu for so long that my heart now longs to make this one first:

This one is called Exquisite and comes from the genius that is Terry Kimbrough! I've made one of her blankets before and loved it (as did the mom who received it). The pineapples are such a classic crochet motif and the center, while lacey, is still solid enough to provide warmth. I had to have the pattern for this. So, two false starts with Amazon followed by a winning bid on E-Bay and the pattern is now patiently waiting for some attention.

If the mojo does not fade out after making Exquisite and Tiramisu, I also want to make this one:

I love the edging on this one! So feminine and soft. Another winner from Terry found in this pattern book.

The last one that is calling to me is by Carole Rutter Tippett. The Spiderweb seen here on the cover of Snuggle-Up Baby Afghans.

This is another classic crochet motif/pattern. It has grown on me over time, and now I feel the need to play with it. Besides the look, one of the things I really like about this design is that it can easily be adjusted to make a smaller receiving size blanket.

Here's hoping that by getting these out of my brain and sharing them that I will have enough patience to finish what must be done first! Hope you enjoyed the baby blanket fest. =-)

By the Numbers

Not much crochet has been accomplished lately, but there is a project whose completion is becoming absolutely necessary with the turn of the weather: my father's scarf. I've just got to get moving on it! So, yesterday I decided to carry it with me everywhere and see if I could add a bit here and there...

Row 1 - Drive through! The line was long enough that I completed an entire row while waiting for my bagel and tea. Yummmmmmmy.

Row 2, 3, 4 - Slow computer. Working in a school as I do, turning on a computer is an exercise in patience. The network just takes forever to acknowledge and sign. So 2 and a half rows later I was finally able to put in my class attendance. The last half row was finished just as the bell for the students to come to class sounded off.

Rows 5, 6 - Puppy time. All I can say is timing is everything. I arrived at my friends' house just as one of them was taking their 6 month old puppy out to "do his business". This of course meant that I could not go inside because the puppy would try to follow me instead. So, there I stood where he could see me crochet bag in hand. He took so long that I actually finished two rows. Good doggie.

So, it was not much. A little here and a little there, but it is 6 more rows than were complete the day before! I'll call that a success. =-)

Experimenting

Hi Everyone!

Sorry to have been a bit absent these last weeks. School started. It seems to take about two weeks to get the mojo going again. I expend so much energy with the students getting them motivated and revved up for the new year, that I am exhausted when I get home. Unfortunately, this means I don't trust myself to work on the crochet without messing it up! LOL

I'm out the other side now and have picked the hook back up. I'll likely have a FO by the end of the weekend. Yipee! But, in the mean time I thought I'd share an experiment. Namely this one:

The idea of a two color spiral has fascinated me since the first time I saw it in an magazine. So, I finally decided to play around with it. The concept, once grasped, is fairly simple and it works up almost as quickly as single color work. The only problem? This:

Unless you are looking at the hat from the very crown, it simple looks like a striped hat! No real bang for my buck. If I wanted plain old stripes, I'd have done that. Disappointing. I'm glad to have tried it and it will continue to live in the back of my head waiting for the perfect project!

Since the spiral looked like horizontal stripes I wondered about making vertical ones and got this:

This I think is pretty snazzy. I expect if I start it at the crown it will make a wonderful swirl that resolves into these lovely straight stripes down the even part of the hat. When I have finished a few more of the UFOs, I'll give this one a go.

Playing with technique and pattern can be so much fun! Here's to those Adventures in Crochet! LOL