Keeping myself honest

Guess what?!  I’ve written my 100th blog post! 

A while back I wrote about not having a stash. This is completely not true anymore. I have pieces of fabric on chairs and hanging over balconies. I have accumulated three plus boxes of yarn. I have numerous WIP (works in progress). I’ve become a Typical Crafter.

I never really could be before. I always moved too much and lived in tiny apartments in Manhattan. I got rid of everything extraneous everything. Now that this is not so much of an issue, I’m accumulating junk. You understand that for me, “not moving much” means I’ve lived in my apartment for over a year (well, technically since May, when I moved from next door). This is quite something for me.

A friend said not long ago she didn’t really realize I did that much crafting. Ha! I just don’t post about it all. So to remind myself of my current projects and keep me honest, here’s part of my yarn stash and my crochet WIP. My sewing, cooking, painting and woodcarving, WIP are another post.

Stash Pix:

WIP1:
My most current work is the scarf for Stephanie - destined to be plaid, now just striped. Also, ran across another really awesome idea for the plaid from the new book Crochet Me from Julie/SkaMama (who also designed the rad and popular fat-bottom bag). Not that I needed an additional reason to buy the book, but here’s one. Ran across a potential tool for making the plaid at Lion Brand also. Currently the scarf isn’t so awesome and it’s sort of curling up (note: I’m farther along than this now).

WIP2:
Next up is the sweater in Lion Cotton-Ease and Wool. I say sweater, but I don’t know for whom. It seems to want to be a dog sweater for Audrey. Originally it was going to be for my cousin Sam, who’s a year and a half old. It got too wide. I had Issues with the pattern. It’s the first sweater I’ve ever made or tried. It just barely fits around my pup, so that’s why it’s probably for her. Even the arm decreases fit her, so that’s at least a positive step.

WIP3:
The Urban Wrap in Lion Brand Homespun, colorway Prairie. I was looking for an easy, decent pattern for something to warm me up at work. No sweaters, nothing fancy, just a wrap. The back is done, now I have to do the two front pieces. I really like the yarn. It’s really soft and the fabric it’s making is thick and squishy. The Prairie colorway is doing a self-striping rainbow thing which I’m quite fond of. The base color is a beautiful golden-brown color. This project has taught me how tightly I crochet - I’ve broken the yarn 3-4 times now.

WIP4:
This was the original scarf I made for Jeff. Isn’t it awful?  At the time I hadn’t been crocheting long, and the yarn and pattern (half double back loop stitch) combined with my lack of skill just killed this project.  The yarn, which is the very nice Manos del Uruguay wool yarn, is also handspun and therefore unevenly thick (particularly the black), and this made my few skills show up poorly. The scarf ended up getting narrower and narrower as I went along. I tried doing increase stitches to no avail. I suspect I wasn’t sure about what to do at the end of rows for turning. This scarf also taught me I have an allergy to wool.  So now I have a thick piece of beautiful crocheted wool that I’m going to felt into something. What? Dunno.

WIP5:
This blanket here to the left is the first crochet project I ever attempted.  The stitch is one that I’ve never heard of since - it’s in no book, magazine or online tutorial I’ve ever seen.  It’s kind of somewhere between half double and triple crochet.  I’ll post it one of these days. My mother-in-law taught me this stitch and a granny square pattern to go with it. Jennifer (hi Jennifer!) and her sister have made a large number of afghans using this stitch that are essentially gigantic (6-7 feet wide!) granny squares. The one I’m making will be four joined granny squares. This first square still looks funny because my skill when I started was so much less than my skill when I finished. The colors - country blue and something else from el classico cheapo yarn Red Heart- are designed to go with the quilt I made.  I’m currently on color #2 of square two.

WIP5:
The Chelsea Flower Scarf. I’ve thought long about what to make for my 13/14-year-old cousin Chelsea. I love Chelsea to death (she doesn’t realize that) but she’s at that age where I pretty much don’t get her language and likes. I was that age, I know what I mean. I hoped to make something pretty yet not too fussy-girly for her, something with sophisticated colors in a fun pattern. So what I’m gonna do is crochet sunflowers and daisies and join them together with a vine/leaf pattern to make a daisy chain scarf. What do you think of that? I got yarn for it - soft cotton from Cascade called Luna in brown, yellow, white and green that’s really great (this picture is crappy - the colors don’t look like that!).

So those are the basic major projects I’m workin’ on right now. Doesn’t include the hat I’m going to post on later.