Ocean Scarf

Holy cow, it has taken me a long time to get organized to post this!  But here it is, the other handmade gift I made for the holiday. This is a lighter-weight scarf I made for my Aunt Becky which I call the Ocean Scarf (Ravelry link). I was quite sure there was NO WAY I was going to finish it on time, though I tried. I ordered the yarn before Thanksgiving, expecting it to take 5-6 days to arrive so I could have 3 weeks to work on it. Nope. The yarn took nearly 3 weeks to arrive, leaving me with just over a week to finish the scarf. Since I am not a super-fast crocheter, I really had to convince my fingers  to fly to get it done! But I did.

I call it the Ocean Scarf because, well – the colors in the yarn are exactly those you might see on a beach. Witness the photo I posted a couple weeks ago:

You see what I mean about the colors?  I was quite afraid I would not like the pattern of the colors when I started this project (it’s a self-striping yarn when you use it for socks). For the first 15 rows I was convinced it was going to look horrible. Even my husband had doubts. But after about 60 rows or so it made a lot of sense. The yarn is Berroco Comfort Sock yarn in the Southland color way, and it is made of 50% super fine acrylic and 50% super fine nylon.  I am not sure, but it’s possible my aunt is allergic to wool like my mom and I are, so I wasn’t going to risk an animal fiber.

I used a size E/3.5 mm hook. The sock yarn/E hook combo is a new favorite. I’ve been getting tired of bulky and worsted weight yarns. It takes longer to make something with a finer yarn, but I think that’s what I’m in the mood for.

I can assure you I will be purchasing more of this silky yarn from Berroco, and trying their Comfort DK also. It is VERY hard to find good sock yarn in a non-wool. This problem baffles me, because I truly cannot imagine wanting to wear wool socks (my husband and brother are addicted to SmartWool socks, which I think is weird). It is probably a function of my lifelong allergy to animal fibers, but just thinking about wearing wool socks makes my feet itch.  The mental picture I get is of sitting on a horsehair sofa – also quite uncomfortable!  I just wish this yarn came in more colors.

Last but not least – and probably I should have started with it: the pattern is June Gilbank’s Gossamer Lace Wrap Crochet Pattern. I was pretty confused during the first three rows and convinced I was doing it wrong, but I figured out the pattern and from then on it was quick and smooth sailing. I memorized it and whipped through those repeat rows like they were going out of style. It’s a great pattern – I want to make one for myself next. Simple with a noticeable but not too airy pattern. I’m going to go back and make more of her accessories if this is the type of thing she’s going to come up with.

I chose to use a heavier yarn than the pattern calls for. June wrote the pattern for laceweight yarn (hers was alpaca) so her instructions speak about how much the design will expand once it is blocked.  Mine barely expanded at all when I blocked it, which I figured would happen, so I crocheted probably 75 more rows than she suggests to get the length I wanted.  I think she said to crochet about 60 rows beyond the first few … I’m pretty sure mine has about 140 – 150, but I stopped counting. It’s long enough to wrap several ways around your neck, depending on if you want it to be warmer or not.

Well, keep your fingers crossed that old Miriam-pregnancy-brain can keep it together enough to work, craft AND remember to blog. This post has taken since last Wednesday to get together ….

Had a DIY Moment

I tend to go to museums to get gifts for my mom. Museum and Historical Site visiting are things she and I like to do together, in addition to eating out and the occasional spot of theater or other cultural activity. So when it came time to pick out her gift, I thought I’d go over to the Asian Art Museum of SF because I don’t think she’s ever been in a museum quite like this before. I figured I could find something there she would like just fine. And I did, a beautiful scarf made of silk kimono fabrics.

And then I had a moment that all crafters will recognize, in which I thought to myself, “You know, I think I could make this myself.” That do-it-yourself urge can pop up at any time. And thus this gift was born (which is prettier than the ones in the store anyway):

The scarf and pins were made from nine different pieced silk kimono fabrics, beautiful pieces from my collection. Oh yes, silk kimono fabric is now something I’m collecting from various places, a fabric obsession kicked off two years ago when I joined the quarterly club at Ah Kimono. I’m pretty sure they think I’m crazy from the number of times I’ve changed my address since joining. No matter. I will accept this with equanimity if I can continue to receive regular packages of this beautiful fabric.

The scarf features such fancy things as French seams and asymmetrical folding/piecing, and coordinates shades of purple (my mom’s favorite color) with gray and black. I was going for “elegant.” I won’t say I made it without error, but it’s close. My purpose in the seaming I did was to give some shape and structure to the scarf because the fabrics are nothing if not slippery. It looks best when ironed within an inch of its life, which I wouldn’t do well with, but my mom’s a lot more conscientious than I am about things like ironing.

I also made two coordinating flower pins out of silk fabric. There are a lot of tutorials out there about this process, but basically you cut out varying sizes of circles from your fabric, lightly singe the edges of your silk circles so they won’t fray too much, then you sew the layers together, pleating and ruffling to create the shape you want. I made covered buttons for mine to finish them off, and sewed clasps on the back. I made the first one as a test and then another one for my mom. Both turned out well, so I got to keep one for me!

So there you are. This is the *only* gift I made this year, because I just couldn’t manage to do any more than that with everything else going on. Sometimes, though, you gotta give in to the DIY urge when it hits.

Goal Achieved, Level Up

KNOCK KNOCK. Hello? You guys are being extraordinarily quiet. Everyone okay out there?

So you know I finished the One Skein Scarf, and mentioned the hat, and said it was all part of a hat/scarf/mittens set. The set comprises the scarf, the Applejack Cap and Lion Brand mittens made out of 3-year-stashed Homespun Prairie. Voila!

I’m pretty happy with how it all turned out. The hat was supposed to be looser than this, but since I (a) used a smaller hook to make the stitches smaller to make it warmer and (b) used bulky yarn instead of worsted, you can maybe see how I’d end up with a different hat than the pattern makes. I added stitches to it to compensate, and also added length to the hat so it would cover my ears. After all, what’s the point of a warm hat if it won’t cover your ears?  Actually, for acrylic, all this stuff turned out very warm.

The making of the mittens was an odyssey. I started them the day we left Iowa (the 26th) and made the ribbing, then continued the next TWO DAYS OF FREEZING TRAVEL through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. It was very snowy in Iowa and Missouri. Made for exciting travel. All my pictures look sort of dream-like, because I couldn’t keep the condensation off the windows. Here’s where I was just south of Kansas City, Kansas. My toes felt totally frozen.

I made both mittens at once as I went along. I knew if I just did one, the other would never get made.  Here we are in the spectacular Flint Hills in Kansas. It’s amazingly … I don’t know. Not much there but cows. The Flint Hills are a unique place. You know that super green and huge blue sky with hills desktop in Windows? I think that came from this place. In winter, it just looks scary-barren.

I’d managed to get a pair of warm slippers in Wichita, which gave me enough energy do all but the fingers by the time we’d gotten to Northern Oklahoma, near Ponca City (where I used to live). We thought we’d be able to make it home the first night, but a 2 hour traffic jam and icy conditions meant we stopped for the night in Oklahoma City.  Mittens going well, though.

Somewhere south of Ft. Worth, Texas I was mostly done with a thumb and was finally warm again! It was about this point I gave up on following the pattern, because the pattern had long since begun to seem stupid. It wasn’t wide enough in the hand, for one thing. So I just kept going and made them to fit my hand exactly.

By the time we got home to Austin both thumbs were finished. I needed to finish the fingers for the last three inches, and sew ‘em up. Two weeks later, I was done. It was frustrating to make mittens with this yarn. The thread-like core kept snapping when I tried to pull a seam tight. All I can say about it now is that my stash is smaller, and they’re very soft mittens.

It was an interesting start on non-beanie hats and finger-wear. I kind of wanted to try the patterns out on a yarn I hadn’t spend a lot of $$ on, so I could do them again but better. Now if I can only remember to write up what I did!