Covid-19 Masks and Fat Cat.

Just a quick post with a couple of things I’ve been up to lately. First off are a couple of masks for my niece who asked for them. One was the Suay mask and the other four were the Olson mask.

Of the two styles my niece preferred the Olson mask to wear.

Next up is The Fat Cat Stuffie by Yarnspirations and The Crochet Crowd. I made this for my grandson because I needed to give him something because his sisters are getting the ponchos I made them.

That’s all for now. Next up I’m hoping to show yet again another ripple afghan and a Star Wars themed beanie. I hope everyone is staying safe.

Karen

More snakes and ponchos.

I hope everyone is doing well during the pandemic. I have been busy cooking and crafting and working on my garden although the past week has seen freezing temperatures and a bit of snow. Just when you think it’s Spring Mother Nature says “Not quite yet!”.

I have a couple more items to add to the pile for the grandkids. I had an idea of gifts for Easter but that has come and gone so I guess they’ll just be grandma loves you gifts.

I have seven grandkids so I tend to make things in multiples so I’ve finished another poncho and snake.

The poncho is made with more of the Caron Latte cakes and the purple snake is just leftover remnants in my stash. In fact the dark purple and white is some of the first yarn I bought while on lunch break downtown working at my first full time job. I still remember the wool shop. It was full of bulk spools of yarn and the owners put it up on a yarn swift. The purple and white were to make a scarf in the University of Western colours. My how time flies as that was 43 years ago. It also goes against current conventions that say if you haven’t used something in a year or two, get rid of it. I went to use the pizza stone in the basement last week only to discover I’d donated it. Who knew two years later I’d be practicing self-isolation in a pandemic and making my own pizza?

I have two more items to make before handing over the gifts. I was going to make two more snakes but I’m tired of making them and I just used the last of the fibrefill. I’ll have to think of something else.

Karen

Quilts and Afghans

Here are a couple of projects that I’ve finished off in the last couple of days. The first is a sweet little baby quilt that I’ve made for my nephew who will be born a few months from now.

I’d made this quilt for my granddaughter several years ago so here it is with a pink border. Baby Girl Quilt

When I’d made the quilt I had enough leftover fabric that I’d sewn another top together but left off the outside border waiting for another baby to come along before deciding which colour border to use. I didn’t have any matching backing fabric so I decided to dye my own. The dye I used was appropriately named baby boy blue.

The next project that I’ve finished this week is another lap Afghan made for my father. This afghan was made from from my hoard of Lion Brand Homespun Thick and Quick that I stocked up on when I found out it was $4 a ball at the local dollarama. I stayed with the same wave pattern as I’ve pretty much got it memorized by now.

Spa Garden Ripple Afghan, yarn by Lion Brand Homespun Thick and Quick colours are “woodland stripes”, “lagoon” and “dove”. The pattern is free and can be found at Lion Brand

I hope everyone is staying safe and doing well, take care.
Karen

Snake, Hat and Poncho.

I had a recent request by my grandson to knit a snake and I blithely agreed thinking how hard can it be? As it turns out it’s pretty easy especially if you’re used to knitting with double pointed needles, however it is time consuming. You look at the picture of the snake and you think oh I’ll get that done in no time but it just keeps going on and on and on.

Then of course you stuff the snake as you go and pretty soon you’re trying to manipulate a four foot snake and rotate it with your feet as you go round and round meanwhile all the time doing colour changes for the different bands of colour.

 

The snake does look awesome, only issue – I said I’d do one for his sister. I might try a different stuffing technique for that one.

Striped Snake by Sarah Anne Thompson – free Ravelry download. Good stash buster, the size of snake is dependent on the yarn. This snake used worsted weight.

After an intensive week of snake knitting I decided to knit my dad a hat as he said he lost his. Translate “lost” into “misplaced” and it became clear that he didn’t need a new hat but since I’d cast on the hat I decided to knit it anyway. I knit the hat in Lion Brand Hand-dyed Wool Ease and since it was a worsted weight yarn I was pleased to finish it off in two days. The only issue was the retirement home he’s staying at has restricted all visitor access while the Coronavirus is going around so I guess the hat will become a fall hat God willing.

Watch Cap by Carri Hammett: Hat Power 5.0. Yarn by Lion Brand Hand-dyed Wool Ease, colour S’Mores.

My husband is modelling the hat. This yarn has a tendency to pool and I’m wondering if that’s why it was such a good deal at Michaels.

After I’d done the hat I felt the need to use up one of the Caron Latte cakes I have sitting around the house. This doesn’t sound like an issue but having listened to a recent blog cast by a fellow crafter, I became aware that Michaels had deeply discounted some discontinued colours of the latte cakes. The regular price of a latte cake is $11.99 a cake. The clearance price dropped the price to $3.99 a cake, I may have bought too many.

Is this all the latte cakes I have? Well no, I bought a lot at the beginning of the fall season because last spring they reduced the latte cakes and I only caught the tail end of that sale. I had bought a couple of cakes and knit them up and discovered how much I loved the drape and feel of the yarn. I figured I’d never see the latte cakes again so I did buy a few when they re-released the yarn.

So lots and lots of latte cakes just waiting to be used. What to make, hmm well maybe a poncho. I decided to make the poncho for one of my granddaughters out of the only skein of Pink Melon I had. It was another quick project taking me only two days to finish. The really annoying thing was that towards the end I figured on running out of yarn so I ended up buying another cake. I didn’t need the extra cake as I ended up with 1 yard of leftover yarn (I kid you not). I had braved the corona infested hoards for nothing and I’m not going back out to return the ball of yarn.

Yarnspirations free patterns title “Bernat Girl’s Crochet Poncho”. Crocheted using 1 cake of Caron Latte colour “Pink Melon”.

I see more ponchos, shawls, afghans in the future to be made.

Karen

Tie Dyes and More

Again it’s been a while since I’ve posted, so easy to procrastinate and put off writing the blog. Anyhow, my daughter who owns a food truck decided to enter a few butter tart festivals in February to keep herself occupied during her slack time and she asked if I wanted to do a few tie dyes and sit at her booth.

I’ve never tried to sell my tie dyes to the public before so I thought it’d be interesting to try. I did read a forum post about selling to the public and realized from the post that I didn’t have the proper setup. I just had a spot at the table beside the butter tarts. It’s a good thing I didn’t have great expectations because over the two shows I only sold three shirts. People were there to buy butter tarts not summer t-shirts. As one lady put it, “You should try selling these at Campfest.” As I was dyeing shirts and trying to fill in spots for inventory it also made me realize what a big commitment it’d be to run an actual booth at a proper craft show. I need to have several patterns in various sizes, dozens upon dozens of shirts. Then to make back the money for my table I’d have to sell a dozen shirts before I’d even break even. I can see why people sell online.

Here are a few of the shirts I did, not sure why some of the other photos didn’t turn out.

I’ve also been busy knitting and crocheting some winter gear and afghans. A couple of months ago I discovered that the local Dollar stores were carrying Lion Brand’s Homespun Thick and Quick yarn for $4 a ball. This yarn normally goes for $12.99 at Michaels craft stores. I guess they’d gotten the yarn because it was the discontinued colours. I think what happened was each store was shipped three boxes of yarn and each store had random colours. It became a game to find all the different stores in my area and see what colours they carried. The stores only put out a box at a time so I was continually returning to see if anything new was on the shelves. I ended up spending a lot of money over $300 but calculated the same amount of yarn would have cost me over $800 full price.

The first afghan I made was supposed to be a shoulder shrug but I didn’t bother sewing up the side seams deeming the piece looked better as a lapghan. The second afghan I decided to crochet in the typical wave pattern. It was here that I fell in love with the yarn. There was so much more texture with crocheting than knitting and I loved the chunkiness of it all so I went out and bought as many different colours that I could. I had to buy the neutral white and beige to fill in.

Granddaughter showing off knitted Afghan. Lion Brand Thick and Quick colour Herb Garden. Pattern, Emily Bronte Topper by Lion Brand Emily Bronte Topper

Lion Brand Thick and Quick colours Barley, Garnet and Pearls.
Pattern, Spa Garden Ripple Afghan by Lion Brand, Spa Garden Ripple Afghan

Lion Brand Thick and Quick colours Wildberries, Periwinkle and Dove.
Pattern same as above but four rows of each colour repeated.

Lastly here are a few photos of a few winter knits.

Lion Brand Ferris Wheel colour Pink Marmalade and Berroco Alpaca black.
Pattern, Rainbow Maze Hat by Gretchen Tracy.

Lion Brand Wool-Ease Hand Dyed colour Peanut Butter & Jelly.
Pattern Yakima Ear Warmer By Justine Bent.

Catching up…finished projects

It’s been more than a little while since I’ve posted here. Part of the problem is that I no longer use this computer and I’m on my tablet all the time. My tablet can’t download photos from my camera so I’ve slacked off a bit (well more than a bit). Another issue is I’ve been rather slack in the crafting department lately as well.

Here are a bunch of things that I’ve done since I last posted in October. The little animals are called amigurumi and I had a fun time crocheting them up for my granddaughter Kendal for Christmas. The two tie dyes are ice dyed and I made them up for my granddaughter Charlie and her friend. My son requested a hat and scarf for Christmas and lastly I thought I’d make a fun scarf for all four granddaughters with more to come in different colourways at a later time. The scarves and hat were made from Lion Brand’s Wool Ease Thick and Quick. Lovely yarn to knit up but nasty in that the balls have knots from being joined. The amigurumi were made from Paton’s Astra yarn.

Best friends rainbow ice dyes.

Close-up of back.

Back view.

Cat – Super-Super Easy Crochet by Brigitte Read

My favorite, crocodile (Super-Super Easy Crochet)

Peppa Pig

Robin, Super-Super Easy Crochet

Whale, Super-Super Easy Crochet

Dan’s hat Eagle bay hat

Dan’s scarf English Rib Scarf

Unice Unicorn hood I made it into a pony scarf as requested so left off the horn.

Heidi May is the designer and has some very nice patterns, check out her website. You can also order the patterns through Ravelry.

That’s all for now. I still have three scarfs to knit and I’ve also put together another Minions quilt that needs to be machine quilted and I’ve also finished another quilt top made from one of the box kits put out by Moda so it’ll probably be a few months before I get all those projects finished and posted as well.

Karen

Four-and-a-half-hour afghan

Snagged some Lion Brand Homespun at a really good price at a Michael’s sale so decided to make dad a lap throw for Christmas. I found the pattern online through Ravelry but it’s actually a free pattern through the Lion Brand website Four-and-a-half-hour afghan.

Of course the afghan took me longer than four and a half hours and I ended up using not six balls of yarn but all eight that I had orignally bought. I needed the extra two balls to get to the same size of throw that the pattern stated but the afghan is really stretchy so it’s possible you’d get the same size using six balls of Homespun. The yarn is crocheted using a size Q hook and two strands of yarn held together. I set the two balls of Homespun side by side in front of me on a chair and pulled the yarn from the inside of the balls so they wouldn’t roll around.

It took between two to three hours to crochet up a ball of yarn but I was working with a bum shoulder and a crappy plastic hook. The acrylic yarn likes to catch on the plastic so it slows you down a bit. The pattern is crochet a single stitch then a double stitch in the same hole then skip a stitch and repeat, dead easy. I really like how the afghan felt using the two strands of yarn. Very heavy, soft and sprongy, nice to cuddle up in.

Yarn is Lion Brand Homespun in the colour Ocean. Picture taken at night so it’s hard to see. Actually the yarn is multi-coloured so it’s various green, teal, purple and turquoise colours.

John demoing the lap throw.

I’ve also crocheted up a couple more oven towels for Christmas. I have one here for display. There is a tutorial over under the tutorial side bar if anyone is interested.

Christmas oven towel.

Karen

Chuga, chuga, choo, choo!

I’ve been working on my grandson’s quilt the last few days and thought I’d share the progress so far. I still have some checkerboard borders to sew and attach and then of course the actual quilting so I guess I’m only about 1/3 done so far but it’s been an easy sew to date.

Riding the Rails by Renae Lindgren for Wilmington Prints.

I also worked on November’s CAL blocks for my afghan. I only have December to do up and then I have to sew the squares together, a job I’m not looking forward too. I still don’t know whether or not I’m going to keep this one or give it away. I’ve put a lot of work into it and I’m not sure anyone else will appreciate the effort that’s gone into the afghan so I’m inclined to keep this one. Besides it matches my bedroom colours.

African star designed by Edith Smith.

Shining Star designed by Amelian Beebe.

Karen

More CAL Blocks

I’ve been busy trying to catch up on my crochet blocks and I now have them all done except the extra bonus block for October. If I do the bonus block then I’ll have 25 squares by December and that would make a 5X5 afghan so I’ll probably do it but maybe in a few days as I’ve wrecked my shoulder by crocheting so much.

I need to work on some quilting anyhow so it’s time for a break. I also have some crayon rolls planned for the grandkids. Now that I have grandchildren I can make these for myself and not give them away for charity. Should be fun with lots of bright colours.

Anyhow here are the next five blocks of the series.

In Treble by Julie Yeager.

Winter’s Lace by Teresa Kohlhoff.

Sweet Peas by Rebecca Bisbing.

Embracing Variety by Aurora Suominen/Ivory Herman.

The Crocodile Flower by Joyce Lewis.

All the blocks can be found on Ravelry.

My favourite block so far and by far the most difficult is the Crocodile Flower. This block took what seemed like forever – around 8 to 9 hours to work up. I started with the middle and then crocheted a frame around it. After finishing the frame I started in on the petals so the result is a 3-D effect and it’s very pretty.

Hard to believe that we are halfway through October and Christmas is looming closer and closer, only a couple months worth of time left to try and get some goodies made. Last Christmas the kids decided not to trade presents so I only have to worry about the grandkids so we’ll see how that works out. Hopefully you’ll see me posting lots of finished items in the upcoming two months.

Karen

More CAL blocks.

I’ve been very busy trying to catch up on all the blocks that I stopped crocheting since May. Anyway here are a few more.

Eight Pointed Flower by Julie Yeager.

Eyelet Lace byChris Simon.

Shape-Shifting by Aurora Suominen.

Crown Jewels by Melinda Miller.

Moroccan Tile by Nancy Fuller.

JulieAnny’s Stained Glass by Julie Yeager.

Windowpane by Chris Simon.

Guess it’s been a while, I didn’t realize I hadn’t posted all these in my blog. Not that it matters much but I needed some blog fodder and that’s what I’ve been working on in the last little while – that and the day to day stuff of living.

It’s coming up on Thanksgiving in Canada this weekend so since the odds are that I’m not going to be blogging before then I’d like to wish anyone who visits my blog a Happy Thanksgiving and all the warm blessings on you and your family that this time of year brings to mind. God Bless all.

Karen