Yarnification

I finally finished the throw rug last night! I finished crocheting it ages ago, but last night I finally worked in the last of those 220 or so ends. (I will work in ends as I go along. I will work in ends as I go along. I will work in ends as I go along.)

The pattern is the bordered throw rug from the Leisure Arts Easy Rugs to Crochet pamphlet, except I got a little confused by the sequencing of color changes in the middle section and just did my own thing. (The pattern said two rows in color A, then two in B, then A, then C, then B, or some fool thing. I just did A, B, C, repeat up to the end.)

First, just the rug:

And the Lena inspecting the rug, a bit blurry because I was trying to take the picture before she left:

After that I started working on the second sock in the pair I’m making. I’ve also been working on a new pair of Marlo’s ribbed slippers. I have a few pairs of these already and love them, and I figured I’d see how they come out in cotton since I have some leftover Sugar ‘n’ Cream from making the potholders and whatnot. I used the cornflower blue, and I’ve got one done so far. I like how it turned out—it’s nice and comfy. There’s a touch more space between stitches than when I’ve made them with acrylic, but it’s no biggie because I always wear them over my socks anyway.

I also tried to get a start on the book thongs (which I learned about and fell in love with when I saw Donna’s post on book thongs) I’m planning to make Sara for her birthday. I plan to make two, a paperback-sized one and a bigger one. So I picked up supplies for that recently and tried to have at it last night, but unfortuately the hole in one kinds of the beads I got was just a touch too small for the cord I’m using. So that’ll have to wait, but I’ll be in Columbus tomorrow, so I can go to Michael’s or someplace and see what they’ve got. And I’ll just have to find a different use for the little beads I couldn’t use—that particular packet of beads was $1.50 at Walmart, so I’m not out much anyway.

That’s all for today, I think…

I’ve had a cold and haven’t been getting much done, but I did finish this. (Pattern: Granny stitch baby shrug)

I probably need to measure it before I make any more to decide what size it is. Don says he thinks it’s probably newborn size (I keep checking with him seeing as he’s raised a baby and I haven’t), but it could be a large preemie size, too. I have some size charts, just need to break out the measuring tape and check it. I want to figure out what size I made so I can figure out what hook size to use to make other sizes.

I’m getting super bored with all the yellow even though it’s one of my favorite colors, so I have to keep reminding myself that the objectives here are to both make things for charity and use up the yellow baby yarn, and buying another color so I won’t be bored would kinda defeat the purpose there.

Found at Marvie’s:

What color of sock yarn do you prefer?
brought to you by Quizilla

One of these days I’ll get it through my thick skull that it’s really best to work in the ends as I go along instead of leaving them all until the end of the project. This throw rug has close to 220 ends to weave in (if my mental math is correct, anyway), and it would’ve been so much easier if I’d just done it after every color change.

I’ve started working on the Celtic bookmark again since the Thread Along has started, and it was seriously kicking my ass last night. The itty bitty thread isn’t turning out to be as much a problem as I’d thought, but the little chain segments that join the motifs keep getting twisted somehow. I think I finally figured out what I was doing wrong last night, but it was late and I was too tired to keep going to see if I’d gotten to the bottom of the problem or not. Maybe tonight I’ll get some more work done on it. There’s a lot to do around the house, and I’d really like to get all the ends finished on the throw rug, so maybe not, but I’ll probably find a little time at least to do another couple of motifs to see if I have the problem fixed now.

I’m on the second bootie of this pair: Preemie to newborn ribbed booties. This is the only itty bitty pair I’m making, in smallish preemie size; the rest will be bigger preemie sizes or regular newborn size. The only thing I’m unhappy with about the first one is the lacing; the pattern suggested making a chain and using that, but when I do that I’m never happy with how it looks, so I’m not surprised that I don’t like it. I’ll probably pick up some really skinny ribbon next time I’m at Walmart.

Oh, and I changed the Bloglines subscription feed to use my Atom feed link—the other feed isn’t going anywhere, but I just up and changed it while I was tweaking some other things. I checked it and it seems fine, but if anyone has any trouble using that button please let me know!

Last night I was seized by a burning need to have a finished object, so instead of working on the throw rug, I made this:

No pattern link, unfortunately—I made it from a free Caron pattern leaflet that I got at Michael’s. I looked at Caron’s web site and found some free patterns, but not that one.

I used half of the skein of Red Heart Chunky in soft white that my elf sent me, and it worked up so nice and soft. (Yeah, bad of me to grab a free Caron flyer that’s put out to try to get me to use Jewel Box. I do have some Jewel Box, but I wanted to use my elf yarn.)

I’m going to line it when I get the time to drag out the sewing machine. I’ve never done that before, but the very nice ladies at Crochetville explained it to me a while back when I asked how, and I think I know what to do and have a bunch of links stashed away in case I need help.

Yesterday I got a bunch of crocheting in. Don had to have oral surgery yesterday morning, and for reasons I won’t get into because it’s a long explanation, it had to be done at the hospital. I thought I’d do some crocheting there, but I was clearly out of my mind when I was thinking that since we had to be there at six in the morning, which due to our work schedule is the middle of the night for us. (I think we both got maybe three hours of sleep tops.) Anyway, he is doing fine, but I was too exhausted to be able to crochet, so I did puzzles while I waited until the oral surgeon came to tell me he was done and everything was okay, and then I passed out for an hour on one of the little couches in the waiting area until Don was out of recovery and back in his room.

But later at home, I got things ready to start the throw rug I bought yarn for recently. Spent a while balling up yarn because three of the colors needed to be divided into two balls (and in the process scored three different throw/afghan patterns from the labels, all of which I liked), then got about ten or twenty rows done, took a break from it for a while, then got some more work in on it, so I’m close to a third of the way done with it now.

It turned out I did need a P hook to get the gauge more or less right. I had to buy a four-pack of Crystallites hooks at Walmart to get a P since I could only find single hooks up to a K (too bad I didn’t know I needed one when I was in Parkersburg last weekend!), so I have doubles of the Crystallites L and M, but I have another N now that’s a slightly different size than my Boye N, so that’s always good. There can never be too many hooks, right?

I’ve given up on the bootie socks for now—the yarn I’ve got isn’t suited to the pattern, or I’m doing something wrong, or something, because I keep splitting the yarn with the hook and messing it up. So I’ve switched to this pattern for this pair (no picture with the pattern, but I’ve made them before and they’re cute, though maybe not as pretty as the last pattern, and they work up quick.

After some more baby stuff, I’m going to get back to the beaded shawl; once I realized it would end up being a birthday gift instead, I decided to take a break from it since I’d been working at it a lot and getting frustrated, but I’m ready to go back to it now.

Finished these tonight (apart from running some ribbon around the bottom of the ankle ribbing):

Pattern is Granny’s Love Baby Booties. I used all one color, so the granny square doesn’t show up well in the photo. (So what else is new, right? Do I ever post a photo without explaining what didn’t show up well? :p )

Then I started on these adorable preemie booty socks. Same color—this may get monotonous after a while for anyone looking at the pictures because I have a lot of this yarn…

I have an account with MyPoints, which is one of those deals where you get points for clicking on email ads and redeem them for stuff. (You can get a ton of points for shopping with their advertisers, too, but I never do that. I just click on the ads and collect my 5 points at a time, and if I’m going to by something at Barnes & Noble’s web site or some other place that they work with, I’ll go through them to get points for it.) Anyway, about every year or so I end up with enough points (2750) to redeem them for a $25 Barnes & Noble gift card. That point came a few weeks ago, and when my card came in the mail I rushed right over there to buy Hip to Crochet and Donna Kooler’s Encyclopedia of Crochet, since I’d had them both out of the library in December and loved them both. Between the gift card, the free shipping deal they had going on at the time and the discounts on the books, I only ended up paying six dollars and change more than the gift card, pretty good deal if you ask me. And now I don’t have to feel guilty about hogging the books out of the library.

Anyway, I spent some of my gift money on yarn yesterday, and I’ve started making the really adorable summer cloche from Hip to Crochet. Mine probably won’t be very summery since I’m using this hemp/wool blend yarn that I found for $1.97 a ball in the discontinued bin at Crafts 2000, which is just as well since I only wear hats in the winter. This yarn claims to be worsted weight, and the pattern calls for DK weight, but I think it’ll be okay because it looks really, really skinny for worsted, more like a heavy sport weight. I’ve never actually seen any DK yarn in person, but I’ve read it’s a little heavier than sport weight, so I’m hoping it’ll work out. If not, I’ll find something else to do with it.

I also got some Red Heart super saver for another throw rug—I’m planning on making one from the Leisure Arts booklet I got a while ago. I finally settled on colors: dark sage, warm brown, buff, buff fleck, aspen print, medium thyme (which is actually TLC Essentials because I couldn’t find enough greens I liked in Super Saver), and eggnog (which is somewhere between off-white and yellow). The buff and buff fleck are the last of a few skeins from my stash; I think I have about 8 oz between the two, so I’m using them in place of the one color that called for 8 oz. I don’t think it’ll make the rug look strange since the pattern calls for three strands (mostly of all different colors) held together, and I think they’ll meld together nicely.

I need a P hook, though, I think. The pattern calls for an N, but when I did a swatch it came out small. Tried with my Crystallites M hook since that’s actually bigger than my N, and that was closer but still a bit small. My Q made it too huge, so I’m going to pick up a P and see how it goes. If that’s too big, I’ll just go with the M and live with it coming out a couple of inches smaller than what’s listed in the pattern.

And I made a sock! And it fits! I’m not going to post a picture until I’ve made the second one. Once I had the first one done, I started procrastinating about starting the other one, so I don’t want to post a picture and give myself more reason to feel finished with them before I’ve actually made an entire pair…