Yarnification

After lots of struggling with the picots, I finally finished the Prairie Star doily. I’m still having a tough time blocking doilies, but I seem to be getting better at it. I need more pins, though. I put about 300 pins in this thing. I think I have another two boxes of 50 each, but I definitely cannot block the Pineapple Squares Thing with only 400 pins if this doily took 300…

(Pics are clickable for full-size.)

Thought I’d put up a photo of the doily in its home in a corner of my bedroom, too. Don did the flowers a while back…

That’s all for now. One of my cats, Kittycat, is sick and at the animal hospital, and I’m leaving soon to go visit him. He should be coming home tomorrow. The vet says he’s pretty much better now, but since he had a urinary blockage and his bladder got all huge, he wants to keep Cat there with the catheter in for an extra day to make sure his bladder gets back to normal, or something like that.

Thanks for the comments on the hiking photos :) I still haven’t finished writing up my account of the trip, so it may turn up at some odd time in the next couple of weeks. I’ve got a lot on my plate right now, but I still need to take little mental health breaks here and there throughout the day so I read blogs and write a little and read message boards during that time. I tried cutting myself off for a couple of days and I was getting nothing done by the time the day was half over; I’d just feel all frazzled. So I’m using my timer again, setting it for half hour of work, then ten minutes or so of play.

I’ve seen this in a few people’s blogs and decided I needed to make one because it’s just too cute. (And while visiting the blog whose author wrote the pattern, I found someone else to add to my bloglines list!)

Photo (someday I will learn not to photograph dark items against a dark background, but apparently today is not that day):

It’s done in Bernat Handicrafter, warm brown, used up most of one ball. The pattern is here: Winged Hair Kerchief, and I think you really ought to make yourself one because it’s super cute. I’m thinking I may make one out of thread; I figure I’d be able to use the same pattern but just keep going until it’s the right size. I have most of a ball of green thread that I think would look pretty done in this pattern.

Is it just me, or does hearing the word kerchief make you automatically want to reply “Bless you”?

I may make a flowerdy thing and attach it on; I like what she did with the one in photo with the pattern. If I ever quite get the hang of tatting, I think a group of little tatted flowers would look good on there. (If, that is. I’m close to having the hang of tatting, but just when I’m moving right along and think I’ve really got it this time, I start screwing up again. But I’m still working at it…)

This was the first time I’d ever attempted bullion stitches, and you should’ve heard the cussing until I got the hang of it! I think I was wrapping the yarn too tightly the first bazillion or so times I tried it because the hook would go partway through and then get stuck, and at that point I’d have to give up and try over because once it got stuck, even if I eventually got it through there’d be a big mess. (Whew. Longest sentence ever.) Anyway, I caught on eventually, and by the end of the part with the bullion stitches, I was only screwing it up about once out of every three times. Are they supposed to be that hard, or am I just a doofus?

I’m also still working on the Prairie Star doily. It’s coming along, but I haven’t been working as steadily at it as I was. Just needed a bit of a break from it after all that frustration and frogging, though I’m back on track now and am probably within two or three rounds of the end. (Woohoo!)

I also still need to block the Pineapple Squares Thing. Don brought in the giant slab o’ cardboard from the garage, and it is now taking up a big chunk of real estate in the mud room. I need to cover it with waxed paper before I can use it, and it’s so big that I’m thinking I may just wait to do any blocking until the Prairie Star is done and block them both at once.

I do not know where I’m going to store this cardboard behemoth when I’m not using it (right now it’s blocking off the countertop island thing in the mud room and all the little cupboards underneath it), but it’s definitely nice and big! Unless I lose my mind and decide to make a bedspread out of thread or something like that, I can’t think of anything I wouldn’t be able to block on it.

So. Long time no post. I’ve been meaning to post for days because I actually have finished projects. I keep flaking out and not having enough time, though. But here I am. And it looks like I’ve got a long-ish post to make up for lost time. I promise to try posting more!

First, more recent news. A very kind Crochetville Fairy Godmother suprised me the other day! Don came home from the post office with a box. A box from Herrschners, with my name on it! At first I was confused because I hadn’t ordered anything from them, but while I was opening it up it dawned on me that it was an RAOK package. Lookie what was inside:

(click for full-size images)

Inside there was a gorgeous pattern and all sorts of yarn: Red Heart Holiday in blue, rose, and red/green; Caron Sayelle in white and off-white; and Bernat Handicrafter Cotton in ecru, pumpkin, warm brown, citrus fruits print, and seashore. I am a very happy camper!

Thank you, fairy godmother! You totally made my day!

I also have some thread FOs that I finished up probably last week but haven’t posted yet. The first one is Angela’s Cornflower Bookmark, though mine is definitely not a cornflower what with it being yellow and all. (Again, click for full-size; I’m trying to get in the habit of using thumbnails for bigger pics…Pattern info should be there on the gallery page at the link, too.)

And here’s one I’ve been working on for ages. I kept getting away from it to finish the afghan and other projects I had going on, but then recently I buckled down and got it finished. This is the first doily I’ve made, and it’s the most complicated thing I’ve ever tried to block. I do think I messed up the blocking some and made it look weird in places (now, I did make a couple of mistakes along the way, but they were pretty minor things; mostly the reason it looks odd in places is that I didn’t do a great job of blocking).

So I plan to wash out the starch and have another go at blocking it. I could use the practice at that, anyhow!

Right now the major thing I’m working on is the Prairie Star doily from freepatterns.com. I’m at the end of round 24 of 27, but when I got to the end of the round, I found that I’d made a mistake somewhere. The whole round was v-stitch in chain space from the previous round, 5 dc in next chain space, lather, rinse, repeat, but when I got to the end I ended on a v-stitch instead of 5 dc like I should have, so I ended up with an extra chain space in the previous round somehow, and who knows how many rounds I’m going to have to frog to get it right. I’m going to need to take a good long look at it to try to figure out where the problem is and then start frogging. Ack.

In other news, tonight I’ve been trying to teach myself to tat while I’m minding the cash register. I’m using a homemade shuttle that I made by printing out a printable tatting shuttle that I found on BellaOnline since I have not actually gotten around to buying a shuttle yet. (Bad me—I had 50% off coupons for Joann’s that were only good on Friday and Saturday but didn’t make it over there…)

So I’m using this shuttle made of cardstock and instructions I found here (this one has been more helpful because it has left-handed illustrations, too) and here.

And, erm, it’s not going so well at the moment. I mean, I know it’s going to look awful at first, but there’s awful and then there’s awful. I think I’m doing something wrong. Not sure what, though. I have two books at home that explain it though, the Reader’s Digest Complete Guide to Needlework and the Good Housekeeping New Complete Book of Needlecraft, so between the two of them I should be able to figure it out. I may just need to stare at some different illustrations before it clicks. A real shuttle probably wouldn’t hurt, either, since the cardstock one is a little floppy and tends to get a bit tangled in the thread (probably because I don’t fully know what I’m doing!)

It can’t be too hard, though, right? Just need to practice until I get it right. I’m trying it out with #10 thread, figuring that would be a whole lot easier to learn on than the #80 thread I found at the flea market. Once I get the hang of things I want to make some itty bitty flowers.

Or maybe I’ll get impatient and crochet them :->

I’ve been on a headband spree. Here’s a photo that shows all four of them, with a little better detail than the pics I came up with for the the first two. It’s pretty wide, so I’m just putting up a thumbnail. Click to see the full-size version on the gallery page:

(I promise the full-size version is not as horribly dark as this thumbnail is.)

I made another one of those headbands last night. This time I managed to get a photo where it wasn’t on my head already.

It is so nice not to have my bangs hanging in my eyes!

I guess I haven’t posted much at all this past month or so. I’m doing ok now. I was having a hard time for a while there, feeling pretty depressed and having some difficult things going on in my life as well as being pretty busy, and between those things I just didn’t have the energy to do much crocheting.

But I’m feeling a lot better this week. I had a good weekend, and it’s kinda rubbed off on the rest of my week. I’m trying to cope better with my personal stuff. And I really don’t mean to be all vague and cryptic, just not sure how much of what’s going on is wise to go into in public. But I am okay, nobody’s sick or anything like that. I’ll probably post about it before long.

Anyway, on a lighter note, I’ve been having a bad hair day since approximately January, when I decided I was going to grow my bangs out once and for all. I’ve tried to grow them out at least once a year for probably the past fifteen years; I got bangs cut maybe sixteen years ago and immediately regretted it. But I get to the point where they start to annoy me, then I chop them off.

This time I’ve stuck it out for four months, and I’m determined to stick with it until they’re grown out. I am sick and tired of having bangs. I have curly hair, and my bangs don’t curl the same as the rest of my hair, which means that half the time (even after taking a large-barrel curling iron to them to make them straight-ish and curl under a tiny bit) I end up looking like I let a chimp, or maybe a toddler, do my hair that morning.

Growing them out it’s gotten even worse. The bangs are now at the point where they hang in front of my eyes—that oh-so-fashionable sheepdog look—and it is highly irritating. Curling them under doesn’t work, they’re too short to push off to the side with the rest of my hair, and they curl at weird angles, and I just generally hate, hate, hate them.

So I made a headband. The pattern is from volume 2, issue 3 of the Crochet Me newsletter, but I couldn’t find it on the web site anywhere. If anyone wants a copy, I still have the newsletter, so I can forward it if anyone’s interested.

It’s on my head today, which complicated taking a photo of it (and I didn’t have the camera at home last night when I made it). I may take another photo later when I’m not wearing it. But here’s me, wearing my happy headband:

I haven’t been crocheting a lot the past week or two. I’ve worked some on the cuff of that sock, but it’s still not past the cuff stage yet.

Just to show that I haven’t forgotten how, though, here’s a coaster I made. I’ve made two so far and will probably make four of them all told.

(The shadow across the coaster is on purpose, believe it or not. The lighting in here was making the color look screaming neon yellow even without the flash, so for once my bad photography is intentional…)

The pattern is Janelle’s star coaster, and the yarn is leftover Peaches ’n’ Creme in yellow. I think I’m doing something slightly wrong because of the weird loopy bits in one round, but I’m not all that bothered by it. This one came out better than the first one, so maybe by the time I’ve done a few more and used up the last of the yellow Peaches ’n’ Creme I’ll have gotten it right.

First, I finally have a photo of the afghan. It’s a little big, so just a thumbnail here—click for the full-size version.

Lena is supervising there in the corner of the picture, and Don is being very kind and standing on the stairs holding the afghan while I take a bunch of pictures (some with the flash on, some with it off, because you can never really tell with this camera).

Yesterday I found the perfect curtain fabric on sale for 40% off. I was deeply terrified that I’d end up screwing up $20 worth of fabric, but I got the first set of curtains done and I don’t think they look too bad. (I got them to drape much better after I took the picture, so I may come back later and replace this one with a new one.)

Not too awful considering I’m pretty much a novice at sewing. Just one more set to go for the other window.

And of course instead of finishing up any of my WIPs I just had to go and start something new. I had some sock yarn just begging to be made into socks, so I got started on a new pair of socks the other day. So far I’ve got about a third of a sock done. I’m using the In Your Shoes Ankles Socks pattern from Crochet Me again, but this time I made the cuff a bit wider (and also didn’t make it too loose this time!) and I’m doing the rest of the sock in hdc and it’s working up pretty quickly. I meant to take a picture of the partial sock to show off the colors in it, but I forgot to bring it with me today, so maybe tomorrow…

I finished up the comfort pack last night. I heated it up to try it out as soon as I finished it, and my neck was a very happy camper indeed.

The buttons really don’t look quite that wonky in person. If there were a Worst Photography Ever award, I’d definitely be in the running for it.

And now it’s back to the afghan. Last night was the first too hot for the comforter/not warm enough for just a sheet night, and since we opted for just the sheet I woke up early this morning and drove Don crazy for an hour or so trying to crowd him and steal body heat before I finally gave up and got the comforter.

Here’s the floral arrangement that Don made for the foyer here at work. (See, I knew he’d be good at it!)

The metal thing in the background used to be part of a daybed. It’s hung on the wall out there at the entryway to the store, and Don’s been dressing it up for whatever season/holiday it is. Then we came to this part of the year where there starts to be not much going on in the way of holidays, and it looked awfully empty sitting there by itself, hence the floral arrangement. We’ve also put a few smaller, pre-made ones in hanging baskets out there, and there are enough supplies left for another basket, too. Brightens things up a lot.

In other news, I’m somewhere between a third and halfway done with the comfort pack cover, and I made the inner pack last night. I hadn’t gotten out the sewing machine in some time, so I was very proud of myself when I was able to thread the machine without bursting into tears. Honestly the thing I’d forgotten more than how to thread the machine was that it weighs approximately three tons. It’s a mid-70′s (I think) Singer Fashion Mate—runs great but very, very heavy. I did need to look at the manual, but I got it right the first time and didn’t spend half an hour wrestling with the bobbin thread. My seams are not perfect, but I made a serviceable pack of flax seeds that looks okay and smells all lavendery. I’m hoping to finish the cover today or tomorrow and then get back to work on the afghan.

And I only had to fish one flax seed out of the innards of the sewing machine!