Hallo! Been busy around here… coughing my head off, working, couch potato-ing. Exhausting. Especially that last one.
Thought I’d share these little frames I made a while back. They’re crocheted onto a round form — in this case they’re embroidery hoops that I found at St. Vincent dePaul’s thrift shop.
This is dead easy and takes virtually no time at all. I followed the pattern found here: Mary Go Round crochet flower ring tutorial.
The hot pink yarn is Stitch Nation Full o’ Sheep and I’ve forgotten what the purple one is. I haven’t figured out what to put in them yet… they even look cute just on the wall by themselves. I also thought that if I could find mirrors in the right size and figure out how to attach them to the backs, these would make good frames for those.
Okay, back to coughing and loafing around watching X Files.
Have I mentioned that I’m not a great knitter? Unfortunately, there are just some things that look better to my eye as knit objects. Sweaters and socks, for example. Often crochet socks look bulky and frumpy to me, so I thought I’d break out some sock yarn and see if I could improvise a pair that don’t look like my grandma’s house-shoes.
So there they are. Ugly yarn, but I’m pretty happy with the shaping, and they’re not terribly bulky. I’d probably crochet another pair with some better looking yarn!
Here’s an older project from a couple of years ago. The yarn is Malabrigo lace & the pattern came from a free dishcloth pattern that I just altered slightly to make into a scarf:
Sadly, at some point the scarf got snagged on something and developed a nasty tear. This stitch is so nice, though, I need to make another one soon.
Been a busy couple of weeks… here are some recent projects!
First, this is what became of the singles yarn from the last post:
The pattern came from here: Urban Shells Scarf. It’s really cute, I just started with fewer stitches to get a narrower scarf.
Here’s another scarf in a simple zig zag pattern. The yarn (Mini Mochi) has lovely color transitions and I wanted something to show that off.
And, finally, here’s a neck warmer that I sort of improvised:
I also have a few unfinished projects… more for a later post!
Meet Your Maker, December 2010, Cozmic Pizza in Eugene
Had a nice show today in Eugene. I only sold a few things, but I was able to recoup my table fee and make a little extra, so I’m a happy camper. People were not very interested in the yarn, but I sold three hats. I guess if they’re shopping for gifts, they’re more likely to want something already finished? Some people didn’t seem to get it, or they’d pick up one skein and look at the price and not look at any of the others, though my prices vary widely. Ah well, all stuff to take into consideration for the next show.
I loved the variety of vendors. I purchased a very pretty little fabric wallet from my neighbor (I’ll post a photo and a link to her Etsy in a future post). My friend Megan started selling solid perfumes that smell gorgeous and I FORGOT TO BUY ONE, dammit, but she’s a neighbor so I can fix that easily enough. One of the other vendors tried on one of my hats and it looked amazing on her. I should have offered her a trade or something, it was like the hat was made just for her…. and I’m kind of bummed she won’t be wearing it!
I could easily fill my shopping bag with something from every vendor… I wish I could in reality!
From the perspective of someone just participating – not organizing – this event, I came away with some mixed feelings about the Cozmic Pizza venue. The space was nice (even though the ceiling dripped on me, lol) but man, what’s with the ‘tude? I don’t know, there was a weird vibe in there at times. It definitely would not be a dining destination for me.
All in all, though, a really nice day hanging out with really nice people… and lots of ideas percolating for next time!
My little bio is appearing on the Meet Your Maker blog as of yesterday!
I always feel a bit silly writing a bio, but there it is.
Anyway, after you check ME out (haha), be sure to click on the main page and read more about the other participants of the upcoming show!
Ye gods, I love Malabrigo lace yarn. I started this project thinking to make a scarf. Came up with a nice little stitch motif and went to work, but it was soooo booooring to work on. I don’t know why this should be boring when other things aren’t so much, but I just didn’t like working on it.
So, it decided to be a cowl, what can I say? I am actually quite pleased with it!
My friend Brittany has some gorgeous batts and fiber for spinning in her Etsy shop. She’s seriously an artist. I caught up with her at the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival this year and purchased this superwash BFL roving. I spun half of it just as I normally do, letting the colors do their thing. I then split the other half into separate colors as best I could and tried to spin two singles in order from orange to white to light blue and then the darker blue.
I wasn’t completely successful — splitting it was harder than I thought it would be! But, still, I love the color progression, and I decided to make a child’s crochet beanie:
I really like the way it turned out… I think I will attempt this again in the future!
Last week, a friend sent me a message on Facebook and asked if I’d make her a custom cloche hat to go with a green jacket that she has. She’s in California, so we relied on photos of the jacket and I went in search of yarn.
I found some superwash Cascade 220 and made this hat in “Walnut Heather” and “Apple Green”. The button is coconut.
I mailed it off a few days ago, and now I’m anxiously waiting to hear if the color is complementary to the jacket and the hat fits! ::fingers crossed::
In other news, I’m looking forward to receiving my first set of business cards from MOO. I went with the MiniCards and made two variations (color-wise) of this design:
I can spend hours on the MOO site or on Flickr looking at what people have done with their business cards… they’re so appealing and clever. The back of my card has my shop url and my e-mail address, and I’ll use them as business cards and product tags.
I’m realizing that I never blogged about my kick-ass logo! Negligence! My friend Santiago Uceda created this bit of awesomeness and he made it so that I can customize it to whatever application I need, be it Etsy banner, business cards, avatar… I love it.
Well, I’ve got some cheery yellow Merino on the wheel today that is calling my name, so… I’m off. Enjoy your weekends!
So, at the urging of my friend Megan of La Petite Vie, I’ve decided to make several of these hats and put them up for sale in the shop & at the craft show. So far, there is the blue-green one that I posted about the other day (that I originally made for myself… but we’ll see if it sells), and here is a second one.
Now I’m working on a dark grey and am planning a red flower with a pewter-toned button center, which I might have a hard time giving up, because that’s a color combo I’ve been dreaming of lately!
Update – photo!
Now I just need to figure out the best way to divide time between spinning and crocheting, and whether I should try to make hats with some handspun yarn. I feel like they might be too expensive for anyone to want to buy.
Where does the time go? Weeks are just flying by and I’m never quite sure what I have to show for it by the weekend! Still taking the micro-business class but just changed up which business I wanted to write a plan for, so have had to start over with all the worksheets and the actual written plan. This is SO not my forte. All the research and stuff? I don’t get it. I think because there’s so much guesswork and my stubborn brain wants facts, not empirical data.
… and now I just sat here for 10 minutes thinking about research. *begins to have inkling of time problem*
Need coffee now, byeeee.
Craftgawker
Etsy Mini
