Chelle taught me to crochet probably two years ago. She gave me a gift with a gorgeous crochet hook, WIP bag and 2 balls of KnitPicks Shine in garden green. It was a lovely gift and I went around in a circle crocheting double and chaining randomly in between. According to my Ravelry project page, I’ve been crocheting this since May 6, 2008. heh…

Well look at me now:

I had no plan, I just kept crocheting in a circle. I did have to rip back several times as I (1) learned to decrease and (2) tried to make it fit my head. Once my circle got too large, my idea had been slouchy hat, and I am proud to have pulled it off successfully.

Then I grabbed some pink yarn — My Strawberry Cheesecake from When Sheep Dream which I won in the Hot Cocoa Swap (round 2) for my Marshmallow Diver. I crocheted the flower from the same pattern as wenchlette’s wedding flowers.

I am really impressed with how it turned out. I did a few rounds of single crochet at the end to create a band. I wore it on Monday and it’s super easy to wear — tuck my hair behind my ears, place it on my head, and the bobby pins above my ears to hold it in place. I’m not much of a “hat person” because of my long hair, so this is the perfect compromise.

As you may know, Henry is a yarn snob. He only fondles fibres with 100% natural content. Therefore, I believed my cowl being knit with Nashua Ivy (50% alpaca, 45% merino, 5% synthetic) was safe. I thought wrong:

Fortunately he didn’t try to kneed or lick or roll in it… but he certainly likes it more than anything acrylic! The pattern (for the knitters out there) is the Herringbone Cowl from Hungry Knitter. [Click for my project page on Ravelry].

Hope everyone is having a nice Whiskers on Wednesday. Henry is napping obviously!

A few months ago, Sara (aka wenchlette) asked us if we’d make flowers for her wedding bouquet in the summer. Sara has asked the flowers to be purple or teal and prefers natural fibres. Of course we all whole-heartedly agreed. We thought it was a fantastic idea! Janel is on leaves (click for her Ravelry project) and last night I whipped out the Cascade 220 I had leftover from my sister’s toque.

See my Ravelry project page for details.

Yarn: Cascade 220, 100% wool, Italian Plum (purple)
Hook: H hook (5.00 mm)
Pattern: none, but I watched this “how to” video

Here’s a close-up of the general design of the five-petal crochet flower.

This is one of two “wrong” flowers. I was inserting the hook into only the back of the stitch for the petals. This created sort of a circle around the center.

These are a couple variations I tried. I’m not impressed with the two-toned one, although it has the potential to be very eye-catching (in different colours).

Last week I told you all about the Knitter’s Festivus Miracle Swap. We had a lovely dinner, lots of fun exchanging gifts, and I had included photos of the FO I gifted to Kyrsten. I have been amiss about posting photos from the dinner as well as my gift from Shelby! Better late than never…..

Shelby knit me this incredibly long scarf (can wrap 3 times around my neck) out of Cascade 220 (I think). I was knitting a secret Christmas gift with Cascade 220 and I swear it is the same colourway! And that is some lovely Scottish Breakfast Tea, I’ve only tried English Breakfast so I have been enjoying this in the mornings.

Here’s a stitch close-up for the knitter’s out there.

And some lovely photos from the dinner:

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Dressew is the best place in town to go if you’re a sewer/crafter, however, the selection of yarn (at $1.99/ball) has always been low-quality. It’s fantastic if you need eyelash, novelty yarn, or acyrlic for your project. But this weekend, rumours began to fly around the knitting community that there was good yarn at Dressew, quality yarn.

Since I work in the same block as Dressew (it takes great willpower), I popped in on Monday to see if it was worth the fuss. Let this photo be your answer:

You make think I went overboard (you’re not a knitter are you?) but for $1.99/ball, there is no “overboard”, there is only good deals!For the knitters who want the details, here are the yarn names and links to my Stash on Ravelry:

• Nashua Creative Focus Worsted [brilliant blue]
• Nashua Creative Focus Chunky [turquoise]
• Nashua Handknits Wooly Stripes [light blues] [blue-purple]
• Nashua Handknits Snowbird [teal-grey stripes]
• Nashua Creative Focus Kid Mohair [purple] [fushia]
• Nashua Handknits Ivy [pink-sparkle] [purple-sparkle]

These yarns are all wool, alpaca, mohair… quality fibres. They also had superwash wool and other great yarns. I haven’t heard of Nashua Handknits before… but I’m not complaining! Now… off to look at my faves and queue some great patterns in Ravelry!

I just got back from the lovely Festivus Dinner for our Terminal City Yarn Wranglers‘ swap. The idea, dreamed up by the amazing beentsy, was essentially that as knitters, we often give the knitted gifts, but rarely receive. So gather the knitters together and have a loverly swap!

“This is your chance to GET something handmade instead of always being the creator the handmade gifts. Now, keep in mind, this a small item swap. Perhaps a cowl or mitts or socks, or even a scarf. We are not here to knit you a humongous shawl. Sorry ‘bout that. So, a small item and then maybe some candy or chocolate or some other little gifts.”

I toiled and troubled (as well all know I’m a slow-ish knitter). I knit through cat-maulings and missing stitch markers… nothing stopped me! Well, sorta. I was knitting through class today trying to decide how long to make the lovely Darkside Cowl in sooooft Mirasol Sulka. Yumyum this was a dream to knit! I did finish on time, here are some choice photos. And for those on Ravelry, the project page.

Here is the complete package I put together: Darkside Cowl, Vogue Knitting Stitch-a-Day 2010 Calendar and chocolate-covered orange peels from Roger’s Chocolates. And here is the happy recipient, Kyrsten and another Yarn Wrangler, Meg.

Before the Knitter’s FOtoshoot, I managed to finish up my red cowl! Yaaay! Now I just need a grey coat (my current Autumn coat is turquoise). The red of the Cascade Luna yarn is very true in the first photo. Kinda too pinky in the second photo (based on my monitor).

And yes, that is purple in my hair! I dyed it again over Thanksgiving weekend. I needed my colour!

Once again (I feel like I’ve updated about this damn cowl so many times for such a small object) the pattern is the Quickie Cowl.

Those of you following my Twitter or my Flickr might already know that last Sunday we Terminal City Yarn Wranglers had a photo shoot with our FOs (finished objects). This was certainly the first of many because it was a huge success. There were cameras going off in all directions and I even brought the tripod. Take a look at our new Terminal City Yarn Wranglers Flickr pool or my personal Flickr to see all the lovely FOs.

A couple knitters commented afterwards that my photos were really good quality (yay!), but there were so many FOs that I was glad to not be the only FO-tographer (like my puns?). Here are some of the funnier pictures that resulted from our shoot:

Janel makes lovely faces while showing off Tammy’s shawl

Sexy Nadia… work it! work it!

How you dooooin’?

More silly Janel faces

Boob shot!

Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret Sara!

*SQUEEEE* so cute!!

Ninja Cowl!

Okay, so this one I was trying to photograph the tam… but look at the BACKGROUND!

Too funny!!

Purdy smiles or just more funny faces :)

Chelle and Faye!

Rawk on! Sara and Erin sittin’ in a tree!

Us all taking a photo OF a photo! I had to use my cell phone camera cause my real camera is on the tripod taking this photo. Heheh (This is the only picture where you can kindasorta see Hilary — she and Tammy are the only ones who never modelled anything)

I have a lot of Mirasol yarn in my stash, and I often pet it and wonder what it will become one day. I have four skeins (in two different colours) of Mirasol Miski, and one skein of Mirasol Hacho. Then last night, I finally cracked open the Mirasol Sulka and cast on.

OMG it feels like a dream! And keeping even tension, it looks like a dream! Although it feels lightly under-spun like it has no twist, so it often ends up splitty… but still OMG purrrr. Speaking of purring, Henry helped me photograph the progress on my cowl:

The pattern is the Quickie Cowl and the yarn is Cascade Luna. The red of the Luna is quite true in this picture, at least on my monitor. Okay so this isn’t the most up-to-date photo, but Henry and I were too tired to take another. Basically I just kept knitting until my yarn nearly ran out, and all that’s left is to mattress stitch up the sides. We’re planning a knitting photoshoot this weekend… so hopefully I’ll have some lovely photographs.

For Christmas a couple years ago, I made my dad felt clogs from the Fibre Trend pattern. They were freaking monsters! Check out my Ravelry project page to see a picture of them with my cat for size. Well according to my mom, when he opened them on Christmas morning, he was so excited and Ooh-ing and Ahh-ing. Then he put them on and basically has worn them every day since. Awww!

I used plastic paint intended for tool handles to add traction to the bottom. Here is a picture of them from my post back in October 2007:

Wow! How time flies. I could have sworn I made those for him last Christmas… but the blog archives don’t lie! Here are some photos of the bottoms of the clogs two years (!!) later:

I have seamed them up and darned the holes as damage control. It’s not pretty, but it should hold:

Also, dad is going to get more of the plasti-dip paint to reinforce the bottoms. I am planning to make him a new pair for his birthday in April (not enough time for this Christmas). He’s requested navy this time, and I’m going to get the suede-bottoms that Fiber Trends sells to reinforce them. Let’s hope this pair can last until the next pair is done in April!!