the little happy dance

I have finished my contract piece (drum roll, please). I was beginning to think I wouldn't;) I have to admit, I never tackled a whole suit to crochet. But I do know what I would do differently if I did this pattern again.

1) Rewrite the pattern to suit the way I crochet and comprehend a pattern. I ususally copy the pattern I'm working on and make notes as I go along. This time, I didn't. I should have read the pattern and broken it down - I'm the kind of crocheter when it says "increase 2 pats for next 10 rows", I need to know what my starting number is and what is the final number. I know, sounds silly, but there you are.

2) Use whatever tool is available. When I need to mark a spot in a pattern, Iusually use a different coloered scrap of yarn. I don't normally use stitch holders except to hold pieces of a pattern together, but I definitely needed to use them on this pattern to keep track of what I was doing. It has been a very long time since I cut a pattern from cloth and made and article of clothing. Crocheting the suit is a similiar endeavor, you definitely have to know what piece is supposed to fit where and a stitch holder is good for that. I found the "normal" stitch holders, the ones that look like large diaper pins worked okay.

3) Plan, plan, plan. It never occured to me that it just wouldn't come together quickly. It also didn't occur to me that other aspects of life would go on - illness, work, household emergencies. I _know_ you can't plan for these things, but I should have been more mindful of what time was available to me.

4) Keep in contact with your boss. I was fortunate as the woman I dealt with was quite nice and understanding and generally available to answer whatever questions I had. But I probably should have told her earlier that I wouldn't make the deadline. I just thought if I worked at it a little harder, I'd finish in time. But it goes back to #3, the "plan" part. Some things came up I had no control over.


That's about all I can think of today. I will send it out tomorrow, priority & all that good stuff. I took a break of about an hour (after weaving the ends in) and picked up another hook and began the next project - the "fun fur" scarf my younger sister wants me to crochet for a friend. That, I am happy to report, is coming along well, though I did take it apart a few times. I always have a bit of trouble switching hook sizes - the "fun fur" requires a larger hook than the suit did.

That's it - time for me to go to bed and give the wrists a rest.





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quickie gift idea

Nope, not my original. But it's Noreen Findlay-Crone's, so that makes it cooler (IMHO). It's for a heart you can make into a pin or perhaps a bookmark. M's Findlay's blog is also good reading.
so check it out:

http://www.hankeringforyarn.com/

I've heard a few shops are having a big sale this week - Joanne's is having a big yarn sale today, December 10. A.C. Moore (http://www.acmoore.com/Newsletter/newsletter_12-10.htm) is doing a special 30% off sale on Tuesday and Wednesday (30% off all regular priced purchases). Nope, I don't get a kickback from anyone I've mentioned but I would accept one. Like most politicians, I can be bought;)

enjoy your day

*whew*

Wow, I hadn't realized it's been that long. Between having my extended family over for Thanksgiving on the 18th & than doing a family Thanksgiving on the 23rd, I really haven't had time to post.
I am still working on my contract piece, it is going slower than I thought, but any project goes slower than I think it should go;) I'm the time that would pick up the "24 Hour Projects" book and figure "oh, it will only take me eight hours;) " I must think I have flying fingers.
Outside of that project, not much of anything. I did venture out to Michael's on "Black Friday" for their sale. No, I was _not_ there at 6am. No_way_! I'm not saying they didn't have good sales, but not for me.
They had rearranged the Michael's I normally shop. There was a lot less yarn there, which was a disappointment to me. I was looking for something a bit different, sort of like Lily's "Beadit" (I think it's called that) but no luck. Of course, I did buy yarn. I bought some Matrix, which was on sale for $2 a skein. Good price. And I also lucked into some Lion Brand Watercolors. That was in the sale bin. I bought 2 skeins, $2 a skein. I never have purchased this yarn before and now it's being discontinued! It's lovely yarn, bit I don't remember seeing it at Michael's prior to this visit. I really did luck out as I only had 1 skein of 1 color and was hoping for a second skein but couldn't find one. I stuck my hand in the bin, digging for something else and found another skein of Watercolor in the same color. *woo hoo* Now I want to go to every Michael's in the area looking for more Lion Brand Watercolor. It's a shame I don't have any yarn;)
But _why_ are stores downsizing the yarn departments? I was in A.C. Moore and it was the same situation - a lot less room for yarn, a lot more room for fake flowers and all the slightly different yarns were gone. I thought crocheting (and knitting, as they allege) is the "new yoga". So if it's so popular, why downsize the department? Are that many people shopping on line? I do occasionally shop on line for yarn, but nothing beats that tactile sensation of petting new yarn. That's when it becomes an impulse buy, it's so soft and so pretty, I just don't resist it. Online shopping is great if you know you want Bernat yarn, exactly the color and style, but petting Bernat Boa in person makes me want to think of a project for it.

I don't have any clear cut projects for Christmas. I've got yarn for a scarf as a project, maybe a stocking, but nothing concrete. I want to finish the piece I am working on before I start another project. That's unusual for me, but there it is. I got a lot of cool crochet books for my birthday, when I have a chance I will skim them and give a bit of a review.

I hope your crocheting is coming along fine and the cat did not eat your pumpkin pie.


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scraps and scrips

Probably like most of you, I've been trying to get ready for Thanksgiving. The cooking part I can do just fine, but I am a bit of a pack rat, so cleaning up the house takes a bit longer for me than it probably does for most people;)
I was working on a gold and burgundy scarf for my sister. Around here, that's considered Redskins colors. But it's also the Harry Potter colors. I was zipping along when I noticed that the scarf began to narrow. Apparently, I had forgotten how to crochet a scarf;) Oh well. I did rip it out but I doubt I will start it again. She doesn't really take care of her stuff and I thought "why am I putting all this effort into this scarf?" Plus I made her a similiar one last year, she doesn't seem to wear it, so why make another scarf?
I am currently working on a contracted item. I have not been as careful as I should have been about checking the pattern against what I was doing. The problem this time was the item _grew_. Maybe I need to take Crochet 101. Or maybe I just need to pay attention to what I am doing instead of fretting about how it is turning out.
I visited Joann Fabrics today. (no, I don't get a kickback from them.) I wanted some soft eyelash in an offwhite color, but I couldn't find exactly what I wanted. I had hoped since they were having a sale on their Sensations yarn I could find what I wanted. But no luck. Of course, that didn't stop me from buying yarn;) Get real. Sure, I got 20 or so people coming over for dinner on Saturday night, I still have lots of housework to do and did I mention I haven't even started prepping the food or even making a grocery list?
*sigh* Too bad there isn't a Yarnaholics Anonymous, but that probably wouldn't work. "Hi, I'm Robin and I haven't purchased yarn in 3 hours, but before that I was at the yarn store and they had the _best_ sale. I'd still be there but I had to come here." And almost everyone there would start saying "where? Did they have that chenille on sale? What about the cotton with the beads on it already?"
Plus the meetings would probably be right next to a craft store, so it would be worse than having a Baskin-Robbins next to a Jenny Craig location.
Outside of that, I haven't worked on much of anything. My brain feels like mush by the time I get home from work. I forget to put anything in my bag for the ride to work because my brain feels like mush. I'm not too sure what's going on, whether it's the time change or what, but my brain has been mushy of late.
mmm, maybe I should go to bed, maybe that would help the mushiness....

time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana

*whew* How did I get to October 26 already? Absolutely no clue, but I think work has been sucking out my brains (or whatever I have that passes for brains).
I did put together a lot of the little granny squares and made a lapghan or maybe a colorful baby afghan, mostly in pinks. Right now I don't have any idea of what to do with it, so PussyFoot (our only female cat) has decided it belongs to her. I am a little surprised - she generally prefers to sleep on items made out of more expensive yarn.
One item I made was a kimono style jacket from Lion Brand yarn -
http://cache.lionbrand.com/content-crochetPatternIndex.html
but of course I decided to change the type of yarn used, as well as other fundamental parts of the jacket. I had constructed it so I could wear it thru the relatively mild winters we have in the Maryland area. (I'm thinking mild as compared to Colorado, not mild as compared to Florida - plus I was having my own personal sauna going on at the time.)
Well....it was _too_ heavy to wear comfortably and it actually wasn't as warm as I had thought. I hadn't calculated the wind chill aspect and it didn't work out as well as I had thought. It was great when the wind wasn't blowing (if you skip the heavy part) but not otherwise.
For quite some time. PussyFoot or my younger son slept with this jacket - sometimes both of them at once;) I decided to put it away to deconstruct it at a later point. Much too heavy and much too expensive for a cat blanket.
Now who do I get to blame for my mistake? Lion Brand, for writing the pattern - I did (sort of) follow their pattern. Well, _no_ not Lion Brand. It's like making a cake, but instead of using butter, you using cooking oil, instead of flour, you use corn meal and instead of granulated sugar, you use confectioner's sugar. You don't get a wonderful pound cake, you get a huge mess. This is because you didn't think the project all the way to the end. And that was my fault with the jacket. I loved playing with the different yarns, and I did like the way it looks, but it wasn't going to turn out to be quite what I was trying to create.
I'm not saying you should never try different yarns or styles. Just think about it a little longer than I did. I spent a lot of time making it, but very little time actually wearing it. I used _double_ the yarn to make the jacket warmer, but all it did was make it too heavy to wear comfortably. And while it looked good to me, I made the mistake of mixing fibers that could not be cleaned in the same way. So now I got a heavy jacket that has to be hand washed and laid flat to dry. Where that flat surface in my house is, I don't know (the ceilings?).
I should have made a scarf first, just to see if the fabric I created would perform the way I wanted it to perform. PussyFoot would have still slept on it, but I wouldn't be thinking about the investment of time I made. But I learned to make a smaller project first, just to test out the pattern and fabric, so that was something cool. And I learned PussyFoot and my younger son have French champagne tastes on a generic near-beer budget. (Like mother, like son).
And I also have a project to unravel at some point in the future. Sometimes that's a therapeutic project for me. So I'll hold off on it until I feel I need that type of therapy.

later



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catching up

I thought I'd give you a look at another one of Beatriz's doilies. She sent this to me out of the goodness of her heart. Again, the picture does not justify the doily, but short of visiting everybody that wanted to see it, this is the best I can do.

Here's her web site for more of her beautiful work:
http://undisthreadness.blogspot.com



I'm still putting together small granny squares. It goes quickly while watching tv plus it makes me _really_ want to finish what I am doing so I can start something else. I was waiting for 2 people to tell me what exactly they wanted crocheted, but I'm tired of waiting and after I finish up this batch of granny squares, I'm going to do something else - anything else;) I'm still working on baby caps on the ride to work every day.
I haven't increased my yarn stash (yet) this month so far, but I also haven't been to Michael's or A.C. Moore or the local yarn shop Cloverhill in Catonsville. Again, the operative word is _yet_. I would guess when I am faced with the temptation, I will give in. Who am I trying to kid -"I would guess" - I know I will give in, why else would I go to those stores;) I'm not really a window shopper anymore, I did a lot of that when I was younger. It was fun then, but I feel a severe lack of time (like everybody else in the world) and it's just not fun for me anymore. I will _look_ and_pet_ the yarn - I did that at Wal-Mart the other day when I was there, but somehow managed not to bring any home.

Anyway, enjoy Beatriz's lovely work

the upcoming worldwide yarn shortage;)

Obviously, it _has_ to be coming. Just one look at my closet stuffed full of totes with yarn in them is the obvious clue. I wouldn't just be hoarding this yarn, would I? The aliens must be planning to land and somehow destroy all the yarn manufacturing plants. I will be prepared because I will have plenty of yarn. I could probably insulate my house with this yarn, but it would make it difficult to get at easily. I tend to be an archaologist when it comes to my yarn and I like to dig thru the totes (or bags).
And I got at least _4_ afghans started, in various stages, in bags. One is a granny square type, using Caron's purple varigated yarn. That seems to have been dropped midstitch. The hook is still in the afghan, there's no effort to have slipped a stitch holder on it, so I can only guess the aliens were going to attack and I wanted to be ready.
The truth of the matter, more likely, is I was doing some cleaning for family to come to my house and I just bagged the project up to get it out of the way. I also have a ripple afghan project that I started to be able to show my cousin how it was done. I still haven't shown her (she lives in VA and I live in MD.) There is a huge stack of granny squares from an exchange I was in. At least those particular squares are on a huge stitch holder.
As you can guess, I've been doing some fall cleaning. But one thing I can tell you - if there's a shortage of almost any type of yarn, I got it covered. (I don't have too much of the more expensive stuff, however. But if you want acrylics, I'm your woman.)
I have at least _6_ skeins of Red Heart's Mexacali. Now I _love_ that yarn, I'm a fool for varigated yarn, but what were my plans for it? A colorful afghan or poncho, maybe a strange toy. Nope, I just bought it on sale. At least, I _hope_ I bought it on sale;). Lion Brand Homespun - got that, too in some lucious colors. I could easily make a few scarves and hats with that for gifts. Lion Brand's Wool-Ease, Red Heart's "Soft" and Bernat's and Paton's....okay, I'm sure you get the point. Surprisingly (to me), I don't have as much of the baby yarn (Jamie, Red Heart, etc) as I thought I did, but I have been working on baby caps. I even got the self striping sock yarn I wanted to make a scarf with, just to see how it stripes, but I haven't gotten around to it. I wonder how that would look as a baby hat?
It wasn't always like this for me. I spent a lot of time taking apart a project and redoing it, not out of a desire for perfection, but due to a serious lack of yarn. I would got from week to week buying the yarn, hoping there would be the right dye lot and color to finish the project. Once, at Woolworth's, I bought 100 skeins of yarn (when Woolworth's was going out of business), much to my younger son's embarassment. They were selling the sport weight yarn at 10 cents a skein, so it was very easy to buy 100 skeins. I've used most of that up over the years, but I still have to laugh when I think about buying all that yarn. I bet Paris Hilton doesn't have that big a thrill when she goes shopping;)
I'm not quite sure of what all of this means. I'm trying to organize what I got so I can make better use of it. It's a pain in the butt for me to know I got that green yarn, but where in the heck did I put it. I wish I had been born more organized instead of so darned cute;)
I'll continue working on it and hopefully finish up some of those works in progress. I have a jacket I made for myself that seems like it would work in the planning stage, but the execution didn't. It's much too heavy to wear for any length of time. This is entirely my fault as I used two strands of yarn while crocheting it and the pattern called for _1_ strand of yarn. Good in theory, but didn't quite turn out the way I wanted it to. I am debating if I want to take it apart or not - and that would give me *shudder* more yarn. Maybe I should practice the statement - "My name is Robin and I am a yarnoholic".




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