Wool Hurts

Oh my poor fingers. Oh. Oh. Ow. Oh. Yes, this is the first time I work with wool. I think I need band-aids.

So I found a UFO in some bag in my closet. It's a very early project:. I can tell because the sides are uneven. Because it's stripped I didn't want to frog it. Doing so would give me a few inches of yarn of each colour. Also, I think (THINK) it might have been a scarf but I did it in Caron SS and Red Heart together and holy shiitake, it's HEAVY! So, I decided to turn the mystery project into yet another bag. It came out better than the first, if I do say so myself. I just hope it's not too heavy to carry!

I'll post pics of it tommorrow.

Also, I am currently making little crocheted monsters and aliens. Plus, I picked up the knitting needles again. More on that tomorrow. Right now, I'm heading to bed.

Charities

I'll be making a few things for charities and my first project will be a piggy for Brendan.

After that I'll make a few squares for Heart Made blessings. I'm afraid I'll screw them up somehow or something. But it'll be for a good cause and I'm sure it can't be that hard. no need to make it an impressive square either. A regular granny works fine, right? Right!

I've been very blessed and while my childhood has been...rough I guess, the generousity of other made growing up in the bronx a pretty good experience overall. I'd like to give some of that happiness back now.

Two more things to add to my WIP list. I blame Crochetville. Yes I do <3

My Empire For A Needle

Seriously, you heard it here first folks! I will give my entire empire* to the first person to get me a yarn needle or anything else I can weave in ends with.

My agoraphobia has really been on the fritz lately and all the LYS/craft stores are far from me. And I don't want to place an order somewhere just for a yarn needle. Sigh. I need to find somewhere to get one. Any ideas? I miss the plastic one I used to have. Sadly my aunt took it with her when she moved to Florida so now all my current projects have little ends sticking out or worse, *gulp* KNOTS. Oh heavens no!!

So I say again: My empire and my love to the first person who has an idea.

Note: My empire consists of 3 crazy cats, 2 dogs, 2 fish, 3 birds, 1 turtle, a few scraps of yarn, a copy of Edward Scissorhands, some beads, and all the cool crafts seen on this blog. Republicans need not apply (HAH! Kidding, kidding!).

Meredith Necklace (WIP)

Meredith Necklace

I'll take a better scan (the chain twisted in this one) and give a description when she's done. She looks better when actually on someone. I think she's a beauty.

The Granny Square

My First Granny Square

*Wipes tear from eye* You go out and buy yarn and then it grows up and gets all square on you. I'm so proud. *sniffle* Seriously though, I think it came out quite nice for my first square! It probably would have come out a lot better if I had used instructions but I'm a rebel. I don't conform! Anarchy!! FIGHT THE MAN!

Ooo muffins! *chomps*

Yarn I received today:
From Sandra:

• 10 skeins of sport weight wool in a dusty green colour (3377 yards)
  
• 20 skeins of Cleckheaton 5 ply sport weight wool in a bright green colour (1600 yards)
  

From Ginger:

• Chenile yarn in periwinkle/purple (120 yards)
• Merino yarn in a moss green colour (240 yards)
• Unknown fiber in a buff colour (60 yards)
• Wool yarn in oxford grey (240)
• Rayon crinkle yarn, bright white (240 yards)
  

All in all I spent 27 dollars (that includes shipping). Man, I love buying yarn...and eBay. Couldn't do it without eBay. I like buying small amounts of yarn for my secret project. Yeah, the SECRET project. The project I'm going to spill now to my wonderful readers:

I'm crocheting curtains! Freestyle curtain! Not an exciting to you but it's exciting to me. See, we're moving to Florida in July and I am looking forward to changing my room around. Right now it's very zen-like: all purples and silvers, lots of stones and plants, a meditation table...
All that stuff is great and will likely stay but this time I want COLOUR! My walls will be blue so I want some nice, unique curtains to go along with it. So yes, freeform curtains are the way to go. Maybe I'll even make a granny square bedspread for when it gets cool. *ponders*

Oh and I must apologize for my stupidity. A few days ago I made a long entry and blogger ate it. When I reposted I forgot to say Thank You to Mantler from Crochetville. She sent me a gift certificate to Adagio Teas which just made my day. I still haven't used it but only because I don't know what to buy! If anyone has any favourites or suggestions let me know.

I just found out I have 6 subscribers to my blog. :D *waves* Ya'll come back now, you hear?

Finger Crochet

How to Finger Crochet/Knit

Now I'm sure everyone knows how to do this. The instructions will probably be more confusing and complicated than the actual task. :-p Still, I'm going to try to explain it as best as I can.

Basically you wrap the yarn around your index and middle fingers in a figure 8. Truly this is finger knitting because you pull the older, lower loops overthe higher newer loops...but I like crochet better so there!

Also, this looks best with thicker yarns or two or three strand worked as one. I'm demonstrating with Caron Simply Soft for clarity.

1) Place the loose end of the yarn on the back of your hand. The end connected to the skein will be in your palm. The yarn should be between your middle and ring finger.

***

2) Bring the yarn up and between your middle finger and index finger

***

3) Wrap the yarn around index finger. The yarn will now be between your index and middle finger. You now have one loop around each finger.

***

4) Bring yarn over middle finger so that it's lying in your palm again.

Repeat above steps (2 and 3) so you now have two loops on each finger. The loose end should still be at the back of your hand while the end connected to the skein should be in your palm again

(view of back of hand)

***

5) Now here's the fun part! You'll be working looking at the back of your hand now.

Pull the bottom loops (the ones you made first) up and off your finger.

(see the lower loop?)

(pulling the lower loop over the top one)

(and pulling it completetly off the finger. YAY!)

***

6) Repeat the steps to make another loop on each finger. As always, the loose end should be at the back of your hand and the end connected to the skein should be in your palm between your middle and ring finger.

Repeat the process five times or so. Now take the loose end and bring it down to your palm. Give it a nice pull so the end tightens a bit. Continue finger knitting until you get the length you desire. It should look like this:

Now, that doesn't look like much but when you use a nice thick yarn (or more than one strand of worsted weight) you get a nice looking thick chain. Make a few chains and tie them togerther in random places (or don't tie them at all) to make an ultra cool scarf.

To finish a chain, pull it off your fingers. Knot it at the top and bottom with an over-hand knot (I usually do two to make sure it doesn't come apart in the wash or anything). Trim the ends.

Tigger modeling my Finger Knitted scarf I call "Floozey"

This scarf is made of five chains. Each chain is made up of one strand Lion Brand Terryspun (discontinued :( ) and one strand regular worsted weight yarn (forgot the name but I'm 92% sure it was Red Heart).

Hope you found this tutorial easy and fun. I wrote this up at 2am so I might be unclear. If you have any questions or comments, comment here or email me at JESilfa @ aol.com.

Anastasia Scarf

Anastasia Scarf

Not much to say about this one. It's hdc with rows of 2 kinds of unknown yarn. Beautiful yarns though...and it's soo soft. *Sighs* This is one of my favourites folks. My mother borrows it to use it as a belt. Argh!

ETA: Drew the Crochet Dude (who's super awesome) asked me what kind of yarn it was so I looked it up. The pink edging is a hand dyed nylon yarn called Mountain Lullabye. It's basically pink with soft touches of lavender. The center yarn is Cascade Rio in #244 (pink).

My First Granny Square

I did it! I made my firstever granny square!! SQUEE!

It wasn't easy at all. Well, it was after I did my first but I'm the dumb ass who refuses to follow directions so I only skimmed the pattern and went off to my room to do it on my own For all I know what I made was a variation and not a standard/traditional one but still...it's a friggin' square! SWEET! My friends tell me I'm working backwards. I don't think so. It's perfectly acceptable to make hats, scarves, bags, jewelry and throws before learning to make granny squares. Silly friends...

My mother wants to frame the granny square hehe. I actually ran into her room last night and woke her up just to show it to her. She told me she was proud. BTW, my mum doesn't crochet at all...she's more of a hammer and nails crafter and leaves the fibers arts to "you girls." :p

In other news I am so excited about the secret pal swaps on Crochetville. I'm already making a list of things to send my pal. It'll prolly change once I get their name and interests but I like making lists. It keeps me nice and organized.

I'll post a picture of my first granny square sometime today or tomorrow. Oh and Brandon, if you're reading this, an email should make it's way through cyberspace to you sometime today. :)

To Follow Patterns Or Not...

I have a confession to make: In my three years of crocheting I've only followed patterns about 3 times. I hate patterns! Well no, hate is a strong word. I think I just tend to rebel against them. I like crocheting one of a kind things. I like just making stuff up as I go along. But lately...well lately I've been aching to find a good easy pattern and just follow it. I think the true test of whether I'm a good crocheter or not will be if I can follow a pattern.

I understand patterns just fine, I can do most crochet stitches (even if I don't know any of their names haha), they just never appealed to me before. Well dammit, I'm going to try. So this is where my fellow crocheters come in:

Recommend a good pattern to me. I would prefer it be something relatively medium or small (in other words, not a king size afghan) and something I can make with regular acrylic yarn like Red Heart or Caron. If you do, you'll get to see my oh-so-funny progress. Expect to see posts on my blog like "What the hell does that mean??" "5th row? I only have three rows! Ahh crap!" "What the hell is a single crochet stitch?? Oh...oh. I knew that."

This is going to be oodles of fun.

Finish or Frog It!

Ladies and Gents I am taking the UFO pledge.



No more
UnFinished Objects lurking in my WIP box!
No more
"What the hell was this going to be?"
No more
Crackers in bed!

Um...okay that last one has nothing to do with UFO's but it's still a good thing to stop. *ahem*

Fellow crafters, crocheters, knitters and crackers-in-bed people, say it with me now: No more, no more!