I may crochet...

I adore crochet. I still need to have out a "How-to" laminated cheat sheet for the stitches as well as my copy ofCrocheting in Plain English. I want to crochet, I really do. I am not going to turn in my needles for hooks, but I see so many interesting things out there and it is just that crochet can do some things that knitting can not. My Ravelry Queue for crochet mostly has toys on it, that's really what I yearn for. That and pretty much anything by Sarah London (I'm really in love with the Wool Eater blanket!) and Attic24 and these stars and the list goes on. I lurked on the Ravelry group for a Potholder Swap, but couldn't figure out what to do quickly enough and I certainly wasn't confident enough in my skills.

Then, I was invited to join The Dazzling Dozen Potholder Swap on Ravelry - here are the details: This swap will place you in a group of either 6 or 12 members. When a group has enough members, a “Featured Member” will be chosen for the month. Each member of the group will then crochet a potholder for the “Featured Member” and send it to them. The next moth, a different “Featured Member” will be selected and they will then be the lucky recipient of either 5 or 11 beautiful potholders. This group will accept members year round and signups will proceed on a rolling basis. As soon as one group of fills up, they will begin swapping and a new group will begin.
Totally my speed.

I have sent on my first potholder to this month's recipient (My month to receive is December). I really wanted to do the Stir Me Up (Rav link) pattern, I ended up confused, so instead went with Disc-Disc pattern by ChickenBetty - the yarn is an assortment of Sugar 'n Cream in the brightest colors I have - yellow, orange, lime green and hot pink. I think it worked.

(Front, "Terra Fuela" Ben & Jerry's pint for scale)

(back)

Close Ups



I have been trying to hold the crochet hook differently and I think that helped. I hold the hook in my left hand and I was a bit stabby with it. I tried to hold it more "pencil" like and I think I can sort-of make that work effectively. I can not hold it like a "knife" because even though I am left-handed I hold my knife in my right hand. It's proven to be a challenge just to hold the yarn in the right hand - my knitting muscles are quite well defined!

Awesome (1000000+)

Last week I received several great packages in the mail.
First off:

I treated myself to the Ravelry mug. Dan rolled his eyes when he saw it, even after I tried to explain the awesomeness of the "disagree" when it's empty and "Agree" when it's full of coffee. I even offered to share the mug with him. He said this was just more reason to keep on planning my "knittervention" (We've been watching "Intervention" lately.) Whatever. I like the mug, just wish it was a little bit larger.

Secondly:



(excuse the iphone lo-quality photos) I got a PhatFiber box. There are fantastic samples - the fudge was fantastic! I pulled out my drop spindle and started playing with some roving I had to get more practice before I try it on some of the fiber samples I received. There are also several great yarn samples as well. I'm sure i'll gush more about those as I get to them.

Over the weekend I finally finished my iPhone Mitts. The yarn is "Bekka" from Ruby Sapphire. Love love love. I really like how the stripes start out wide and then become narrower towards the finger tips. I made mine 13" long, and the thumbs are ~2.5" - I was getting tired of knitting a big ribbed tube, and I can still fold them over just fine. Jackson makes for a great model.


So that's 220 yards knit up which is 0.125 miles in the Sock Marathon.

I still have quite a bit of the yarn left over, so I'm thinking (in terms of convenience) of casting on for a pair of anklets. I think I would have enough for that and it would be sort of "springy" and possibly get me back into sock knitting.

Belated Thank You!

This post is overdue.

I need to publicly thank dragonknitter for inviting me into the world of ravelry. I have spent this week playing with it and OMG it's crazyfun! I've gone back through the blog (and flickr for the times I had it) to load in my projects, queued 39 projects, started to list the stash... It's a lot of fun and once it's open to the world this thing is going to be huge! The inspiration and ideas(easily searchable) are just brilliant!

Thank you again very much - I need to send you the absolutely biggest hank / skein / ball of cashmere and sea silk :)