wallpaper Crochet 101

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101 Stitches to Crochet
edited by Erika Knight
Published by Interweave Press.
one of their Harmony Guides

This box of cards featuring 101 crochet stitches was part of my Christmas present from Ed. There is an accordion folded booklet with some basic instructions and visual how-tos for the several basic stitches and their abbreviations which will help me learn to read patterns finally. There is a card with a key to iconic images of stitches and other instruction used in the graphic patterns.

The rest of the cards, measuring 5x6.5 inches, feature one stitch per card with a nice actual size photo of a sample swatch of the stitch on one side and the instructions on the back in both words (with abbreviations) and a graphical pattern to follow for however many rows are needed to complete one iteration of a pattern.

The card I've featured here is of the stitch I chose to use on the baby afghan I'm going to make for my niece in Montana who is due January 7th. I won't get it done in time obviously but I hope to finish by early spring. It isn't a winter afghan anyway. I'm using bamboo thread size 10. I made that bookmark seen there in the middle to practice the stitch and pattern and experiment with hook sizes and so forth.

The stitch is called Interweave and lends itself well to multi-color patterns. I'm going to have fun with it on the bookmarks too. I'm picturing dozens of color combinations that have me mentally drooling as I type.

The pattern you see there in the bookmark is what I'll be doing for the baby afghan. It alternates white with the five pastels: blue, lavender, pink, green, and yellow. In order to get the interesting effect of color on color you must change thread on every row. That bookmark has 23 rows. Which means it had 46 tails to tuck.

I have no idea how many rows the afghan will take but I intend to make it approximately 33X44 inches probably including the 2 inch fringe on all four sides. On the bookmark, when using the size 6 hook which I think I've settled on, I got about 10 stitches to the inch working a row. I got about 4 rows to the inch.

I haven't done the math yet to figure out how many stitches per row and how many rows I'll likely need to do. I'll have to do that in order to know how long to make the starting chain.....

33X10 = 330. 44x4 = 176.

Yikes. How to I keep track once I get past ten chains? I have trouble with that doing the bookmarks that use 11 to 40 odd chain.

Ai Yi Yi.

The bookmark with 13 stitches by 23 rows took me most of a night to work. Of course I was learning the stitch and there was the factor of having to stop and switch threads after every thirteen stitches so I could not build up a rhythm. I guess I'll see how it goes once I start working the 330 stitch rows.

I hope I have it done before the kid starts school!!!!

wallpaper Have a Meowy Christmas

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see more Lolcats and funny pictures

After two days in a row that were go, go, go and full of good-byes and hellos voices chattering in crowded rooms, I'm ready to sit in the stillness and listen to the sounds of breathing.

Don't think I'm complaining. I had fun. I loved seeing all those a get to see so seldom. I was grateful for family, for giving and receiving gifts and hugs, for food and laughter. It is just

time

to

breathe.



Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas full of all possible blessings.

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wallpaper Hoarders R Us

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Ai yi yi.

We; got home from the family Christmas gathering about 9:30 and tho I was exhausted and all I wanted to do was crash on the bed, I couldn't even sit on it until I got it cleared off. It took me two hours and it still isn't done right. Stuff is stuffed in willynilly.

The unmade bed was layered in pillows and blankets, bath towels and clothes, books, wrapping paper and tissue and product packaging and shopping bags and several of my crochet projects and several more loose balls of crochet thread and things I bought for myself while shopping for last minute Christmas gifts this afternoon.

While shopping for my gift for Ed I was also shopping for more crochet thread for two time sensitive projects. One for my Mom's birthday January 3 and the other for my niece's baby due January 7th. Besides four skeins of Sugar N cream yarn for the first and five skeins of bamboo crochet thread for the latter, I picked up two skeins of bamboo and one of cotton for my bookmark projects. I am totally running out of room to store the thread.

Recently I started keeping balls and skeins of thread and yarn in project kits in order to keep some of them out of the overstuffed drawers holding my thread and yarn collection. But now I've run out of room to keep the project bags. And besides it is another bad habit of mine (related I'm sure) to collect projects until I'm so overwhelmed I can't finish any of them.

The project for my Mom is the same one I started a year and a half ago. I was supposed to embroider a sweat pea vine on one of her sweaters that my sister had created several small bleached spots on. I blogged about it several times summer before last. I'd hoped to have it done by her birthday this year (11 and a half months ago) but had gotten discouraged by one issue after another stemming from my not knowing what I was doing. The biggest issue being that embroidery floss does not play well with yarn. The sweater is knit in a cotton sport yarn and I've been trying to find a compatible cotton yarn to work the flowers and vine for over a year now. I had looked at the Sugar N Cream brand before and thought it might work if I could find the solid colors I needed--green and at lest three pastel shades. But all I ever saw were the variegated colors. A couple weeks ago I found the shade of green I needed for the vine. Today I found lavender, rose and aqua.

The bamboo thread I picked up today was to augment what I got in the Joanne.com order last week. At the time I sent for it I thought I had until March so had not ordered enough to complete the baby afghan I had planned for my expecting niece in Montana. I'm still not sure I have enough but by the time I've used half of what I have I will know exactly how much it is likely to take to finish.

I was going to list the Christmas presents I got today but I'm wiped out. I had only three hours of sleep before Ed woke me to get ready for the shopping. I came so close to not going. Ed offered to take me on Sunday instead. That would have been fine for the afghan thread but it would have meant not including my gift to Ed in this weekend's family festivities and that didn't sit well. It has been several years since Ed gave me money to shop for him. Last year he wanted his laptop and the year before it was his MP3 player and though I went with him, he did the shopping and selecting.

This year I got for him. I'd known for months what I wanted to get him too. He had been expressing and interest in getting back into his hobby of bead weaving with seed beads. I got him a beading loom and about ten packages of seed beads covering most of the main colors in the palette. Both brights and pastels. I added a few storage containers since the packages were cellophane and would not hold the beads once opened.hub

He got me another set of headphones to replace the ones he got me for my birthday and which I killed two weeks later on Thanksgiving morning when I let my netbook slide off the bed where it landed on the plug and broke it clean off.

He added to that a USB hub with four ports. I've been complaining about having to unplug the DVD drive or the mouse in order to plug in the printer or camera.

He added to that a crochet stitch guide that is a set of cards in a box instead of a book. 101 stitches to learn.

He put all of that in a cloth 'gift bag' which will serve as another craft bag. It is just like the one he put my headphones in on my birthday only different pattern.

Ed got a set of chocolate brown fleece sheets and a cooling platform for his laptop from his Secret Santa who turned out to be his Sister for whom I had been Secret Santa.. The one I made the shawl for.

I got a set of black Jerzy sheets for the bed, a fleece jacket and a sweater-shirt from my Secret Santa who turned out to be my niece again. The niece who lives locally and is still in high-school. I was her Secret Santa last year.

Ed got 2 pair of jeans from his folks and I got fleece lounge pants and $20 check to spend on thread, beads and ribbon for my bookmarks.

Well. another family gathering begins in twelve hours.....

wallpaper Tick Tock

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tick tock


Where DID the time go?

Gotta get back to work so I'll leave you with a reposting of a poem I wrote over a decade ago when I was frantically prepping handmade Christmas presents at the last possible second:


Coverstory

by Joy Renee

Sorry, this poem does not relate.
I’m running a little bit late.
It’s already half-past eight
And I’ve got still to do
Many stitches times two
And the wrapping of seven plus four.
It’s got to be ready to go out the door
Not a minute later than one.
And I’m afraid I won’t get it done.
If I continue to fiddle
With riddle and rhyme
I am sure to run out of time.
So I’ll have to forgo my remarks
On the silliness of making
A thing for protecting
Worth more than that which it guards!

############

This poem was written in 94 or 95 to slip into the gift bag with a needle-pointed book cover for a paperback which I had been frantically putting in the last stitches on the morning our gifts for Ed's family were being picked up by his brother as they left the Longview area on their way to Phoenix, Oregon.... [the rest of the post]

wallpaper Christmas Gift Exchange... by C.L. Beck

Fun Stuff and Humorous Stories by C.L. (Cindy) Beck

(Also, announcing the Kroger-Chex giveaway winner, below!)

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Hurray, a Christmas present in the mail, addressed to us from our friend, Frank! I opened it and on the Christmas tag inside it read: “To Vance and Beth.”

I narrowed my eyes and looked over at my hubby, Russ, to see if he'd noticed the gift. He seemed happily engaged in watching football, his sport of choice for December. Now was my chance! Since Vance and Beth were friends of ours, I felt certain they wouldn’t mind if I shook the package and listened for money a clue as to whether it was really meant for us or them.

And that’s when Russ slowly turned his head, resembling some robot thingy on Star Trek, and looked at me. He cocked his head to the side and raised one eyebrow like that well known vulture, Spock. Oops. I mean that well known Vulcan, Spock.

“Why are you shaking that?” he said, while taking it from my hands and reading the tag.

“I’m trying to figure out if it’s really meant for us or for Vance and Beth.” I snatched it back from him. Not that I cared if he knew who it was addressed to, but hey, if there was money in there it was mine!

I tucked the gift under my arm and moved out of grabbing range. “I think we need to open it so we know who it’s supposed to be for.”

A slight frown creased Russ’s forehead. “We don’t have to do that. Just email them and ask if they were expecting a gift from Frank. If they were, then it’s theirs. If they weren’t, then it’s probably meant for us and Frank just put the wrong tag on.”

It was a good suggestion, but I wasn’t about to tell Russ that because then he would think he knew enough to run the universe, and we certainly couldn’t have that.

The next day, I sent a note to Vance:

Dec. 10

Hey Vance, good buddy! We got a package mailed to us from Frank with your name on the gift inside. Do you usually exchange gifts, or can I assume this is meant for us? If it’s meant for you, do you want us to open it and tell you what it is so you can thank him, or just mail it on to you, unopened?

~ Cindy

PS: Even if there’s money in it, I’m certain there’s no money in it.

A day later, we received a reply:

Dec. 11

Hi Cindy and Russ: How are my good friends? No, we don’t exchange gifts with Frank. Heck, I have a hard enough time just getting out my Christmas cards, much less exchanging gifts. How about screening my gifts for me and opening it so I can send a thank you to Frank right away. Then you can mail it to me. We won’t tell Frank about the mix up.

~ Vance

I grabbed the scissors and with bated breath prepared to cut the ribbon on the package … when Russ walked into the room.

“What are you doing to Vance’s gift?”

“He said I could open it,” I replied, hiding the package behind my back. Russ scurried around behind me, put me in a headlock, patted my arm and said, “No, you don’t need to open it. Just send it on to him.”

Muttering to myself about what I thought of a Grinch who wouldn’t let people open gifts that belonged to other people, I mailed the package off. Unopened and unharmed, even.

A few days later, another email came from Vance:

Dec. 17

Hi Cindy and Russ: Two boxes arrived in the mail from Frank today. One came from Utah and had your handwriting on it, with Frank’s return address. Which do I open? Oh, I know, I’ll open both and send you the one I don’t want! :)

~ Vance

Ha! That Vance was funny. Sooooo funny. I emailed him back:

Dec. 18

Hi Vance, who used to be my friend: Open my gift and you die!

~ Cindy


Two days later, the original package #1 from Frank came back to us from Vance, and another email arrived from Vance. Since Russ stood next to me as the email came in, I read it out loud to him:

Dec. 19

Hi Cindy and Russ! Get ready to smack your forehead again. Or better yet, smack mine. We mailed back to you the package #1 from Frank … you know, the one that came to you originally, that you shook, checked for money and then sent on to us.

In the meantime, I opened package #2 from Frank and realized that the gift inside had your names on it! I should have opened and looked at it before I sent you back the other one. I’m betting they contain the same gifts—or at least similar—but if you want, I’ll send the one with your name on it to you. I’m sure it won’t arrive before Christmas, though.

It feels like some sort of canned food …

Russ leaned closer to the email. “Canned food? Like green beans and Spam? What kind of present is that for Frank to send? Well, tell Vance he can keep the Spam and we’ll keep the Hickory Farms goodies that are probably in package #1.”

I gave package #1 another shake. It looked a little worse … okay, a lot worse for the wear, having been shipped around the country three times. And nope, still no money. Probably just green beans and Spam. But hey, a present’s a present, right?

I sat down and sent a note back to Vance:

Dec. 19

Hi Vance! I’m pretty certain both packages are the same, so we’ll keep the one we have here and you keep the one you have there, even though the names on the gift tags are wrong. I’m going to send a note to Frank tonight telling him the package he sent to Russ and me came and we’re waiting until Christmas to open it. I’m not going to tell him the reason I’m waiting is just in case another package shows up from him!

Have a great Christmas.

~ Cindy

(Note: This story is based on a real Christmas event. However, names have been changed so that no one thinks Frank lost his marbles. As for what was in the packages … both of them contained identical gifts from Hickory Farms. No Spam, but there was a small canned ham. And definitely no money!)

Wishing all of my readers a wonderful holiday season and a healthy, happy, prosperous new year!

----
Winner of the Kroger-Chex Giveaway: MARI! I'll be sending you an email, Mari, so that you can claim your prize. Thanks so much to all who entered the contest.


------Photo © ByTheBecks, story © C.L. (Cindy) Beck------



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