CAL with Wink - Marinke Slump Bag

As if I needed another project to start.  But I did.

 

I decided to join in with the Marinke Slump Beach Bag CAL with Wink from A Creative Being Blog.  We are using THIS PATTERN.  It's free!  And, tho. I LOVE the yarn used in the pattern picture, I wasn't able to get that yarn as it was on backorder, so I settled for using some stuff from my stash - good idea, right?

The pattern is easy, repeated rounds using a stitch that looks like crocheted knitting.

I guess it's a good thing I took this to my neighbor's knitting group on Sunday afternoon as I was the only Happy Hooker, aka crochet gal, in the group and at least it LOOKED like I was knitting.

After the knit group, the weather was still lovely out, so I decided to sit in the front yard and continue stitching.  Inside the house was the loud shouting and cheering of World Cup Soccer fans.  My hubby had moved our TV to the back screened porch and the kids and friends and hubby were all cheering along with the games.

I have to admit that I did set down my project every time they got really loud and ran in to see what action I had missed.  We have all been soccer players in this house, so we can appreciate a sport that is less popular in the USA than it is basically everywhere else in the world.  Tho. it seems that during World Cup, even soccer has a lot of fans around here.  All good.

I used a combo of yarn, all dk weight and a 4.0mm hook.  Some of the yarn was knitpicks CotLin and the other was Cotton-ish by Bernat which is a cotton/acrylic blend.  I somewhat followed the color scheme in the photo, but I am using one additional color (orange) and each of my color stripes is 7 rounds.  The color stripes in the pattern use 9 rounds.

I do plan to line the bag and put pockets on the liner.  I'm not sure how I will like the drawstring closure and I love handles, so I may have to make two handles for the bag.  We'll see how it goes.

I planned out the yarn for this project in hopes that I would sit and crochet while my son attended the freshman summer orientation day at his college:  Shippensburg University of PA.  However, I read a book instead - it was a quickie and cute, I'll be sharing that soon.

So while my son and a high school friend who will attending the same university got introduced to their college and registered for their fall classes, I read in an Adirondack chair under a tree on a lovely breezy day - not bad.

TATA for now, Sher

Pitt Coasters - a College Gift

About a month ago, I crocheted some coasters for my son and his friends at the University of Pittsburgh.  Pitt's colors are dark blue and gold.  I had to improvise on some of the coasters with a bit of yellow but I prefer the color scheme of the gold.  The coasters were a request from his friends.  They are reportedly well-used on the coffee table in the dorm room.  Although no step by step pattern is shown here, any basic circle or square shape could be used with a bit of cotton yarn in collegiate colors to create the same sort of gift.  Enjoy the inspiration!  Sher

A Crochet Christmas

There was a LOT of handmade stuff going on at our family Christmas this year and MUCH of it was crochet!  There were also a lot of really cool DIGITAL gifts.  I've posted about it on my other blog HERE.

Are you ready for the big reveal?

These little crocheted cork toys are so cute!  I got the idea off of Pinterest.  Do you follow me there?  If not, click here and choose follow.

I got the idea for the Cork Warriors HERE.  And you can click HERE for the gnome babies.

Next up:

 

I used THIS BUNTING TUTORIAL but I made the triangles bigger by continuing in the same pattern for several more rows.  I also outlined each triangle in white with single crochet and added letters hand cut from felt and attached to the bunting with a very strong fabric glue.  I also stiffened the buntings with a product called StiffNQuick.

 

And there's more (yes, I was very busy making - and I was loving every minute of it!):

 



I began this stool cover using a pattern from Made in K-Town. Here is the link to the pattern post.  I started with the spring mandala and when I ran out of pattern, I just continued it on my own, making up stitches as I went until the stool was an appropriate size.  To make the stool "tuck under" and stay on the top, I decreased a few stitches in eachof the last 3 or 4 rows until I could just squeeze the cover over the stool seat.  After that, it just stayed on tight on it's own.

Not done yet...

 

I made two pillows for my daughter.  Each side of each pillow is a different pattern so she won't get bored with them.  I didn't write down the patterns because I was kind of making it up as I went along.  The pillow on the left is done in linen stitch in rows.  It's basically sc, ch 1, sk 1, sc, repeat and then the next row, sc in the ch 1 space and ch 1 over the previous row's sc.  There are a lot of links on the web for how to do linen stitch.  The pillow on the right is basic granny squares in a join as you go method.  I used the join as you go by Lucy at Attic24.  If you crochet - I'm sure you know her but here is the link to her process.

Here is another page showing the flip side of the pillows:

 

The back side has a patchwork chevron pattern - more work than it was worth.  I actually made triangles and sewed them together to create the chevron pattern the way you would a quilt - then I did big cross stitches to highlight between the rows.  The other pillow back is a variation on the linen stitch using 2dc instead of 1sc, but performing a similar pattern.  The pillows are totally crocheted closed, so they aren't removable without cutting the joining row of crochet to take the two sides apart.

 

Still not done (in fact there will be some crochet projects I can't show you because I forgot to photograph them both before and during Christmas!):

 

 

 

 

I was REALLY pleased with the way these hats and scarves came out.  There are two sets and one set was made for each of my college boys.  In the photo shown, they have switched their crocheted items.  They each gave one another a tee shirt representing their college, so they thought it would be funny to switch the gifts I made for the photo.

 

The hat on the right is called the brain waves hat and it was an AWESOME pattern and free too.  In fact the designer has other patterns I really liked as well.  I found the pattern on Ravelry.  Here is the link.

 

For the scarf on the right - the wavy one, I started out making THIS PATTERN (also from Ravelry and FREE) but after a few rows, I went on and did my own thing which worked out quite well... I added some fringe before I ran out of yarn.  I believe that yarn was a wool/acrylic blend that I picked up at JoAnns.

 

For the hat on the right I played around with two patterns and kind of combined them.  They were also both from Ravelry.  ONE is here and THE OTHER is here.  Of course, I didn't write down any of my variations as I had a lot of gifts to make and I was kind of taking it as it went.

 

Here is another shot of me modeling the items on the left:

 

 

Yet more!

 

 

This scarf for my sister was a great pattern.  I used this pattern to teach my beginning crocheters at the adult school course I taught this past fall.  She looks really cute in the pink.  Here is the link to the pink scarf pattern.

 

Here I am modeling the pink scarf since the photos I took of my sister were a bit blurry -

 

 

 

This Christmas, everyone got into the crochet action and here are some things my daughter crocheted and gave as gifts:

 

 

My daughter Sydney crocheted the scarf for Anna and made up the scarf pattern herself.

 

 

The crayon melt pictures are all over pinterest, but adding the crocheted touches was my daughter's idea.  Aren't these awesome?  And she managed to make these gifts while working two jobs and attending grad school.

 

A few final Christmas crochet items from me:

 

 

My aunt got a book mark (they are easy to mail).  I sent her the ripple one.  For the ripple bookmark, I used the ripple blanket pattern by Lucy at Attic24.  Get that HERE.

 

The granny square bookmarks are ones I just made up - one went to my daughter and another went to my German daughter (Katrin, who lived with us as an exchange student). 

 

The striped scarf bookmark went to my 6 year old nephew, Quinn, who is currently reading the Harry Potter series.  I thought it looked like a Gryffindor scarf!  I didn't use any pattern for that - it's just single crochet for 3 rows and then switch colors.  I did sc around the entire outside edge and added fringe to one edge however.

 

Finally, if you remember a few weeks before Christmas - I gave a little sneak peek of my holiday wreath.  Well, I haven't written up all the patterns but most of them I either found on pinterest and can be accessed through this pinterest board or I found photos of and figured out the patterns on my own - and again, I was so busy and rushed I didn't write them down - but many of the patterns were very cute so I may want to make them again - and in that case, I will record what I do!  The teeny tiny stars as well as the holly and red berries are again from Lucy at Attic24. You may be familiar with my other crochet wreaths in this series... I made a summer wreath and blogged about it here (which I entitled spring wreath but eventually felt it was more summery) and also a fall/autumn wreath which I simply LOVE! 

 

Here are the closer up and also the final results from my Christmas themed crochet wreath.

 



 

 

 

So I hope you liked my little walk down crochet lane at my Christmas house!  Did you notice that my photos of the crochet projects are digitally scrapbooked?  Did you also notice the beautiful Nordic papers that I used?  You can purchase the digital nordic artwork for use with my awesome Creative Memories Storybook Creator software package HERE or you can purchase universal Nordic digital art for use with photoshop or other digital scrapbook packages.  Happy Hooking for the Holidays!  Sher