WIP Wednesday: What was I thinking?

That't what I'm calling this, this thing that someday will be a blanket, a lap blanket.  Right now it's about the size of a large doily.

What was I thinking?


 Because what was I thinking about when I started a new blanket  knit with sock yarn on 3.25mm / US 3 needles?  When I still need to weave in the ends on this mother of a blanket?



See ends



My Crazy Blanket, as I fondly call it, fits my queen size bed.  It's made of wool so maybe I don't need to weave in the ends.  I can consider it extra insulation.  Right?  If I do weave in the ends there are several.  Let's see.  It's 18 mitered squares by 18 mitered squares. So I knit 324 mitered squares over the past two years.  So with an average of 2 ends per square that's 648 ends to weave in.  But wait there is more!  Some of the squares have more than one color. So lets add an extra 10%. So there are about 712 ends to weave in.  So if I did 2 a day starting now I could be done by the end of the year.  Yah, right a girl can dream.

Not to say that I don't love my big warm Crazy Blanket.  I do. I love that it's made from leftover stash yarn, yarn I dyed myself some of it with natural dyes and some of it with acid dyes and some with food coloring, my handspun, and yarn I inherited from my mom's enormous stash. So it's a bit of a fiber journal that keeps me warm on a cold winter night.

So What Was I Thinking will be similar.  I'm using up leftover yarn knitting socks and even some sock yarn I don't want to knit socks with.  I have some undyed sock yarn that I just might dye to add to it to.  Quite a bit of it is left over of my mom's sock yarn scraps.  My mom knit lots of socks.

So that's my WIP (Work in Progress) what's yours?

WIP Wednesday: The Fibonacci Poncho

Fibonacci inspired that is. So the poncho starts with 13 rows of yellow then 8 rows of dk brown, 5 rows of blue, 3 rows of brown, 5 rows of yellow, and so on back up to 13 rows then down to 3 rows.

 

But it was too big. Sigh, knitterly denial bites me in the but again. Rip it, Rip it....



Frogged and all balls of yarn are marked to which section of the sequence they belong and how many rows to knit with it.  I'm most proud of myself for this. It's called organization.  It satisfies No. 2 on my uberlist. 

 

 So all I need now is a glass of wine and some Deep Space Nine reruns and some company on the couch or not and knit this thing!

It's a Whoo

But she's not from Whooville. She sure looks sweet in the Whoo Hat I crocheted up for her. This is the same babe I made the Frog Blanket.

You can find this pattern in Not Your Mamma's Crochet. I used the Red Heart Soft that I used for the Frog Blanket: Lt blue, Teal, Dk Purple, Lavender and Lt Green.

For the joining round I only joined in the 3dc of the shell (or the middle one) that made the most sense to me.

Java Jammies

Java Jammies keep coffee warm but not your hands! I've had some great comments on the one I've made when I use them in public. One of the cashiers at our healthfood store thinks they are great and says I should sell them there. I don't know about that but maybe someday. If I don't count on gettting rich I could be a bit of mad money at least.

Take at look at my Java Jammie Gallery:


It's an owl. Since we all know drinking coffee can keep you up all night. I used Plymouth Boku from Infinity Shawl.


Shell stitch and Plymouth Boku lefotvers.




More Plymouth Boku and what's called a griddle stitch: dc in sc and sc into the dc. (US terms)


Alpaca leftovers from my Spiral Shawl.


This was made from red heart scarps and one I get the most comment on when I use it.

V Stitch for Me Stitch Hat

Made from left overs from the froggy blanket for my nieces little one.

I used an US I hook (5.5 mm) and Red Heart Soft lavender, dk purple and teal.

Stashbusting Hat, Scarf and Mittens

I've been busy crocheting, hunting for bento boxes, and playing pokemon with the kids so I haven't had much time for blogging.

My stash busting has been my biggest crafting distraction over the last few days. Yesterday, I finished weaving in the last of the ends. Oh my, there were a lot of ends to weave in! I love the looks of it not to mention I used up over 8 skeins of Knit Picks Merino style wool at the same time. Colorwise this was a big stretch for me, but I think it turned out well.



I posted pics of the project on crochetville and someone asked for some tips to make their own.

Mittens:

I adapted a pattern from Hip to Crochet



These turned out a bit bigger than I'd like so I need to reduce the number of stitches or use a smaller hook if I make these again. I think they will serve me well for the most part.

Scarf:



I started with a foundation chain of 26 and ended with 24 stitches across. Really you could start with any number of stitches. Then I varied the patterns looking through Encyclopedia of Crochet, 63 Crocheted Blocks for ideas, and just my own memory. I chose not to use fpdc stitches because I wanted it to lay flat and not have an obvious wrong side or right side. I didn't worry if the patterns didn't work out balanced. If needed 2 dcs on one end and one dc on the other that was fine with me. I did do some frogging to make the patterns work out nicely or if I missed stitches. So a skinnier scarf would make that more painless.



After weaving in ALL the ends I added fringe. If I had more yarn left I wold have added curlies instead.


Hat:


I crocheted the hat vertically. The base row of hat had 16 sts across. I started with dc stitches on the right moving to hdcs then sc at the end. On the return row I would do all sc or scs moving to hdcs, this gave the hat some shaping so when I sewed the hat together and finished the top it was less gathered the top. On the hat I really played with cable stitches. I would wrap it around my head when I thought is was large enough, if not I added a few more rows. When it was long enough I fastened off leaving a long tail to sew the sides together with the right sides together.

To close up the top of the hat I first sc around on the right side, then did sc decreases around in a spiral until the top of the hats was finished then fastened off and wove in the end. I'm not completely satisfied with the look of the top of the hat. If I make this kind of hat again I might sc across before sewing then sides together and gather the top together. Alternatively I could crochet a circle and sew that to the top.



I made a rolled brim for the hat. I started with sc around on the wrong side of the hat, then did at least 2 row of hdcs, you might want to do more so the wrong side of the had doesn't show. Then I did a few rows of fpdc changing colors and finished it off with a shell stitch. I haven't done it yet but the hat could do with gentle steam blocking to make a sharper crease where the rolled brim begins. You could also end with finishing row of sc or hdcs on the right side of the hat.

Good luck making you own own colorful stash busting set.