It's a race to the finish.....

I subscribe to a number of newsletters and blogs.  One of them, CrochetMe by Interweave, caught my eye the other day.  The dvd that was being promoted was by master crocheter Lily Chin, demonstrating Mosaic crochet.  I decided to watch the preview and just about dropped my teeth.  Lily Chin was talking to the camera, crocheting as she did so and she never looked down.  I've never seen anyone's hands move that fast with a crochet hook and yarn in them!  You have to watch Lily Chin's preview video .........see what I mean.  It's ridiculous!  Now, Lily is reported to be one of the fastest crocheters in the world and probably produces finished projects at a remarkable rate.  Good for her!

I would love to spit out baby blankets, scarves and all manner of crocheted items like there's no tomorrow.  However, I kinda like the process as much as having the finished product.  I can't imagine enjoying crochet if my body was moving that fast.  Besides, can you spell 'carpal tunnel'?!  I guess Lily has to do that because she has so many things to accomplish in the world of crochet and knit she doesn't have time to stop and smell the roses as it were.  Me, well I'll sacrifice a little speed in order to savor every last stitch that goes into my work......how about you?

PS - You know that baby blanket I'm working on?  Latest square count:  57 done, 5 in process!  Just re-figured what I need and that would be a total of 81 squares.  I should take some cues from Lily Chin if I want this in the mail in 2 weeks!

Weddings and Babies......Babies and Weddings

I've finally entered the period in my life when my children's friends and my nieces and nephews are getting married and having babies.  Color me excited because, as a crafter, I now have a legitimate reason to pull out patterns and buy new yarn!  So far this year, I need to make two baby afghans and a full size afghan for a wedding gift.  While that may sound daunting to some, I find it absolutely exhilarating.

Gift giving for baby showers and weddings has certainly changed since my generation was in the thick of getting married and having babies.  Back then, gift registries existed, but mostly for the purpose of ensuring your china collection would be complete.  We spent a lot more time choosing gifts and many times the gifts were handmade.  I have always given handmade gifts, mostly because I really enjoyed doing it.  These days, my gift may be the only handcrafted gift in the bunch.  Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to be a gift snob.  But I do hope the art of crafting something worthy of being passed down is not a dying one.

The first blanket needs to be finished in about a month.  I choose a granny square from the Leisure Arts booklet "99 Granny Squares to Crochet".  Here's what it looks like:

The yarn I'm using is Plymouth's Dreambaby DK, quickly becoming my go-to yarn for baby blankets.  And, I can get it at my favorite local yarn shop, The Knitter's Edge.

When all of the squares are assembled and the chocolate brown edging made, I'll take a final photo and let you see the finished project.  I might even include the pattern!

Snow Days

The weather has been pretty ugly here lately and a lot of snow days have been called. You would think that would mean a lot of crocheting. Sadly, no. But that doesn't mean there hasn't been some going on!

One of my goals for the year is to design a scarf each month. I have aKees books that contain instructions for crochet, knit and cable stitches. I usually pick A stitch pattern that fits the yarn I have and go to town creating a new scarf.

My first scarf of the year is crocheted in a butterfy stitch which creates a pattern by simply repeating the same two rows throughout. The yarn I chose I bought at the Fiber Arts Yarn Shop in Watkins Glen, NY, a beautiful chocolate brown and green camel hair yarn. It's a delicate DK weight that has a beautiful sdrape in this stitch.

I'm excited to finish the scarf so I'll keep you posted. Happy crocheting!

PS - I haven't finished the sweater yet :-P

Crossing the Finish Line

I had an epiphany today. I hate to finish projects. What, you say? That's impossible. No, not really. Here's the story....

I love starting new projects - the challenge of a new pattern, the feel of new yarn in my hands. What I love even more is the repetitiveness of the stitches and the movement of my hands. Knitting and crocheting are stress relievers for me. I don't pick complicated patterns for that very reason. It's not because I don't have the experience to tackle them. The fact is, I truly enjoy what other people would find mindless. It's my drug of choice (well, wine might fit here too!). When I've finally finished all of the stitches, my brain tells me I should be done. Unfortunately there are yarn ends to tuck in, seams to sew up, trim to create. And, sometimes that can take almost as long as it did to actually make the parts.

Look at this picture. It's a sweater for my grandson but it's not finished. I had a blast knitting all the parts. I even got one shoulder seam sewn and the neck band knitted. Now I have to sew the sleeves on, sew up the side seams and tuck in all of those yarn ends. Seriously, do you see how many yarn ends there are? Yuck. It'll get done but it's gonna be a struggle for me. But, I certainly will be proud when it's done and he's able to wear it!

Maybe someday I should hire someone to do the finishing for me. That would solve my problem, right? Well, sort of. I wouldn't have the satisfaction of truly finishing a project - a scarf, a sweater, a pair of socks. That's simply not acceptable to me. So, I guess I'll just have to cross the finish line myself!

The British are Coming!!!

I guess when the colonists left Great Britain and decided they needed to change things, it went all the way down to crochet terminology.  Who knew?!  It seems that all of the familiar stitch names - single crochet, double crochet, etc. - all mean something different in the UK.  Or, they're called something else altogether.  What's an American girl to do?

I troll the magazine shelves of my favorite Barnes & Noble, specifically the crafts section, on a regular basis.  The last time I was there I found a new magazine called "Inside Crochet".  (Even the magazine is the wrong size - those silly Europeans!)  I instantly fell in love with the projects and special feature articles. I've already nearly completed a scarf, the likes of which I've never seen before.  The Europeans just seem to have a flare for style and now I've discovered what they can do with crochet.

Crochet, in my estimation, used to be the ugly stepsister of knitting.  Only grannies did it (well, I guess that fits me now) and all you could really do was make granny squares.  An oversimplification to be sure but with knitting one could make all manner of creative and beautiful pieces.  That is so not the case anymore.  Designers have figured out the crochet possibilities and what can be done with all of the beautiful yarns available.  I think knitting is still the go-to hand craft for a majority of folk, but crocheting is catching up fast.  I couldn't be happier!

So, back to the British.  Trying to read the pattern for this scarf was a challenge at first.  I had to write in the names of the stitches so I wouldn't mix up their double crochet with my half crochet.  And then I realized that the pattern reads in a slightly different way.  How American patterns are worded is slightly different from the British version so I had to be careful not to make a mistake, especially at the ends of rows and when turning.  Expert crocheters know that turning and making an even edge is one of the hardest things to do in crocheting.  It didn't take me long, though, and I am well on my way to completing my beautiful scarf.

If you love crochet like I do and you'd like to broaden your horizons a bit, I highly recommend looking at "Inside Crochet".  I plan to make it one of my favorites.

Happy British crocheting!

Saga of a Finished Project

I just finished my first knit baby blanket!  Now, mind you, I've made many, many baby blankets over the years, but they've all been crocheted.  It was really different, knitting instead of crocheting.  For one thing, because the stitches were smaller, it took a lot longer to complete.  For another, it was so easy to make mistakes.  I had to pay attention ALL the time!  That beautiful blanket is riddled with mistakes and corrections.  The beauty of the lace pattern is that all of those mistakes and corrections are hidden (unless you're really looking for them).  While, at times, it was frustrating, the lack of perfection was rather liberating.  And you have to admit that I've created a one-of-a-kind, completely unique blanket!

This baby blanket was for my son and daughter-in-law who are expecting my first grandchild - oh, wait - their first child.  As far ahead as I planned, I still ended up finishing it at the last moment, the eleventh hour, literally midnight of the night before the baby shower.  It happens to all of us.  Admit it - you know it does.  Why is that?  Do we pick a project that's too involved?  Does life interfere with our valuable crochet/knit time?  I suspect it's always a little bit of a lot of reasons.  Whatever it might be, I don't think we would be true to our crafts if we didn't live by the last minute finish.

Now that the blanket is finished and the gift is given, I feel a certain emptiness.  I reach to pick up the blanket and it's not there.  What do I do?  Well, I can resume work on one of the other projects that are in process.  It will require a mindset shift but I think I can do it.  What is my next project(s)?  You'll have to tune into future blog entries to find out!

Back to stitching for now,
Madame Stitch

Feeling lopsided

I knew this semester was going to kick my butt.  And, I knew I wasn't going to like it.  So here I am in the middle of it and I'm not very happy.  However, with the huge snowstorms this week and a few activities checked off the list, I'm enjoying a bit of a respite before the rest of the insanity.

Thankfully my knitting/crocheting hasn't taken a break, although I'm not doing as much as I would like.  I have one baby blanket finished and delivered.  Now I'm working on 2 more, one of them being my first knitted blanket.  It was hard at first and I totally screwed up the pattern.  You can't really tell I made mistakes, though, and I'm on track now.  It's a lot slower than crocheting and there's a good possibility this won't be done by the baby shower.  But, nobody ever seems to have a problem with that when they finally receive that unique handmade gift!

I have to pick up needles or a hook every day.  It seems that's the only way I can stay in sync with the universe.  It's scary how settling that simple repetitive motion of my hands can be.  The feel of the yarn and the wonderful things I get to create motivates me.  I guess you could call it an addiction.  I'm sure I'm not alone.  I get tweets multiple times a day from a friend who is hard core about her knitting.  She even spins her own yarn - what's that about?!

I guess I better stop writing and get back to work on that blanket.  Oh, and by the way, a little chocolate and coffee makes the knitting go faster.  I think that's been proven by some study somewhere :-)