Fiber Monday

 

In Which Progress Is Being Made...
Slowly

It never fails to shock me how long a rectangle can take to come together in crochet. I've got more added to the pouches since last time we chatted, but most of my time has been taken up by making a stab or six at a dragon companion.

At first I wanted to make this fellow, and I still love him a lot, but he's rather... big. And I have very limited supplies. Instead, I'm going to try to make this little beastie. My first problem is this: I only had 1 shade of purple worsted weight yarn, and it was very dark. I wanted that for my dragon's body, but some variation would be very nice, so I went hunting in the yarn piles for another purple.

A sample of my basic purple, partly worked into a soon-to-be frogged star blanket

Now, I could not find a second shade of purple. I only have the one dark color, and I needed some sort of contrast.

I found no acceptable yarn in ball, cake, or tangle form.

What I did find, however, was a lovely handmade sweater from my mother's mother with a disastrous pick in the front, a size or two too small for me, and in a shade of purple that, while lovely, makes me look unwell when I wear it.

So I found one of the knots inside the seams and picked it free.

And now I've frogged the entire right front panel of the sweater and caked that panel into a usable ball!

As you may be able to guess, there's a lot of sweater left to frog

I will be balling the yarn from this sweater and also from a nice red fair isle sweater she gave me that has a moth hole and a few missing buttons. Both are acrylic, so I will be able to reuse the yarn for plenty of different projects. For now, the purple sweater is becoming a dragon's tummy.

Working from a video is not particularly easy, especially since I'm bad at going back & forth, keeping up with instruction, etc. Also, Chrome likes to make YouTube forget where I was in the video so I have been writing down what round I'm on.

I don't have progress pics of the worsted version of this dragon yet, but when I do, you'll all see them!

For now, I've got some old episodes of America's Most Wanted and a cup of chamomile tea to keep me company as I dismantle more of this poor old sweater.

I hope you guys are having a good time working on all of your projects, and I hope you

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

In Which I Finished A Whole Project In A Week!

Today I finished working on a pouch I started last week! Do you remember the green yarn I was winding? It's 100% wool, very green, and looks great as a pouch with a bit left over!

It's 25 stitches across by 30 rows on either side

I kind of free-handed the whole thing, to be honest

And I'm really happy with how the loops turned out!

This pouch is designed to be hung from a belt and is big enough to fit a cellphone, a wallet, or even a small paperback book. It wouldn't be too hard to add a strap - just attach said strap to the belt loops, or sew it to the sides!

Would there be any interest in a written pattern for this? I did a few interesting things with front post single crochet, one loop only single crochet, etc.

The button is from an enormous jar of buttons given to me by a friend, and I'm thrilled to be able to use these buttons at last!

This took a while to crochet, but I think I could probably make these for sale (especially if I made them a little smaller or out of a less itchy yarn). If anyone's got any suggestions for what it would be worth, I would love the ideas. If I used a local wool that I trust (from Nash Island Yarns), a skein is about $28, and the heaviest weight my local shop carries is light worsted/DK, where this was a worsted weight. It could be... pricy to recreate unless I took a bus to the mall-wart and bought a $3 skein of their acrylic. That would lose a lot of its character, though.

And yes, that is a new link in the sidebar for commissions - I'm opening art commissions (among other things)! Feel free to take a peak and reach out to me on Twitter or Instagram!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

In Which I Have Not Made Much

After finishing the Blue Shawl last week, I took this week off of really working hard on anything. Instead, I decided to finally wind a large hank of worsted wool yarn from Romaxe. This aged skein came from a bag of yarns my grandmother gave me!

As you can see, this is a very old skein

Most of the yarn I got from my grandmother was acrylic or in very small tapestry hanks of around 25-50 yards of cream, teal, or blue yarn. This Romaxe is significantly longer, in better shape, and shockingly soft. I'd say whatever they did to this yarn to make it "Guaranteed Mothproof" worked.

Look at that vintage font!

Man, if only yarn still cost only $1.29/hank! Especially 100% wool!!!

I haven't looked it up yet, but I wonder if the Beacon Supply Co.
still exists in Chelsea, MA?

This color is a slightly cooler, bluer green than my Red Heart Super Saver
in Paddy Green

Yes, all I've really done besides a couple of pokes at thread projects is wind a single ball of yarn and start to swatch it out with a 5.5mm hook. The winding took an entire day and was nowhere near as easy as you'd think for several reasons.

1) I could not use my ball winder because 
2) I do not have a swift, which I needed because
3) wool clings to itself and without a swift, tangling is inevitable.

Seriously, if this skein had been as mistreated as poor Gordon the Gordian Knot, I would've had to slice it to bits.

The wool was very, very clingy, and there was a point about 2/3 of the way through winding it where I had to start pulling from the opposite tail and letting it pool on the floor. This worked out, more or less, leaving me to have to detangle a few obnoxiously knotted sections towards the end. It didn't force me to cut it, though, so this ball of "Meadow Green" "Moth Resistant" wool is now officially wound.

And yes, I have been swatching it with my 5.5mm hook. I tried a 4.5mm hook at first, and it took to the tight stitches well, though it did loose about 80% of its drape. I might try to turn this into some sort of a little bag or purse, because there's only the one ball and I doubt sincerely that 4oz of worsted wool yarn is enough to do much more with. Ah, just looked it up - it's 280 yards or so! That's actually not so bad. Maybe I'll look up some patterns.

It is, of course, the skein of its kind that I received, so anything I make will be monochrome.

That'll about do it for me tonight - totally forgot I had to write the blog lol!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

In Which I Did Some Work!

I think I mentioned on Thursday that last week's Crochet Blog didn't happen due to A Lot Of Reasons, one of which being that I had a gift to make someone!

So here is the gift!

"Sir Batwington" aka "Chonky"

Yes, that is a chubby lil battyboo. Yes, I made him for one of the niblings, who named him Chonky. Because he is Chonky. Heccin Chonky.

Chonky here is made from Red Heart Super Saver yarns, safety eyes, and polyfill. I got the pattern from Sweet Softies and he came together like a dream. If you've got a bat-lover in your life, this pattern's a fantastic option! I'll probably check out other amigurumi on that site in the future.

I have other requests for critters, so I'll get to work on those soon enough, but for now, I'm still working on that Blue Shawl. I only worked on it for 52 minutes this week, but that still brings our total time on this one shawl up to over nine hours!

Future projects may include: a few more Goblin Bags (scrap yarn bags that'll hold random goodies plucked from random places), a couple of water bottle holders from the cotton yarns I've accumulated, possibly another cardigan, possible a shoulder dragon. We'll see.

If I do make the shoulder dragon, I'm going to use it for, of all things, making a cloth pattern so I can sew up an alternate version of it. The cloth dragon will be filled with sand. This is for a character I'd like to work on for either the RennFaire I'm attending in September or possibly future Halloween usage.

Any suggestions for cool looking free dragon crochet patterns would be deeply appreciated. I cannot wait to start working on him.

Anyway, that'll be all from me for now. I know it's late. The day got away from me lol.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

In Which I Have Crocheted!

First things first - it doesn't feel at all like a Monday. Today felt like a Sunday, and a particularly weird one. I've been even more tired than usual, lately, but that hasn't stopped me from crocheting!

First we have the water bottle holder I made for my dad!

It was my father's birthday recently, so I made him a simple wool water bottle holder. Did he need one? Probably not, but it's always good to have one on-hand. I based this off of several patterns on Ravelry while making my own choices. The wool is very old and had developed a sticky, dusty texture from having gone unwashed the whole time. I took a little fragrance-free, color-free laundry detergent and some cold water and gave the thing a soak & scrub. After a good long soak, I took it out, wrung it gently and then rolled it dry in a towel before hanging it on the towel hook in our bathroom.

It's now in fantastic shape sitting on the table, awaiting use.

In Other News, here's the shawl I've been working on this month.

This week's progress was made over the course of about an hour and 40 minutes. It's coming right along, I think. Eventually, it will switch over to a darker blue, but we've got a while yet before that happens. I just hope it happens at the start of a new row. I'm sure I can fudge it to make that happen...

Regardless, I'm still plugging along, hooking and drawing and typing, and while I may feel ridiculously sleepy most of the time, I shall persist.

or something lol.

I'm also still using videos as a means of timing how long I've worked on something! That's been a lot of fun, actually. I strongly recommend it. I don't recommend having the Autoplay feature on, though, because then you might not know how long each vid you've watched while working was! You might be surprised by how much you can get done during an episode of Food Wishes or Oliver The Beagle.

Anyway, I think I'm going to get my words in over on my manuscript now.

If you want a say in this week's art work, feel free to drop me a coffee over on Ko-Fi with a message telling me which category (animal, vegetable, mineral, dedbert, location, geometric, word).

And as always,

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

In Which I Finished The Shawl!!!

I did it! The shawl is 100% finished!

Laptop for scale

Yes, that says 54 inches (137cm)

It's shockingly warm, and I only have a couple feet of yarn left! 10/10 would crochet again.

And how long did the whole shawl take? 6 hours, 53 minutes, 23 seconds. Or so. About 7 hours and a full Mega skein of yarn! It'd probably be several regular sized skeins of worsted weight yarn with my J-hook. I did have to switch from double crochet to half-double crochet on the last round, though. I would've run out of yarn 3 inches from the end otherwise!

And what did I do after finishing one obscenely cozy shawl?

I started a second one.

We'll see if I actually have enough thread for this, but it's being made with a 2.75mm hook and lace weight yarn/thread in a cotton/poly mix. It's very soft, but also very splittable and it yarn barfs terribly, but that's just life sometimes.

At a little over an hour in, this is still only about the size of a cellphone. It's not big, but it is deliciously delicate and flowy and drapey and it'll be lovely for spring/summer. Why another shawl? Why not. It's what I grabbed and started, after all.

As for the leftovers from the last project, I think I'll take a K-hook and start turning it into a neckline for a Goblin Sweater. We'll see how that goes. I'll try and record the Goblin Sweater, too.

Next week, I'll have more crochet to show you - the lacy shawl, maybe that Goblin Sweater, who knows what else!

For now, though, I'll be adding another hundred words to my manuscript, maybe sketching, and then? I'm going to bed.

I am hilariously sleepy lol.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

In Which Not Much Got Done
But Also A Lot Got Done

I believe I mentioned last week that I didn't have a whole lot of time this past week to crochet, but I did manage to make a little progress on the shawl - not a whole lot (only two or three rounds, to be honest), but I did a bit of work on it, nonetheless. I also managed to make two good-sized mini-projects - a square and a swatch.

It's hard to measure at this stage - it's getting almost as wide as my bed is long!
This one was taken folded in half after a 7min 3 sec vid

This one was taken after a 16min 54sec video

I haven't taken a picture of the third stage from this week because I was very tired and some Household Nonsense happened right after a Very Fun Family Thing I'll talk about tomorrow so I just threw up my hands and went to bed lol. That section was made during a 14min 24sec video.

The swatch (left) was made using this pattern from Bag o Day Crochet on YouTube
The square (right) was made using this pattern from the same channel!

As for next week, I think I'll be finished with the shawl, not necessarily because I am satisfied with the width, but because I'm now reaching the trailing end of my skein. I'm pretty happy with how it came out, though with so many stitches, I did end up losing track of my stitches per round/row.

As for my next project, I think I'll use my leftovers to start a Goblin Sweater or something like that, which will then be outfitted with some of the random buttons I was gifted over Christmas!

For now, though, I think I'll get to work on my manuscript, drink a third cup of coffee, and hope that the strained feeling in my biceps and diaphragm relaxes lol.

Go enjoy something, folks!

FC

Fiber Monday

In Which I Have Progressed!

This past week, I have been plugging away at my shawl. While I didn't have any crazy one-hour sessions, I did make some decent progress. Sure, I didn't have a single session longer than 22 minutes, but I did have seven sessions, and at this point, I'm favoring consistency over volume. So here are this week's pictures!

The first video I watched was a 18 minutes, 38 seconds long
and brought me to about 38.5" of width

I made it to 39" wide after a 16 minute, 7 second video

And another 17:53 took me to 43"

+18:48, 43.5"

+13.24, 47"

+20:31, 47.5"

And finally, +21:58 got me to about 49" wide!

My first shawl is a humongous 72" wide (or so, with the lace edging included), but I think this one will be warmer, more compact, and heavier. Perhaps it will stretch much wider.

Now, in case you're curious, I increased the width of my shawl from 36.5" to 49" over the course of about 2 hours, 7 minutes, 19 seconds. That gives me an average increase of approximately 5.9" per hour.

If we do more math (sorry, I'm feeling mathy today, bear with me), we can see that it has taken me 5 hours, 26 minutes, 54 seconds to make a 49" wide shawl, meaning that I can make about 9" of progress every hour. This method of tracking isn't quite accurate, though. Why? Because every single row takes longer to complete than the previous row! There are more stitches in every single row.

So why the math? Because I'm curious how long it takes me to finish a solid double crochet triangle shawl made from a single skein, and the only way to do that is to keep track! It's good to know what you can get done in a time limit and with limited supplies, after all.

I'll have more updates next week, but don't be surprised if it's somehow less work done than this week - I'll be taking the weekend off for family! My yarn and hooks will remain untouched from probably Friday through Sunday. As for tonight, though, I'll be hanging up the yarn until tomorrow. I'm sleepy and chilly and satisfied with today's progress. Actually, I'm wearing the sweater I made last year, so that's a lot of fun!

I'd love to hear how your own projects are going, either in the comments or under wherever you found this blog or heck, even @ me on Twitter (@TheFilthyCasua8)! I am very shy in DMs, though, so if you send me one and I don't respond, it's because I'm in a sweaty mess trying to figure out how to say hello lol.

That'll do it for me tonight.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

In Which I'm Working On A Shawl

Last week I decided to crochet a shawl, and while I haven't finished yet, it's not for lack of trying. Not long after my decision to start the shawl, I ended up messing up my dominant arm, so there are several days where I didn't crochet anything. Here's what I've got so far:

19 minutes 18 seconds of work, 10" wide

40 minutes, 29 seconds of work (15" wide)

1 hour, 50 minutes, 16 seconds (26.5" wide)

2 hours, 2 minutes, 34 seconds (27" wide)

2 hours, 21 minutes, 3 seconds (29.5" wide)

3 hours, 19 minutes, 35 seconds (36.5" wide)

Each of these pictures represents how long I'd been working on the shawl and how wide it was at the time of each pictures. If the length of time seems both a bit arbitrary and a bit too on-the-nose, here's what I was up to...

I would put a random video up on YouTube while I worked then stop crocheting when the video ended. I'd then lay out the shawl, measure it, and write both the length of the video and the width of the shawl down on that paper. I'd also, obviously, photograph it. So yes, within 6 or so videos, I went from not having a shawl to having one that was almost 37 inches wide.

I'll keep working on it as I watch YouTube, recording times and widths. Hopefully it'll be done by next week!

Also, if you're embiggening the pics to take a closer look, you'll probably find that the times written down are different than the subtitles. That's because instead of writing down the total of how long I've been working, I've just been writing down how long the video I used as a timer was.

The yarn is CraftSmart Never Enough Multi in Turquoise/Mint, the hook is a J hook, by the way!

I think that'll about do it for today's blog. Next week I should have more!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

In Which I Am Distracted Again

I am incredibly easy to distract. Hilariously so. Like... I should be finishing those gloves, that bag, the Lady Sibyl shrug...

But here I am, trying to make a hex cardigan...

It's going pretty well!

But when it's unfolded, it looks pretty bad...

So it turns out that hex cardigans are really quite easy, but uh, boy are they ugly as you work on them.

If you know how to make a granny hexagon, you know how to make this cardigan. Basically, you just start making a hexagon and keep going until it's about half your body width when you fold it in half. Folding it (like the first photo) naturally turns it into that right angle, so use that for your measurements, since it makes up the arm and body like that. After you finish one hex, you make a matching one, seam it up the back and sleeve, and voila, you have a cardigan!

Hopefully I can finish that one. I really love the color. If I can't, I've got some old Bucilla yarn from probably the 80s I can try :)

Also, I don't seem to have an L hook. I have 3 K hooks and 4 or 5 N hooks, but no L hook. Weird.

I know I make a lot of excuses, but the reality is this: I love making new things and I don't like waiting, so inevitably, I end up with a lot of newly-started projects that eventually get frogged into other projects.

That being said, I should probably finish a few more things lol.

That'll do it for me tonight. I've got a heartburn pill to take, water to sip, and a cardigan to crochet!

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

In Which A Break Was Taken

Everyone who knows me knows, by now, that I am absolute garbage at remembering dates, holidays, and birthdays. I barely remember Christmas, Halloween, and my own birthday. So of course, I did what I always do.

I forgot it was Father's Day.

Thankfully I have an understanding father and a stockpile of yarn and the internet.

I sat around for an hour or two trying to figure out what to make and then I realized that a bag you can hang off of a horizontal board or pipe or whatnot would be useful for him. Mostly, he'd be able to toss the Roku & tv remotes, a tablet, maybe a netbook into it easily if it was looped around the arm of the wooden futon in the other room.

So then I went looking for something nice & masculine. I have a lot of masculine colors right now - black, red, dark green, etc. I chose a brown and green combo that wouldn't look too out of place while camping. Some of my best childhood memories are of camping with my family, dad teaching us axe, knife, and fire safety (no river stones in the fire pit!, say thank you when you have a grip on a bladed object that someone is passing you, point the front of an axe away from you), overboiled hot chocolate in little brown plastic cups that kind of smelled and tasted like detergent no matter how well you washed them, hamburger helper...

Rain literally every single time we set up and took down camp. Every single time. I don't think we ever struck camp on a dry day, not even when we were using the camper.

I also remember fishing trips where I never caught anything but logs and grass, but I got to enjoy sitting with my dad. I remember hiking and canoeing, though I was terrible at both.

What I'm saying is, when I was little, we were outdoors a LOT.

So I chose a pretty cabin pattern charted out on Ravelry by Abi McIntyre @ GetYerHookOn. If I were to make a suggestion to other crochet artists - don't do this pattern while tired and actually read what the pattern dictates. I just used the chart, but the actual pattern itself looks amazing when followed correctly.

Seriously, go download that pattern and follow it to a T, and you'll be so, so happy.

I'd say, though, that for doing everything in Single Crochet, carrying the colors through, and then making it into a bag (which I modified without a pattern!!!) it looks pretty great!

The shapes are pretty well-defined!!!

And the colors are pretty nice!

What you cannot see here is that I made the back of the bag by using the same yarn and the same hook and the same stitch tension and alternating 7 rows of brown and 7 rows of green until I had 49 rows (7 more than the front). Then I started row 50 with ch3, skipped the first stitch, dc in next 6 sts, turn, and repeat from ch3, placing the 6th dc in the top of the previous row's ch3. I did that for 25 rows, then slip stitched the end of the dc-based strap thingie onto the opposite side of the back from where it began (see above). Then I ran a row of sc around the outside of every flat surface, joining front to back.

If I were to do this again, I'd take a little more time making sure the seam looked nice. Maybe instead of an sc row, I'd sew the seam shut properly. I'd also ease my tension significantly on the front!

That being said, this came out really well, and if you put the body of the bag through the handle to secure it to a surface like a railing or a futon arm, it really does hold up to even a Dell Latitude laptop or an iPad in an Otterbox lol!

I'd like to make a few more bags in the future, too. I really enjoy doing mosaic work, and I adore doing filet crochet, so some fun character bags (there's a super cute pattern with a squirrel and an edging/insertion lace that could easily be used for handles that's all acorns and oak leaves!!!) might be in order.

Don't think I've been totally neglecting the Secret Project aka the Mushroom Bag, though! I worked a whole bunch on that strap...

It's just that slip stitch rows are... very very very thin. And that means building up to a proper strap width is taking quite a bit.

I might go the i-cord route for the hanging loop I'll make for the top... or do a single-loop slip stitch instead of the double-loop I'm doing for the should strap...

In any case, there you have it! A finished Father's Day gift that has been delivered and is, to the best of my knowledge, currently in use.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday

 

Still No Thread
Hat Instead

As you may guess by the above caption, I still have not had a chance to scoot down to the ol Wally and grab some red crochet thread for the Mystery Project, which will have to be on hold until such a time as appropriate thread is procured. However, I have managed to make a Size Large Seed Stitch Beanie from Kirsten Holloway Designs, and let me tell you, that was fun!

I had completely forgotten how fun it can be to make a hat!

I used my clear orange plastic I hook (5.5mm) and about 2/3 of a skein of Red Heart Unforgettable in Polo, and I ended up with a very very cute hat!

A very cute hat indeed!

I don't think I've ever done front post single crochet or back post single crochet before, but I really do like the rib effect it gives, and my oh my do I love me a good half-double crochet in the 3rd loop (those fun ridges)! Seed stitch, or lemon peel stitch, is still really fun, and I look forward to continuing to work with it!

I do, however have to get my act together on picking up that thread, though. I can't abandon the poor Mystery Project forever.

And I have some Mother's Day gifts to work on, too.

The hat, by the way, is lovely and soft and stretchy, and while my noggin does not at all qualify as "large-to-xl", the hat still stays put, and the stretchiness tells me that I could absolutely get away with a smaller version!

As for the bit of yarn I have left over... I maaaaay make something... critterlike from it. Unforgettable is such a smooth, shiny yarn that it'd absolutely make a cute little art doll or amigurumi for someone who doesn't play rough...

And I do have that whole box of eyes...

Let us see what we can do with a little yarn and a lot of practice!

And Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday 245: A New Pumpkin

In Which I Make Another Gourd

It was mentioned to me in passing that a pumpkin centerpiece might be nice for Thanksgiving, so I looked around for a new pattern, and I chose this one.

Here's my progress so far:

I'm not 100% sold on the size hook I'm using, but I'll keep going until things are done, and if it's too big, I'll start over with a smaller hook, like a 5.00mm or less, maybe :)

That'll do it for me today!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC