There were several adventures along the way of most some of the projects. Starting with the Valley Yarn mobius, that one I knitted twice! It was a revisit of the mobius pattern I’ve previously made for myself. I am completely in love with this cowl and during the fall and winter I’m nearly always wearing it. I wear it out with my coat and inside to take some of the bite out of the air. I find that it is so versatile for indoor/outdoor wear. Since I can wear it double or single around my neck I also get two levels of warmth without looking silly wearing a scarf inside. I had a couple skeins of Valley Yarns Berkshire Bulky made of wool and alpaca left over from my purple sweater project. From the couple times I’ve worn the finished sweater I’ve discovered the yarn is fantastically warm! My SIL works from home and her studio can be pretty darn cold so I thought that a snuggly cowl would probably fit the bill nicely. After knitting it the first time I cast off too tight and it wouldn’t go around my head to wear it doubled. I recast it with about 10 to 15 more stitches than it called for and also made sure to cast off nice a loosely. That worked out nicely.
The fingerless mitts for my nephew were the next installment in his collection of knitted/crocheted Super Mario themed gifts from me (starting with the Super Mario Blanket that started this blog!). I had never knit gloves before so I knew it would have a bit of a learning curve. I thought I could easily turn the fingerless mitt pattern found at Vickie Howell’s blog into mittens, but after finishing off the top of the mittens and having added the mushrooms to each mitt I realized I don’t know the slightest thing about knitting a thumb! I decided to just crochet a thumb but it was a bit obvious I didn’t really know what I was doing. Since it is winter there are several drives in the area for scarves, gloves and hats so I just donated them. Second try I decided to just stick with the pattern with only one minor adjustment of shortening the wrist portion. This project was my first time using a duplicate stitch method to create an image on a knitted fabric. My nephew loved them!
The other Christmas projects went off without a hitch for the most part. The Wavy scarf was a project that came about when I had one of those extreme itches to knit or crochet something, anything. I had the project added to my queue at Rav for nearly a year and decided it was high time to cast on. I went to Joann’s with this project in mind and purchased 2 yarns, Lion Brand Tweed Stripes, only to get home and realize I needed 3 yarns! Luckily I had a random skein of purple acrylic, Loops & Threads Impeccable, I had purchased previously that was nearly the same weight. I hadn’t gotten my Knit Picks interchangable needle set yet which was a problem when I discovered that I didn’t have the right size needles. I was determined to start this project regardless. The needles were one size smaller than they should have been and unless you’re a knitter you probably can’t tell. It’s a fun pattern and you get the hang of it quickly. Some nice variegated yarns are perfect for it or just 3 different colors to really emphasize the waving.
I’m currently on bed rest to avoid some issues in my pregnancy. The baby is doing great at 4 pounds which is right on target for where I am in the pregnancy. I’ve had several issues with episodes of strong Braxton Hicks contractions, which are like practice contractions. I’ve had a couple trips to labor and delivery to have my contractions monitored. After my first visit to the hospital for dehydration while having a cold I’ve seriously upped my water intake from maybe a cup or two all the way to eight to fourteen cups a day. One of my bed rest issues is low amniotic fluid so I’m now going to try and drink even more water! I used to hate drinking water and now I feel odd when I don’t have a glass in reach. Another upset in what was an easy pregnancy was a diagnosis of gestational diabetes. I’ve been monitoring my blood glucose level 4 times a day for 2 weeks now and it seems like the diagnosis isn’t one I need to be too concerned about. I’m managing it very, very well with diet and can’t wait to talk with the nutritionist this upcoming Wednesday. Thanks to my mom and several friends my GD diet has been easy to make and keeps me full. I’ve also been tracking all my meals using a website called Babyfit.com so my nutritionist will get a very detailed report of the diet I’ve created for myself. Hopefully only a couple tweaks are necessary. One perk of bed rest is the opportunity to update my blog (oh so long overdue) and knitting and crocheting more stuff! I’m currently done with 3 projects and am on the hunt for new ones.
Last night, fueled by an 8pm cup of coffee and a slice of delicious coconut custard pie, I created the progression video of Luigi and Goomba. By 11:30 it was done and ready to be viewed by the world but I felt it would be best to go to sleep. I used Picasa to make the video. It’s a simple video editor but it does just enough that I could get what I wanted. Check it out and enjoy.
It has been too long since my last post. I just browsed through my photos to get an idea of what to write and where to start. I suppose most logically speaking I’ll start at Christmas since the gift giving involved my crochet work.
My nephew loved the Liugi/Goomba pillow. He sleeps with it every night. Apparently he tried to use it as a regular pillow but since it’s so big he ends up just sitting up when he tries to lay down. I’m not sure how it’s all been figured out now, I’m just happy to know that he is enjoying it as much as I’d like. He also liked the 1Up Mushroom very much. I have a great video of his stunned face as he squeezed it the first time. I’ll have to see about posting it after asking my SIL (sister-in-law) if that’s ok. I have video of myself talking about the mushroom so at the very least that should make its way on here. I visited sometime before Christmas and got some pictures of the Mario blanket, last year’s present, to show how it is faring. It is well loved as they say. My nephew sleeps with it every night as well. If I were to make the Mario blanket again I would do it differently for sure. For my niece I whipped up a crochet scarf using yarn she dyed before it made its way to me. I crocheted alternating rows of single and double holding two strands at a time. I initially wanted to just do double crochet all the way so it would go faster but I wanted to put a wee bit more effort and thought into it. The yarn was a mess when I received it, ends everywhere! I spent 2 days untangling it into many small balls of yarn. I used a bunch of the balls of yarn for the scarf and love how the variegated colors moved about. Photos!
Other creative endeavors recently include a set of 8 wine glass charms for my MIL (mother-in-law). For the last 5 years we’ve always had to clarify which margarita glass was whose. I finally sat down and figured out how to make some wine glass charms using small bracelet size memory wire. They were fun and quick to make which made it nice to make a set of 8. Originally I was considering a set of 4 or 6 maybe but that changed quickly. It’s a fun way to highlight a pretty bead as a pendant for the ring and then embellish using seed beads. I used a crimp bead to try and keep the beads from flying off the wire. Some crimp beads stayed put while others still managed to slide around. They shouldn’t go anywhere though, and if they do I’m more than glad to make or repair something. We used them Christmas Day for dinner. Another item made for my MIL is a necklace and earring set using Swarovski crystals and glass beads. It was for my BIL’s wedding on January first. This was nice to do as I hadn’t made any jewelry in a while. Photos! I’m including a photo of the ‘wrapping paper’ for my nephew’s pillow. I took a black garbage bag and used a silver Sharpie to draw snowflakes all over it. That was a blast in itself!
Back to yarn. I’ve crocheted 2 Snuggles using a diagonal box stitch. This stitch is my new favorite. It looks great and works up quite quickly! For January one of the Snuggle themes suggested in the Ravelry Snuggles Project group is scraps. I had a great time using 19 different scrap balls of yarn for a diagonal box stitch Snuggle. Another project was a crochet cloche (hat) to go with my new red winter coat. I wanted to make a felted hat and found a great pattern on good old Ravelry called Beacon Street Cloche. I used Patons Classic Wool from my stash. After photographing me wearing the large hat I washed it twice in the washing machine with some jeans so it would felt up. The hat turned out quite nicely and has gotten me quite a few compliments. It is also fabulously warm, which is great right now in Connecticut. Yarn photos!
As I just mentioned I am in Connecticut so now I’ll share some photos of our snow. We had about 8 inches on January 7th (1st photo), then 18 more on January 12th (2nd photo, table was cleared before new snow came) and right now it’s rain on top of 2 more inches of snow. Yesterday we knocked some 3 foot ice sickles off the front of our house and then I ended up playing with them in the front yard arranging them in the snow. I took photos with my new Canon PowerShot, tripod and night time exposures using a flashlight. Enjoy!
All the photos are thumbnails in this post so click them for the full effect!
The Luigi & Goomba pillow had its last few stitches this evening. After some size checking I bought a 27 inch pillow and couldn’t wait to get to stuffing it into the pillow case. I briefly thought about blocking the panels but I don’t think it would have done much since it is acrylic yarn. I started crocheting the panels together yesterday after trimming the tree. I triple checked that I had them the same direction because I could totally see myself getting half way around and then realizing they were facing the wrong way. I sewed them inside out so that the seam would be on the inside for the most part. For the last side I also made sure to remind myself not to just crochet the whole thing closed without stuffing the pillow in, another big possibility. I crocheted a quarter of the way from each corner and then my husband and I stuffed the pillow in. It was a 2 person job for sure! After that I squished it around a bit before sewing the rest of the seam with a tapestry needle and more black yarn. The pillow is very inviting for sitting or leaning on. I ended up skipping the sound device in the corners just because I was too excited about finishing and I didn’t have a good source for purchasing them yet either. Maybe the 1Up mushroom will have one.
In the meantime I don’t have anything for my niece and there are only 12 days left before Christmas. Eeep!
Oh my, I have neglected the blog again! I took on a long-term substitute position which always leaves me exhausted; enough not to blog but not enough to skip crocheting. We’ve had a gorgeous fall in Connecticut. We made several leaf peeping trips on the weekends. I’ve also been attending the weekly knitting group in town and working on many projects during my month away. Knitting has quickly become something else I enjoy and a fun new challenge. The list of things I’ve completed in October is as follows:
Luigi! (C)
Homespun Snuggle (K)
2 pairs of fingerless gloves (C)
2 Mobius cowls (knitted after an Escher exhibit) (K)
Cat “washcloth” made into a Snuggle (K)
7 Warm Up America blocks (K)
2 Caps for Good baby hats (C)
Yowza, what a list! The C indicates a crochet project and the K indicates a knitted project. My time seems to be equally split between the 2 craft skills. After I finished Luigi I dedicated a lot of time to knitting as it had captured my interest. I will have to do some catch up blog posts which should happen in reasonable time as I am approaching the end of my long-term sub position. My first order of business will be our good friend from the world of Nintendo, Luigi.
Luigi enticed knitters, crocheters and non-yarnies to ooh and ah while working on it at Starbucks. I was told by one college-age student that I’m the coolest aunt to make this for my nephew. I certainly hope that my nephew will appreciate this, if not now maybe in the future. Either way, I’ve had a blast! Luigi is going to be a large pillow, something great to snuggle on with a book in hand. I’ve decided on the pillow back; it is going to be a Goomba!
I started the Goomba about a week ago and managed to do a round each day for a total of 8 rounds so far. As each round gets bigger they take longer so that will slow down very soon. I’ve taken a few things I’ve learned from making Luigi. Instead of cutting the yarn as I finished a segment of color I’ve just been carrying it along the back. It’s a bit of a mess but I won’t have as many ends to weave in. A knitting group member suggested that I add sound effects to the pillow, which is an idea I really love. I think I may even do 4 different sounds and put one sound in each corner of the pillow. I’ll rope my husband into helping me with this aspect of the project. Any suggestions on sounds to include? 1Up, invincibility star, the theme song, jumping… So many options. The Goomba isn’t having as much of a pinwheel effect as Luigi did. I’m still not sure what is causing that. I’ll have to find a Tunisian crochet entrelac enthusiast to mull it over with.
The Caron Simply Soft yarn is working out great. It’s so soft and slides nicely which is wonderful for crochet. It wants to split a bit now and then which forces me to work loosely in good way. Tunisian crochet entrelac wants to be a dense fabric when completed so unless I want to give a pillow made of 2 boards I have to work loosely. The fingerless gloves are also made of Simply Soft and I find with everyday use the yarn gets a bit fuzzy. I wonder what Luigi/Goomba will look like after a year of use.
Luigi is speeding along with an invincibility star, reaching for the flag. I’m extremely close to finishing the front of the pillow, but even closer to finishing my light blue yarn. I’m so close to running out of yarn that I’m refraining from working on him. His invincibility star will not save him from my lack of yarn. As this portion of the pillow project is nearing an end I’ve been putting it off by finishing other projects.
First I finished my second pumpkin for the Itsy Bitsy Spider Crochet-Along. It turned out much more to satisfaction than my first pumpkin from this pattern. I changed my hook and yarn weight to make a plumper plumpkin. The yarn I used was a hand-me-down from my sister-in-law; a hand-dyed wool in gorgeous fall colors. I love using variegated because the colors are fun to watch as I crochet them; will this green section match up with the last round’s green section? The only risk with variegated yarn is pooling. Pooling in crochet or knitting is when a section of color seems to match up exactly in the same areas creating pools of color in an undesirable way. After joining Ravelry.com I found a thread in the forum with users’ examples of good and bad pooling, featuring mostly bad of course! I had a great time browsing the pages of photos. It’s especially interesting when people knit socks; one ends up striped while the other has pools of the colors all awry. While looking for examples of bad pooling to share here I stumbled upon a Flickr pool (LOL) just for this subject: Pooling Yarn Pool. Since we’re on the subject of Flickr pools, check out the one for the pumpkin CAL (crochet-along): Pumpkin Patch Pool. It’s very neat to see what others have done with this same exact project. I will probably work on making my first pumpkin more interesting by adding some jack-o-lantern features, after all it’s currently where I’m keeping my sunglasses!
Another project I finished was my first felting experiment. I crocheted some slippers and felted them in the washer. I might have felted them a tad bit too much. I’m still waiting for them to dry out completely to test them out properly. I have yet to take a picture but you know that’ll happen soon!
Luigi hasn’t slipped my mind. Since the Luigi side of the pillow will be done shortly I have to start thinking about the other side. I checked out Sprite Stitch‘s blog to see what other Super Mario themed images have been made into cross stitch patterns. I’ll have to seriously take a look and make a decision. I hope that the two sides end up being the same size since the green for Luigi’s hat had to be a different, slightly heavier yarn which I think contributed to the strange pinwheel spin in the piece. I considered a 1Up mushroom for the back but I was going to crochet an amigurumi version of it so that would be repetitive… think, think, think
After a 4 day trip to San Antonio, TX I was ready to crochet again. The last time I worked on Luigi was round 6 at the knitting group. I started round 7 on Luigi, adding in the first bits of blue for the background. Before I knew it I had worked half way through round 8 and wasted quite a bit of my day. I guess I was in some crochet withdrawal and unprepared for how much I wanted to work on it. On top of all that, I’m going to a knitting group tonight and will spend probably about 2 hours working on it then. I suppose I’ll call it travel recovery day. I managed to get some laundry done.
Coming back to Luigi, I think I might go check out the pillows at the craft store to see what kind of sizes I have to play with. I don’t really want to make a custom pillow. As it stands I was thinking a border of 3 blue squares from the edge of Luigi’s head in all directions. At the moment it is measuring over 20 inches across with 1 blue square on the left and right. I feel like this description might seem a bit gibberish, oh well. There’s a strange twisting happening in the squares. It’s not straight when you go along the edges of the squares where they are joined. I suppose there is still some learning to do in regards to tricks in Tunisian entrelac. One thing I have learned is that when I make the chain for one of the lonely corner pieces I go back through the bottom loop of the chain only and leave the other top two loops to be my working side when connecting the square next to it. I pretty much work through the chain upside down. It’s complicated if you haven’t worked on Tunisian entrelac but still a tip I’d like to pass on. It makes the joining edge of the previous round smoother. Too bad I didn’t figure this out earlier! I love how Luigi is emerging as I work on this. I can’t wait to make a collage or video of the project once it’s complete.
I’ve started the Luigi pillow to compliment the Mario blanket I made for my nephew last year. I’m nearly 7 rounds into it and it’s looking and going great. My plan is to make just Luigi’s head and make it into a square pillow. As I’m working now, I’m wondering if I should just continue and make it into a blanket. It will probably be a pillow about 20″x20″. The squares are pretty much the same size as the ones I made for the Mario blanket so it might be neat to have a companion blanket to Mario. Still thinking on this I guess.
I took Luigi to a local knitting group and had a great time chatting while crocheting. Seeing the projects of the other people was neat; all those knitters and their skills! My knitting has taken a backseat to Luigi and a pumpkin amigurumi for a crochet-a-long. This Sunday I’ll be passing on my new casting on and knitting skills to a friend so I’ll get more done on my project. The way I learned and got comfortable with crochet was by crocheting squares for Warm Up America. I realized this was a great way to start pattern reading and understanding the basics of knitting too. I went to the WUA website and printed out the 2 pages of patterns for 7″x9″ squares. I also visited Joann’s with a 40% off coupon and bought some size 7 needles as per the WUA instructions. Needle Set Count: 2! I’m looking forward to spending time knitting on Sunday, hopefully the weather will be nice, as we will be outside.
Back to my friend Luigi. I started him on September 4th on a sunny afternoon. I grabbed all my supplies and parked myself out on the deck to soak up some of the rays that weren’t getting into the house (read: house was chilly). I’m using Caron Simply Soft in Light Country Peach for his flesh tone. That was the most difficult aspect of starting this; finding the right color yarn for his face. I didn’t want to use the same acrylic yarn as last year since that would turn out really stiff in Tunisian Entrelac. The Caron Simply Soft is perfect! It’s soft to the touch and flexible once it’s crocheted. Sadly the other problem color I never managed to find in a similar texture yarn. Luigi-green is also a difficult find. I’m sure I could have found it online but since crochet (and knitting) depends on the texture and feel of the yarn I wasn’t comfortable just buying some perfect colored yarn online without touching it. I ended up with Red Heart Super Saver in Paddy Green. My husband and I went to all the craft stores this weekend: A.C. Moore on Saturday, Michaels on Sunday and then Joann’s on Monday. Every visit and purchase was also made with coupons! All my yarns were purchased at half price. Buying the yarns I needed on a sale weekend was a goal I set once I decided on my crocheted gifts. All my gifts should be covered for now.
The other day I realized that a pillow has 2 sides. I should find another Super Mario theme item to put on the back. I already have an amigurumi 1Up mushroom queued up on Ravelry that will most likely become part of the gift. Any suggestions on what to put on the back of the pillow? If nothing comes up as an idea it’ll probably just end up as blue like the background of Luigi will be. Once I started adding the green squares Luigi started looking more like himself and I should be able to resist calling him Mario. Luigi has turned into an obsession and I can already feel some aches in my body from sitting in the same position for too long. I always try to break up crochet and other leisure activities with house chores. After finishing a chore I have a little reward of crochet. This works well; I get to crochet and the house stuff gets done. It’s probably about time I work some more on Luigi…
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