Wool-Eater Progress

Not too much progress this week.  The rounds are getting longer to get around!

Teacup Cosy

 Having some fun making a teacup cosy for a friend in some bright, cheery spring colors.

Cynthia

 

 

A day of photograhing projects

I have been enjoying my first attempts of combining making jewelry and crocheting.

Cynthia and I got together in her backyard to play with photographing things we have made.  The blanket below is one I made for my daughter Emily. (Luther posed with the picture.)

I wanted to use the colors randomly with a variety of interesting stitches for texture.

I am pleased with the results and Emily liked it too!

We also photographed a blanket I made for Cynthia's daughter Eva upon graduation from high school.  The colors are bright pink, purple, and black.  

Lovely daffodils in Cynthia's yard.

 The BEST surprise  to be photographed that day was the jar that Cynthia gave me and crocheted this beautiful decorative topper for it.

Notice the hearts dangling from the border.

 I have never thought to use crochet in ways like this.  Isn't it beautiful?

 Cynthia suggests that I use this jar to hold my yarn for works in progress so that my darling cats do not play with the yarn!  Great idea!  (I may need more jars.)  Thank you Cynthia for this delightful gift!


For me, it is on to another project.

 This is going to be a blanket for my niece Joanie.  It is worked in rounds around the center circle and builds outward to resemble a flower.  I am using light aqua, dark aqua, and white.

Thanks for indulging me in this display of projects!

Carol

Help! Our followers are gone!

Our list of followers is missing!  Where did you all go? And there is no way for anyone to follow us.  When we go into our dashboard it tells us we have 23 followers, but we can't see them.  Does anyone have an idea of what is happening?  Carol and I are sooo confused!

Wool-Eater Progress

Here's the progress on my Wool-Eater blanket for this week!  Three more rounds of color. The round that looks like white is actually a light pink.  I'm having trouble capturing it well with the camera.

My Wool-Eater's evolution to date:

Playing with beads and crochet cotton

This week I decided to get out my stash of beads and marry them with yarn.  I made two necklaces (which I will photograph later) and I just finished a bracelet tonight.

 It is a bangle bracelet with beads crocheted onto it.  I had no pattern and am pleased with the first attempt.  Some of the beads did not cooperate and lay the right way.  Other parts may be too close between clusters.  All in all, I enjoyed figuring it out and am now wearing it!

My sister Janet told me that a bead stash takes up much less space than a yarn stash.

She is probably right.  But what if I have both?

 It is fun to experiment.  I will be making more bracelets.  Stringing small beads is a bit tedious, but the results are worth it.

Carol

Wool-Eater Progress

I added two more color rounds to my Wool-eater blanket, light pink and red.  My plan, at this moment, is to work my way through the color spectrum, going from the pink and reds into purples, then blues, then greens and maybe yellow and orange.  But I am attracted to the idea of a punch of an orange right now...what to do...what to do...  Hopefully I'll have some time to experiment after the laundry is folded, the dishes done and before Daniel gets home and homework time begins.

Wool-Eater Link

Fun facts I discovered on the internet

• Do you know why most crocheters in earlier eras held the crochet hook in their hand like a pencil? In the 1800s, this hand positioning was thought to be more feminine and graceful. Many crocheters now hold their hooks in the palms of their hands (often called the "knife hold") to reduce carpal tunnel.
• It is believed that crochet began as a cottage industry in Ireland to create supplemental income during the Irish Potato Famine.
• It is believed that the earliest forms of crochet were created using a bent finger instead of a hook.
• The word crochet is derived from the Middle French word croc or croche, meaning hook.
• The earliest written reference to crochet didn't appear until 1812. Crochet didn't become the widely popular craft we know today until the 1840s.
• Crochet patterns have an underlying mathematical structure and have been used to illustrate shapes in hyperbolic geometry that are difficult to reproduce using other media or are difficult to understand when viewed two-dimensionally.

Happy day to all!

Carol

a traveling project

Hello blogger world!  Remember me?  I am the other half of TwoLuLa that has been rather inactive for too long now.  Cynthia has been nagging me to post, but I just never get around to it.  So today when she said "post your motifs" I actually reacted!

Cynthia and I just recently had the good fortune to spend some time with our friend Karin on a trip to Florida.  Karin and Glen own a home there.  Karin invited us to travel to Florida with her [and another friend Kathi who came down with the flu and was too sick to travel :'( ].  So we did!  The challenge was to pack for a week in carry-on (something I have never done before) INCLUDING that must-have traveling crochet project.

Hmm....what to bring?  Well, a while back, Cynthia showed me a blog that had challenged us to make motifs from the book "Beyond the Square" and I already owned the book. See the blog made in K-town . So I bought many colors of those cotton sugar and cream skeins, gathered a few hooks, and the book and thus had a traveling project.

You would think that I would have accomplished more than seven motifs, but not so.  Here they are:

 

the group

 Up close of each motif:

Happy stitching!

Carol

      ps.  and I did manage to pack everything in airplane carry-on!

Mayke's Blanket

                    

Well Mayke, if mommy is reading this post, this is the beginnings of your blanket!  My hubby, your Oom  (uncle, in Dutch)  Bobby was so thrilled to finally meet you on his visit to Holland last month that he asked me if I could make a blanket for you.  Of course!  I am hoping that it will be finished in time for Oma Joyce to bring along with her on her visit in April. I wish I could hand deliver it myself and also get to meet you, but that is not possible right now.

I decided to join in the Wool-Eater  Blanket  2012 CAL at Sarah London's blog. I'm a few weeks late but that doesn't really matter does it?  I love the texture of this blanket, and viewing the photos of all the participants has been so inspiring!

Last week was my birthday and I have to say that I had such a lovely day with friends and family.  What a blessing they all are to me!

After teaching my one class in the morning (the kids were all very sweet with their birthday wishes) I had a lovely breakfast with friends and a nice visit with Dad. He really is beyond knowing that it's my birthday, but that's OK, I'm still his little girl and he's still my Daddy.  I returned home to a lovely tea put together by my daughter Eva.  The cake in front is ontbijtkoek, a Dutch breakfast bread which I love and my friend Lois made for me.  Before I knew it Olivia and Daniel were home from school and joined in our little tea. Carol stopped over and more tea and cake was had by all.  Then it was time to make sure Daniel was packed  and ready for his weekend camping trip. My wonderful day ended with dinner  out  and much shared laughter.  The only downer of the day - doggie Luther ate the delicious hunk of ontbijtkoek I was saving on the tea tray for later.  Bad Dog!  But I can't really blame him because it really is so yummy!

My life flows on

Lots of creative energy and creating happening around here, but most of it by my daughter Olivia who is busily applying to art schools.  Life was pretty stressful as she put together her application for Cooper Union.  Aside from wanting to see a portfolio of your work, Cooper gives their own home exam.  Applicants are given three weeks to create six projects in answer to six  prompts provided by the school.  Each project could include several pieces of art. Olivia worked long and hard.  I was her assistant - buying supplies, getting photos printed and generally trying to stay encouraging during the long hours of work.  There was no sleep for Liv the night before the submittal was due and only an hour and a half for me.  The package of original work had to be hand delivered to Cooper in NYC by 4 pm the following day.  Carol came over to be my brain as we assembled the final package and my co-pilot on the journey into the city.  What a relief when that package was delivered complete and in time!  

The Cooper Union Foundation Building which houses the schools of art and architecture.

 No matter what happens now, we are all so proud of Olivia for taking on and meeting this challenge. I thank my dear friends for encouraging her (and me) during this journey. 

So what else has been happening?

I made two granny squares from a pattern I saw online.

I took up my knitting again after several years respite.  This is a scarf made with pomp-a-doodle yarn.  I love the texture but probably could have picked simpler yarn to refresh my knitting skills with!  I'm pretty good with knitting.  My main problem is what to do when I drop a stitch.  Challenging enough to figure out noramlly, but almost impossible to decipher with the pom-poms.  But it is working up into such a nice soft scarf.  My thanks to Liz for getting this started for me!

Daniel's blanket is moving along slowly. Progress was completely brought to a halt by an enormous yarn tangle.  I was starting a new skein of Simply Soft and somehow created the biggest tangle I have ever seen!  It took Carol and I, and a scissor, working on it simultaneously for nearly an hour to detangle the mess.

I  started playing around with colors and striping patterns for another tea cozy.  Haven't decided on anything quite yet.

Lastly, I started crocheting borders on 8 inch squares the ladies group at church are making.  Finished squares will be assembled into blankets to be donated to a good cause.

Hope you have all been well and are finding some creative time for yourselves!