Another felted bag

I'll admit it: it's been a lazy summer. I haven't done much, and what I have done isn't in any kind of shape to take a photo of.

Except for this. My good friend Raquel demanded (pleasantly) that I make her a felted tote bag. This one was felted properly and came out SO much better than my bag. I was sorely tempted to keep it for myself, but you really don't want to incur the Wrath of Raquel, so I handed it over last night.

Finally faced the felting fear

I cut holes in the messenger bag over the weekend, and it didn't totally fall apart! This thing has been hanging over my head for AGES, and now it's finally done. I'm pretty pleased with the result.

All over but the felting

Over the weekend I finished the strap for the messenger bag and put the whole thing together. Now I just need to find a top-loading washing machine so I can do the scary felting...

Messenger bag -- progress!

I made good progress on the felted messenger bag over the weekend.

Some finished blocks:

Some more (at this point I had seven balls of yarn hanging off the thing...that was fun):

And the finished piece with all the ends woven in:

I'm now in the middle of doing the strap/sides. Then I attach it all together. And then comes the totally scary part of agitating the hell out of it in hot water. And THEN comes the really scary part of cutting HOLES IN THE FRONT FLAP. Eek!

I finally figured out this sock thing

Here's a pair of socks I made for my husband. And they've been through the wash once too. I finally know what I'm doing!

Do you want a pair? If I know you (and I like you!) and you think you might want a pair of lovely crocheted socks, leave me a comment with the measurement of the circumference of your foot around the ball. Is it closer to 8, 8.5, or 9 inches? And also, how long is your foot is from the tip of your big toe to the end of your heel? Oh, and tell me if you want a long or short ankle. Go to this site and tell me which yarn floats your boat. If you hate all those yarns, suggest one to me. Must be sock yarn, or fingering weight.

And some point in the relatively near future, look forward to a surprise package in the mail!

Messenger bag

Trust me, this will be cool when it's done. It's going to be a felted messenger bag.

Socks!

I finished my first real pair of socks a number of weeks ago. The heel is pretty saggy, but still, they're more or less sock shaped.

And then last night I finished my second pair of socks, in fun pink and green. I think by the second one I'd finally figured out what the hell I'm doing. The super-cool green and purple witch sock was made for me last year by my sister. It's for contrast. I like the crocheted socks just fine, but I must reluctantly admit that knitted is better when it comes to socks.

However, I can finish a crocheted sock in a week. I'm not sure I would EVER finish a knitted one, so I'll be continuing to make the slightly inferior crocheted version.

I made a rug

It's smaller than it should be (of course) but I kind of like it. I ended up putting it outside the door to my condo. I got the pattern from my new book, Crochet Me. There are a lot of possibilities for huge thick circles made from Red Heart Super Saver.

A baggy Christmas to all

The zeitgeist this year seems to be bags. I made cotton totebags for several of my friends:


And two of them were kind enough to send me bags too. In one day I went from carrying around my works in progress in plastic grocery bags to having an actual choice in crochet bags! So cool.

My friend Mary, who lives in Singapore, sent me this eye-popping, sparkly jewel of a bag. It's built such that it's really one bag inside another, so that there are all sorts of pockety areas, which I love.



And my crazy-talented friend Sheila sent me this bag, which she made with her new sewing machine that does everything but wash the dishes. It's got all kinds of meaningul things sewn into a pocket in the front, behind plastic. And it's got an interior pocket and a solid bottom.

Dude, you could totally sell these and make enough money to buy that land in Honduras you've had your eye on. I'm telling you, you should look into it.

Pre-holiday miscellany

I took a random photo of the ottoman in front of my beloved Big Comfy Chair to document the many projects I always seem to have going on. On the left is the granny square blanket I made earlier this year. It's been keeping me toasty as I work on other projects. Let's see, what else is there...oh yes, the sleeves that I haven't really worn since I finished them. Two skeins of sock yarn. Some cotton for the bags, one of which is in process and the other of which is done. Pins for attaching the bag pocket and paper and pen for keeping track of rows. Oh, and a tape measure for measuring bag handle length.



And here's a not very good photo of what the new weaving project may look like someday if I ever get over my fear of breaking a thread. It'll look just like a peacock's feather!

And believe it or not, this is the beginning of a rug.

My first sock

The directions were not the greatest, I've never even knitted a sock, much less crocheted one, and I was using left over yarn that my sister didn't need, so this is not the prettiest sock in the world, but it's mine.

Even now I'm hard at work on another one ... so far it's going more smoothly.

Echo weave

Here are some pix of a new weaving project that I'm dragging my feet on. The pattern is called "echo weave," and if I can bring myself to work on it, it'll be super cool. The threads (warp) are alternating blue shiny tencel and green matte cotton.

The problem is that the threads are tightly screwed up on the left side, which is causing all kinds of tensioning problems. I may have already broken one thread, and I'm only about two inches into it. So I'm afraid to start again.

I don't have a photo yet of what it looks like woven up, but here's the weft color, and believe it or not, it works. Looks like a peacock.

I can't stop making these bags

I'm now on my fourth. Here are pictures of the second one. I decided that the flap was stupid, so it's an open-top sort of thing. I have so much cotton thread left over from the towels that I'm doubling it and using it for bags. Fun colors!

Reduction tote

I found this cotton tote bag pattern a while ago and only just now got around to making it. At first I thought the pocket on the front was kind of a silly affectation, but then I folded the bag up and into the pocket, and now I think it's pretty cool. It doesn't look as nice as the pattern photos because I'm such a damn tight crocheter, but it does the job. I did sew buttons on the pocket, but there's no way they're making it through that flap. I'm making another one now in some fun colors, and I'll probably just do away with the buttons altogether.

Grocery store, here I come!

Here's the bag filled with a bunch of stuff.

And here's me with it on my shoulder. In the bag is the World's Largest Box of Cereal.

And just for fun, here's a photo of fall color at our cabin in West Virginia weekend before last. Fall has finally made it to the region.

WIP no more

I don't know about other crafts, but in crochet, a WIP is a work in progress. This sweater has been a WIP for oh, about six years now. I started it when I found out my sister was going to have a baby. That baby is now in kindergarten and will turn six in March.

The problem was that the pattern is dreadfully written.

However, once I set my mind to it and sat down and stared at the photo, the thing only took about 6 hours to complete ... including sewing all the pieces together and weaving in all the ends. If I'd only known.

Here are the pieces I'd completed six years ago, all wrinkled from sitting in a bag for all that time.

And here's me striking a pose with the finished item. I put it in the mail this morning!

Woolly goodness

Here's a scarf I wove up back in July. I had bought one huge skein of "Duet" yarn at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival back in May, and it sat there begging to be used. This yarn is so pretty that I wanted a simple structure to show off the colors, so I used plain weave (basically under one thread, over the next). The yarn comes from Brooks Farm in Lancaster, Texas and is kid mohair and fine wool.

Yummy sleeves

My husband's aunt owns an alpaca farm in Virginia, and she gave us some huge cones of alpaca yarn. I found a pattern in the most recent issue of Interweave Crochet for an alpaca shrug (or as I like to call them, "sleeves") which looked too scrumptious to pass up. So I doubled the brown yarn and started crocheting away. I didn't like the striping on the pattern, so I did a few stripes of single crochet directly on top of my previous rows. There's a name for this but I can't remember it.

Hoo boy are these things warm. (Thanks to Sheila for suggestion this use of the alpaca in the first place!)

I know, I know

It's been forever since I last posted anything. I've been a bit of a slacker, it's true. But it's possible that a tiny bit of productivity might be heading my way soon.

Meanwhile, here's a little project I did for my niece Ruby, who turned 3 on September 24. It's actually woven, not crocheted, from cord, using two Weavette looms to make four pieces, which are then sewn together. Since it's made from cord I'm hoping it'll hold up to the ravages of the average 3-year-old girl. I got the pattern from a recent Handwoven magazine. The strap is crocheted. Ordinarily I would never make anything quite so lurid, but it was for a 3-year-old, so really you can't go wrong with pink and purple.

I also scored a major coup with what I put inside the purse. Apparently upon seeing what was there, Ruby clutched it to her chest and said, loudly, to her sister (another pink lipstick-loving princess), "This is MINE, Lilly!" Heh.

Girls weekend

Here's a little something I whipped up for a girls weekend at our cabin in West Virginia last weekend. I made one each weekend for three weekends. I liked this particular pattern (which came from this book) because it's nice and girly. Mary, Amy, and Beth: if those little flowers start coming off, it's just because I didn't make the knots tight enough. Just sew 'em back on.

Finished towels

My good friend Sheila came to visit, and she actually knows how to use a sewing machine, so my towels are finally done! As a reward, she got to pick one to take home to Alaska with her. She is under strict instructions to use the damn thing. Don't put it on the wall or something silly like that!