Hat Pincushion

March 4, 2014 by 14 Comments

If you were to check out the latest issue of Simply Crochet magazine (Issue 16), you would see my latest pattern — a springtime pincushion shaped like a little hat!

hat pincushion

As you can probably guess, I am incredibly honored to be in such a wonderful magazine. And guess what? My fellow blogger Rachel from The Little Room of Rachell is also in it with her own lovely brooch pattern. Rachel was the first blogger I ever met face to face. We met over the Christmas holidays in 2012 and it was great fun — hopefully I can go back and see her again one day! Rachel has actually already made her own pincushion hat, and I intend to make her brooch pattern as soon as I can get ahold of this issue (Issue 16); it isn’t available here for another couple of days. There may be even more bloggers in the issue that I know, but I’ll just have to wait and see!
Please forgive any formatting errors in this post — I believe this is my first post from my iPad and I’m not sure exactly if I’ve done it right, haha.
Also, thank you everyone for your kind words after my last post about my uncle — I really appreciate your sympathy and support.
Well, I think that’s all I’ve got for today. Thanks for stopping by!

**Edit: click here to be taken to the Revelry page for this pattern.**

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a pretty pattern and good advice

February 3, 2014 by 4 Comments

While browsing the Internet for lovely crochet patterns, I came across a rug, which appears in Simply Crochet magazine.  I want to buy Issue #13 just for it!  Dunno where in my home it would go, but that’s OK, right?  It’s sooooo pretty!

The good advice is from Slugs on the Refrigerator, and it’s about lifelines in knitting.  What are lifelines, you ask?  They are a way to keep you from having to rip really far back in your knitting if you make a mistake.  Essentially, they save your sanity.  I will be doing this from now on in almost all of my knitting projects!  Click the link above to go to the blog and read the article for yourself and discover the benefits of making lifelines.

Well that’s all for today!  See you again soon!

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Dye For Yarn Merino/Baby Camel yarn review

December 3, 2013 by 9 Comments

The lovely ladies at DyeForYarn/DyeForWool very kindly sent me a hank of yarn to review here on my blog.  They did not pay me for my review, so everything written here is my honest opinion about this yarn.  The yarn is their Merino/BabyCamel fingering weight yarn in the colorway Dyeing Rose (click here to be taken to their Etsy page for this specific yarn, in all the lovely colorways!).

first impressions

The yarn shipped very quickly all the way from Germany!  It arrived in a beautiful hank.

reviewhankIsn’t it gorgeous?  Here’s a close-up of the tags:

reviewtagsYou can see that this single-ply fingering weight yarn is made of 55% Merino superwash and 45% baby camel.  The hank is 100g and 480m (525yd).  These hanks are currently selling for $25.13 USD, which is a very reasonable price for the yardage you get and the fact that this yarn is hand dyed and everything.

Here it is after I used my new ball winder to wind it into a handy cake (and I should mention that there was not a single knot to be found in the whole hank):

reviewcake

working with this yarn

I knitted a hat with this yarn (more details on the specifics in a bit), and I very much enjoyed the experience.  The yarn is soft (a pleasant but not necessarily common attribute in wool yarns), and it has a beautiful, ethereal halo.  There was a little shedding of fibers during the knitting process, but it was not bad at all — it didn’t even make me sneeze and it didn’t get fuzz all over my clothes like some yarns do.  Since I used the magic loop method, I pulled the first/last stitches of each half of the hat tightly to try to avoid ladders up the sides of my hat, and the yarn turns out to be very strong.  This makes it a higher quality yarn in my estimation, since other single-ply yarns I’ve used have been pretty easy to pull apart.

the knitted product

reviewfinished4

The hat pattern is called Plume Beanie and it is free to download on Ravelry.  It has a very long ribbed edge which is meant to be casually folded/pushed on top of itself, and a lace pattern that is not too complicated.

reviewfinished2

I went up a couple of needle sizes to obtain the correct gauge, although I think I still slightly undershot it and would use one more size up if I made it again (details here on my project page).  Even so, the finished hat is amazing and the pattern was the perfect choice for this yarn.  There’s even over half of the ball left, so I’ll be able to make something else too!

reviewfinished1

the verdict

This is definitely one of the best fingering weight yarns I’ve ever used, if not THE best.  The next time I need some more fingering weight yarn, this Merino/BabyCamel yarn by DyeForYarn will probably be what I go for (perhaps in another beautiful colorway, or maybe I’ll try their other yarns, too)!  The owners Nicole and Cordula are so nice and prompt, which only adds to my desire to shop with them again.  To you dear readers I say give it a go — it’s worth every penny!

reviewfinished3

I hope you enjoyed my first official yarn review, thank you so much for stopping by!

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Navajo 3-ply tutorial is up

November 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment

There is now a tutorial for the Navajo 3-ply method available.  This method allows you to use 3 strands of 1 ball at once, eliminating the need for multiple balls of yarn when tripling up.  It works with both knitting and crocheting, and is ideal for when you have a ton of fingering or lace weight yarn that you don’t know what to do with.  Turn it into worsted or bulky yarn with this method!  To view the tutorial, you can find it under “crochet tutorials” in the drop-down menu bar, or you can

click here

Thanks for stopping by, hope you enjoy the tutorial!

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a finished cowl & other fun stuff

November 3, 2013 by 21 Comments

A third chunky circle scarf has joined the ranks of yarncrafted items in the front closet:

chunky circle scarf 3 1Yep, the pattern is good enough to make at least 3.  Granted, at least one will be a Christmas gift, but I don’t want to let go of this one because grey is my new favorite color.

chunky circle scarf 3 2This one was made with Cascade Yarns Heritage Paints, which is a fingering weight yarn.  The pattern calls for either 2 strands of worsted held together or chunky yarn, but I used the Navajo 3-ply technique to triple-strand the fingering weight yarn, making it suitable for this project.  I may do a tutorial on that if anybody is interested, so let me know!

Yesterday Chris and I went to the Renaissance Festival with a bunch of friends.  It was really fun, but I only got a few pictures.  My favorite is from the falconry show, where many raptors were brought out and flew across the audience.  This one is an eagle owl:

photo 4 (2)The friends we went with also gave me some yarn-related birthday presents which I thought I’d share with ya’ll (this is the same friend who made the yarn bowl for the giveaway).  A wonderful ball winder, which I have already used:

photo 2 (1)She also gave me a needle gauge and some needle holders, which should make things a lot easier!  Did you know that, while KnitPicks needles are my favorite, the interchangeable ones aren’t stamped with their size?  Now that’s not a problem!

photo 1 (1)After arriving home from our visit to the Renaissance Fair with our wonderful friends, we were getting out of the car and found this little girl outside with no tags:

photo 1 (3)She looks like a little pittie/lab mix, and she’s sweet as can be!  We asked around and I think she belongs to some neighbors we haven’t been able to catch at home yet, so she’s inside with us.  She’s not housebroken, she’s covered in fleas, and she was very nervous about being in a house with new people, but I pulled out the trundle bed and some washable pillows and blankets and slept with her last night.  She and our dog Zero are getting along fine, but if we have to keep her for the rest of the day we’re gonna have to give her a bath in Dawn dish soap (which kills fleas better than actual flea shampoo).  I hope she’s OK with water.

Well that’s about it for today, I think.  See you soon!

 

 

 

 

 

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