Category Archives: crochet

May27

Making more stuff!

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The Any Yarn Will Do Sweater is off the hook! I went with short sleeves as it’s a cotton sweater with a summery vibe. It’s had a nice bath and is currently drying on the table on my deck, where it’s benefiting from the warmth but in the shade.

As am I! I am feeling very relaxed and blessed, with a weekend off and nowhere else I have to be and nothing else I need to be doing. Even though the thermometer says 30 degrees Celsius, it’s very comfortable on the covered deck, with a bit of a breeze.

I had two days off mid-week and the first was all errands and housework, but the second was wall-to-wall sewing, not counting cooking and eating.

These headbands were made from a YT tutorial by Anjurisa. I made the baby size first and then I decided I needed an adult sized one using the gorgeous crab print.

I have short hair and I don’t think this style of headband suits me so it may end up going to the mum of the baby who’s getting the small one!

The baby gift includes this, which I forgot to get a photo of when I finished it.

I’m getting a lot of mileage out of this panel. I bordered two of the squares with extra solid fabric, and put them back to back with batting and a piece of crackly plastic from a muesli box inside. It makes an interesting noise to entertain the baby when it’s chewing on the ribbons.

I then pulled out a couple of remnants and used the same pattern as the tank top I made last week to make another in this yellow daisy stripe.

And then I added some sleeves to this version but the brushed knit was thicker and made the hems too sturdy so I ended up tweaking the side hems and sleeves to look better (after taking this photo).

My next adventures will be tops made with woven fabric, rather than stretch, with another pattern I bought for only $3 because it was discontinued.

May18

One ball of yarn forward…

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…one ball back!

Here’s the Any Yarn Will Do Sweater after I split the yoke for the body and sleeves. A couple of people commented on my last pic of the circular yoke laid flat, wondering how it would end up as a sweater. Well, when it’s folded and you start working on only some of the stitches, it becomes a three dimensional shape.

Unfortunately, after taking that photo, I tried it on (a bonus of top down construction) and realised it was going to be far too big. I frogged all of the blue so that the last increase round was removed, added a few plain rounds, and tonight split the yoke again. It may still be loose on me but hopefully not ginormous. Because my stitch count doesn’t quite match the medium size count, I fudged the numbers by giving the front 6 more stitches than the back. Makes sense when you have boobs, anyway!!

Onward and…er…downward!

It’s been really smoky in the valley for two days now, with forest fire smoke wafting in from other parts of BC and Alberta.

The surrounding mountains weren’t visible and the sun was orange (my phone doesn’t quite manage to catch the orangeness).

Today I felt quite chesty due to the poor air quality. After my grocery errand, I spent the afternoon downstairs, faffing about with bits of vinyl and fabric.

The blue vinyl was a remnant that had a stitched join across it in a wavy line so I cut what I could to make a zipper pouch. And then I messed about with an even smaller bit and made a tiny pouch with an attached clasp.

And here comes the thunder. It just crashed outside and I’m going to go look for lightning.

Pause for relocation to deck to enjoy the storm.

Thunderstorms are a mixed blessing. We usually get hundreds of lightning strikes which can set off new fires in vulnerable areas. And if it gets windy it can fan the flames. But we need the rain to damp things down. Nothing like the smell of petrichor.

This was my other FO today. A pattern I already had. A remnant in the stash. And boom! A new tank top. Super easy and cute.

Take care, people!

May10

My favourite kind of day

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Today was another sewing day with friends. This usually involves me making soup for lunch, and a dessert, especially if it’s someone’s birthday, and carrying all my sewing stuff upstairs to the dining room.

Iron and ironing board, heavy table, cutting mat, quilt rulers, sewing machine, extension cords, etc etc. The beauty of hosting is that if I forget something I can just go and grab it.

It’s takes a little effort to set it all up but I am more than rewarded with a lot of fun and great memories.

We made a mug rug this time. We followed a YouTube tutorial by The Sewing Room … https://youtu.be/s3hTlJfHzNE

It was perfect for helping my friends learn some of the techniques of quilting in a small achievable project. Piecing, sandwiching, quilting and binding are all included. Mine is pictured at the top of this post. Whilst I have more quilting experience than the others, their mug rugs came out beautifully, and in fact their finishing on the back was better than mine!

My harem pants are finished! After I’d had some dinner (leftovers from lunch) I finished off the waistband (which has 10 rows of thin elastic sewn in with zigzag stitches) and attached it to the body.

The good news is that they fit! Now they have to go to work to be hung up for a month on display. (Excuse the odd look of my son’s hands holding them up for the photo!!!)

My crochetalong sweater has grown a decent amount this week. I’ve finished the yellow stripe and just started the first of the three blues. I have a few rounds left of the yoke, and then I can check that it’s deep enough before splitting for body and sleeves.

The pattern is the Any Yarn Will Do Sweater by DoraDoes and I’m crocheting it with Berroco Modern Cotton (the worsted weight one) and a 5mm hook.

We are three weeks into the CAL, five weeks to go.

It was a lovely day today and the temperature was perfect. This weekend, however, it’s forecast to shoot into the 30s (90s to US peeps) and I’m not exactly excited about that!

May5

WIPdate

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It’s Friday night and I’ve just quit the sewing for today.

This is my work-in-progress. I’m making the longer version. It’s similar to a style I sewed myself when I was in my 20s. I loved those pants. So comfortable!

They aren’t difficult, but I did sew the side panel on the wrong side and had to cut off two seams that I had sewn and zigzagged.

This is the fabric, a lovely rayon linen blend, but it has a strong vertical design which of course is going to be non-vertical in this garment.

The waistband will be a new experience – shirring! I’m leaving that til tomorrow.

These colours are the Berroco Modern Cotton that I’m using for the DoraDoes Any Yarn Will Do Crochetalong. She has two patterns with that name, a circular yoke sweater and a raglan cardigan. I’m doing the circular yoke.

Today I started on the mustard. Currently I’m on round 20 of a 30-round yoke.

And I have a finished object too.

This water bottle holder is inspired by a more complicated one I saw on YouTube. I made it up from scratch, but learned an important lesson. I cut the squares out for my boxed bottoms ahead of time and they turned out to be too big. Instead of a square base I have a skinny rectangle.

I may make another and improve my design but for now I have other things I want to do.

I’m working the next few days but hopefully I’ll have the energy to sew my waistband tomorrow night. At least it’s a 9 to 5 shift which means I finish a little earlier than usual.

Apr17

Itching to sew…

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With my crocheted Elevation Cardigan off the hook (photo above, it took 4 months to get finished) my knitted Sporto hooded sweater still on the needles (but at the point where I should decide what to do on the colourwork section) I just wanna sew!

Two evenings ago, I got home from work and after dinner ended up falling asleep on the couch before 9pm. Not really wanting to do the same thing last night, I went down to my sewing room and continued to work on a zipper pouch idea based on one I saw in a YouTube video. It has pockets inside, across both sides, to hold crochet hooks and interchangeable needle tips. I’m making mine with a zipper pocket on the outside too which can hold cables etc.

It’s nearly done and I’ll show it off next time.

This is a small drawstring bag that I made from more scrappy fabric. It’s nice to use scraps that would otherwise have gone in the trash. (You can probably see a bit of Olaf the snowman from Frozen in there).

And this is a “thing” that I made which is similar to a commercial case for an interchangeable needle set. The pockets were a bit loose so I added the nonslip vinyl but I don’t know if it was a good idea.

I really feel like booking a week off work and creating a sewing retreat…at home!

Feb24

Knittin’ the knits

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Knittin’ the knits

I present to you my WIPs or, if you prefer, PIPs or MIPs (works/projects/makes in progress).

The green Sporto sweater hasn’t changed much this week because I’ve been focusing on the grey/neon cardigan.

Said cardigan is machine-knitted on my somewhat old Bond. I used keyplate 3 to give me a nice gauge with the Craft Smart acrylic from Michaels.

Making a gauge swatch is awesome on this machine because it literally takes 5 minutes. Once that was done, I drew up a schematic so that I could figure out stitches and rows. The back, fronts and pockets were easiest as there was no shaping. The sleeves were a little slower as I had to decrease every 4 rows to the cuff and on the second sleeve I forgot to change colour halfway down and so there was much cursing as I took the work off the machine, frogged some, and rehung it at row 50 to start the neon.

It only took 4 hours over a couple of days to make all the pieces. It probably took the same again to add the handknitted ribbing, bindoffs, and seams.

It’s at the point now where I can try it on. I would have preferred it to be a bit bigger widthways but I’m not redoing it. Next, I’ll add the handknitted ribbed bands around the front and weave in the ends. And sew on the pockets, which I don’t even want to attempt while there is still so much curl in those front sections. The dropped shoulders look a little bulgy when wearing, but I’m hoping that a trip through the washer and dryer will smooth and relax things.

As for the crocheted Elevation cardigan, I have now received the two extra skeins of I Love This Yarn from Hobby Lobby in Burnt Pumpkin.

Tonight I’m frogging the sleeves so that I can remake them with the new yarn because I just wasn’t loving the look with the lighter orange for the sleeves. I’ll get an up to date photo of that another time.

One last thing…a camping themed quilt for display at work. Quick and simple, just to show off the fabric. It’s small, 24 x 36 inches. The first of many I’d like to make.

Have a good weekend!

Feb5

Taming the yarn

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The DK acrylic stash was tipped out onto my sewing table yesterday so that I could wind it up into magic balls. I excluded the fairly intact cakes of Lion Brand Mandala and two balls of Bamboo Pop, and the cottons.

It took me hours. Maybe six? A couple of hours in the morning, followed by a walk and a coffee at a local coffee shop, then another couple of hours, then dinner, then another couple of hours. I even recaked the ones I had wound previously so I could retie the magic knots and detangle.

The very satisfying result! 30 cakes of varying size weighing a total of 2440 grams. This equates to approximately 7173 metres of yarn!

Today, I swatch for a new project.

Jan20

Happy Friday!

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It’s a gloriously sunny day today. The last couple of days of sunshine have been very welcome after the fog and cloud of the previous couple of weeks.

Work was quiet today and I got to leave early so I unexpectedly have a free afternoon.

So, how should I spend it? I guess I could add to the Elevation cardigan which has a sleeve and a bit left to do.

I think that each time I change to a new colour I have to get used to it and get over the thought, “Does this work or does it look terrible?!” So I don’t always want to crochet on it.

I could go for a walk in the sunshine. My logical brain is saying that’s what I SHOULD do.

I could go downstairs and play with fabric.

Or lift some weights.

Before I make a decision, I’ll show you what I made with the coffee-themed fabric from the stash.

Each bag has two coasters, a bag of coffee beans and a bar of chocolate inside. I had to fussy cut the fabric just right so didn’t bother looking up a tutorial. I’ve made a lot of bags like this before.

Looking forward to a fun weekend. We are going to a hockey game for the first time in years. And friends are coming for a potluck on Sunday. Hope your weekend is awesome!

Jan11

Fabric fun

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Since my yarn stash flash, I was considering doing a fabric stash flash, but that isn’t quite what I ended up doing this afternoon.

The quilt cottons had got a little out of hand. I’d been rooting around in the bins, taking things out, putting them back, and generally making a mess of the shelves, so today I had a bit of fun sorting them out.

I originally put two colour groups in each bin, e.g. purples and pinks, blacks and reds. But some bins were getting too full and the lids didn’t close. So I had to review.

The above groups are new to the stash. Obviously there’s no rush to use up the Christmassy ones but I grabbed them on sale after Christmas.

The snowman panel and odds and ends of the coordinates have been in the stash for some time. Must use! And the blooming ocean panel and coordinates are absolutely fabulous and I will come up with a project for those soon.

I have a massive piece of the purple so it’ll make a good quilt backing. The “cut sew repeat” print pulled me in just the other day. That would make a great bag lining. And the animal print is cute as heck!

And these are just a few more that made me go Ooh!

All tidy! The green thing top left is my pattern box, which is just a cardboard box covered in fancy fabric. Next to that is a bunch of stuff I’ve made which I need to assess again to see what I really want to keep.

The lowest shelf in the photo has the water bottle for topping up my iron and bags of elastic, cords and zippers.

Then I set up my sewing table for some scrap attacks. I tipped my bag of scraps out, put a cutting mat, rotary cutter and scissors on the left of my machine, and the iron and pressing mat on the right, and grabbed my thread and bobbins. Scrap projects are a great way to use up spools that don’t have much thread left on them.

A bit of sewing followed and currently I’m at this point. Building new fabric from scraps focusing on the black and white ones.

This is obviously going to be an ongoing project as the pile of scraps is huge!

This crocheted amigurumi was my weekend project. I used a free pattern that I found via Ravelry but adapted it to be Edna Mode from The Incredibles. The person I made it for was delighted!!

And that’s my crafty catch-up! Excuse me while I go and cook dinner…

Dec30

2022 crochet and knit FOs

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A quick roundup of my FOs for this year.

Just screenshots from Ravelry – if you want a better look at my project pages just head on over and have a poke around. https://www.ravelry.com/projects/NicolaKnits

I love tracking things on Ravelry. It’s always interesting to look back on the things I’ve made and sometimes my project pages have helpful notes so I can make the same thing again. Some years I’ve finished 60 or even 80 items! My production has slowed as I make fewer accessories now and more sweaters which take longer. And that’s OK.