This was a light week, we only had one row to complete.
I have to admit that I am very thankful for that, the timing was great as I had a really hectic week at work and had to work late more than one day.
The row itself was nice and easy, just chains and dc(tr)2tog’s.
I have finished my first doily! Woohoo!
As my first doily project I did the Passion Flower Doily by Esther Chandler.
The doily itself is quite pretty and was very quick to work up at only 11 rows in total.
I enjoyed the crocheting and the pattern itself is fairly simple – no complicated stitches. I did however find the pattern somewhat difficult to read sometimes – I think that it could have been clearer in some places about where stitches should go or where a row starts etc.
I do appreciate that the designer makes the pattern available in both UK and US crochet terms – I am able to follow both, but prefer the UK terms since that is what I am used to.
My doily is crocheted in Vinnis Colours Nikkim which is a 100% cotton yarn(Unfortunately I can’t get their site to work to link to it)
It hasn’t been blocked yet – to be honest, I’m not sure I’d be able to block it in a circular shape if I tried. I’m fairly happy with how it turned out though – not bad for a first attempt I think.
On to the next doily!
Do you know how many pages of results you get if you search for doilies on Ravelry? I recently got to find out. Thanks to the Mini Rings of Change CAL, I have become interested in actually crocheting doilies hence my search on Ravelry.
I typed in “Doily” and selected “Crochet” and “Free” as my search options – I was greeted with 28 pages of results. I dived in and emerged a couple of blissful hours later.
Along the way I added everything that looked remotely interesting to my queue – this resulted in a queue of 97 patterns, all doilies.
You’ll never guess what I want to do now…yarn shopping! I don’t have any thinner yarns as my usual preference of patterns tend to use 4ply/DK yarns.
I’m thinking that I should pick one or two patterns and then buy yarn for that, the only question now, is how on earth do I pick those two patterns? Do I just take the first two in my queue, or do I spend another hour or two in careful consideration? Another alternative I suppose is to pick two random numbers between 0 and 97 and whichever numbers are picked, those are the projects I shall attempt. That actually sounds like a good idea.
The very first one that I will do however has been picked as there is only doily in my queue that uses dk/4ply yarn. That is the Passion Flower doily by Ester Chandler it is a fairly “small” doily at 11 rounds and will hopefully be a good starter project.
What are your favourite doily patterns?
Working away ends is by far the most tedious part of crochet in my opinion – it frustrates me to no end.
I can be all happy about finishing a project, only to realise that just because the crochet part is done, doesn’t mean the project is done – and sometimes that stops the project right there.
My current blanket includes quite a lot of ends and I’m not looking forward to having to try to hide them.
And then you get the problem where the ends don’t necessarily stays hidden, they start to peek out after a while – not nice either.
I suppose it is possible that I’m doing something wrong, or that there is an easier way to work away ends that I just don’t know about.
How do you work away your ends?
I am borrowing this idea from stiches, scraps and sparkles in the sun and by some luck can combine it with the new stashbuster challenge from Linda’s crafty corner
It just so happens that my current WIP uses up some of my stash – it is awesome to be able to use “existing” yarn for something like a present. I have to admit that most of the time it is more exciting to do projects that require me buying new yarn or yarn other than acrylic, but I suppose that the “newness” in this project is that I’m not following any pattern, but making it up as I go.
This is how far I am at the moment:
Baby blanket
I’m going to add these blocks around the border:
And then do the granny rows in the opposite colour sequence from previously. Then depending on the size of the blanket, I might do a granny edge that alternates between the two smaller squares.
I do have 2 or 3 other WIPs as well, but unfortunately no photos at the moment (and I haven’t really touched them for a while), so I guess I’ll only post them if I actually do work on them.
Hope that you have a great year ahead!
Can you believe that the first week of the year has already gone by?
I can’t say I have made any concrete plans/goals after my last post, but I have a couple of random goals that are meant to become habits (if that makes any sense at all)
Shawni from 71 toes posted about an iPhone app called Good Habits. It is quite a nifty little app where you select a couple of habits you want to form and whether you want to be reminded about the habit on a daily basis.
The app then tracks your current steak and your biggest streak of consecutive days where you have “completed” the habit.
Mine looks as follows at the moment:
So, to give an example, my current streak for taking vitamins is 1 day and the biggest streak is 4 days (I forgot to take some home for the weekend).
You can also go back in time to mark days.
Unfortunately the app cannot track goals such as “Do the laundry 3 times a week”, but that makes sense since the best way to form habits are to do them every day. (It would have been cool though).
I think each time a reach a steak of 30 with one habit, I will add a new habit.
Other than this, one big thing that I have recently decided I want to do this year, is to open an Etsy shop – I have read up on some ideas and suggestions, but would appreciate any advice.
I’m taking a quick break from typing up meeting minutes after yesterday’s bog presentation.
Just need to clear my head and be able to look at it with fresh eyes.
The presentation didn’t go too badly and the client seems happy with our proposal and now the really hard work will start.
I’m looking forward to it, but I’m also dreading it a bit – work is going to be hectic for the next year or so.
I have my crochet lying next to me – I usually do a couple of rows during lunch – and all I want to do at the moment is to pic it up and work on it some more. Vinni’s yarns are really really gorgeous.
That reminds me, I still want to do that post about all my projects.
Anyhow – back to work I go.
I’m hoping life will be a little calmer this week.
There is meant to be a presentation on either Tuesday or Thursday and I might or might not be going. I bought nice formal clothes just in case I am going. I don’t think I’m too bothered either way.
We had a fairly good weekend. Hubby got his new Retina Display macbook pro – he is so happy, it’s awesome.
Saturday was shopping and some cleaning and then just relaxing – I started filing all my Art – of – Crochet magazines. I don’t have enough binders, they were out of stock for the longest time, and then never sent me the catch-up ones. I’m pretty sure I was charged for it though. I should go look.
That off course means that I saw a lot of projects that I want to do, so I came up with an interesting idea.
I made a list of all the projects I want to make, divided up into the amount of yarn they use, 0-5 balls, 6-10 balls etc. And I will write that on different colour cards and as I have money and want to start new projects, I just pick a card that suits my budget.
I did find a new project – a top – that I started on, you’re meant to use mercerized cotton, but I have a bamboo yarn that I think is about the same thickness, so we’ll see what happens – I did a semblance of a tension square, so now I’m hoping for the best.
I want to do a post with all my current projects, I think I have 3 or 4 going at the moment.
Church was interesting – we started a new series called Vengeance, it is about how we react when we are hurt by other people and the subtle ways in which we take revenge, e.g. withdrawing, suppressing(I’m struggling a bit with seeing how that one is vengeance) and two others which I don’t really remember.
Looking forward to the next installment of this.
Otherwise, not much exciting happening – I was meant to start my second cycle of bootcamp this morning. I debated with myself before bed and decided that I was going, woke up at 3 this morning and debated some more and decided that I was not going.
Still don’t know what the best thing is to do.
Today’s inspiration is by Colour in a simple life
Click for original
There is a full tutorial in the original post
lifemultithreaded 