Come join me as I host the 8th edition of the SFEtsy Meet & Make Fiber Salon at the SJ Quilt Museum!
Check out the Evenbrite event for all the info and to sign up, its all free!
Hope to see you there!
Category Archives: General News
Winter Headbands Are Here!
Winter Headbands / Earwarmers now available in my shop! Great holiday gifts under $20!
Click to go to Listing!
Click to go to Listing!
Click to go to Listing!
Keep checking shop as more are added!
Thanks for stopping by!
Flower Potholder
I took a quick break from some other projects to try my hand at this cute tutorial by RubyRed Eclectic called Crochet Flower Pot Stand.
by RubyRed Eclectic
I have had it pinned for quite some time and yesterday I thought to give it a try. I used 3 colors of Caron Simply Soft yarn in white, grey and teal. It is a easy pattern to follow, you make both sides and then stitch them together. The hardest part for me was the slip stitching between the petals. I did alter my version by leaving out row 9, I was running short on the white yarn and wanted to make sure I had enough, and instead of 12 sts for row 10, I used just 10. Check out how mine turned out!
This pattern is really fun, I recommend it if you want to try something to use up some yarn and may take a day or two to make. I can see other possibilities for this pattern, downsizing it and making coasters or ornaments.
Did you try this pattern too? Share a photo or link to your blog! Thanks for stopping by!
Meet Betty!
Meet Betty!
Meet Betty! She is my brand new head form that I will be using to take photos of all of my shop items. She allows me to make my product photos much more editorial and reflect my items in style! Curious where I got her? Check out Store Fixtures USA mannequin head section.
I also got crafty at home this weekend, and with the help of my husband (the true do-it-yourself guy) I built a custom light box out of a large cardboard box, an old white sheet, tape, and a lamp. If your interested I followed the basic guides from this tutorial I found here.
This is the setup that I used to take all new product photos. From building the light box, to taking all the photos then post processing them and uploading them, it took almost all day on Saturday but I cannot believe how great they turned out. This also allowed me to combine my two favorite hobbies, photography and crochet, in a big all day project. It was super fun!
Here are some sample shots from all the ones I took. If you head on over to my Etsy Shop Page to see all of the new photos, plus some new items that are now for sale as well!
Thanks for stopping by!
#Mashup – Wintergreen Skies Shawl
The Yarn
Company/Store: Schaefer Yarn: Nichole (sadly out of business)
Colorway: Peter; mint greens and light blues
Weight/Length: Fingering/405 yards
Material: 80/20 Extrafine Merino Wool/Nylon
This is the last of my Schaefer yarn, I got 2 of these skeins pictured above for this project so I had a total of approx. 810 yards to work with. I opted to find a pattern for a shawl that would show this yarns lovely mints and blues off well and be a bit airy to be able to wear throughout the year. Great colors for spring and winter both! Reminds me of wintergreen or spearmint mints like tic tacs or altoids and the blue is just a great gradient of lights and medium baby blues. So pretty!
The Pattern
Name: Colchique (Ravelry Link)
Author: Alix Gonzalez
Colclique Shawl
At first when I downloaded the pattern I learned that it was written in French, I took French in grade school and barely remember any so I wasn’t immediately set on using this pattern. However thanks to a great Ravelry user who left great notes and photos in the Project section for this pattern, I was able to follow along quite well. I will note, that the converted pattern and chart is in UK terms, which I noticed after making the first row! So once I learned that the chart was easy to follow, and works up quite quickly. Here are some in progress shots:
This shawl is fun because you mirror the pattern on both sides so it makes it symmetrical. Another nice thing about this pattern is that it is very easy to lengthen or widen, the foundation chain is simply a multiple of 7, and it is an easy 4 row repeat. Based on the original pattern I followed it but added an additional 28 chains at the beginning to make it just a tad longer. I kept the suggested 5 times repeat on both sides as well. I really like how its turning out and as I am writing this post I have just finished it so I will be adding completed photos very shortly!
Final Stats
Size: 66 in long x 10 in wide
Yarn Used: Out of the 810 yards I have on this yarn I estimate I used about 750 yards total
This item is For Sale! Link to Etsy Product Listing!
Thanks for stopping by!
Cloudy Skies Scarf Pattern!
Grey skies are gonna clear up, crochet a fun and easy scarf!
I am happy to announce another new and FREE pattern called Cloudy Skies. I was again inspired by yarn I got from Western Sky Knits, a neat combo of blues and greys in DK weight. You can read all about this mashup on the pattern page HERE.
This time I have included a Symbol Chart along with photos. This pattern is great for beginners and experiments alike as it is easily customizable to any size, width and finishing desired!
Cloudy Skies Scarf
For those that prefer downloadable PDFs you can use your favorite crafty site here:
Please Note: There are no restrictions on the use of my patterns however the patterns themselves are not for sale, resale or duplication. Please give credit by linking to the pattern if used, I enjoy seeing what others make with it!
Project Completed! DROPS Squares Blanket
I have finished my first squares blanket! Head over to the project page for it for all the details but here are the final stats:
Squares: 70 total ; 10 colors ; 1 x skein of each color to make up the total squares
Joining/Edging: 3 x skeins of dark grey used for all joining and edging
Size: 64 inches x 88 inches
Time: approx 24 hours to complete all squares ; approx 10 hours to complete joining and edging
#Mashup – Bold Berries Scarf
The Yarn
Company/Store: Western Sky Knits
Colorway: Renaissance
Weight/Length: DK/280 yards
Material: 100% Superwash Merino
Another awesome color combo from WSK, I love the bold colors. Also, it was on sale, so how can you pass that up!
The Pattern
Name: Sweet Lorraine Lace Scarf (Ravelry Link) (CrochetMe.com link to pattern, free to register with email, pattern #4)
Author: Doris Chan for CrochetMe.com
Sweet Lorraine Lace Scarf
At first I thought that this pattern wouldn’t work well with a variated yarn, but after the first few rows I really liked how it looked. Reminds me of a fresh fruit cup with blackberries, melon, strawberries and blueberries, with a sprig of mint on the side. When you download the pattern, it shows in both written and diagram form, which is very helpful, once you get familiar with the written pattern, the diagram is great for reference. It also works up quite fast so I am excited to finish this one soon and post up some completed photos!
Post Update: 10/1/2013
I am happy to say that I am finished with this scarf and it turned out super cute, worked up super fast too, just a few hours. Take a look at the final photos, I really like this pattern and would use it again on other colors of yarn too.
Final Stats
Size: 6in x 48 in
Yarn Used: All but a few yards so approx 270 yards
This item is For Sale! Link to Etsy Product Listing!
Thanks for stopping by!
Project Update: DROPS Blanket
I am happy to say that I have finally finished all of the squares for my DROPS blanket project that I started back in April, I have worked on it off and on since then and have just now started to stitch the squares together, here is a photo of all of the squares and then what it will look like in the final pattern.
Will update with final pictures once I am finished!
Granny Square Blanket
I had a bunch of Red Heart My Love yarn lying around and thought I would try the crochet standard Granny Square blanket.
While very basic, I enjoyed learning the classic stitch pattern. Wanting to use up the yarn I had resulted in some odd rows with color swapping, however I still like how it turned out. Here are some photos.
The blanket came to about 3 feet by 3 feet once I used up all the yarn I had, so not really big but that is ok, I still like how it turned out. Overall it was a fun quick project and a great way to use up a bunch of yarn if you have a lot of the same lying around that you want to use up.
Thanks for stopping by!