Sew I See!

My mother found some vintage-y acrylic yarns at a yard sale and thought I might like them.  (Answer:  Yes, I would!)  I'm sure I'll find a use for it, and in the meantime, I love looking at the old wrappers. The colors and fonts! (Mainly the fonts...) They're all either "Orlon" or "Acrilon".  Do modern acrylic yarns go by such retrolicious names?  I think not.  And it's marked as "mothproof"!  I've never noticed that on the new acrylic yarns I've bought.   Some of the Sayelle brand yarn is labeled "FOR SWEATERS, AFGHANS & FASHION ACCESSORIES".  (Only under penalty of law dare ye use it for anything else .  Sincerely, the Yarn Patrol.) I'm not sure how old this yarn really is, but some of it's old enough to stand out and feel interestingly different. (TG&Y?  Haven't thought about that place in a while...) - - - - - - I'd come across "Orlon" before, back on one of those pages of f...

So, I may have mentioned that I was thinking of making a "stars & circles"-style quilt. (Maybe a time or two in the past couple of days, even. (g)) Well, I've already spent some time cutting out the denim circles. When I took that photo, I had between 70 and 80 circles. I have over 100, now, with a goal of 160. I think 160 circles will give me a small quilt that's still large enough to cover up with on the couch (which is how I most often use my last quilt-- a denim and flannel rag quilt constructed with the squares "on point" ).  I cut my denim from old jeans-- some my own, some given to me by family who knew I'd made other things using recycled denim, and a couple of large pair bought at a church yard sale for 50 cents each.  As you can see, some of the circles have patches of darker colors.  That's where the back pockets used to be.  Removing those pockets is a bit of extra work, but it does often give you at least another couple cir...

I've seen these quilts labeled in a number of ways, including the following: Stars and Circles Quilt / Circles and Stars Quilt Cathedral Window Quilt Circles and Diamonds Quilt Robbing Peter to Pay Paul Quilt Whatever they're called, I like 'em.  (g)  I've written about them once or twice before, and now that I'm in the process of cutting denim circles to make one of my own, I've found yet another batch of relevant links. Why not round them up for future reference? More photos of this style of quilt: http://www.burdastyle.com/projects/denim-circle-quilt http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/xwi1FSUI-9TYN9mPLWFyNQ http://juicy-bits.typepad.com/juicy_bits/2009/07/107-here-come-the-goodies.html http://www.elegacyquilts.com/Library%20of%20Images/James%20Family%20I%20-%2043x70%20Haley%27s%20Cathedral%20Windows.JPG (from this page:  http://www.elegacyquilts.com/patchwork_quilts.htm ) - - - - - - - Here's a different way to do a circle den...

(As if I don't already have enough to keep me busy,) I think I'm going to give the denim "Circle & Diamond" (Cathedral Windows)-style quilt a try.  (If I can get it to work.  If it turns out to be too much work with my simple sewing machine and limited skill, I may just make a Circle & Diamond pillow, instead.  (g)) I've posted about this before , but since then, I've found another pattern (and a finished quilt made according to that pattern).  I'm thinking this is the style I'll go for, with a zig-zag stitch instead of the ultra-raggedy look.  I've never really used the zig-zag stitch for more than a few inches at a time.  I'm curious out that'll work out for me. . .

I've written about the Luna Lovegood scarf pattern before , because this is my second time crocheting it.  This time, I was making the scarf as part of a Christmas gift for my mother.  I decided to try a more finely textured yarn-- Gloss Lace in "Mermaid", another yarn ordered from Knit Picks.   It was my first (and so far, only ) time using a laceweight yarn.  (Very exciting!)  I'm not exactly a great judge of yarns (mainly because my experience is so limited), but I was pleased with this one.  It's 70% merino wool, 30% silk (if that means anything to you).  I bought a single hank and wound it into a ball by hand (which was an experience in itself!).  I thought the pattern might require most of it (some miscalculation, there...), but it ended up taking much less than that– a little less than half the ball, I think.  I could get a whole second scarf out of the leftovers! If I’d known that, I might have made it a bit longer, but it still...

This scarf-- another pattern I stumbled across online and saved for future reference because I loved the look of it-- was my introduction to a couple of things.  It was my first time crocheting (and blocking!) wool and my first time going beyond double crochet to even taller stitches.  (Check out this project on Ravelry , if you have an account there. If not, you can find the pattern here , where the author, Tracey Swaine Hickson, has posted it on her blog.) This is another of those patterns that are easily memorized (which I like). You get into the groove and you just don't really want to stop working on it. Very fun! And I have to say (again), I love the way this scarf looks. . . I initially started crocheting it in some sport weight acrylic, but after a few rows, I decided that it probably wasn't going to look right in acrylic.  The pattern's author indicated that it would open up (and grow) a lot with blocking, and I kept reading that acrylic just doesn...

(I'm trying to catch up on my sewing/crochet-related blogging, one project at a time. After that, I hope to do better about keeping fairly up-to-date, here. Of course, with items made to give, that can be a little tricky. You don't want to risk the future recipient of an item seeing it on your blog!) I think the Queen Anne's Lace scarf was one of those first projects that got me serious about picking up crochet again (after some uninspiring one-color grannies and a long period of no crocheting at all). It was definitely on my short list of patterns to try. As of now, I've made three scarves in (more or less) this same pattern, and I can heartily recommend it to anyone else who knows even only the most basic crochet stitches. (You can learn more about the pattern and my use of it on my scarves' Ravelry page .  Otherwise, this pattern-- written by Khebhin Gibbons-- is available here .)   I made two Queen Anne's Lace scarves from one skein of this p...

Or knitted, for that matter.  Here's another one for the "What were they thinking?" file-- a 70's crocheted (granny squre) men's neck tie . I feel so sorry for any poor sons, grandsons or husbands who might have been subjected to this hideous idea.  What must they have suffered?  ;o)

Scrubbers, scrubbies, tawashi-- whatever you call them, they're apparently a popular crochet item.  I made a bunch of them to stick in with Christmas gifts, and now I've whipped up a couple to keep.  I like them because they're simple, quick projects that don't require a whole lot of attention, so I can listen to TV while I work.  They don't use much yarn, so they'd be a nice way to use up scraps.  Best of all, they don't require any fancy schmancy yarn; even the scratchiest, cheapest acrylic is fine for a pot scrubber.  In fact, some say that the scratchier they are, the better they work!  This is the pattern I use-- one designed by "Granny Judith":  Spiral Scrubbie . There's a link to a video that is particularly helpful once you get to the end of the project.  All you need to know to get started is chain stitch and single crochet.  This pattern is a good introduction to crocheting in only one loop (in this case, back loop only) and...