Sew I See!

There's one more doily blocked and ready to share-- " Delilah ", another by Grace Fearon.   Same hook as usual (Clover Amour 1.75mm).  I had a leftover nearly-full skein of orange-magenta-lilac-beige-white Alize Miss Batik (left from " Ygritte ").  There was plenty to make this doily, with a little ball left over for my scrap jar.  I like this colorway-- warm and a bit exotic.  Last time I used it, I remember thinking it was "Halloweeny", and I still think it has a late summer/early autumn vibe to it.  The AMB thread works really well with this pattern, I think.  (These photos all start to look alike, at some point... Sorry about that!  I had trouble getting any decent, in-focus photos at all, so I was thinking about that issue instead of getting a variety of angles, etc.) Some project notes had me a little worried, before starting this doily.  Squares do require a little more attention than circles, generally...

All I ever crochet lately is doilies!  And I haven't really knitted in months! (Actually, not so long ago I did pick up a long-neglected knitting project-- those worsted weight socks.  I managed to make a mess of them, though.  The decreases went in the wrong places-- don't ask-- and by the time I noticed, it wasn't worth fixing.  They were really just meant to ease me into the world of sock-knitting, so I wasn't that upset.  I ripped them out and the next time I try socks, I'll be using sock yarn!) Anyway, for whatever reason, all I feel like making lately is doilies.  I did get the itch to knit a hat, recently, but I didn't manage to cast on immediately... and ended up starting yet another doily, instead.  Maybe in the next few days... Doilies are good, lightweight projects for summertime, though, and I have a bunch of great patterns to crochet my way through, still! Today, I'm sharing " Whitney ".  Pattern by Grace Fearon.  (No surp...

The third and final recently-blocked doily is "Ygritte", pattern by (you guessed it) Grace Fearon. ( Project page. ) Same hook as usual, but this time I broke out the fancy yarn-- Alize Miss Batik, with its long, slow color changes.  I think the designer herself wrote somewhere that this pattern would be good for a variegated thread, so I decided to give it a try.  I have to say, I'm happy with the results! There are quite a few tall stitches in this pattern, if I recall correctly, and I see from my project notes that I had trouble with Round 5, in particular-- but the rest of the pattern went more smoothly.  There's something autumnal about this colorway, I think.  Maybe it's the purple (well, purply pink) and orange/gold together.  Those are "Halloween colors", to me.  This makes me think of candy corn, for some reason... Oh, yeah, probably because it has orange, yellow (gold), and white.  Just like candy corn.  ;o)...

This next doily pattern is "Selah" by Grace Fearon.  (Lately, I crochet her doily patterns almost exclusively-- partly because I have a backlog of patterns to work through and partly because she designs so many beauties.) Here's my Ravelry project page , if you're interested... I used my favorite 1.75mm hook and a ball of Aunt Lydia's Classic Crochet (Size 10) in "Golden Yellow". My joking nickname for this pattern was "Must Love FPDC", because there are so many of them!  (They do make the doily plush, though.) The little bumps inside the "petals" are called "points", if I remember correctly... I can't recall now how they were made, but they look kind of like picots... When I blocked this doily, I forgot to pay attention to the "points", so some of them look a little untidy from certain angles.  Not sure if I'll care enough to block it again just to finesse them.  Lots of geometric ...

I finally went on a long over-due blocking spree, last week.  There are three Grace Fearon doilies (plus a bonus NOID doily) happily blocked and photographed.  I didn't have enough pins to block the fourth, and over the weekend I finished a fifth, so now there are two more waiting their turn. Each one gets its own blog post.  It only seems fair. Today has been a little overcast, so I had to bump up the ISO to 400.  As a result, the photos may not be perfect, but I think they'll suffice. First doily up is the one started the longest time ago. "Orion" by Grace Fearon I used my favorite hook for size 10 thread-- 1.75mm Clover Amour (the one with the pistachio green handle)-- and a ball of Aunt Lydia's Classic Crochet (Size 10) in "Orchid Pink". The center of this doily has a floral look, I think.  There are a lot  of popcorn stitches in there... Also quite a few "small special bullion stitches" (120 of them in one round!). ...

It's another FO reveal post (as promised)! This time, the finished object is my Stardust Melodies Texture'ghan, which was a MCAL I participated in last summer. The designer is Polly Plum, one of my favorite afghan block designers.  However, while Polly Plum is generally known for her interestingly textured blocks that offer wonderful opportunities for interesting color-play, these blocks are designed to be worked in solid colors.  They're so highly textured, there's still plenty to hold your attention. I made two of each of the 24 block patterns, so I ended up with a total of 48 blocks.  Here's my project page , if you want to know more about the block patterns and yarns used. Ah, another finished project finally photographed! These blocks were fun to make-- highly recommended if you're a fan of strongly textured crochet.

Here it is, a long overdue afghan "reveal" post!  I'm not even going to embarrass myself by looking up when I started it/finished it/whatever.  I will simply acknowledge that it's been a long time coming and just share some photos of the finished afghan.   This started out as a CAL, but I ended up just going my own way and choosing my own blocks.  At some point, I decided to call this the Whispers of Spring Afghan.  It's a sampler made up of 24 different blocks from a variety of designers (though there's an emphasis on Polly Plum's patterns, because I love her designs).   Information about the exact block patterns, yarns, hook size, and border pattern used is available on the Ravelry project page . Without further ado, here are a bunch of photos! Looking at this one for the first time a long while, I was reminded of how lovely some of those block patterns are.  There are ...