Baby Gift

I finished this afghan last night. It's a gift for one of darling husband's coworkers who's new baby girl is due on the 9th. The yarn is my favorite Bernat Baby Coordinates Sweet Stripes in the Candy Stripes color. The pattern is from Best of Terry Kimbrough's Baby Afghans by Leisure Arts. This book has some gorgeous baby afghans. I particularly like how the pattern stitches with the striped yarn make the "seagulls" appear in the pattern.

Turtles Abound

I have a wonderful dear friend who collects turtles. I decided that she probably didn't have any like these so I made them for her birthday. The box will go in the mail today.

The pattern at http://www.geocities.com/lindaslists/turtleph.htm is the same one that I used back in 1999 to make potholders for my mother for her birthday, as well. It's made with two strands so it's a bit stiff to work with. I really like the versatility that you can get with the colors because of the dual strands though. I think I could've probably used a bigger hook and made them a little bigger than they turned out this time. The bodies are about 5.5 inches across. That seems a little small for a really usable potholder.

I made a bunch of them in both styles, so after the birthday gift I have a few left over that I'm going to send to someone else special who could probably use a boost about now. I do hope they all find useful lives in happy homes. :)

01/03/2008 Addendum: I was at my mother's over the weekend and we were looking at the turtle potholders that I'd made her back in 1999. She suggested, to make them more functional, finding a way to attach or incorporate a round silicon potholder. She pointed out that the holes in the pattern of the crochet are just large enough to result in a terrible burn if a finger slips through.

There's That Cake Again

I'm just so thrilled with how it came out. It fit on the cake plate like it was designed to go there. The recipient just loved it and the cake plate. I guess next I'll have to make cookies!

Low Calorie Cakes

Here's my latest artistic endeavor. I got the pattern for this out of a book called Gourmet Crochet Chocolate Sweets and Treats. Isn't it the cutest thing you've ever seen?! I've made it to give as a birthday gift to a coworker. Another coworker and I have even gone together on a beautiful Waterford crystal cake plate to present it on for her. First is a nice view of the entire cake. The drizzles on the strawberries are a little blown out in this shot, I think. But you've got a great view of how amazing the leaves and stems came out. They're so cute! This shot gives more of a side view. I do like the "thatched" impression the side design has. If it wasn't for the fact that it's yarn, doesn't it look like it'd be delicious?

Card of sorts

Forgive the smudging. I decided that I'd rather not have quite that level of contact information posted out there at this time. But, here it is, the first card I've created in conjunction with the products I will be selling. I just used MS Publisher to do it. Nothing fancy or high level about it. It's pretty, I think. I hope it does what I made it to do. :)

What I didn't know about pattern copyright

I started wondering about the copyrights on the patterns I was using and whether I'd be able to call the finished products my own in order to resell them. I was aware that the patterns themselves were the property of the copyright owner and would remain that way. Little did I know that in most cases, the finished product from a copyrighted pattern is also not allowed to be resold. I may gift or donate as many of most of them as I would like. As examples: Leisure Arts expressly forbids the resale of the finished products from any of their patterns. Crochet Kim allows the resale of the products made from her free patterns as long as they are not mass produced and you ask permission. Two other sites that gave me useful information to set me on my path were here and here. My best advice would be to determine the exact copyright information on the patterns you are using before you spend the time working on the project, only to find out you can't legally sell it, or worse, get caught reselling something and then get into big trouble for copyright infringement. I guess I just got into the pattern design business!!

More Hyperbolic Crochet

According to this Web site, there "is no right or wrong way to be loved" for a Hyperbolic Monster. These are some cute patterns. And to think that several days ago I had never heard of hyperbolic crochet.

And last but not least

There were two afghans among my finished items too. The variegated one is from a book I've had around for a long time (and which I can't seem to find in recent days). The blue is the first I've made from a new book I got. I really like how the edges came out on the blue one. I did not, however, care so much for the making of those edges.

More completed items

I also finished a boy's layette. I love the little man look that the sweater in this one has. I need to find some more patterns for boy or unisex layettes. Most of the patterns I have tend more toward being for girls.

Completed Items

It has been my habit most recently to complete all the crocheting involved in a particular project and then set it aside to start the next project. This has left a pile of all-but-complete items. Several nights ago, I finished weaving in the ends on all of these projects and then washed them. Yesterday I got the necessary buttons and ribbon. Tonight I added all of the notions and now have some beautiful items to show for it. Here's two complete sweater sets. The green/yellow one is very pretty, I especially like the trim around the front edge of the bonnet. I think the pink is my favorite though. It came out so dainty. I do believe I need to find some more bootie patterns though. I don't like the seam that goes across the bottoms of the feet in these.

Advanced Mathematics

This is kind of neat. Mathemeticians are using crochet to demonstrate advanced mathematical principles. Read about Hyperbolic Space.

The Joy of Gifts

Recently I went on a dishcloth binge. I made about 10 in several different of the ombre cotton yarns by Peaches & Cream. I had intended to take pictures of them but got over-excited about sending them to their future owners that I forgot. So now, the "Sister-I-Never-Had" and the sister one of my favorite people does have are their thrilled new owners. I rather think I'm quite fond of giving gifts for my birthday .

Yarn - The Mother Lode

The other day I got a call from DH saying that the Hancock Fabrics in Duluth, Georgia was closing and that they had deep markdowns. The yarn was 70% off. So yesterday I went. For less than $88 I got 9 balls of Lion Suede, 23 balls of Lion Suede Prints, 8 balls of Lion Bouclé, 1 skein of Lion Homespun, 1 ball of Lion Cotton, and various other notions, crochet hooks, knitting needles, and a few things for the middle DD. By my estimation, I got about $235 worth of just yarn. I'm very pleased. :)

How to begin

The blue and green blanket to the left is the first project I've finished since I first set up the blog. It's made from Bernat Baby Coordinates. I will be giving it as a gift at a baby shower this afternoon. I really hope she likes it. I worry that the colors may be too bold. I think I've decided the Baby Coordinates is my favorite baby yarn. This is approximately the 4th major project I've done with it, along with countless minor projects with the leftover. I've used both the solids and the two tone variegated to the left. I had a gorgeous pink and purple one identical to this one that I sold recently as well. I have several recommendations with the Baby Coordinates yarn. One is that I prefer to use the Susan Bates hooks over the Boye hooks because the hooks themselves are flatter and don't seem to become entangled in the shiny silver strand of the yarn quite so often. The other is that I've found it much easier to use on patterns calling for a G/6 hook as the smaller hooks also tend to snag that silver strand more often. Try not to handle this yarn too much. I've noticed both in my work and in that of a friend that it very quickly looks over handled if you have to frog your piece too often or if you handle it to roll it into a ball before you use it. It has the best results if you work straight from the skein and don't have to undo your work too much. I noticed that this blanket, and the pink and purple one, were both coming out very symmetrical. To maintain that symmetry, I compared the end of each skein to the beginning of the next so that I started roughly where I'd left off. A couple of times this meant pulling out and cutting off quite bit of the yarn of the new skein. (I've saved what I pulled out so that I could use to to make pom-poms for the baby hats that I will make with the leftover.)