crochet – The Sick Chick's Constantly Crafty

Getting ready for the Hollydaze!

Well it is that time of year again where I attempt to make presents for my family for Christmas. This year I thought well ahead and took yarn from Peaches n Creme (made in Pisgah, North Carolina!) with me on my trip to Sydney, Australia. So I have had a little while to get cracking on these things.

I had 9 couples on my present list this year, so I decided on one dishcloth/washcloth/hotpad and one Christmas tree shaped ornament. (Both are crocheted, my passion this year.) Here’s how things came out:

A stack of dishcloths I made for the holidays — This is what 9 dishcloths look like before washing

What dishcloths look like after laundering — After washing the stitches are tighter and the fabric is softer

I used a really basic pattern that I have seen many places and memorized it so long ago I don’t really remember where it came from, sorry. As I said before the yarn was Peaches n Creme, a perennial dishcloth favourite in the US but one that is rare here in Australia.

And then there were the ornaments! I made some of these for my mom last year and they were so easy to make that I thought I’d do it again:

12 crocheted tree ornaments — 12 ornaments drying after being starched on the ironing board

The green yarn is local Australian: Sullivans Coton-A 5 ply, a cotton-acrylic mix that was very pleasant to work with. The pattern is Grandma Tree by Michelle Kludas/The Royal Sisters (Ravelry page, pattern page) which is designed for larger yarn as a scatter decoration but I’d found that it’s a good size for an ornament (about 3 inches tall) when worked in a fingering weight or close thereto (5 ply).

I can’t decide if I should add a loop of yarn at the top or not. If I don’t they can be used as other sorts of decor if the recipient prefers…so I am leaning toward not. But I’m afraid that without the loop they won’t know what to do with them at all! Decisions, decisions…. (and not that I have much time as I leave Australia in two days!!)

I have three spare trees if anyone wants to do a trade! 🙂 I always need more ornaments 🙂

Finally, I made some Christmas cards for the inlaws here in Australia. (I haven’t even started on the ones for people on my list in the US! That will have to wait til my return.)

Inspired by @ChristineUrias on the Scraptime video podcast, I decided to use Pan Pastels and a stamp. I then tried to tart things up a bit with some markers and then sprayed the whole thing with acrylic sealer. Here’s the whole lot drying:

Products used:

Rosie’s studio pearlised cards & envelopes in cream (made in Australia)
Stamp: Happy Christmas by Fern Gully Stamps (made in Australia)
VersaMark Ink
Pan Pastels
Marvy Twinklette markers
Micador workable fixative (made in Australia)

The basic principles were explained in a Scraptime episode, but the concept is simple: Stamp onto your paper using VersaMark or another watermark ink. Swipe Pan Pastel (here I used Permanent Green) across the image. Where the Versamark was will show up darker. NOTE: let the ink dry before swiping with pastels else you will get smears and blurs. Ask me how I know this 😛 *rolls eyes* Spray with workable fixative and let dry. Then I coloured in the stars with a red Twinklette marker and the baubles with the silver. The silver marker turned out a lot darker than I had thought 🙁 I was going to add some stick on rhinestones too but I found out too late that the ones I had bought were not suitable as they had the wrong sort of adhesive. Oh well! I then sprayed it all again with fixative just to be safe.

I can’t say that I am thrilled with the way they turned out but I am short on time and hey, they will do the job. Handmade cards are rare nowadays so I hope they are appreciated.

If you have any questions or comments, please drop me a comment. I’ll be unavailable Sunday, Dec 5 as I will be flying back to the US via New Zealand, but I will hopefully feel up to being online again on Monday.

What are you making for the hollydaze this year?? 🙂

Soft Hearted (amigurumi)

In my first attempt at amigurumi, I made a little stuffed heart for my niece’s 8th birthday.

: A heart for Olive

I used the Tree Hearts pattern by Linda Cyr for Red Heart (Ravelry link, Free pdf of pattern link). Her original pattern called for a worsted weight yarn but I used a bulky one. So my heart was just over 5 inches across. A good size for a snuggle toy for an 8 year old, I think. I used Shepherd Colour4me Twist yarn, 100% Australian Merino Wool, in The Sick Chick signature colours, of course 😉

I had a bit of a problem on the first half: when I turned around to crochet into the unworked loops on the back of the foundation chain, I managed to get a bit of a hole forming right where I turned around. I fixed this on the second half by tugging and pulling at the yarn til the hole closed, but on the first side it was too late to fix it. (Or at least all efforts failed 🙁 ). So I hit upon the idea of the felt hearts! As you can see my blanket stitching is more suitable for Frankenstein than nice presents but it did the job. I cheated and just glued on the smaller one. And it gave me a way to personalize the gift so I thought it was a nice touch and no one but you and me need to know that it was done to cover a problem. Shhhh! 😉

In all, I think it’s not bad for my first time! I thought the pattern was very easy to follow, except for that strange hole but even then once I worked out that it was happening I was able to work around it. I also really liked the yarn. I was afraid it was going to be scratchy but really it worked up just fine! Wish I had more, I love seeing my three colours all twisted together like that 🙂

Create @ Late

Alas, in this case I don’t have many pictures. I took video last night but I have yet to edit it and that’s pretty far down the priority list at the moment, so you’ll have to wait. Sorry!

Last night, the Museum of London had its monthly late night opening (link may rot) but for this occasion it had a crafty theme. There were booths of people making felt mustaches, animals out of pipe cleaners and wool, a diorama of London with plasticine sculptures, a sign language music video about London and in the other room the booths of knitting, crocheting and spinning. You can guess what room I was in!

First I met up with my acquaintance, the lovely Claire from PurlPirate, who was teaching hyperbolic crochet which makes a coral-ish sort of shape. She gave me several pointers about the second row issue (using a larger hook to cast on, not trying to get “under the v” when stitching into the chain, etc.) so I hope that I will be able to improve when I try it again next week. She also had quite a crowd of people trying out the hyperbolic forms, including many totally new to crocheting. Go Claire! She was also teaching people how to crochet with plastic bags and gave an excellent demo on how to cut them up into jag-less strips.

Next I met Rachael Matthews and Louise of Prick Your Finger (their blog), a yarn and fiber shop that I am sad to say that I have not yet made it to. Especially since they are involved in the Walking Stick Cozy competition with Missability (run by Felix). (As an aside, I am sad that I have not yet been able to make a cozy for any of my walking sticks, I think I need the Knifty Knitter Bloom Loom for that to get the right sized tube and shall get one this summer but alas, too late for the competition which ended yesterday.) Bethnal Green is geographically closer to me than Waterloo (home of I Knit) but it’s harder for me to get to due to the weird nature of the London bus system, and that’s why I have yet to go to Prick Your Finger. 🙁 They were demo’ing spinning and had drop spindles available to play with and a big bag of what I think is Black Welsh Mountain fiber.

I sat there forever and made this bundle of yarn:

Not bad for my third time on a drop spindle, but all the credit goes to the fiber, which was sooo easy to spin and wanted to be spun so fine it was almost scary. Just in case it was the spindle rather than the fiber I tried a bit of my signature flouro pink roving but it came out crap as always. The moral of the story is that I am not very good with roving but am much better with carded batts, so I need to card my fiber! I have handcarders but man, I covet a drum carder now.

Black Welsh Mountain is a mountain fiber so it’s very scratchy. I don’t know that I would use this sort of yarn for much of anything but it was heavenly to spin so I shall endeavor to get to PYF before I leave for the summer to get some more to play with!

Finally, I went to meet some of the lovely ladies of Stitch and Bitch London. I’d only just signed up for their newsletter about three days ago so I haven’t had a chance to attend their events yet (I couldn’t do their sewing up event on the 30th as I had to rest up to go out on the 1st). But it was very nice to meet people and show off the world of loomknitting. Photos of me will probably be appearing on their blog in the near future.

I didn’t really have anything to do with the other crafty things,which seemed either aimed at kids or designed for people who aren’t usually crafty to dip their toe into the waters and have a little fun. I have nothing against that, I just wasn’t in the mood.

Still, it was a very fun evening and many thanks to all of the lovely ladies I met who made it such a great experience!

Tidbits: Tried and not quite true

Some more photos just so I can catch up on the past week. (I still have several months backlog of photos and events to blog about, but I am at least trying to stay on top of things as they are happen now!)

This week I attempted to crochet:

I didn’t get very far, I’m still having difficulty with the second row issue, but I got lots of tips last night (which I shall blog about in a minute) so I think I shall give it a go again this week with hopefully better luck. Buthey, at least I did get stitches made in a second row!

I also made a partial gauge swatch:

I was supposed to knit a 4 inch swatch but by three inches in I knew that I didn’t want to use this yarn for that project. I did get gauge though, so I am chuffed about that 😉 I will use this yarn on a felting project, probably a laptop cover. But it (Debbie Bliss Soho) is just too scratch for a hat and I don’t really want to have to line it.

Also in the photo is my new temporary wedding ring, I think I have blogged about it but not sure :/ (Brain is sooo not what it used to be, thanks fibro!) My real one doesn’t fit at the moment but as I *have* to lose weight because of the diabetes I didn’t want to get it resized so I got a temporary one from the same place as t’s wedding ring and he is getting one to match (but wearing it on a different finger, it’s been backordered for a while though 🙁 ). I couldn’t wear rings at all for about five years because my fingers swell a lot during the day but that is lessened now and also I don’t need to use two sticks quite as much, I can make do with one, so that makes it easier to wear a ring on my left hand. It’s just so nice to have *any* wedding ring 🙂 Plus I can wear this one on a different finger once I do lose the weight.