Yet Another Corner Box Stitch!

I've completed my thirds corner box stitch afghan and begun my fourth.  With a fifth planned!  WOOO!  ;p  This blue one is for my father for Christmas.  Light Blue, Delft Blue, Blue, and Royal Blue Red Heart Super Saver.

My cat Ruby has to make her presence known.

This pink one is more of a lapghan for a lady who uses a wheelchair.  Perfect Pink and White Red Heart Super Saver

The one after that will be an afghan for my husband made with two shades of green of Bernat's Premium Yarn.  That stuff is so soft!  I love it.

For my birthday I got Twinkie Chan's pattern book of food-inspired scarves and hats and other items.  I can't wait to get through my Christmas gift afghans and get started!

In other news, I'm trying to learn how to knit.  WHY GOD WHY does it have to take so much time!?!

Another Afghan Done!

Woo hoo!  I've finished my fifth afghan this year!  And discovered that I'm pretty much crocheting wrong, according to The Whole Entire World.

I made another Corner Star Afghan, this time for my sister for her birthday next month.  I'm loving this pattern!  Especially since I was asked the other day to feature this photo of my first Corner Start Afghan on Ravelry!  WOO!

So now after weaving in the ends, I'm off on another afghan, my third Corner Start.  This one is for my dad for Christmas, a gradient of five blues, and I'm trying to figure out how many rows I'll need so I won't have to repeat colors.

This time, however, I'm not tugging my stitches.  I've been crochet since I was eighteen, for nearly thirteen years now, and I've always tugged my stitches tight. I thought that's how you do it.  Recently I've been crocheting with a friend, who doesn't tug, and our works look completely different.  My mother has recently begun crochet after not doing it for a loooong time, and the basics videos we've seen on YouTube do not include tugging.

So here's the difference:

Ten rows using the same yarn, the same size hook, the same pattern, the same amount of rows.

I like how its turning out but it feels alien to my hands.  We'll see if I can continue it this way - when I'm not paying attention, I resort to tugging, and then have to rip it back out.  Twelve years I've been doing it that way!

Hats!

I've fallen behind on the three afghans I'm wanting to get done as holiday gifts. Because of hats!  My friend Sarah makes the most adorable baby hats - giraffes, lady bugs, dinosaurs, etc - and I've never been interested in making them because I don't have any kids yet.  But I saw a pattern on Ravelry for the Divine Hat and decided to try that.  It came out awesome!

Except that I haven't worked on my afghans for about a week now . . . Uh oh!  LOL

Juggling Projects

Since I've finished my first Diagonal Box Stitch, I've been back to working on another rainbow ripple from Attic24's Neat Ripple Pattern.  This time for my mother for Christmas.

But I loved the box stitch so much and how it turned out that I've also started two other diagonal afghans.  One for my sister in five shades of blue, with the shades being five chunks of color that don't repeat - it starts out in Red Heart's Soft Navy, then Royal, Blue, Delft Blue, and Light Blue.  The other afghan will be in large stripes of ten rows of Ranch Red, Light Raspberry, Aruba Sea, Cornmeal, Carrot, Delft Blue, Tea Leaf and either Orchid or Lavendar.

I keep flipping from one project to another.  Thank God I had bought several large canvas totes from Aldi, the kind they sell to haul your groceries, because they make perfect project bags.  The rate I'm going, I'll get all three done at the same time!  LOL

I'm looking forward to the fall.  Crocheting in the summer isn't especially breezy when you mostly make afghans.  Plus the coming months are my favorite of the year.  My husband and I will have our fourth anniversary in September, then he'll turn 40 in October and I'll be 31 in November, then my older sister's birthday.  Halloween, Thanksgiving, my mother's birthday and Christmas.

When I get these three afghans done I want to take another go at Attic24's Hexagon afghan.  The first time around I told myself to let the ends dangle and I'd get to them later.  Two years later and it is still Tentacle City on the back of the afghan.  This time I'm going to make all the rounds first, crochet over the ends while I go, and then do the last rounds and join them as I go. 

I needs moar yarn.

Hook Handles and Hubby Love

So I've been trying my hand at making polymer-clay polka-dot crochet hook handles.  I started by getting some basic uncolored clay at Wal-Mart so I could see if I would take to crocheting with a handled hook.  I did.  Loves it!  So then I traveled thirty miles to the closest craft store and bought some red glitter Sculpey clay and some white for the dots.

I made two hooks and they turned out great (well, better than I expected them to, anyway!)

My problem is that after I used one of the hooks for several hours, I noticed it had sort of dulled and the glitter had faded a bit.  And my dots are a little raised from the red.  I would need gloss.

So off to Hobby Lobby I went.  The gloss apparently has to dry for twenty-four hours.  I asked my husband to make me something to hold the hooks while drying.  He bought some boards from Home Depot and screwed them together and then drilled holes big enough for hook heads.

Now I just need to work on consistency.  Some of these are better than others.  The green ones are fat and short.  I don't know.  The raised dots are bugging me, I can't figure out how to do them flat.  Oh well, they're still cute and functional! :)

Finished! (Well, almost!)

I've been working on a Diagonal/Corner Box Stitch afghan since July 13th and I finished it Monday!  Well, almost, all I have to do now is darn in those pesky freaking ends, wash it and dry and give it to my mother-in-law for her 69th birthday tomorrow!  :)

I just love how easily it went.  I already want to do another one!  I would be more selective with the colors, though, but this was stash Vanna yarn.

My fat princess cat Ruby, enjoying the spread out afghan while I try to take a picture of it!  LOL

Hooks and Stitches

So I've been steadily getting through this diagonal box stitch afghan.  I still love the stitch and the yarn, I just don't think I'm loving the color combination.  Oh well, it's a stash buster blanket, so can't be too picky, I guess.  And it's been great to learn the pattern and get a feel for it.

About halfway done or so.

The texture is so cool.  I love the greens/cream section.  I kind of want to do a whole afghan with those colors.

In other news, I saw Attic24's latest pattern and tutorial for her Blooming Flower Cushion.  I'm totally going to have to try that.  What also caught my interest, as well as a bunch of other peoples' interest, was the red polka-dot handled crochet hook.  A woman with a shop on Etsy makes them at a pretty good price.  I want one (or three!  no, five!) but I also wanted to know how they're done.

After following a basic YouTube tutorial, I bought a small package of white Sculpey oven-bake polymer clay at Wal-Mart and scrounged under my sofa cushions for extra hooks.  I made a set in the basic shape as the polka-dot handle.  Before ordering through Etsy, I wanted to make sure that I would use them, that I wouldn't just be buying them for the pretty and then not be able to make myself use them instead of the plain hooks my hand is used to.

I took one to work with my box stitch afghan and made myself get used to the feel of it.  Success!  Not only will I have pretty hooks, but they actually do help with my wrist and hand!  Yet another thing Lucy's blog at Attic24 has introduced me to.