Thursday, December 27, 2007

Clearance Yarn is a Wonderful Thing...


Christmas came early to my house. I strolled into my local AC Moore a couple of weeks ago and found an entire aisle of clearance yarn! Everything was marked $1.00 a skein. There was a lot of furry novelty yarn that I wasn't too crazy about. I'm just not a fan of the furries. But, I found two skeins of Lion Brand Jiffy Thick and Quick in Catskills color. I'll probably use this for a hat or scarf.

I also found a hand dyed 100% Cotton yarn from Chile I've been admiring from afar. It was a little too expensive for my blood, but at a buck a skein, I pounced on it. It's called Pehue'n distributed by Araucania yarn and is distributed by Knitting Fever here in the US. I grabbed a pile of it.

There should be enough for a sweater here. My New Year's resolutions include knitting a sweater, and crocheting a sweater. I've been afraid to since I royally messed one up around 20 years ago. Gauge was a foreign concept, but now that my skills are better, I'm working up the courage to try apparel.

Also at the clearance sale, I found some Aunt Lydia's New Wave Crochet cotton in a peach color. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, but I'm sure I'll find something.

Last, but certainly not least, I'd been eyeing this King Tut cotton yarn that was also a little expensive at its regular price. It was also in the clearance bin. I didn't buy it my first trip, because I'd gotten the other three items. However, I wandered back in there yesterday to check out the Christmas decorations-floral picks I can use to spruce up the wreaths at the cemetary, and it was still there, in the clearence bin. Before I knew it, it had jumped into my basket and I had to take it home. I felt so bad for it, just sitting there- the other clearance shelves were nearly bare.
Granted, I'm not a huge fan of the bright orange color, but I'm sure I can find something else to put it with to mute it a little.








Yesterday, I also found a skein of Lion Brand Incredible for a buck. It was the color Purple Party and is pretty cute. I dragged out my size 50 knitting needles and started a scarf/shawl. It looks pretty cute if I do say so myself.

I haven't done a whole lot of knitting or crocheting due to the holidays and the increased migraines and vestibular symptoms.
I had been knitting squares from an old stitch pattern book I found at a local antique co-op.
I've had a lot of fun trying the different patterns. I've stuck to the easier patterns, since the brain fog from the CFIDS and from the vertigo makes it harder for me to interpret complex directions. I used a piece of paper to track my rows when I did the one at the top right. I'll have to do something similar if I try to tackle something more complex, since I can lose my train of thought in the middle of a row and forget what I've done.

As far as crochet goes, I've done more work on the baby blanket from Lion Pound of Love. I don't have a picture to post yet. It's about 1/2 way done, so I'll take one after I do a little more.

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Baby Blankets and the Holidays

I know it's been over a month since I last posted. I got sick, had an allergic reaction to the medication, and have been fighting a flare up of my CFIDS. Toss a few more migraines and Thanksgiving into the mix, and I've been down for the count.

Also, my brother needed a baby blanket for a friend who's expecting. I found a pattern I've used before-Cauliflower, from the ASN leaflet A Garden of Baby Afghans designed by Sandy Scoville.
The person who received the first one I made loved it, so I figured I'd do it again. I did it in Caron Simply Soft, Soft Pink. Here's a close up of the design:


Here's a photo of the finished blanket:

It took me a good hunk of November to do, and I finished it last week. Normally, I can do a baby blanket in about 2 weeks, if I can crochet every day. I guess four weeks wasn't too bad.
My brother really liked it, so I hope the recipient does, too.

On the knit side, I went back to making squares from an old stitch pattern book I found at our local Craft-Antique Co-op. It's from either the fifties or the sixties (I stink at interpreting Roman numerals- I know the X, V, I, but once you get to the L, M, and C, I'm lost!). I've got three of them done and will probably stitch them together for an afghan once I've finished. I'll have to take photos of them once my new camera arrives. The one I used to take these photos with, died shortly thereafter. It was only a 2 megapixel, so it's not worth getting fixed.

Sewing wise, I really need to get the night shirt I cut out a couple of months ago sewn together. Then I want to make my brother and S-I-L, a couch protector for Christmas. They have three great dogs who love to sit on the couch. They've been using bed sheets to cover the sofa, but they would like something that looks a little nicer. I'm not the world's best sewer, but I'm going to give it a go!

Monday, November 5, 2007

The Case of the Mysterious Changing Yarn

I made some progress on the baby blanket I mentioned earlier until...the yarn changed color on its own! I couldn't believe it. It had been a couple of days since I worked on it, and when I went to check my progress from a distance, I was shocked. The color went from a nice bright white to more of a muted white. In the photo below, it might be hard to see it, since my camera is an old 2.0 megapixel that Santa (moi) will have to replace. This was Bernat Softee Baby yarn, which I've used before without any problems. I'll have to send the skein to the company or send them a photo, just to see what they say. I miss my old white Simply Soft!


I started a different blanket with some Lion Brand Pound of Love in white, which is turning out okay so far. I found an old stitch dictionary at a charitable garage sale and it's based on a shell
pattern. I'm in a shell rut, but they look so nice in a baby blanket.

I have to have a knitting project going at the same time and started a scarf. I have a table reserved at a sale my church is having, so I want to have original designs to take with me. This is a scarf from Lion Homespun mill ends. Because of my brain fog, I can lose track of things very easily...like what pattern of knit and purl stitches I want. I started off doing a simple k1, p1 rib, and was going to keep it up...
But, then, the migraines hit and I ended up doing a seed stitch instead.


Then, I thought that the scarf could be a kind of "sampler" scarf. Why not mix up the seed stitch and the rib stitch to add a different texture to the piece. I did a few rows of ribbing again, but I'm not sure if I like it that much. We'll see.

Friday, October 26, 2007

I'm on Ravelry

Come see some of my projects on Ravelry. My handle is jgagelvr. I've got a few of my projects listed and am slowly adding more. I haven't added much else, but it's a start!

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Wine Bottle Covers, Baby Blankets and Baseball


I've gotten a little further on the Wine Bottle Cover, and it's looking pretty good. The edges look fairly even, but the variegation makes me think the piece is slanted. I don't know if I messed up or if it's the weirdness that is my brain. I've never been able to draw a straight line across a page, and I have a difficult time seeing if something is straight or not. I hung wall paper in my old house in my pre-dizzy days, and it was way off. Even if I used a ruler to draw a straight line on a poster, it either slanted up one way or the other. I bet most of the artwork in my house is hung crookedly, too, lol! The next wine bottle bag/other bottle gift bag I do will be done on circular needles, and dpns for the bottom. I've crocheted them in one piece, and it worked out well. The one below was designed by Katherine Eng and appeared in the book Crochet with Bits and Pieces.




I'm leery about how well the long seam will hold and how visible it will be in the knitted piece once I get it completed.

In the meantime, I started a baby blanket with Bernat Softee Baby yarn I found on sale. I found the pattern in a stitch dictionary I found at a garage sale-The New Crochet Dictionary by Rhonda Ochser Goldberg published in 1986. The stitch is a textured half double crochet. I know it's hard to see in this photo, but I'll take another one when I get more of the blanket finished. I normally use Caron Simply Soft for my baby blankets, but the new white color hurts my eyes. Caron's color is a horrible white/gray tone that looks, IMHO, dirty. This is a nicer white, and the yarn is fairly soft. However, I don't think it's as cushy soft as Simply Soft. This project will get me through the World Series. This way, if the game gets to be a nail biter, I'll have my hands full so I won't throw anything at the television if there's a bad call!

The Red Sox are one of my favorite teams- they're tied for third with the Minnesota Twins, but I'm rooting for the Rockies this time. The Rockies beat the Diamonbacks, who swept my favorite team- the Chicago Cubs! By the way, the N.Y. Mets are a close second to the Cubs.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Welcome!

Welcome to my little corner of Cyberspace! My name is Pat-short for Patricia and I love to crochet, knit and am getting back into sewing after many years. I'm the Dizzy Girl, because I have a vestibular disorder known as Migraine Associated Vertigo as well as some other chronic health problems that I blog about here. Crafting helps me cope with my health issues, and gives me a sense of accomplishment that's so hard to find elsewhere.

I'm one of those people the yarn companies love. Whenever I walk into a craft store, I always have to look at the free patterns on the tear sheets hanging in the yarn section. More often than not, I end up finding a pattern I like and end up buying the yarn for it. I just picked up some Bernat Handicrafter Holidays yarn to do the wine bottle cover on the sheet. As you can see, it's not going too badly.

I'm not the fastest knitter or crocheter on the planet- some days I can sit and craft, some days, not so much. Hopefully I'll have this done by the end of the weekend.