Tag Archives: Crochet

Tasty Crochet

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Last summer while I was at the Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet Festival, my boss texted me a photo of some Crab Rangoon pillows that she thought her daughter wound love. I searched around a bit and found the pattern on Etsy, by Vandallorium. I also looked around for some other food inspired crochet and found the bao pillows pattern too by curiouspapaya. I also purchased one more pattern for Giant Kimbap, but I ended up not buying materials for this one and didn’t make it.

The Crab Rangoon pillows are ridiculously easy to make. The instructions are very easy to follow. My only issue, as always is gauge. My gauge came up a bit small, so I thought I could block it to size, but that didn’t work out too well. I used Yarn Bee True Colors yarn for the crab rangoons and duck sauce bowl. I bought these pillows to stuff my rangoons and duck sauce bowl. Since my Rangoon gauge was a little off, I ended up needing to open the pillows up and un-stuff them some. I added my tag to one of the rangoon pillows, I didn’t want to overdo the pillows with tags on them all.

The giant bao is probably my favorite. In fact I purchased more materials to make another one for myself. For the Giant bao I used Yarn Bee Perfectly Plush yarn for the body and Yarn Bee Showstopper for the blush. The safety eyes came from Etsy. This one was also very easy to make. The pattern was well written and the creator also offers video help as well, but I didn’t need that. One tip, since this yarn was super plush and hard to see, I used stitch markers for where the increases happen. I’d count out to the increase locations and add markers before I crocheted the round. This helped me to keeps my counts accurate. and prevented me from continually frogging the rounds. Isn’t he cute?

This week I packed up the pillows and shipped them off. They arrived for my boss and her daughter on Valentine’s Day. Her daughter loved them. So glad they are being enjoyed.

Jean Jacket

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Oh boy, I’m out of it this year. I never published this post? Guess not. But the good new is that I won best Halloween decorations from my ward for my town.

This year for Halloween I did a Nope scene, so I had to make a Jean Jacket prop. I decided that the easiest way to do it would be to just crochet it. So I got some very large wreath frames and some grey and black yarn and did a freeform version of Jean Jacket.

I was a bit inspired by Crochetverse and the costumes she makes for her kids. So I wanted to do a large scale crochet freehand Halloween prop. I have a long way to go to catch up with her talent, but I did learn a little bit about shaping. I also learned that I’m very impatient and that I don’t want to go back and reshape when I’m working on something this big.

My Nope scene was finished with some clearance Spirit horses, mini waving tube guys, and pennant flags.

Pittsburgh Satellite Crochet Coral Reef

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My LYS, Kid Ewe Knot, is a partner for the Pittsburgh Satellite Crochet Coral Reef project. All summer they had event to create crochet corals to add to the exhibit. I waited until the last minute and made a few small projects to add to the project in the last few days.

The Crochet Coral Reef is an international project that has spawned 50 community-based Satellite Reefs worldwide. It “is an ever-evolving nature-culture hybrid created by Margaret Wertheim and Christine Wertheim, that resides at the nexus of art, science, mathematics, community practice, and climate change.”

Kid Ewe Knot collected many contributions to our Satellite exhibit that will open November 4 at the Carnegie Museum of Art. Additional contributions at Kid Ewe Knot are pictured below.

My sea anemones were made with a free pattern by Fat Cat Patterns. My brain coral (model 2 brain coral) was made with a free pattern by Golden Lucy Crafts.

Sunseeker Pullover

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Back in the spring I saw this Sunseeker Pullover by Sara Dudek on WeCrochet. For the yarn, I used my Manos Del Uruguay Fino, that I’ve had in my stash for years. I worked on this sweater most of the spring and into the summer. I finished it during this years Pittsburgh Creative Arts Festival. I love this pattern. It was so easy. I love the sleeves and I added my own little flair to them. (Ignore the fact that I’ve gained weight.) I don’t really have anything else to say about this sweater. Just love it, and I’m wearing it right now!

Summertime Tee

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After spending about a year on the Linen and Lace Tunic, I wanted something quick and easy to make.  I found the Summertime Tee by Toni Lipsey on Ravelry; I purchased it there.  It’s also available for free on her blog TL Yarn Crafts.  I was able to complete this project in two weeks!  It was that quick and easy.  And I’m slow, so others could probably make it much faster.

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Simple Boot Cuffs

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I got these cute Wellies for Christmas and I decide I needed to make some boot cuffs to go with them.  I started with a pattern, but I didn’t like the way it was coming out, so I made up my own pattern.

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Filet Squares Baby Blanket Pattern

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I wanted to design and make my own baby blanket, but I’m still pretty new to designing my own patterns.  I searched through my “The Crochet Stitch Bible” and looked for a stitch to make the base of my blanket.  I ended up selecting the filet squares stitch.  I like the simple look of the stitch and there is not a lot of lace for tiny fingers and toes to get struck in, but enough small holes to add some venting for a summer blanket.  If you pick up The Crochet Stitch Bible it includes the charts as well as the written pattern for the filet squares stitch.

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Baby Washcloths

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I decided to add a few baby washcloths to my baby gift basket.  I bought some cotton yarn (20 Skein La Mia Mini Cottony 100% Turkish Cotton Baby Yarn) for the Pittsburgh Creative Arts Festival to use in classes. It gave me a variety of similar yarn in different colors to work with. The yarn itself is nice, but not the easiest to work with. It splits and isn’t twisted tight, so there are some limitations on the stitches you can do with it since it snags easily on the crochet hooks.

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Ripple Stitch, Leaf Stitch, Half Double Crochet, Tunisian Simple Stitch, and Spiral

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Pittsburgh Creative Arts Festival 2019

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The remainder of the Pittsburgh Creative Arts Festival was great. At Friday night’s Block Party, I got a henna tattoo from Soma Chatterji in the spa room.  I’ve always wanted a henna tattoo.  We also did some yoga stretches and checked out all of the exhibits.

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Happy Birthday, Mom!

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It’s mom’s birthday and we are spending it at the Pittsburgh Creative Arts Festival. Her birthday present this year, from me, was three classes!

This morning, or afternoon really, was the Next Steps in Tunisian Crochet class by Robyn Chachula. This is the class I was cramming for, trying to learn Tunisian Crochet. The class was jammed packed with new stuff. Perhaps I would have picked it up faster if I had actually spent more time getting familiar with Tunisian crochet. But we learned the knit stitch, pearl stitch, a slip stitch foundation row, twisted stitch, reverse stitch, and spike stitch. my swatch looks like a hot mess.

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Looks like a hot mess

Starting to change colors, but still looks messy.

I like the spike stitches.

Then we learned how to do increases and decreases with a chevron pattern. She also had multiple ways to do increases and decreases in her write up, but I just stuck with the basics. I feel like I completely got my money’s worth here and I’d better spend more time with Tunisian so I can remember everything I learned.

Many mistakes, but the chevron isn’t so bad.

We spent maybe an hour on the floor, then we went to our Hairpin Lace class with Laura Regan. Mom and I were ready for our second class of the day! About 5 mins into the class my husband texted me that he couldn’t find his car keys. Oopies! I grabbed his keys this morning when I left the house. I had to leave the class and go run and meet him at his appointment, that he had to Uber to, and drive him home afterwards. Ugh. I missed the class and some good quality time with mom because I was absent minded this morning.

Mom and me, ready for class

Ready to learn hairpin lace, shame I had to leave.

I hope I’ll be back tonight in plenty of time for the block party. And mom needs to teach me hairpin lace now. (Do you ever just want to bonk yourself on your head? Yeah, me too.). Looking forward to the rest of the weekend.