Crochet Interupted

Posted March 23, 2018

Filed under Crochet

There are plenty of things in life that can take over and slow down your crochet time. For me lately I feel like a lot of things are slowing me down:

I’m dieting. And my diet involves both diet and exercise including at least 10,000 steps every day. When you work in an office and you sit at a desk most of the day, getting 10,000 steps a day can be a challenge. I find myself pacing around my house most nights trying to get to my 10,000 steps, instead of crocheting.
Work. Work has been very busy lately which has caused me to work some extra hours. I also used to crochet during my lunch break, but often times I don’t have much time to take lunch, or a use lunch to try to get steps.
My cats keep laying in my lap. It seems the few times I do get to finally sit down and pick up my hook, one of the cats comes along and plops in my lap for cuddles. Don’t get me wrong, I do love the cuddles, but it cuts down on crochet time.
My husband. Sometimes it feels like I never have all that much time to spend on him. Really he should always come first. He’s a great guy and has been very supportive of me and everything I do. I need to also have quality time for him to hang out, go out to dinner, and talk.

And I don’t even have kids. I couldn’t imagine what it’s like for working mothers.

Pumpkin cuddles while still letting me crochet

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My Secret Project – Started

Posted March 11, 2018

Filed under Crochet

I finally started my secret project. It’s a big project, so this will take me a while to complete. My project is more of a Frankenstein of other patterns I found to accomplish what I’m trying to make. The first pattern that I used is the Easy Basic Boho Hood.

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24 Hours of Harry Potter

Posted November 29, 2017

Filed under Crafts

A local movie house hosted a spectacular event called 24 Hours of Harry Potter back in February. The theater, Row House Cinema, is located in the Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh, which is a bit of a hipsterish part of the city. My friends, Connie and Trisha, decided to go and we thankfully snatched up tickets quick, because they sold out. The theater was playing all of the Harry Potter movies over a 24-hour period starting at midnight on a Friday night and running to midnight on Saturday with short breaks between the movies and a breakfast and a dinner break.

My full Luna Lovegood costume, but I blinked. If only I was wearing my glasses. Sigh.

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Teaching Connie to Crochet

Posted November 26, 2017

Filed under Crochet

My mom taught me to crochet when I was a little girl, maybe 10, or so? Then in my 20s I picked up one of those learn to crochet kits to refresh my memory. I’ve been crocheting off and on through the years, currently on a two year stint after being inspired by Lucy Ravenscar’s Star Wars Crochet.

My friend Connie wanted to learn how to knit and she wanted to take a class together. I thought, sure sounds like fun. (My mom also taught me how to knit, but it never stuck. She even tried to teach me again last Thanksgiving, but it just doesn’t feel natural after years of crochet.) Anyway, Connie and I are also fans of Harry Potter, so I told her I could teach her how to make this Slytherin Scarf.

She came over and I started to teach her how to chain and how to single crochet (sc). I also taught her how to turn rows. Her grasp was really tight, so I told her to try to keep it loose. I was making my own Ravenclaw Scarf as well while she made her Slytherin Scarf. After a couple of hours I thought she was doing pretty good and we could pick up on changing colors.

Next day, she says she went on YouTube and found a way to hold the yarn that felt better to her. I guess my hold on my hook (claw) and my hold on my yarn (also claw, I guess) is different than what is used out there on YouTube. So she showed me what she learned and it really did help her a lot. She also learned how to change colors. I’m so glad that I was so good at teaching, that my student learned more on YouTube.

Connie ended up making this cute little scarf for her cat, Squeaky Bob. He is the chillest cat ever. He loves his little scarf. She also made a full sized scarf for herself.

Squeaky Bob and his Slytherin Scarf

She recently took a knitting class and has been knitting now. So, to summarize, my first crochet student learned more from YouTube videos and switched to knitting at the first opportunity. And my hook and yarn hold is all off. That is how great I am at being a crochet teacher. Lol

My Ravenclaw Scarf

Project Graveyard – Stellar Patchwork Crochet Blanket

Posted November 5, 2017

Filed under Crochet

I found this Hufflepuff blanket pattern on Pinterest and I thought it would make a nice house warming gift for my co-worker and his fiance (both Hufflepuffs). The pattern is labelled easy, and well it is easy in that it’s all single crochet (sc) stitch. It also uses super bulky yarn, so I figured it would be quick AND easy. But instead I found it to be confusing and frustrating. This blanket is a royal pain in the ass.

While reading the instructions, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how the color change was occurring between blocks. I thought maybe the yarn was carried through or maybe it cut between blocks? And that would really suck because I hate weaving in ends. But this method just confused me.

I started this blanket several times; I just couldn’t figure it out until I found some online help on Ravelry. I learned on there from other users that did the pattern that you need to keep eight balls of yarn going at the same time in order to change colors for each square. I thought I had a pretty good system devised. I balled all of my yarn and kept them in plastic Ziploc bags that were numbered (2 balls to a bag), so I could flip them over when I turned the pattern. I saw other users used boxes to keep their yarn and other methods. But overall, keeping that many balls of yarn going at once was a mess.

Project Graveyard

In the end, I think I’ll just pull this all out and make a zig-zag blanket instead. It will be much easier. But I’ll pick this blanket up a little later. Maybe as a wedding gift?

Ms Pac-Man Halloween

Posted October 19, 2017

Filed under Crochet

At my office, we have a Halloween pot luck every year. I also have a coworker that I compete with for prizes. She is very talented and creative, and I always use her as the bar that I have to reach. Last Halloween I went with a Ms Pac-Man theme.

The idea came to me at work one day. While walking around the cubicle pods and the hallways it made me think of a Pac-Man board. So I started plotting out a Pac-Man board around the office in my mind.

I bought my Ms Pac-Man costume online, but I made many of the props. I started with creating poster board Pac-Man, Ms Pac-Man and Ghosts to hang up around the office. For the cherries, I bought two extra large round balloons and green balloon sticks that I taped together. I also made some Pac-Man and ghost chocolate pops. For the Pac-Man board around the office I bought a roll of heavy black paper and rolled it around the office. I also used yellow poster board and construction paper to make the dots and power pellets.

I found this free Ms Pacman pattern to make a small crochet Ms Pacman. I also found this other free ghost pattern. One modification I made was to hot glue googly eyes on the ghosts instead of making the eyes out of felt. I also created my own crochet Pacman board. For my board I didn’t really plan it out I did a simple single crochet square. Then I sewed on the Pac-Man board pattern. For the dots and power pellets I bought some jewels and glued them on.

Crochet Ms Pac-Man Board

In the end, I won 1st Place for best costume! Afterwards I immediately started planning for this year’s Halloween pot luck.

Ghost Lamp and desk decorations

My Desk

Ms Pac-Man and Pac-Man Garland

Ms Pac-Man Board

Dots and Power Pellet

Pinky

The ghosts

Pretzel

Cherries

Blinky

Ms Pac-Man and the ghosts

Pac-Man and Ghost chocolate pops

Me as Ms Pac-Man

1st Place!

Star Wars Bounty Hunters

My husband is a Star Wars fan and loves the bounty hunters. I decided to start making some additional crochet characters for him, in the same style as Lucy Collins. I used her patterns to model my characters and changed up the color schemes.

I started with Bossk. I found pictures of him online and of his action figure. I used one of the regular sized characters from Star Wars crochet as my model, probably Han Solo. For his head ridges, I added picots along his head. I originally did his teeth in V shapes, but didn’t like them, so I replaced the teeth with just small stitches. I thought it made his teeth look more jagged and razor sharp. Overall I think he came out pretty good. Bossk was a Valentine’s Day gift for my husband.

Bossk’s Original Head with teeth

Bossk In Progress

Completed Bossk

Next up I tried Dengar. Again, I searched for pictures online to use to model him off of. For his head wrap, I started with a hood and made a hat. Then I made a long tail coming off the end of the hood, that I wrapped around his head. He’s pretty cute. He was a birthday present for my husband.

Dengar

My latest bounty hunter was IG-88. For IG-88, I used C3P0’s pattern as a template to work from. He has really thin arms and legs, so I tried to reduce his leg and arm width and extend them, since he is tall. I also extended his head to a point. When I finished he turned out to be almost twice as tall as Boba Fett. Oops. Oh well, I still like the way he turned out. He was a Christmas present for my husband.

IG-88

IG-88 Towers over Boba Fett

So I have three more to make for him: 4-LOM, Zuckuss, and Boba Fett. I already made Boba Fett from the Star Wars Crochet kit, but he’s mine. I’ll have to make a new one for my husband. I think I may try 4-LOM next. Need to figure out how I will make his bug eyes.

Star Wars Crochet

For years, the only crochet I ever really did was baby blankets. Every time someone had a baby, I would make an afghan. So, about two years ago I was standing in line at the craft store, buying yarn for another baby blanket and there it was, on the shelf with all the pattern books and magazines…Star Wars Crochet! I had to run out of line to grab it. I just knew that once I was done with my next baby blanket, I was going to make Yoda!

The kit comes with the materials to create the Yoda and a Storm Trooper. I started with Yoda, of course. And I made a lot of mistakes, also of course.

My Yoda mistakes:

I was crocheting in back of rows only. This is a sloppy habit I picked up when I was young. Now that I’m back to doing it regularly I’ve corrected this bad habit, but in Yoda it’s pretty noticeable.
I completely messed up the feet and forgot to do the bobble stitches.
I corrected my back of rows folly when I made Yoda’s robe, which made his robe look like it shrank in the wash.

Well, every mistake is a learning experience and I didn’t let my Yoda mistakes stop me. I continued on with the entire book.

Lucy Collins’ instructions are actually very easy to follow. I like the fact that she includes illustrations for the patterns. The set came with 12 patterns and I completed all 12. And one day I will go back and make a new Yoda, that has feet and a robe that fits. And I will also make a ton of Storm Troopers and Ewoks, so I can create battle scenes.

LucyRavenscar links:

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