What's in My Yarn Bag

Above are some fun pictures of things I currently carry in my yarn bag (compared to my post last year). I currently carry:

Snip-its (blades are protected and don't stab me when I look for them. LOVE THESE)
Cat tape-measure
Stitch holders & Stitch markers of various sizes
Yarn Notebook for inspiration

All these things easily fit into that cute Lantern Moon pouch that allows me to transport my notions to different project bags with no hassle. So great!

What do you currently carry in your yarn bag?

Crocheted Drawstring Bag

LOOK I MADE A BAG! I'm obsessed with it. I love the fact that it's made out of 100% cotton. I love the fact that it's drawstring. It's the perfect bag for summer and I have been shamelessly using it every day!  

Here are more pics of the bag details:

I accented the bag with some DMC floss just for fun.

As you can tell, the crocheted fabric has generous holes in it and I wanted the bag to hold my items, not lose them all over town or at the beach! To solve this problem I hand-sewed a Baggu zip bag on the inside to hold my smaller personal items.

Trying to determine what to use for the drawstring was the more challenging part. Initially I triple-stranded leftover blue and white cotton yarn and crocheted a bunch of chains to use as the drawstring. But this caused a lot of friction and made it hard to pull the bag closed, so I opted for another material.

I used Neon Lacing from Purl Soho and I'm happy with the result. Makes for strong straps that support the weight of the bag quite well!

Let me know what you think! What summer bags are you currently obsessed with?

Crocheted Rope Clutch

So like I said in this post, I ended up making a clutch out of the rope. Unusual, right? ;) I'm into novelty, and my brain thought this project was the perfect way to explore unconventional yarn. 

Some other stuff:

US P hook

2 skeins of 100 Ft. X 3/16 In. Clothesline

1 skein of 100 Ft. X 1/4 In. Glow In The Dark Polypropylene Rope

Yeah, that neon rope is GLOW IN THE FRIGGIN DARK! Haha! I have another skein of clothesline (bought 3 skeins and only needed 2) that I can use for a wall hanging or something. I could even use it as a bag handle for a nautical themed bag that I either crochet or sew or something! Who knows?! What would you make with clothesline? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Lisa

Thinking About: Crocheting with Clothesline

If you're like me, then you love to play around with different kinds of yarn or things can can be used as yarn. I recently discovered a small chain hardware store called Harbor Freight Tools, a true SoCal hidden gem. I happened to pass by the rope and twine section and couldn't help myself.  I LOVE creating new textures and the thought about the effect of using different material with my crochet hook influenced me to buy a few things (skeins?) of clothesline. 

LOTS of potential here for future projects, that's for sure! I'll show you what I ended up making in an upcoming post, so stay tuned!

Have you tried using an unusual kind of yarn for one of your projects? What did you use?

Lisa

Crocheted Baby Turtle Outfit

So here is the first thing I created whilst away from the world of blogging. At the beginning of the year, one of my friends saw this image:

source

...and asked if I could make that outfit for her newborn. 

The task looked simple enough. Make motifs, connect said motives, possibly make a border, make a beanie, DONE. But a few more thoughts went into the process before I finally settled on something I liked. For the shell, the above image shows six pentagons crocheted together, and I don't know about you, but the look of six pentagons pulled together doesn't sit right with my brain. I thought the piece would look more structurally sound if I were to make a hexagon for the center and six pentagons surrounding it, like this:

source

I scouted for the pentagon and hexagon motif patterns on the interwebs and found what I needed at Hodgepodge Crochet. I made some tea, grabbed some yarn from my stash, put on some TV [re-THIS POST], and before I knew it, I had completed the project! Here are some progress pics just because.

Kitty makes a good model, yeah? :p

Have you made (or thought about making) any baby projects lately?

Pixelated Link Blanket Progress Pics

Good news everyone! The blanket is finished for the most part.

On Friday I crocheted the last 6 black squares, connected the last two columns, and connected 7 rows of my blanket. It was a very productive day seeing that I would be spending most of Saturday in the car, making the gloriously boring adventure back down to sunny SoCal. There was holiday traffic, which extended the lifespan of said adventure.

I now have 6 rows left to connect before the blanket is truly finished, which is totally cool because the blanket still looks finished. Mwahahahaha. 

Pixelated Link Blanket Progress

Almost there!

Pixelated Link Blanket Progress

It's coming along! Only 8 more days...

Ties for Missionaries

Charitable work feels great, especially when it involves knitting or crocheting. I took on this small project of making ties for the Mormon boys whose mission site is right by my house and could not be happier with the way things came out. Missionaries have a pretty strict uniform and can only express themselves style-wise through their ties. I gave them options on what kind of ties I could make for them and shortly after they picked out yarn from my stash and even requested that the ties be crocheted instead of knitted. Here are finished product pics:

These ties look awesome!!!! Shout out to Red Heart Soft yarn in Waterscape for making the cool random stripes on both ties. I like that the ties don't match even though I used the same yarn (:

I ironed the ties after I finished so the ends wouldn't curl. Ironing helped A BUNCH (proof in pics above).

Back to knitting granny squares!

Pixelated Link Blanket

I am finally (!!!) making this pixelated Link blanket that I have wanted to make since forever ago. There is quite a bit of planning that goes into making a blanket, including just how much yarn to buy, what kind of yarn to buy, what kind of crochet hook to use, you get the picture. My goal is to finish this blanket by November 30th, and friends, I will make it happen. It is cold now that winter is coming and the best way to stay warm is to cover myself in a nice home-made blanket.

Some fun information for you:
208 squares total
dimensions are 16 squares x 13 squares
each granny square is 4.5 - 5 inches long
= a huge blanket

Materials:
Sugar 'n Cream cotton yarn in brown, blue (Link's outfit will be blue not green!), and tan
Cascade Ultra Pima cotton yarn in black

Size H crochet hook

Current progress pics:

Finishing:
This is an awesome AWESOME tutorial on joining granny crochet squares written by Attic24. I will definitely be finishing my blanket with this technique. 

More progress pics and updated information to come. Can't wait to show you! 

Distraction: I needed a bookmark

for my craft journal. So I grabbed some Size 10 Cotton Thread and my No. 4 steel crochet hook and made one. Ez.


It's all scrunched up and looks funny. Currently using this bookmark and hopefully after some usage the piece will flatten out more.

Back to work on my intarsia experiment!

Knitting With Two Strands of Yarn

Here is a swatch using my leftover "winging it" cowl yarns. I did not make the effort to keep one color on top/bottom so the result ended up looking like this:

I was really pleased with the texture but decided to switch it up to crochet.

Ended up with this cool looking beanie! Using a K hook, this piece took me about an hour and a half to make.


3/4 of the way through crocheting all dc, I decided to add cable. Here is a close up, although I think it is sort of difficult to see the cable in this pic. OH WELL it still looks awesome.

This piece is suprisingly soft, squishy, and it comfortably fits my tiny head. I definitely plan on wearing this when the weather gets colder.

Now I need to think up a new project! More to come, my good people.

Staying organized

If you like knitting and crocheting as much as I do, then you probably have a BUNCH of different sized needles and hooks. This is how I keep my tools organized:

CROCHET

I crocheted for myself a crochet hook case! The red stripes use hdc white the blue stripes are simply made of sc. The extra loop in the hdc is what holds the hook into place.


My favorite part is the nifty little pocket in the middle of the case. I use it to stash my stitch markers.




KNIT

I know what you're thinking. Pirouline cookies are absolutely delicious. Fun fact: the can also makes a great knitting needle holder! However, I think I should at least knit a can cover. I feel like knitted decoration is much more appropriate than exposing the tasty-looking cookies on the can label.

I am planning on knitting a needle case for my straight needles whenever I find a good pattern. Storing circular needles can be a bit tricky. One solution is buying this addi click needle set.



YARN BAG TOOLS
Scissors, small crochet hook, yarn needle, and stitch holders. All necessities for a useful bag of tools. I use the crochet hook the most for my dropped knitted stitches. The hook is a real time saver!


And that about does it!

How do you keep your needles, hooks, and other tools organized?

Toodles, friends.

Spring Patchwork Show

What a wonderful Sunday it was in sunny Santa Ana! I ventured through the many vendors set up at the Patchwork Show and even took a few pictures.

Take a lookie!

Egg beanies and bacon scarves:

Gorgeous beaded jewelry:

Fun pottery - the eyes had gnarly glazes:

The bike would spin the canvases while participants would pour their preferred colors. Results in fantastic personal paintings:

Bought an amazing shirt:

And seriously so much more. I had a fantastic time. Can't wait to attend the next craft fair in SoCal!