Art of Crochet, Book Review, Giveaway

I have been a knitter for a long time, and in recent years, a very devoted one. My mom taught me to knit when I was a small child. Around the same time, she taught me to crochet, embroider, finger weave to make cup holders, and assorted other handy crafts. In those days crochet meant steel hooks with thin white cotton thread, to make anything from doilies to table clothes. Most of the time it was fillet crochet. I have this vivid memory of an older girl (probably high school) leaning on the door frame, chatting with her girlfriend, fingers flying away, and the finished part of the table cloth tucked under her arm. The shiny hook and white thread was a blur.

When I was about six, my mom had some friends over. Her friend's daughter was a wimpy toddler, cried all the time, but since I was older I had the task of entertaining her. When she started screaming again I picked her up, with her back to my chest, carried her and ran to her mother. It was no more than 10 yards, but the little girl screamed and screamed, I couldn't wait to dump her off. Later my mom's friend, through my mom, complained that I scratched the little girls back till it bled. Turned out I had my steel hook in my shirt pocket, with the hook end up.

I rarely touched a crochet hook after that. Knitting needles were much safer.

But my fascination with crochet never stopped. When my blog friend Denise of Voie de Vie's fame asked me to be part of her book review tour, I accepted with great delight. If you are not familiar with Denise's blog, it's choke-full of beautiful photography and wonderful crochet projects.

Denise's new eBook, Accessories: Autumne 2012 is a collection of five patterns, both knit and crochet. As always, the photography is fantastic. You know sometimes you want to buy a book just to look at it? This is one of them. Even if you don't make anything from the book, you want to keep flipping through it, just to look at the pictures.

My favorite pattern in this book is Le Bouquet Stole. I like it so much I'm making it (or rather sort of my version of it), more about that later. The stitch pattern is so pretty, and the shaping is very unique. Enveloped Cowl is adorable and stylish at the same time. It can be a must have piece in your wardrobe that follows you everywhere, day or evening. Rustically Elegant Shoulder Warmer is mouthful of a name, but look at that cute model. I'd make it with less bulk on the neck, but if you have a long neck and thin upper body to pull it off, this would look great and keep you very warm. Slouching Towards Tassels Cap is interestingly shaped, and Denise provides lovely illustrated instruction on how to make tassels that you can use on any project. The Piaf Scarf is the only knitting pattern in the book. I'm not a big fan of heavy scarves, but the stitch pattern for this scarf is very simple and this should make a very easy, very quick holiday gift knitting.

Accessories: Autumne 2012 is available on Ravelry for $14.99. I'm giving away a copy to one of the commenters on this post. Some simple rules for the giveaway:

1. One entry per person. You can leave multiple comments, but they count as one entry.
2. Please leave your Ravelry ID or email address.
3. Entry starts as soon as this post is published and ends Thursday November 15 noon Pacific time.
4. I will post the winner's name in next Friday's entry, and Denise will send out the eBook to the winner directly.
5. Only comments on this blog entry counts, so if you commented on my Facebook page or Ravelry posts, please comment here as well. The only exception is for my friends in China who may not be able to access Blogger, in which case I will accept Ravelry comments.

Now my project.

Project: Le Bouquet Stole 紫藤花
Pattern: Le Bouquet Stole, designed by Denise, published in Accessories: Autumne 2012
Yarn: Newton's Yarn Country Cashmere Merino (DK weight)
Yardage: 1280 yards in stash
Hook: Size G
Cast on: November 1, 2012
Notes: I had a lot of trouble understanding the stitch pattern since I'm not used to reading crochet instructions. I played with different combinations of twists, and in the end decided to only use the stitch pattern in the set up row (roughly). So far it looks ok, and I'm sure if I just keep at it long enough it will become a scarf. The yarn is a little brighter in real life, a very pretty lavender. the Chinese name, 紫藤花 means wisteria.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog and leave me a comment! 

Starfish Getting Close; Pupdate

The hole in the middle of Starfish shawl is getting smaller and smaller. Not surprisingly, once the lace pattern was done and the stitch count per round became more manageable (remember it started at 730 stitches at cast on), it felt like I was making leaps and bounds progress every night. You will see the finished shawl in couple of weeks. 

Emma puppy turned five months old on Thursday. She's growing taller and longer. She picks on her poor brother mercilessly. Rascal can't keep up with her speed and vigor sometimes, but if she's locked in her crate he'd bark at her, "Come out and play!" Siblings, sigh.

Emma got a bath the other day, she didn't like it.

Aren't we sweet together?

We get along when we are awake too.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog and leave me a comment! 

Starfish Shawl, Moving Update

A lot of baseball watching means a lot of knitting time. My Starfish Shawl is growing at a good clip and is finally starting to look like a shawl. I'm not a sports fan myself, but living with two guys, and the small one is tracking every sport with statistics, it's hard not to care about the games. Giants keeps winning, my shawl keeps growing.

Last Sunday I brought the guys to Carmel to give my mom a thorough "keep or toss". My husband made five trips to the Goodwill truck down the hill, and we still ended up with a bunch of boxes coming home with us. At least we put a nice dent in her stuff collection. Next, sell or give away the bigger furniture.  

Happy Fiber Arts Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog and leave me a comment! 

Catching up on Old FO's

These were all made pre-digital camera, pre-blog, pre-Ravelry, pre-Facebook, pre-Daniella days. Finally got around to taking a few good pictures and properly record them.

Project: Perfect fit pullover
Pattern:  Perfect fit pullover by Lisa Myers, Interweave Knits Winter 2001/2002
Yarn:  Ellen's Half Pint Farm Falkland wool
Yardage:  about 700 yards
Needles: Size 6
Cast off: 2002
Cost: about $50
Notes: This is one of my favorite sweaters of all time! The sweater is designed with shapings according to your own measurement, decrease at the waist, and then increase at the chest. The yarn is perfect, light weight with a firm hand. I made it in my early days of knitting sweaters, and became a firm believer of the traditional 4-piece sweater design. 

Project: Einstein Coat
Pattern:  Einstein Coat by Sally Melville, The Knitting Experience, Book 1, The Knit Stitch
Yarn:  Lion Brand Fishermen's Wool
Yardage:  roughly between 800 to 1000 yards
Needles: Size 8
Cast off: 2002
Cost: about $20 - $30
Notes: Made this for my mom when the book first came out in 2002. Added shaping to sleeves and ribbing on the cuffs. Changed from buttons to zippers. My mom outgrew it and gave it back to me since she's moving.

Project: Viking Turid
Pattern:  Viking Turid by Elsebeth Lavold, Knitters magazine Fall 2000
Yarn:  Garnstudio Drops Camelia Superwash
Yardage:  a lot more than I expected
Needles: Size 5
Cast off: 2001
Cost: at a discount
Notes: Knitted this when I was working at The Knitting Room, where I fell in love with Clover bamboo circulars, Drops yarns, form fitting sweaters, complex cables, and many other things. This is a tunic length sweater, but the sleeves were too long and I had to rip out half of the first sleeve so I could still use my hands while wearing the sweater. This got a lot of use over the years, still a great treasure in my wardrobe.

Happy Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog, Tami's blog, and leave me a comment! 

Charity Knitting, Mom's Move

A new batch of charity knitting was collected last week when I visited my mom. She's clicking on those needles a lot more to use up some yarn before moving to Houston.

The moving, however, is not quite coming along. More precisely the getting-rid-of-stuff-before-moving is not coming together at all. It's been over two months since she decided to move, and she has hardly cleaned out anything. Every time I talked to her on the phone, she promised to start as soon as we hang up the phone. Her closets are still completely packed to the brims, empty boxes piled up high, and she just wants to sit down, watch TV and knit. I'm not sure if it's age or the whole prospect of packing and moving simply too overwhelming, she just doesn't seem to want to deal with it at all. I will have a few more chances to go down there and help her sort though all the books, files, clothes, and just general "stuff", then we have to sell or give away all the furniture, pack up boxes that are going to be shipped to Houston. It sounds like a very daunting task.

That's enough whining.

Happy Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog, Tami's blog, and leave me a comment! 

More Shawl, A Lot More Emma

Continuing to make progress on the Starfish shawl. There are five sections, and for the armhole slits, two sections, and the other three sections, are knitted back and forth. If you see part of the shawl slightly bigger than the opposite side, don't need to have your eyes or screen checked.

Now the fun part! Emma has been with us for a week, and if you ask her she'd tell you it's pretty nice here. She has three humans doting on her, and a big brother to wrestle with her. She has a pretty good idea when it's meal time, and runs to the spot to wait for her kibbles. Her idea about bathroom is less than perfect, and we are working on more business and less fooling around in the backyard, which is hard since her new hobby is mulching, munching on the wood chips that is.

I started a Facebook page for the pups so we have a place for all their stories. Do come join us, just click on this link: Rascal and Emma.

Last but not least, a little video of Emma, someone on Ravelry called her "flying nun ears" :-)

Happy Fiber Arts Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog and leave me a comment! 

Starfish Progress, and Shhhh!!! ..... New Baby!

Starfish shawl continues to grow nicely on the needles. Now that the stitch pattern is set, it's becoming quite a mindless project, except for each row takes forever. There is a decrease at the end of each pattern repeat, and there are five repeats per row. I lose five stitches every row, then again, I started from 730 stitches. I think I will be knitting this for the next 10 years.

And then life takes a sharp turn. Last weekend Bill and Henry went to CARE adoption center, where we first saw Rascal, and they met a delightful little dog. She's all black, very small, about four months old. Tuesday night her foster mom took her to our house. We, all the humans and Rascal, all officially met her, and the rest, as they say, is history.

She will be in our house in a few hours. She name will be Emma.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog and leave me a comment! 

What's Twisted Shall Remain Twisted

Last week I showed you my new project, Starfish Shawl. I talked about the challenging beginning, "Cast on 730 stitches, join, be careful not to twist". I showed you all 730 stitches bunched up together on a 36" needle. I admitted "it's still hard to tell if I'm twisted or untwisted".

Ten rows later, I was able to prove to myself, I was twisted.

I took it to The Knitting Room, looking for some emotional support while I attempted the crochet hook trick to untwist without unwinding. 

I dropped down the connecting stitch, down all ten rows. I imagined the shawl would come apart and I'd re-attach it untwisted. Well, it didn't. Still didn't want to start over, I turn the twisted side over, made the dropped stitch into a big butterfly, picked up an extra stitch on the next row, and called it a day.

Yep, twisted.

Dropped stitch

Turned and re-attached with an extra stitch

A few more rows later, the "twist" site doesn't look too bad. I may have to do something about it later, but for now I can live with this.

Or am I just fooling myself?

Happy Fiber Arts Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog and leave me a comment! 

New Project: Starfish Shawl 海星

Project:  Starfish Shawl 海星
Pattern:  Starfish Shawl by Norah Gaughan, published in Knitting Nature
Yarn:  West Valley Alpacas Classic DK yarn
Yardage:  2472 yards in stash
Needles: Size 7
Cast on: September 4 2012

Notes: West Valley Alpacas is a semi-local alpaca farm, about 90 miles from us. A few years ago we used to go to their annual open house to see alpaca shearing, spinning, weaving demos, and of course, buy yarn. This yarn was a very large cone, over 1lb or so. I used a small portion for Box 96 couple of years ago, and really liked working with it. It didn't work out for Elizabeth of York which I planned to knit during the Olympics. I didn't want to give it up just yet, and thought a large shawl with relatively loose gauge would be a much better fit.

Starfish Shawl starts with "Cast on 730 stitches, join, be careful not to twist". After two evenings and many hundreds of counting, the cast on was finally accomplished. Though with all those stitches bunched together, it's still hard to tell if I'm twisted or untwisted. The thing with a shawl like this, I have about eight rows done, does it look like it? Now think about it, if I'm knitting a hat in bulky yarn, I would be done already.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog and leave me a comment! 

A Scarf, A Hat, and A Baby James

Project:  Modified Path 小路

Pattern:  Stitch pattern based on Forest Path Stole by  by Faina M. Letoutchaia, Interweave Knits Summer 2003

Yarn:  Unknown fiber gifted from a book or magazine seller at Stitches
Yardage:  Less than 200 yards
Needles: Size 6
Cast on: August 24 2012
Cast off: September 3 2012
Cost: (Gift)
Notes: I have these two small skeins of yarn with no label, so I don't know the fiber content or producer or yardage. I found this very intricate birch leaves pattern as part of Forest Path Stole, and drew the design idea on the white board in the first picture. I'd knit one pattern repeat (18 st x 38 rows), cast off, turn the knitting to its side, pick up 18 stitches, knit two repeats, cast off, turn and knit three repeats, so on so forth. Since I don't know the yardage, I can do this for as long as the yarn lasts. Turns out I was only able to knit 3.25 repeats on the forth side. But I think it looks pretty cute.

Project:  Frenchie 法国女郎

Pattern:   Sideways Grande Cloche by Laura Irwin, Boutique Knits

Yarn:  Paton's Classic Wool

Yardage:  Less than 200 yards

Needles: Size 8

Cast on: August 21 2012

Cast off: September 4 2012

Cost: Less than $5

Notes: I needed a simple project for when I knit with my friends, this was simple and straight forward -- just as soon as I realized the band was knitted sideways, not bottom up. I should have changed the top so it's not decreased so sharply. It really should look more flat than what I have here. For the cable on the side, the pattern makes you knit two strips and then twist them and sew the ends on the hat. I thought I was smart, and knitted the big cable (8x8) directly onto the hat. It got very twisty. Unless you have a very clear mind and a clear surface to put the hat on while you turn the knitting back and forth, go with the easy route.

Remember the Traveling Baby Sweater? It went to its first stop in UK to visit baby James. James's mom Claire-Louis graciously took these pictures. Doesn't she have the cutest kids?! Claire-Louis said, "James has loved wearing it and I’m a bit sad to be passing it on as he looked so cute in it but I’m sure the next baby will love it just as much x". I'm so happy James (and his mom) entertained my idea, and enjoyed the sweater! Now it's heading back to US, to Chicago, and then Seattle, before making its way back to my neighborhood to a friend of mine. If you know someone that wants to be part of Traveling Baby Sweater's route, drop me a line and we'll work out the logistics.

Happy Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog, Tami's blog, and leave me a comment!