Tag: stitches

Posted on

FAF – Spinning fun and Alpaca Cowl Pattern

What a long month of July.  No rain, intense heat, and lots of spinning for the Tour de Fleece.   Thankfully this year we got air conditioning! Yippy, so I managed to enjoy fiber in cool comfort instead of fighting with it sticking to me in sloppy humidity.

I present to you my collage of goodies that I worked on this past month.

Spinning wasn’t the only thing I did this past month.  I also managed to knit up a lovely cowl/ear warmer out of my very last ball of grey alpaca yarn.  All but 1 of my greys have sold and I’m keeping this cowl for myself in memory of them.  Thank you George, Gus and CoHo for the lovely warmth!

For those of you interested in this pattern.

Materials
200yrds DK weight
#7 8in round

Cast on:
100 stitches, place marker, knit 1st row

Pattern 4 row repeat:
K2, P2
K1, P2, K1
P2, K2
P1, K2, P1

Complete with extra stretchy bind off.  This is the one I used.

Be sure to check out our Link-Parties page to see what everyone else is up to this week!

Posted on

WIP: Green Shawl Progress

I’ve been working away on the green fan shawl when I can.  It’s to the point now where I hate doing a row because it takes SO long and there’s little visible growth.  But, I got 3 full pattern rows done on Tuesday which added another 6” to the shawl so I’m happy

crochet_fan_pattern_shawl

Size wise it currently is the length of 1 arm, my chest and to my elbow of the other arm.  I have a 6 foot wing span so I’m thinking it’s about 4.5 ft wide and about 2.75 ft long.  Yes, this is how I measure things.  Very scientific isn’t it?

crochet_fan_pattern_shawl

This is actually the first time I’ve used the 3.75mm crochet hook and it’s been angering my pinky.  The hook shaft must be rubbing on a nerve in my pinky finger and the darn think tingles after just a few minutes.  So I started modifying it.  At first I put on one of the rubber crochet grippies but that did nothing.  Next I added a post-it note and a sticker but it wasn’t fat enough so 3 more stickers were added.  Then the post-it note gave up its grip and the whole thing started to slide around so I added 2 rounds of scotch tape and slid the apparatus over the tape and it stuck nicely.  Lastly I still wanted more bulk on the end so took the rubber grip off my pen and put it on. 

Tada! My nice fat grip 3.75mm crochet hook.  Oh yeah, the only reason I did this is because the new ChiaoGoo hook that I bought that has a nice flat and fat bamboo handle made stitches too loosely compared to the hook I was using. Ugh.  Oh well, I’ll use it on another project from start to finish.

redneck_crochet_hook

With any luck I will have this shawl finished in time to go up for sale this coming Fiber Market Monday. What is Fiber Market Monday?  It’s a new link party specifically geared to promoting handmade fiber items, raw fiber or fiber animals so come on back this coming Monday and check out all the goodies!

Click Here for link parties I participate in!