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Thursday, January 24, 2008

Unravelling...


A little over a week ago, after finishing Luke in a Dinosaur Suit, I was feeling rather confident and decided to try a baby blanket from my Stitch 'n Bitch Crochet - The Happy Hooker book. I went to Michaels and after debating over yarn colours for what my husband felt was an eternity, I chose Wood, Cranberry and Fisherman. I happily started my project, was half way done (24 rows) before I sat down and unraveled each and every row.

The first thing I found that was wrong with it, I sort of was like "Meh whatever, it's for me, I can live with that, but then I saw another and then a final 3rd one encouraged me that I should just start all over again because the perfectionist part of me was going to see every single one of these errors and it was going to drive me looney.

First mistake - I decided that the pattern width was not wide enough. They always seem to make receiving blankets and other items too small, so I decided I'm add an additional 3" to the width. It was not until row 24 (why oh why did it take me that long to really notice?) that I decided it was definitely too wide. That coupled with the fact that when I asked my dear Husband "Honey you do not think this is to wide do you?" and he answered "No not at all, how many more rows are you adding to the width?". Ummm no the width is this way, not vertical. oiy

My next mistake was tension. I chained on 90ish chains and made them a bit too tight. When I then added on each additional row, the bottom part of the blanket started to arch downward and would not lay flat. Slightly frustrating. I pulled to try and straighten it out, to no avail. This is the mistake I felt I would just live with since hey, it's for me after all right?

My final mistake was that I started my first row with Cranberry, when it would have been Wood. I wanted to do the border in Cranberry, so by starting with cranberry, that meant I could not do it that way, or I'd have 2 double rows of red together and it'd just look funny. My excuse not to unravel when I realized this was "Oh I'll just do the border in Wood instead, even though I really wanted it in Red.

So I've re-started the blanket, this time only chaining 76 st like the pattern says, I started with Wood instead of Cranberry and I made nice loose chains so that my blanket is not arching downward. So far, so good. I'm however, only on row two, so there is still lots of time to flub it up again. :p

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

He has a Face!


Luke in a Dino Suit
Originally uploaded by carleycat1
I was a bit bothered that my cute little dino was faceless, so today after Salsa Tots I stopped at Michaels in search of some eyes. They did not have any of the ones that Owlishly uses, but I found some glass beads that worked perfectly! I think I put them a bit too close together, but the overall result I think is good.

Natasha has already kid tested it by pulling and yanking and chewing (with my supervision) and the eyes are not budging. :0)

Saturday, January 19, 2008

And then there were ten...

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been working on this one cross stitch project for years. It was suppose to be for Tash, but I did not quite get it finished, and now, in the last few months I've picked up my needle again and started to work away at it. I've finished three, and am now working on the 11th one. I've decided that there is no way I'm going to do 2 of these quilts, so once I have 16 of these critters completed, that will be it. Hopefully I can finish it before I get pregnant with #2 kidlet and give birth to him/her. ;0)



Designer: Ellen Mauer-Stroh
Available at: Patterns Online
Fabric: 25ct Antique White Lugana
Threads: DMC Floss

Friday, January 18, 2008

Luke in a Dinosaur Costume


Luke in a Dinosaur Costume
Originally uploaded by carleycat1
First I want to say that when I started this toy, I thought I had mastered most of the stitches for crocheting and felt I would be able to zip right through this little guy. Total time to finish him? Six days. Yes, six days of working on him between my daughter's naps, when she went to bed and whenever I could grab a free moment.

I was pretty excited to stitch him, but then as I started to stitch him up, I realized I had "mis-interpreted" a few of the directions in my crochet book on stitches. That will teach me to only skim and miss out on important instructions! How did I know I had mis-read them you might ask? Well, because I was using Owlishly's photos as guidelines and my crochet pieces looked nothing like hers.

So, after I unraveled each arm and leg 2xs, re-did his head, and unraveled the body once, I figured it all out. He's still not perfect, the hood on his head is not quite like it should be, he seems a bit deformed to me (hence why I'm sharing a side profile), and he's faceless! Her directions called for plastic eyes (if your child is over 3) so I did not add them, but had planned to stitch on some eyes and a mouth with cross stitch thread. Well...I got so excited when I got the head done, I stuffed it and sewed it shut, then put the hood over it without even thinking I should stitch his face first. Maybe fabric Paint would work? :0)

Started: Six Days ago :p
Yarn: Bernat - Celery
Hook: G/4mm
Made for: My daughter
Pattern: Owlishly Designs

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Bad blogger!

Yikes I had every intention of keeping this up to date, but since starting this blog I've finished 2 small cross stitch designs and added crochet to my repertoire of craftiness! I'll try and take some pics of the cross stitch projects, but for now, here's a radish I crochet'd yesterday while laid up in bed;



I'm hoping to make 2 more radish and continue on with some carrots, grapes, a hot dog and other veggies and fruits for Tasha's future play kitchen. :-)