Finally Finished Set of Dishtowels

While I was putting away some yarns yesterday, I came across a partially finished dishtowel in my drawer of cotton yarns.  I had started a set of 3 dishtowels when we were in the process of buying our house back in 2016.  The colors were inspired by a dichroic glass sculpture a neighbor had given me for our new home, that contained shimmering pink, blue and green.  The pattern is a free one from Lion Brand called Cottontail Dishtowels, and the yarn is Lion Brand Kitchen Cotton, which I don't really recommend because it splits like crazy.  Update: I LOVE how well this cotton works as a dishcloth.  It's thick and sturdy, and great at scrubbing pans.  It might be a pain to crochet with, but it's a dream to clean with.

In-progress towel I finished yesterday.

Back in 2016 I had finished the first one, and had gotten through 2/3 of the second one, before abandoning it due to the move and from frustration.  The cotton is the Lion Brand Kitchen Cotton which splits like crazy as you work.  And evidently I was using a wooden hook that had a very sharp point, which kept getting caught between the strands, making the problem worse, but all my other hooks in that size had been packed. 

New towel made while devouring The Keepers on Netflix.

Since I really needed some space in that drawer, I decided to take an hour or so, and finish the in-progress towel.  While I was at it, I put on The Keepers on Netflix.  An hour later I had finished the towel, but was HOOKED on the documentary series, so I started on the third towel.  I whipped through that while watching the remaining episodes.  Best part?  I emptied out a bunch of space in that drawer for new dishcloth yarns.

Original towel I made back in 2016.

Rainbow Sun Catcher for My Porch

After making a set of Antique Silverware & Key Wind Chimes for my mom for Mother's Day, I had a lot of bits and bobs that I had pulled out for it on my work desk, so yesterday I set about turning them into something.  I had 4 smaller prisms, and 1 larger one, that I decided to turn into a sun catcher for my porch.  I didn't want the crystal prisms to knock into one another, so I staggered the lengths of beading wire I used to string them.  I used a wide mouthed canning jar band as the base, and some chain to suspend it.

After getting the prisms in place, the piece felt a bit bare, so I added some old key charms that have been in my stash for years.  I bought them to use in jewelry, but when I ordered them the listing didn't note that they had bible verses on them, and I'm not religious, so they were just gathering dust.  After that I added some teardrop crystals in a rainbow of 8 colors.  Strands of a single color felt a bit sedate, so I ended up rotating the colors in each row, so the rainbow sort of swirls around the piece, mirroring the swirling length of the prisms.  Since a pair of wind chimes I had on the porch had recently fallen apart, I already had a spot just waiting for this piece. 

Antique Silverware & Keys Windchime

About a year ago my mom decided she wanted a set of wind chimes made from old silverware.  She picked up some flatware along with various trays and silver portions of old servingware to use as bases, and mailed me a whole box of stuff.  She asked my dad to drill holes in the flatware, but didn't think to have him make some in the bases.  To be honest, I wanted nothing to do with making these wind chimes!  So the items sat around for the last 18 months.  But with Mother's Day looming this year, I decided I really should get around to making them, if only to get the stuff out of my house.  There was a great deal of trial and error, and some cursing.  Ok, a lot of cursing.  But I finally managed to get something together that would be well balanced and hang straight. 

I started by matching the silverware in terms of length, shape, and weight.  While she sent about 20 pieces, only 8 could be well matched into pairs, so there are 4 pieces of flatware on each side, in ascending order of length.  To give the strands added length, they are hanging from links of Czech glass and crystal beads.  I reversed the order of the flatware on the other side, so both sides would be equally weighted.  Once I got them all on there, and evenly spaced apart, I felt like there was too much dead space between them, so I dug through my stash until I found a bag of antique keys.  Then of course I had to make more strands of beads to hang them from, and added the keys in between the flatware.  Each bead is separated by lengths of chain made from individual jump rings and oval rings, all handmade.  All in all it was about 80 crystal beads placed on headpins. 

While I wanted to throw it out the window while I was making it, in the end I'm very happy with how it came out.  And most importantly, my mom loves it.  She has it hanging outside her kitchen/dining room window, so she can hear it while they eat. 

Stash Busting Farmer's Market Tote Bag

Since I started renovating my studio a few months ago, I've been rediscovering all kinds of supplies in my stash that I had forgotten about.  One of those was 3 balls of ribbon yarn that I bought in grad school for a costume design project, and never used.  I'm trying to use up some of this stuff to make more room in my new drawers, but had a really hard time with this yarn.  There just weren't a lot of ideas out there for what to crochet with ribbon yarn, which feels weird as something like a scarf or hat.  After some searching on Ravelry, I found this Eco Warrior Market Bag pattern.   

I worked the pattern as written, but when I was done with the body of the bag, it was way too small.  (Something that was apparent while working on it, but the pattern says it will stretch a lot, so I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt.)  I ended up frogging the last few rows, then repeating the Row 11-19 section (the same stitch pattern over and over) up until row 30, then I did two rounds each of Row 20, 21 & 22.  Here it is with 4 skeins of yarn in it.  The first version barely held 2 skeins.  I think if I were to do another one, I'd do another round of 6 increases so it was bigger around, as well as tall. 

Magenta Sun & Phoenix Mats

After finishing my Charming Mat I decided to use up some more of the sari yarn in my stash by making a few more mats/trivets/doilies.  I started off with the large sized trivet from the Aunt Aggie's Trivets pattern, made from a magenta sari silk.  I didn't have enough yarn to do it exactly as written, so I did Rounds 1-6 as written, then a row of 8 single crochets per chain space.  I like how it looks like a primitive sunburst.  It measures 13" across, and I think it would be nice under a plant or under a decorative bowl on a table.

Finally I had a few balls of a red-orange silk that had some breaks in it when I balled it, so I decided to try some of the smaller trivets in the pattern. I started the size small, but it looked awful in such a busy yarn, so I frogged it and went with two of the medium sized trivets instead.  They are each 9.5" across.  Due to the thick & thin nature of the yarn, the final round of the pattern was a bit too bulky, causing a wavy edge to them that I didn't like, so I ended up skipping two of the single crochets per petal in the final round.  (Specifically in the first and last sc of the previous rounds.) 

Not exactly sure what I'm going to do with all of these, but they will either go into my shop, or into my stash of handmade holiday gifts.

Silk Sari Charming Mat

Last week I was looking for a quick project to take on the go with me, and saw a post on Instragram from Darn Good Yarn, about a mat made with their banana fiber.  I had some pretty Red Heart Boutique hand spun Silk Sari yarn in 'charming' that had been languishing in my stash for want of a project and decided to give it a go.  I downloaded the free pattern, and started hooking.  Sadly it just wasn't working for me as written, with this particular yarn.  I ended up frogging the whole thing (not easy with this yarn!), and starting over.

I increased the number of stitches in Round 1 to 12, and in Round 2 to 24.  This led to more loops in the finished piece, but I compensated by reducing the number of chain spaces between double crochets in later rounds.  Finally, I didn't have quite enough yarn to do all the rounds, so I ended up doing the first 7, then doing a round of picots & slip stitches.  It was a bit more frustrating that I had hoped for when I picked the pattern to take out with me, but I'm happy with how it came out, and plan to try it again with another sari yarn in my stash.

Tealberry Moon Shawl & the Story of the Shawl-Along

After making my first virus shawl, I was asked by a few other hookers over on Craftster, to start a virus shawl-along.  So I did, and I enjoyed seeing other folks try the pattern for the first time, but I kind of thought that the craftalong would peter out after people had tried it once or twice.  The group of folks involved are some of my favorite people on Craftster, and I should have known better than to doubt them!  A few weeks back, after we had each mentioned other shawl patterns we wanted to try, and shared links of our other work with each other, someone suggested changing our focus to be on shawls in general, instead of based on a specific pattern. 

Everyone seemed keen on the idea, so I did that too.  Soon we had a long list of new patterns suggested by the members, and the thread became one of the most active that I follow outside the HP Craftalong.  Then I was inspired by kittykill's hoopla-along, to add a challenge element.  Instead of the monthly challenges she holds on the Needlework board, we decided to try 4 month long challenges, to give folks plenty of time on intricate patterns.  Our first challenge theme was picked at random from the list of suggestions, and was craft from stash.  Most folks are excited about it, though I admit, I'm having trouble with it because I generally don't keep that much stash yarn around, that isn't for a specific project. 

And in the midst of all this, plus resetting my studio and working on stash busting from all my supplies, I had to go to Michael's to pick up some frames.  I was almost safely out of the store, when I passed a bin of clearance yarn, including 5 skeins of Unforgettable in Tealberry, and 5 more in Polo.  Since I've been lusting after both colorways for ages, I snapped them up.  So now, instead of stash busting out a shawl to fulfill my own challenge, I've increased my stash by 10 skeins of yarn!

Rather than allowing it to end up in a drawer or bin, languishing, I decided to whip up a shawl for my mom, who always seems to be cold lately.  The pattern is the Lunar Crossings Shawl by Crochet Kim.  I love how quickly and easily it worked up.  I used 2.6 skeins of  Red Heart Unforgettable, in Tealberry, and it's a generous size.  I did 6 full repeats of the motif, then on the 7th I did rows 7-11 as written in the pattern, then added a row of single crochet, placing 4 sc in the point.  After that I added a row of modified picot stitches, starting with a picot in the first space, then doing 3 sc, repeating to the point where I started the picot in the 3rd sc and completed it in the 3rd sc so it would be centered, then continuing as before.  To do the modified picot, ch 4, then place your hook in the left side of the 'V' of the first ch, AND through the top of the next stitch (3 loops on hook), yarn over, and pull through all 3 loops.