Potholders

The largest number of books from my Grandmothers crochet book collection are for potholders. These two potholders were made for me by my mom and are from patterns found in my grandmother's (her mom) books. There are a lot of interesting potholders in these books and I may stash bust by making up a few!

The potholder above is the "Star" potholder and the pattern can be found in Potholders - Star Pot Holder Book No. 101 - Copyright 1953 The American Thread Co., Inc.

The pot holder on the right is the "Lantern " pot holder and can be found in Suggestions for Fairs and Bazaars - Star Book No. 98 - Copyright 1953 The American Thread Co., Inc.

Simple Shrug

This is about the trials and tribulations of "simple".

First, I couldn't get the gauge right so I ran out of yarn and it took A. C. Moore more than six months to get it back in stock. I had almost given up and was going to order online (and pay shipping, which I hate to do).

Second, The pattern is worked in stockinette stitch so I worked increases every 4th row instead of every 5th row (how do you increase on a purl row???) This probably contributed to my yarn shortage as well.

Update 6/14/2014: I have since learned how to knit the purl front and back increase.

Third, using smaller needles for the collar/border around the shrug produced an uncomfortably tight fit. I frogged, bumped up to the same size needle that the body was knit with and added a half dozen more stitches and it fit much more comfortably.

The pattern was on the wrapper of the yarn (Caron Simply Soft Shadows - Pearl Frost) and can also be found online here.

My shrug is nice, warm, soft, comfortable and the right size (the sleeves are longer than normal but I like that) - I love it now - however, the pattern is flawed (fixable but flawed none-the-less) and between the yarn shortage and reworks it took almost a year to complete.

My Ravelry project page - Simple Shrug