Kitchen Scrubby

This kitchen scrubby is a great use for scrap pieces of worsted weight cotton yarn and an easy three step process.

1) The wash side is made using a J hook and worsted weight cotton yarn. Work three rounds of the basic granny square. Bind off and weave in ends. Instructions for the basic granny square can be found here.

2) The scrubby side is crocheted from netting (the coarse petticoat netting not the soft bridal veil netting) made into a long 1½" continuous strip by *cutting the fabric to within ½" of the edge then making another long cut parallel to the first (going in the opposite direction) to within ½" of the edge --repeat from * until all the fabric wanted is cut. Wind into a ball. Using a K hook, make a chain from the netting strip as long as the granny square plus one chain more. Each row is single crocheted through the back loop only until the netting square measures the same size as the wash square. Bind off and weave in ends.

3) Using the worsted weight cotton single crochet the wash square and the netting square together. Bind off and weave in ends.

That's it! The kitchen scrubby pictured measures 4"x4" but by altering yarn, hook size or the number of rounds for the granny square you can custom size your scrubby.

My Ravelry project page for Kitchen Scrubby.

Bouquet of Booties

This is a project done bb (before blogging) that I wanted to document for uniqueness. It's a baby shower centerpiece of booties folded to form flowers which are secured with floral tape to wire and leaves.

The pattern and idea was in the July 2003 issue of Crochet! Magazine. There are four different cuff patterns and the foot is the same pattern for all the booties. I worked them using Herrschners Afghan and Apparel Yarn which is a 2 ply, 100% acrylic, fingering weight yarn.

There were no problems with the patterns and they were easy to follow. It was my first exposure to the reverse single crochet (also know as the crab stitch)and I am happy to report that I was able to execute the stitch without fuss, although it is not on "my favorites" list. The only difficulty I had was making myself stop crocheting them --I think I made well over a dozen pairs before I managed to apply the brakes!

My Ravelry project page for Bouquet of Booties.

Bunny Blanket Buddy

This darling toy has been knit and in my work basket for THREE YEARS!! Why? Because I have a face phobia. Whenever I make something that entails putting a face on it -- I freeze. I have no sense of proportion or spacing when it comes to placing eyes, noses and mouths and that's in addition to the technical difficulties of embroidering circles on knit or crochet items. *sigh* I always need help from my daughters or my husband to verify that I have a pleasant looking face (eyes placed too close together produce a rather creepy look). A couple of days ago I had a bout of "face confidence" and managed to finish this cute little toy!

Bunny Blanket Buddy is a free pattern from Lion Brand Yarns and available here.

Notes:

I substituted Red Heart Baby Teri for the Lion Brand Velvetspun. Apologies to Lion Brand Yarns for not using their yarn with their pattern but, in my opinion, Velvetspun sucks and it really is an awful choice for a baby toy. The Baby Teri is a much better yarn for this project.

I worked with two strands of the Baby Teri.

I used size 6 needles for the head (instead of the size 8 recommended for the Velvetspun)

Wrap the first stitch of each row tightly when doing the double knitting of the head so that the ends do not gap.

Thanks to my Hubby for designing a face that I liked and one that was easy to embroider.

My Ravelry project page for Bunny Blanket Buddy.

Thousand Ends Lapghan

I love to challenge myself but sometimes I have brain farts and wind up being appallingly stupid. This lapghan was meant to be a nice way to use up scrap yarn. Instead, it was tedious and boring and ended up surpassing the Endless Ends Afghan for the number of ends that needed to be woven in.


The afghan is a combination of yo-yo's and Priscilla Hewitt's flat braid joining. It's cute, I love it and I'm going to keep it for myself but when am I going to learn??

There are 389 yo-yo's (made from scrap yarn)

Joined together with Red Heart Super Saver Aran Fleck using the flat brain join.

The border is a row of three single crochets in each of the unattached loops around the edge.

The afghan measures 44" x 35"

There were 1558 ends. 778 (389*2) for each yo-yo + 778 (389*2) for each flat braid join + 2 ends for the border = 1558.

My Ravelry project page for Thousand Ends Lapghan.

I really can't complain too much about this afghan because it did inspire the design of the adorable Romi-Yo!

Tiny Striped Turtle

I found this cute little amigurumi turtle pattern here. No problems with the pattern. I used scrap yarn and 9mm eyes. I'm on the fence about the size of the head. Sometimes when I look at it -- it's fine, other times when I look at it -- it's too big. Either way it's cute!


My Ravelry project page for Tiny Striped Turtle.

Upside Down Sweater

This is an Upside Down Sweater, you can wear it two ways -- one way is with the k2p2 band as the collar and front edges (left picture) or "upside down" with the k2p2 band as the bottom edge of the sweater (right picture). The design intrigued me immediately upon seeing the pattern and I had to knit it! I've listed my changes to the pattern below and while I do love the sweater I love it only with the k2p2 band as the collar. The upside down way feels slightly twisted and the collar, which is now 1" of k1p1 ribbing doesn't lay nicely.

Notes:

The pattern was written for Plymouth Yarn - Ashton (50% Baby Alpaca, 40% Fine Merino, 10% Silk) but I substituted Naturally Caron - Country (75% Microdenier Acrylic, 25% Merino). I used 9 skeins (185 yards, 85 grams) of Charcoal.

Because the sweater is suppose to be worn upside down, I didn't really understand why you would have a shoulder seam for one version and not the other, so I put the last rows of the back, the left front and right front on stitch holders and eliminated the shoulder seam entirely by grafting the front pieces to the back.

The k1p1 ribbing needs to be more than 1" -- maybe 2" and even consider doing a k2p2 ribbing to match the big band.

I lengthened the sleeves (I like lonnnng sleeves!) and knit them in the round so I didn't have to seam those as well. Increasing a circular k2p2 pattern by 2 stitches every 6 rows proved a challenge! There was a lot of frogging and experimenting. How you increase and where makes a difference as evidenced by this:

Pretty increasing

Not so pretty (frogged!)

My Ravelry project page for Upside Down Sweater.

Victory Junction Afghan #4

This is the second summer I've been able to make and donate two blankets (The other afghan is here) to Victory Junction, a summer camp for children with chronic medical conditions or serious illnesses. At the end of their camping experience each child gets to take home a hand-made afghan and a hand-made teddy bear.

This blanket was made from a granny square called "Fox's Little Boxes" and it worked up incredibly well in the Victory Junction colors of red, yellow, green and blue. It's a quick and easy pattern to use and follow.

Details:

Each square measures 7" using a J hook.

Red Heart Super Saver colors Cherry Red, Paddy Green, Bright Yellow, Royal and Aran.

A total of 30 squares -- 8 green, 8 yellow, 7 red, 7 blue

The squares were staggered in a pattern of:
GRGRG
YBYBY
RGRGR
BYBYB
GRGRG
YBYBY

The afghan measures 35" x 41". This is a little short of their requested minimum of 35" x 45" so next time I'll add another row to the length.

Edging:
Row 1: Dc into each stitch and ch 1 space of the last row working (2 dc, ch 3, 2 dc) into each corner.
Row 2: *Sc, fpsc* (front post single crochet) around the blanket working 3 sc's into each corner.
Row 3: Sc around the blanket working 3 sc's into the middle sc of each corner.

Notes:

The last row works (3 dc, ch 3, 3 dc) into each corner and all of the previous rows worked (2 dc, ch 3, 2 dc) into each corner. I kept forgetting to add the additional dc's for the last row!!! In the end I had to take out about 1/2 of the last rows and rework them. I kept the (2 dc, ch 3, 2 dc) pattern because if I corrected with the right amount I would have been short and had to add yarn which would have resulted in weaving a bunch more ends -- something I try and avoid at all costs!

Most of the rows begin by slip stitching to the corner to start the round and I adjusted the beginning of a few rounds by starting the new round where the last round ended. I know the pattern was easier to write by having each round start in the corner but it did reduce bulk slightly by making this adjustment.

I think this afghan would look great in random scrap colors and I will try out that idea when I make the next one.

My Ravelry project page for Victory Junction Afghan #4.