Organizing...

Whew. An hour or so ago, my room was a pit...clothes everywhere, fabric strewn about, scarves piled in a corner, and yarn, yarn everywhere. I'm still amazed I didn't jab my foot with any pins...but maybe I shouldn't test my luck*knock on wood*.

In the past few months alone, I have amassed a fairly decent pile of yarn. Some of it was "acquired" from my mother, other is leftover from England, projects, and who knows what. And then there are the twenty balls that were given to me.

I keep my yarn in a plastic bin in the corner of my room. I bought the bin last summer so I could easily tote my crafty stuff (yarn and fabric, mostly) back and forth from school. Last summer, it was maybe halfway full. Now it's overflowing, and the yarn is attempting to kick the fabric out.

Granted, my yarn issue is nothing near what my mother's is, but she's been collecting for a lot longer than me, and she teaches at a yarn shop. I'm just her daughter.

But organization is needed when I'm trying to sell things online. So now I have all my etsy stuff sorted into ziplock bags with names on them so I know what I have. I have my yarn sorted out into ziplocks as well, except the large balls that aren't going to unravel into Giant Mess of Doom. I even have a nice bag full of fabric scraps, which may or may not come in handy. You never know.

I'm feeling much better about my yarn situation, though it might get a little crazy when I finish my Philosopher's Coat...I'm going to have a nice amount of Cascade 220 leftover to play with. And no, I'm not excited about that at all. *grins*

Now we get to see how long it'll stay organized...hopefully until I go back to school...then the yarn can start working on taking over that room. My poor roommate.

Ravelympics

Is anyone doing the Ravelympics? I've been considering it...I have some yarn lying around that needs to be crocheted...not to mention a WIP that desperately needs to be finished. It looks like it could be fun, and it really only makes sense to enter because I'm going to be crocheting while watching the Olympics, anyway...why not crochet for a purpose.

I read somewhere on etsy that some people donate some of their profit to charity, and I've been considering having a line of products where a certain percentage of the profit goes toward a charity. I don't have a particular charity in mind, though I know of one that gives books to children, and another whose goal is for LGBT children to be accepted in schools, and both of those places seem like worthy charities. I really like the idea of donating to charities, though I wonder if I should wait until I've made a few sales before starting this. On the other hand, it may bring more sales to my shop. I'm not sure. Thoughts?

Well, I'm off to bed. Happy Hooking!

Free yarn from a stranger

This beautiful yarn, Noro Gemstones (which I hear has been discontinued) was sent to me by a woman who happened to come into my LYS a few weeks ago. She's from a bit of a ways away from here, but when she came in, I chatted with her a bit. She liked my shawl, which is made from Lorna's Laces, and told me she had a few balls of that sitting around. She offered to send it to me. Well, what college student would deny herself free yarn?

Today I got the package, and not only where there two skeins (technically a skein and a ball) or rainbow Lorna's, but also there were 17.5 balls of this Noro. I want to hug this woman, but we don't even know her last name - I can't even send her a thank you card.

So now I have this Noro. I think it wants to be a sweater...but I can't find a pattern that I like. It's bulky, that's the problem. Bulky yarn just is difficult. Not to mention it looks like I'll be buying a large crochet hook. But I'm not complaining - I just got free yarn! And beautiful yarn at that.

Any suggestions as to what I should make?

My current projects

Looking around, I begin to realize that I am one of those people who can't just do one thing - I have to do twenty, and I have to do them NOW. With crocheting, as well as writing, I move quickly from project to project, never able to focus on one for too long. I think I can blame this on my mom - she has more WIPs than me. (I would have more if I had the money for the yarn.)

That said, here are some of my current projects:

The Felted Bag (1)

Being bored at work generally means interesting things are brought up, and in this case it was my crocheting. I would never have thought it, but the girl I work with has "always wanted one of those felted bags." Lucky for her, felting bags is one of my favorite things to do (it's addictive, I swear). I quickly told her I could make her one, provided she could pay. Cha-ching, she said yes. She wanted pink and brown, so I picked out this pink Lopi and the brown bulky Cascade. I've done a lot of felting with Cascade 220 and love it, but the weight was wrong to match with the Lopi. (I would have gotten brown Lopi, but she only had one ball of it, and that would not have worked).

I loved crocheting this bag. I think I might make a few more for my etsy. The colors were fun and the yarn was awesome. I really love Lopi, even though it made a mess of the washing machine. Oh well - pink fuzz goes well with everything...right?

The Spinning

I've been guilty of spindle neglect lately. I joined Ten Minutes a Day on Ravelry, which is for spinners who promise to spin for at least ten minutes every day and have hardly spun since. I adore this roving. I bought it at the market at Knitter's Connection. I just don't have the patience to do it right now. Someday I'll finish it and then figure out what to make with it.

The Felted Bag (2)

Late one night, I had a deep urge. It had been a while since I'd felted a bag...and I needed to do it again. I needed to smell the wet-wool smell, to feel the gobs of sopping, felted fabric. Though there was a slight problem: I had no felting wool.

My mom, however, did, and she wanted to get rid of it. And thus this bag was created. It's for sale on my Etsy if you like it. I hope someone buys it before I accidentally use it as my own purse.

The Prayer Shawl

Just wanted to post the finished product!

And finally....

The Coat


I'm getting there. I have more than half of the back done, and I'm really hoping to finish that before the end of this week (cross your fingers for me). I really hope it all fits together. I'm vaguely worried about that...

Etsy Shop!

A week or so ago I finally got a chance to start my Etsy shop, Crafty Writer Crocheting. Now that I have a few items up there, I thought I might as well link it on here!

Right now, most of the items I have listed are snoods, though I recently added a felted bag and plan to add some other items, such as wrist warmers, iPod cases, and more bags.

In addition to joining etsy, I also joined the EtsyHookers group on Ning. I was excited to find other crocheters around etsy!

Do any of you have etsy shops? Link me to them and I'll check them out! :)

Happiness in Crochetland

I don't hang out on the crochet forums on Ravelry very often, though I've joined a few of them, including the Crochet Liberation Front. As you probably know from my blog name, I'm very into the "CROCHETERS UNITE" sort of thing, which makes groups like these pretty awesome in my mind. (I love knitters, don't get me wrong, but the yarn world is pretty focused on knitters rather than crochets...LYSes should be friendlier to crocheters...we use up more yarn! XD)

Well, today I got a message from one of the mods of the CLF on Ravelry saying that I'd won a sort-of award...Set My Picot Free. I think it's for crochet projects that are different. Well, they linked me to this blog post, and I was excited to see that they were talking about my snood! Hee. Well, I don't really "get" anything, but it's neat to see my stuff mentioned places! :)

In other news (isn't there always other news?), I decided I needed yet another break from the Coat (I'm halfway done with the back! Pictures later, I promise!) and thought that now was as good of a time as any to start on a prayer shawl. (Aren't I a good procrastinator?)

I've been meaning to do a prayer shawl for a while, but the cost of the yarn and the lack of a proper pattern left me sort of hanging. But when the flood hit our part of the state, including my LYS owner's house, a yarn company stepped in and shipped us odds and ends of some really beautiful yarn - cotton, mostly - to use for charity projects. I pulled some out of the basket and started on my new project.



I'm so happy with it so far - and very jealous of whoever receives it. But the great thing about this project will be giving it to someone.

Delayed Update

I've been busy lately, but I wanted to update with a picture of my latest progress on my coat...




Yay second sleeve! It's going a lot faster than the first one. I know the stitches, so it's mostly a matter of looking to see what color I need to be on, and how many rows of single crochet I did in between the fancy stitches.

I wish I could finish this in time for the county fair, but entries are due on Monday and there really is no way I can get this done by then. Oh well.

Crocheters Represent!

This Week in Ravelry had an article about Crocheters on World Wide Knit in Public Day, and I was mentioned in it, as well as my Philosopher's Coat! I love it when crocheters are included in these things. (Like I said in the comments to the article, I feel like running around and shouting "REPRESENT" but I won't embarrass myself like that...)

Of Yarn and Books

I've finally returned to crocheting after a few days of break. Three days of nonstop crocheting sort of takes it all out of you. It was time for a break.

Now that I'm back, I have to actually face the issues with my sleeve I've discovered. Most important being the fact that, at the end of the pattern for the sleeve, I am 7 inches short of what I should have. This is more than a slight problem. It turns out that Cascade 220 wool is a lighter weight wool than Philosopher's Wool...ah well. The problem is easily solved by adding a few rows to the end of the pattern. So far, I have added a row of knurl, a section of diamonds, and two more rows of knurl. After this I'm planning on adding crossed doubles, then two rows of knurl, then if it still is not long enough I will add one or two rows of cables, ending with a row of knurl. That probably doesn't make any sense to those of you who haven't read the pattern. :P

I did buy two more balls of Cascade! A blue and a purple. I realized after buying the purple that I now have three purples in my seven balls...oh well. It still looks pretty. I like the added colors. It gives it a new feel to the top of the sleeve.

I'm hoping to finish the sleeve tomorrow (yes, I keep saying that. At some point I will actually finish the sleeve) and then start on...I bet you'll never guess...the second sleeve! I'm hoping this one goes faster, though I will have to look back at the first sleeve and figure out what the heck I was doing with the colors and in what rows. But I'll worry about that when I need to.

At Knitter's Connection, I got a new crochet book. You've probably heard of it - Stitch 'n Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker. It has some great patterns in it and I can't wait to start on them. It just is a matter of convincing myself to keep working on the Coat and not shove it in a drawer somewhere like a lot of projects. But that's why I'm doing this blog. So that someone out there will convince that yes, I do need to finish the coat, and no, I can't give up. :)

Hello from Knitter's Connection! (Columbus, OH)

Convention Fun

I know, it's strange to go to a knitting convention when you're a crocheter...and you have a blog called "not a knitter"...but my mom was going and it seemed like a fun experience. This is my second day here, and so far I'm having a blast! As soon as I got here, I sort of looked around at all the people sitting, knitting, and talking, and thought "These are my people!" My mom made a similar comment....guess it runs in our family!

Yesterday, I took a Crochet Shawls (an intermediate class) with Melissa Leapman, who has written several knit and crochet books. I absolutely loved it! I've been trying to find a good shawl pattern for a while...I've looked on ravelry, etc, but haven't really been satisfied with anything I find. Now I have several crochet shawl patterns, as well as a few edges. Yay! The class was a lot of fun because Melissa is actually a crocheter, but she makes her living writing mostly knitting books. It was very interesting to learn about that. I was also happy to discover that she wrote Cool Crochet, which is one of the few crochet books I own. My copy is now autographed! :D

Yesterday afternoon I didn't have a class, so I stayed in the convention center and sat around a table with a few other women and worked on my sleeve. It was neat to meet all these women from various places, mostly Indiana and Ohio, and to see what they are working on. A lot of people seem very interested in my sleeve. It certainly isn't boring! I've had so many people come up to me and ask what I'm working on, and when I tell them it's crocheted, they're just amazed! I guess everyone is under the impression that crocheting is only good for lacy things and baby blankets.

This evening, the market opened and we went to check it out. WOW. Senses overload! I've never been to an event quite like this. Fibers, fibers EVERYWHERE. I wanted to take everything home with me! I can't even quite describe all of it. The colors were stunning. I ended up getting a new spindle and some beautiful roving for my class tomorrow. (I didn't want to take off the spinning I've already been working on.) I also bought a new ball of Cascade 220 for my coat...yay! It is a blue heather, 9332. I'm excited to start working it into my sleeve.

The Coat Progress

Speaking of the sleeve...I consulted a few people on it, and they informed it me it was much too big for my arm. Sigh! So I pulled out almost the entire thing - the exciting bit, at least - last night. It was so sad! But I managed to almost get back to the same place by the time I went to bed, and now I'm much further.

To make it smaller, I pulled it out to the cuff, and then pulled out one row of the cuff. Now, instead of 73 stitches across, it's 59. It looks much better. I'm hoping to finish the sleeve tomorrow. Then I can start on the second one!

I'm pretty happy with it! I had a few problems with the crossed doubles stitch, but I think I have it worked out. Tell me if it looks wrong!

Ravelry

One of the really awesome things about this convention is that I get to meet so many people who are on Ravelry! So many people are on that site, and so many people are interested in joining. Everyone seems to use it for something different, which is wonderful.

This evening, the founders of the site and their new kid (Casey, Jess aka frecklegirl, and Mary Heather aka Rainydaygoods) all gave a presentation. It was very good, considering they had never done one before! It was so neat to meet them and hear their story. I love Ravelry and can't wait to see what's in for it in the future!

Well, I'm having issues typing, which is a sign that it's time for bed! I'll write more when I can, and post the pattern for the wrist warmers that I made, as well as the story that goes with them!

Happy Hooking!