Finally made something!

Winter ought to be the best time to "make stuff," but I've been so busy with work and work travel as well as finishing up and trying to market "the novel" or "the" novel (see my writing blog), that I've barely had a chance to breathe. Add to that a re-commitment to the important of gym time, and an appreciation for good sleep, and there's just not enough time for FUN!

But with my dear friend Sarah about to have her first girly, after boys Ike and Max, I was inspired to crochet up a hippo from "Cute Little Animals" by Amy Gaines and to embroider a little skully onesie. It has a black ruffle on the rear, too. Sent them off and just waiting to hear about the new little one's name and arrival.

In an effort to decide what to do art-wise and to help make it a priority, I decided a trip to Michael's was in order (as well as an order from Dick Blick and bunches of markers from Staples). It was clear by the looks of my cart that an art identity crisis (AIC) was in progress. I piled in yarn, crochet hooks, embroidery and tapestry needles, paint brushes, watercolors and acrylics, sketch pads, ribbon, canvasses, beads, pattern books and magazines.

Now if I were just an octopus so I could do it all at once -- and save one or two tentacles for cooking, reading and cleaning.

An art class at The Queen's Ink in Savage Mill on Super Bowl Sunday morning with the talented Britisher Dyan Revealey will be sure to get me more than just enthused. By the end of it, and well before the Giants and Patriots kick off, I will have completed a 24" x 24" wall canvas! Very exciting. Will be sure to show off here.

Cross-Stitch Art

It seems all my painting is being done with fiber these days--from crochet to embroidery to an old, old favorite, cross-stitch. I just finished this little sampler above a couple weeks ago (and in fact, the pattern is for sale in my Etsy). Just picked it up from being framed at The Stitching Post. Getting ready to hang it. My work is rough; I can see it. After not doing this for probably 20 years, I was shocked at how much harder it is to see those little patterns. But, I have another piece started, as well as an embroidery sampler. Needlework is just so much easier to transport when traveling. There's no mess to clean up, and the rhythmic stitching is soothing.





Crochet Art

I've been traveling a lot lately - TN, IN, OR, MD, CT - so it's not exactly conducive to having the canvasses, easels, paints, brushes and water sitting about for inspiration to strike. But my yarn, crochet hook and little scissors passed all the airplane inspections, and so I made some tiny Blythe clothes on my travels.
The sweater pattern is from Crochet Today! magazine, Jan-Feb 2010 and is an update on a 1960s knitting and crochet flier for fashion dolls. The hat pattern is from my friend Zoe Aarden's book, Grrrlie Designs for Blythe, which I edited (see sidebar on this blog).
Meanwhile, ever appreciative of real crochet talents, I bought this intricate vintage, yet mod, flower doily for $1 at an antiques mall. I knew I wanted to frame it, and so I sprayed it with fabric stiffener and then had it mounted to a bright mat to show off the pattern. Even with a ready-made frame, that $1 doily now has more than $50 invested in it for posterity.

I'm a chick with sticks now, not just a hooker

In my continued enjoyment of all things color, I pulled the two bins that make up my yarn stash down from on high to help me decide what to make now that I am learning to knit. I've just had one class so far, but I love it. Once I got past the initial awkwardness, since knitting is so different from crochet, I was able to fly along. Admittedly, I've only learned one stitch, the knit stitch, along with casting on. Too eager to wait for this weekend's class, I found the purl stitch in two different books and have tried to learn that also.

My goal with knitting is to be able to make colorful doll hats and sweaters like those I just featured on my Blythe blog. I'm afraid that will be a long time coming, because that's tiny, skilled work. The two afghans I crocheted above, Hello Kitty and sock monkeys, were not even small work, but took plenty of time not just to finish but to master the stitches and understand the patterns.

But, I love learning new stuff, and I have no predisposition for or against knitting versus crochet as some people do. They are just so totally different. And they produce such different results, some of which I hope to post here some day!

Whipped my WIP; Another Peachy Project Done. Now I'm Feeling Blue.

So the peach afghan I blogged about below did indeed get done this weekend. In fact, I was able to finish the entire trim in about one hour Friday night. Do you ever experience that combination of let-down and relief when finishing a major project? I do. And now what to do with it? Well, I just folded it up to tuck away. I decided it didn't need to be blocked after all, although it could do with some softening.

The afghan is about 36" square and is a riff on a dragonfly pattern afghan from Crochet! magazine, July 2006. Speaking of crochet magazines, I weeded out my enormous collection and have over 30 knitting and crochet magazines for sale on Ebay right now. You can search by seller for hpsgsmith or just click here. They'll be ending Monday night and need to go to some other Happy Hooker or crazed knitter! Is that you?

Without even coming up for air, I started a new work in progress (WIP): yet another baby afghan. This is rather funny because there are no babies in the family or on the horizon (thankfully!) but I love the cute patterns and colors, and the size is right at my tolerance level. That's how the peach afghan went from 20 large squares to nine and finally got completed after three years.

The new project pictured above is from Crochet Today magazine and is a ripple stitch with lavender, blue and lime-y green. It really is such an easy stitch, and I hardly ever do a ripple. This is going quickly already. The edges have crocheted flowers scattered about, so even though it is boy-ish colors, it would be a girly blanket. Or, the flowers could be omitted; we shall see.

The cornflower or periwinkle blue color reminded me of the sweater I made myself with a similar color in Cotton Classic. It was my first blue ribbon in crochet at the local county fair. I was beaming! I also made a bobble or popcorn stitch clutch/makeup bag with zipper, which you can see above. I've never used it! But, I actually did wear the sweater- once, I think.

Hooked on Crochet, Yet Again

I don't know about you, but I hate WIPs. Call me OCD, but "works in progress" bug the heck out of me. If I start something, I usually have to finish it, even if it takes awhile. This peach crochet sweater/shrug was never really a WIP. I took a class a couple of summers ago, and made the whole thing during the three-week class, using Cotton Classic yarn, a granny square pattern, assembly instructions from the teacher and the subtle, simple encouragement of just being "in class."

So, why am I talking about WIPs then? Maybe it's the color that reminded me to find this thing to see if I could wear it. You see, the color, although not the yarn, is the same as an afghan I have been working on for nearly three years.

It was a dragonfly and bobble-stitch monotone stripe pattern I saw in Crochet! magazine that inspired me to search high and low for enough skeins to take on a big project. I'm much better suited to baby booties, baby-sized afghans, even a purse or sweater. But a full-size afghan was daunting and a challenge at the same time.

I found some yarn at a Ben Franklin store near the upper peninsula of Michigan while on a work-travel trip. Ben Franklin stores had gone out of business in my area years ago.

When I realized I didn't buy enough yarn (yes, I read the instructions), I was lucky enough to find the same lot number in the Herschner's catalog.

I thought I'd make a peach afghan to go with some new Lands End peach paisley bedding I had ordered. After completing about seven of the required 20 12-inch x 12-inch squares and taking on bobble stitches and front-post double crochet for hours and weeks on end, I was so sick of both peach and of crochet in general that I figured I could redecorate the bedroom again sooner and more painlessly than finish the darned afghan.

Still, the stack of finished squares has haunted me for years- every time I open the armoire holding my yarn stash in hopes of being re-inspired to make something, anything. Every so often I'd pull them out and look at them longingly, and admittedly, I'd admire my work. Some of those stitches were a real challenge for me! Making something uniform without losing count of rows and chains- also a challenge for me, since I hate making a gauge swatch. It always seems like such a waste of time!

So, a couple of weeks ago, while going through this very same exercise: take out squares, arrange, admire, repeat as needed, I realized if I just could finish the one that was half-done I'd have nine squares, not seven. That would be enough for a 36" square throw or baby afghan! Someone else could live with peach! Inspiration struck long enough to finish the square after reminding my clumsy fingers how to do the stitches again. I'd lost a lot of speed, confidence and deftness after three years. But I sailed through, no longer in love with the color or even the feel of the yarn (scratchy! what was I thinking?). Now I was motivated by the finish line and getting rid of the only WIP I had ever left unfinished.

I assembled the nine squares. Somehow, even though the original pattern of 20 called for four different kinds of squares, I had enough of each to make a uniform assembly: five stripe squares, two bobble squares and two bobble/stripe squares. Now that was a happy accident!

The squares, looking more like rectangles to me for my imperfect stitching, were sewn together during late-night DVD marathons of '24' the last two weekends. Nothing like Jack shooting and killing 2.3 people per minute to make one feel warm and cozy while assembling an afghan.

I'm down to just putting on the shell-stitch edging. I even did a search of pattern books for a more elaborate edging to celebrate my achievement. Not sure which I'm going to use, but I'm determined that in one more weekend I'll be washing (with lots of softener) the thing and blocking it. And then I'll be done and WIP-free! Free to start another less-daunting project! Free to sell all the left-over peach yarn in my stash, too! Might just pay for the other half that I used or perhaps a little of my time these last three years.

Crochet gave me the bird

Browsing the magazine stand and then thumbing through the latest issue of Crochet Today, I caught a glimpse of this darling bluebird and knew I had to make it. It was described as "easy" and I suppose it would be...for someone who crochets regularly. I used to be one of those people. You know, unable to put down the work at night, keeping a project in the car for traffic jams, hoarding yarn like it would feed me in a famine.

But it has been months since I crocheted anything more than a dolly hat, so making this little five-inch, single crochet birdie took a lot longer than I expected. Of course, I was trying to watch Mamma Mia for the fourth time. But, you'd think after that many viewings I could at least follow some simple stitch counts and still sing along to "Super Trooper." Not so. But I finished the movie. And then the birdie. I love his little wings. But then I added the bow, so not sure if 'he' is a she. Either way, I think it's cute.

Snow Flurries? Winter Coat? Get Me to My Yarn Stash Post Haste

It wasn't just the nasty weekend weather or even the turning of the calendar to November that gave me the itch to pick up my sticks, as knitters say. And, actually, I grabbed my hook, but we'll get to that. It was the necessity to buy a winter coat and the color of said coat that made me want to make a scarf to go with it, or accent it actually, since the coat is just so red. It's an unusual shade of red, and although it looks rather fuschia now on my monitor, it is just a deep, jewel-tone red, but not a burgundy or a maroon or a brick. I can say that with some expertise, since I spent the better part of an hour digging through my yarn stash trying to find something to match. I had planned all along to use black but realized all black was going to be no better than the all red coat. So I used TLC Macaroon in a nubby black with cream. That particular yarn has been "stashed" for a few years to go with a stuffed cat pattern. Don't ask. I mixed it with TLC Amore' in red velvet, which has been stashed ever since I made the sock monkey afghan. Ask away.

Both the sock monkey afghan (and baby hat) pattern and the pattern for this one-skein scarf come from Debbie Stoller's The Happy Hooker, a hip, indie-style irreverant pattern book that is most certainly not your grandma's crochet. Besides the double-crochet scarf here with shell trim, you can find beanies, skully sweaters, hats and potholders as well as trendy sweaters, skirts, bags and more. It really is my go-to pattern book, even though I spent another hour or more today thumbing through my crochet books, trying to find something to make. More times than not, I return to the simplicity of double-crochet, and the patterns in Stoller's book, while looking elaborate when done, are mostly quite simple. Without this book, I would have never attempted a sweater, which I in fact attempted, finished, and brought home a blue ribbon for my efforts.

These aren't the greatest pictures, but I just felt like crocheting, and I felt like blogging about it. I've been seeing so many darling knit gifts on etsy where I've even sold a few knit things of late, and in the Vintage Indie Market Guide and on friends' blogs. Knitting or crocheting just make me feel all warm and fuzzy. How about you?

And Another Cute Baby Contender

Miss Gwenyth Fretz of 10 weeks gives a shout out to the blog world and fellow cute baby Isaac http://lillysoflondonish.blogspot.com/2008/05/ike-and-hat-show.html. Gwen, daughter of friend Jen (and okay, Andy had something to do with it), models yet another crocheted hat creation by me. I mean who can resist making stuff for cute babies? Gwen's mom has exquisite good taste in many areas, and occasionally we get together and play with our paper crafts, vintage finds, cooking experiments or whatever.

Now Available in Hard Cover, or Soft Cover, Written by Zoe Aarden, Edited by Me

No, I'm not on the wrong blog- although this is also posted on my Blythe blog, Blythe-O-Mania Untamed at http://bly-me.blogspot.com/- the above falls squarely under art and letters for me. You see, on page five of the hard-cover book above (or soft-cover, your choice) , my bio is featured with the lovely title of "editor." Now that's enough to make any journalism grad's heart go pitter-patter, but add to that my love of crochet and all things Blythe, and I am in seventh heaven right now!

I just ordered my own copy, and you can too, either from Blurb or on ebay. Here are a couple of links: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/96412/86152bae2d034fbb485997fd4e7c5f63 or http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180212105251. I have tried the hat pattern several times, and there are 21 other yummy crochet patterns. There are lots of great color photos and great Blythe settings. Congrats to author and photographer Zoe Aarden and her fantabulous editor, oh, eek! that's me!

Lilly Gets to Know the Other Inhabitants

If You Can't Bake 'Em, Join 'Em

After all the eye candy at Cupcakes Take the Cake http://cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com/ and at Flickr here http://www.flickr.com/groups/cupcakestakethecake/, I am having a faux sugar rush! So, here's my own little faux contribution, appropriately titled, I think.

Sweet and Sinister Swap In Progress SIP

Here is the Haunted House I made last night (possibly) for my Sweet and Sinister Swap with Artsymama's group on Flickr. I say possibly because it is supposed to be black and white with thouches of Halloween colors, and this is possibly a little too colorful.

The potions bottle should be a shoe-in though, as it is black and sparkly, with a skull, black and silver fibers and my black cat charm attached. Makes a nice gift I think, as the charm can be detached for wearing, making into a pin or displaying on a tiny easel. The other swap pictures posted on Flickr are all luscious, so I am a little bit intimindated to send my offerings. I hope they pass muster- wouldn't want to be the target of an evil spell or something.

Speaking of Flickr and my new-found love for it (see below), there is a Cupcake group on Flickr which I have joined. Surely someone who not only paints but crochets cupcakes should be in this group! I just love like-minded (weird) people!

My other Flickr group is a Zetti group. Zettiology is the company of Teesha Moore (see links) and her husband Tracy, whom I have written about before. There are over 1,000 pieces of art (and now 5 of mine) in the Flickr Zetti group for admirers of this style. It is a color celebration! Check it out.http://www.flickr.com/groups/zettiology/.