Winter Shawl Explosion

It all started innocently enough.  While at one of my local independent yarn shops...,  I feel in love, I mean LOVE, with a skein of Noro's Taiyo Sock Yarn.  It had subtle striping of teals, grays and khakis...absolutely perfect for my mood...Ironically, just the night before I stumbled upon a great shawl pattern via Pinterest using sock weight yarn...I say it's ironic that these two events coincided with each other, destiny, I like to think...But then again, I have heard before that there is no such thing as coincidence...Was it a coincidence that after seeing Neptune Tears, I found myself driving to my favorite yarn shop, and just "happened" to stumble upon some gorgeous yarn-that I don't need...Well, I don't think that is germane to my point.

Anyhow, I snatched up two skeins, and went to work using the Neptune's Tears pattern from Ravelry and my Taiyo sock yarn...One week later, I had this...

While I love the pattern and the yarn, I'm not crazy about the wild blue stripe.  But then again, that's Noro's charm.

Then next day, as my Neptune's Tears shawl lay blocking, I happened to find myself in another one of my favorite yarn shops...and again I was bitten by a lovely lace shawl on display, The Elise Shawl.  This pattern can also be found via Ravelry.  Again,coincidentally(?). I spied a beautiful, but coy skein of fingering weight Malabringo Rastita in Iris. This skein screamed  for my fingers to knot it up into this beautiful lace Elise Shawl.  You got to feel this stuff.  SOOO silky.  And because I don't live in Russia or the Antarctica where 100's of shawls would seem somehow appropriate, this shawl would be for my mother.  So ka-ching, I got down to work.  And a week later, I came up with this:

Then as a treat to reward myself for standing in line at the post office to post my Mom's shawl, I again, found myself at my local yarn shop.  This time Elsebeth Lavold's Silky Wool winked at me.  I tried to play hard to get, but I wanted to try my hand at something a bit more structured, an exploded lace pattern from Doris Chan.  After a bit of math to determine the proper amount of skeins, and then a whole lot of knotting, I came up with this (the picture doesn't do a justice):

For the grand finale, I'm working another Elise Shawl up in a creamy ivory in Lavold's Silky Wool...  All this to say, if you know me personally, don't be surprised if you receive a shawl for a special day in your life...I'm hooked at the moment....

The Happy Hooker Returns

I've been thinking a lot lately about these guys...

It might be time to get starting on a new guy...Thinking about a panda...Kate likes pandas...

Whittle While You Play

While I was away on holiday, I worked on yet another craft show project...My guest room pillow cases...Check it out...

A Project For Global Warming

Due to this crazy, non-winter weather here in NC this year, I have taken to not wearing any coat, just usually a sweater and layers. With this shift in our winter climate, I was needing a large and chunky wrap that I can throw around as I trot off to take Kate to school and HD to Little Gym. With this end in mind, my version of the increasingly popular cowl that we see all over the place was born. Behold the Global Warming Circle Scarf:

I needed this project quickly as the daffodils are pushing their way through the ground and my sinuses are showing that first sign of of stress by spring pollen... You'll need bulky weight yarn , about 300 yards. I actually used 2 strands of worsted weight yarn together and a huge hook(I used size 10). One can use any stitch pattern that they take a shine too, I used Catherine's Wheel. One of the best suggestions that I was given when I was teaching myself crochet, is to get a *basic crochet stitch book and work with different stitches whenever you can. Scarves are a perfect practice for that. Here's what I did, but you can work it any stitch pattern you like or have been wanting to try...remember crochet is very forgiving. Catherine's Wheel as described by The Harmony Guides 330 Crochet Stitches Volume 6(*my basic crochet stitch book)

Chain 147. Special Stitch: CL (cluster)_ work [yo, insert hook, yo, draw loop through, yo, draw through 2 loops] over the number stitches indicated, yo, draw through all loops on hook 1st Row: 1 sc into 2nd chain from hook, 1sc into next chain, *skip 3 ch, 7 dc into next ch, skip 3 ch, 1 sc into each of the next 3 ch; rep from * to last 4 ch, skip 3 ch, 4 dc into last ch, turn. 2nd Row: 1 ch, 1 sc into first st, 1 sc into next st, *3 ch, 1 CL over next 7 sts., 3 ch, 1 sc into each of next 3 sts; rep from * to last 4 csts, 3 ch, 1 CL over last 4 sts, skip tch(turning chain), turn 3rd Row: 3 ch (count as 1dc), 3dc into first st, *skip 3 ch, 1sc into each of next 3sc, skip 3ch, 7dc into loop which closed next CL; rep from * to end finishing with skip 3 ch, 1 sc into each of last 2sc, skip tch, turn. 4th Row: 3ch(count as 1DC), skip first st, 1 CL over next 3 sts, *3ch, 1sc into each of the next 3 sts, 3ch, 1 CL over next 7 sts; rep from * finishing with 3ch, 1sc into next st, 1sc into top of tch, turn. 5th Row: 1ch, 1sc into each of the first 2sc, *skip 3ch, 7dc into loop which closed next CL, skip 3 ch, 1 sc into each of the next 3sc; rep from * ending with skip 3ch, 4dc into top of tch, turn. Rep 2nd - 5th row until you reach the desired width of scarf. ( I did a total of 9 rows) Seems ends together with a simple sc. DONE. (I did 3 of these in 2 evenings=super-easy!)

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