Lacy Fingerless Mitts [Pattern]

 Lacy Fingerless Mitt's

Just in time for my Christmas crochet madness.  These beaut's work up with less then 100 yd of light weight/fingerling yarn.

 Here I used just under one skein of Paton's Silk/Bamboo blend in Sapphire, and about 2/3 of a skein of Red Heart Boutique in Parrot. 

They should be fairly easy to adapt to smaller or larger sizes but the pattern is writen to fit an adult med/large.  The design leaves them with alot of stretch so this size should fit most, but you can easily drop down/up a size by dropping/adding a row of dc.

The pattern can be found here in PDF form.

If you enjoy the pattern please feel free to send a donation my way to help keep me writing and working on free patterns!

A hole lot to show..?(SNCS #2)

And I fogot to take pictures.

The only thing I got a decient shot of is the batch of custum eyes  I finished painting for my Supernatural Craft Swap.

Since I custom blend my own paint for (most) the eyes I have a good amount of paint and it would be a waste to just do one set of eyes when I could do 6-8 (only the driest seen in photo) of each color blend before the paint dried up (or ran out).  So I made a batch of Angle Blues, and some Moose Hazel.  Since my eyes are hazel I know they tend to shift from light brown  to dark, to green, to a coppery shade, so depending on how the light hits these they should have some tones of dark/light brown with just a shift of copper.  I also have one set of Demonic Red, since I didn't need to 'mix' anything to get the shade of red I needed I only made one set.

Not seen are some custom mixed green hazel eye, I think they where mixed in with the wetter eyes and I just didnt want to risk smearing the colors together trying to pick them up.

Out side of this I have most of my boys clothing ideas laid out, just have to find the elusive grays I need.

--Outside of all the SNCS stuff.--

I have finished 25 amigurumi for the RESOBox event this Dec-Feb.  Once I burn out on working on them I swap to christmas gifts (got 4 done) projects.  I have a few new patterns that I need to write up, chart and share here, one is a cabled hat I worked up for a christmas gift.  I had wanted a gender neutral item so I could make it in a neutral color to give to either male or female's.

Before I ship them all off I will most defiantly get some photos of all the ami's.

Crochet hooks -.- and size issues

So I know crochet hooks are not standardized.  So I typically leave a hook with any WIP I am working on at the time so I don't come back to it with the wrong hook.

I get this a lot when I am making amigurumi with a G hook as there are 3 hooks sizes I have that are stamped as G luckily they are all different colors.  I just came to realize I have the same issue with N size hooks I have 3 all different sizes but two are blue-green (9&11) and one is gold.

This is why a Gauge Card is useful, I need to get some masking tape at some point and write the proper sizes on 9mm/10mm/11mm which is a big size difference if  you start a project with a 9mm and pick up the 11mm or vice versa it will be noticeable.

This can also throw off your projects.  I have a yarn that calls for a N hook (no more information) so which one does it want 9mm, 10mm, or the 11mm?  My gauge swatch for 2by2 inch block is  5 sc by 4 rows on the 9mm, 4sc by 4 rows on a 10mm, and 3 1/2 sc by 3 1/2 rows on the 11mm.

I do wish there was more standardization in crochet hooks across brands.   Also I wish they wouldn't miss label the MM size on hooks, one of my N's says its 10mm but when I use the gauge checker it reads as a 9mm (the other two dont have a MM marked on them).  MM should be a standard messurment globaly right?

I took a short break from working on amigurumi for RESOBOX,  to work on a few christmas/birthday gifts and this lead me to the N hook conundrum.

Surprise in the mail...

I received a surprise in the mail today.

You remember when I started on the mermaid tail blanket I made with Bernat Baby Blanket Yarn?

When THIS happened.  I had 5 tail's come out of the center of the ball.  I was a bit upset (read devastated) and thought I would not be able to make the yarn work.

I contacted the Bernat CS about it because  that is a lot of unjoined tails to have in a single ball.  Especially one where you cant easily join the yarn in a invisible or unnoticeable way.  There CS is a little hard to navigate but eventualy I got to the right person/department, and they agree'd that was just a bad ball that shouldnt have made it out of the factory but mistakes happen.  They promised to ship me out a new ball ASAP.

Today I got my new ball, and the surprise was they sent me TWO!!  Thank you Bernat!  Chloe thinks they are her new snuggle buddies

I got my invite!

RESOBOX picked me to come back and be apart of their world wide Amigurumi exhibition again this year. They are changing things up a bit, it got a theme going this year. Everyone who is invited back needs to provide at least one item that shows a characteristic or feature of their country or local area in their amigurumi pieces.
For my 'Local' feature I made a Cardinal, its the state bird of where I am from, and its also our 'sports ball's' mascot/logo/team name.  We also have a saying around these parts, if you see a cardinal then all throughout the day you will have good luck.  Its rare to spot one here, we had the unfortunate luck on year to have a cardinal nest out on our balcony when we lived in an apartment, the females are all brown and spotty, and the fledglings are the ugliest birds ever, but the males have a vibrant red cloak with a stark black mask also one of the few birds to have a red colored beak; I picked to make a male of course.

Not sure what all I will be sending but I am going to try and pick some of the items that sold well last year, and make some new items.  I know I will be doing a few Minie Octo's as I can charge less for them, the most expensive part of them will be the safety eyes.  I want to make some interesting chibi dragons, and I was considering doing a Chinese dragon but I am not sure how well the wire framing would hold up in shipping, then having them 'pose' it.        

I want to get at the very least 20 pieces finished to send in, anything less and the shipping both ways would eat up any profit I might make.

If there is anything you want to see me make for the exhibition please let me know I am open to all ideas.  If you local to NY you can stop by in Dec-Feb to see all the work.

Supernatural Craft swap (update #1)

Ok guys prepare yourselfs.  I am trying to get a little head on my craft swap, so I can share progress photos with my swappie.

I now realize my photo of all the heads might look like something else because of the 'skin' color *sigh*.  Oh well as soon as I rip apart my yarn stash to find my eyes I can do a custom painted eye jobs and finish the heads.

Now for the hard part, I still need to decide what outfits each of them will be wearing.  Cass's outfit will be easy he always wears the same thing but the other guys change it up episode to episode so I will need to look for a iconic, or classic look.  Might draw some inspiration from re-watching my swap partners favorite season.     A lot of their outfits are layered and that can be tricky to do with out making your ami look chunky.  

FYI all my fallowing Supernatural Craft Swap updates will be labeled with 'SNCS #(insert number here)' so if you want to search for them, or you just wish to avoid them you know what to look for in the titles.

Check one gift off the list!

My niece recently starting showing interest in mermaids so I jumped on the mermaid tail hooking bandwagon.  One more christmas gift down, many more to go.

I worked up a pattern of my own, using bernat blanket yarn.  I made the fin first, then separately I worked on a chevron blanket in rows, I evened off the bottom edge so it would be flat.  I then folded it in thirds, with the tail tucked inside with the side I want to be the outside facing inside, I sew across the bottom, leaving what would be the outer fold 1/2 sewn (it will be the side you folded in first).  Then you just flip it right side out, it should be easy to get into an out of with the outer fold only 1/2 sewn.

 If there is any interest I can translate my short hand notes into a written PDF.   This only took me 2 days working off and on.  Its 36 inches long not including the tail, and 32 wide at the top when spread open.

Seriously....

So I am geting my yarn bag prepped to start a gift for my neice.  I picked 3 shades of Bernat Baby Blanket yarn, and was going to make a mermaid tail.

So how I start out--

• Gather the yarn I want to use.
• Find the center pull; if their isnt one easy to access I brake out my ball winder and wind up a center pull ball.
•  Then I tuck it all into a bag with center pull tails facing up.

When I get to the 'Baby Lilac' shade I was excited I got a tail right away but it was a bit hard to tug out so I just pulled a vomit chunk out.  To my surprise I had not one center tail-- but four.  =.=
 
I am quiet vexed with this yarn.  Its super chunky so there will not be a good way to re-join it to itself with out it be noticeable.  Russia join is out the window, splicing is impossible as its not ply'd, this leaves me with knotting it.  I think I will try doing a  u-n knot (where the u and n inter lock), I think it will be the least bulky and noticeable with this type of yarn. 

I should get out my ball winder and start winding the purple up into a new center pull so I can control where all the knots will go.  Maybe I will get lucky and 2 of the ends will be on a short SHORT piece that I can just toss (crosses fingers for luck).

If I am even luckier Bernat will get back to me and say they are sending me a new ball with only 2 ends!!






 

A stopping point... for now? [WIP]

I have reached a stopping point on this blanket for now.  I have gotten the whole S-Sheild and Bat head finished; it just needs the wings on both sides worked out.

By the way this is it spread out across our QUEEN sized bed and it was too big, the bottom of the S-sheild is hanging off, and my lovely husband is holding up the whole left side.  Sadly I didnt block the top of it yet so the bat head rolled down on itself before I could get the photo taken but once I get around to it I will make sure to get a close up of the head, and a good shot of the whole thing on the ground somewhere fully spread out with something to show the scale of it all.

My husband is alreayd using it to keep off the chill of the fan-- and I will finish it.   Just not going to make it my main project for every day.

I still have the Supernatural craft swap to start, that's going to be 4 ami's and I think I am going to make one of them special.  RESOBOX is doing their amigurumi event again this year, but they are being more selective on who's work they will show as it will be a theme event they want each artist to show a characteristic or feature of their country or local area in their amigurumi and to submit their idea.  I submitted doing a Cardinal with a Dogwood blossom branch as its my states bird and flower,  I am just waiting to hear back from them whether or not they wish to have me back.

Not to mention I need to get started on christmas/birthday gifts.  If your a relative I will see for the holidays and want me to make you a scarf/hat/slippers/gloves let me know or else your getting one of the random items I will just start working on.

A simple Request

So in one of the FB groups I am in a lady was asking if anyone could decipher this coaster pattern for her.

Here is what I see when I look at it, and how I would replicate making this coaster.





Ch 4 slst to form a ring
DC 12 (12)
INC In each st (24)
Inc, Dc repeat around (36)
IN FRONT LOOPS of previous round with Ruffle color yarn
DC 3 into each stitch.
IN BACK LOOPS of previous round (not the ruffle row)
Inc, DC 2 repeat around (48)
Chain 3, sk 3, slst repeat (should end up with 16 chain loops)
With ruffle yarn/color--
Chain 2,(counts as first DC) Dc 5 around first chain loop, Dc6 in all remaining chain loops.