CrafTBQ

I need a new bag.  My weetiny and adorable purse is on its last legs.  It was a good purse in that it held just what I needed it to hold.  But what I also want it to hold is current knitting projects.  This will take some experimentation.

I had a purse once that was certainly big enough, but this thing could’ve carried a small child.  Way too big for every day purse needs.  I’ve since converted it into my crochet bag:

It currently holds all my crochet hooks (except the one I keep in my knitting bag to catch dropped stitches), scissors, practice yarn, tapestry needles, and the totally confusing crochet booklet that steered me so wrong all those years ago. (I THROW NOTHING OUT).

As a crochet bag this works pretty well. The little pockets inside are quite spiffy for putting my tools into, and the roomy inside is plenty of space for yarn and projects and books.

But no way am I hauling something this big around in my daily life. 

So off to buy a new purse I go. No clue if I’ll find something, but think of all the extra knitting I could get in if I’m successful!

ETA: The Girl From Auntie has a great collection of posts about Deb Stoller vs. Sew Fast Sew Easy over the use of “Stitch N Bitch.”  Recommended reading for anyone interested in that whole kerfuffle.

I finally sat down with the new class schedule for my LYS and sadly the only two classes that were tempting me (a cable purse and a sock class) fall on days that I’m working so I can’t go.  Phooey.

On the upside it does say that the crochet group that meets every 2nd Wednesday is still going to be doing that from 6-8, even though the store hours are changing for the summer. I guess they’ll be staying open just for them?

Anyway, something for me to keep in mind on the odd chance I feel like trying to do a SnB with a crochet group instead of knitters.

Worked on the swatch last night. Would much rather be at home doing that then at work right now.  Depending on how my head feels as the day goes on, I may do just that.

Got some crochet done today. Two rows of double crochet, per the instructions in Happy Hooker. This was a big one for me (no pun intended on the stitch size) because being able to see where the turning chain ends and my stitches begin on double (and triple) crochet was a big problem for me the last time I tried this. That’s how I ended up with a shawl that was supposed to be a lap blanket. (But notice how quickly I adapt! Sometimes my perfectionism does dial down enough to allow me to simply swap the label on something and pretend I meant to do that the whole time. Ahem.)

I’m doing better with it now. Not 100% confident yet but I think I’m getting it. I’m still at 19 stitches so that’s the key thing.

Now here’s how sad I am: I only realized today that part of the reason why I probably had problems with the turning chain and all the last time was probably influenced by me not doing the crochet correctly. You’d think that would be intuitive to figure out, and yet you would be wrong, wrong, wrong.

I maintain comfort in knowing that Deb Stoller made the same mistake when she tried doing crochet again. I’ve probably said this a billion times but her intro in Happy Hooker could basically be my story of trying to teach myself crochet the first time. The upside is that I still have the booklet I used to teach myself (because I throw nothing out EVER) and now that I’ve read HH and compared it to the booklet, I can sort-of see how the booklet was saying the same thing, but it didn’t make that 100% clear. It’s like Deb says: they show you A and they show you C, and somehow assume you’ll fill in B on your own.

Now that I’ve got B, I am slowly getting to that “Aha!” moment. Which is nice. I’m looking forward to when I’ve got enough under my belt that I can try out some of the patterns (here’s hoping increasing and decreasing doesn’t prove to be my undoing). Compared to knitting I like how there’s only one “live” stitch at a time, so if you drop something and/or screw up you haven’t necessarily ruined an entire section of your garment. There’s also the speed factor of being able to cover a lot of cloth ground with a single stitch.

The downside is that I can tell my wrist doesn’t like it. I remember from last time I was able to get around this by wearing a brace, but one of the other things I like about crochet so far is that the setup to start is pretty easy-breezy. Pick hook and project up, and go. (As opposed to knitting where there’s some aspect of getting the needles ready to go that adds a couple of steps - yes, sometimes I am just that lazy. You’re surprised?)

(Sidebar: As I type this there is a Mac asleep in my lap, currently using my arm for a pillow. All together now: Awwwwww.)

Anyhoo, point being that needing to use a brace adds a fiddly step to the process that’s disappointing. Esp because, laziness aside, sometimes I like to work on stuff while I’m visiting with family and left alone for random moments to amuse myself, so having crochet with a half second of “Pick up stuff, hook hook hook, put it down” would be far more practical than the extra steps of knitting. Throw the brace into the system and we’ve lost that.

I may need to try a new hold on the hook, but I’m not sure what it would be. Esp since I think the actual twisting movement of hooking itself is what’s causing the problem, and that’s always going to be there.

So, stuff to ponder. I am determined not to give up!

Knitting-wise I’m hoping to cast on for my next scarf today. I’m also putting together a shopping list of yarn from KnitPicks. Their new S&H charge system is evil because it really does encourage you to put more yarn into your order just on the odd chance you might use it later.

For my next order I’m going to throw in some Wool of the Andes (my first time using it) for BGAL. I figure that’s a safe order no matter what because even if I don’t do the crazy insane project I’m currently thinking of for it, I’ll do something with it.

I’m also going to throw in some yarn for these pedicure socks. I wasn’t going to do them originally because on the rare occaisions I get pedicures in cold weather I’m actually fine with the whole cling film/hope it all works out thing. But then I reread the pattern and saw that, once you yank the stripes out of the equation, these are actually pretty good Playskool’s My First Learn To Make A Heel Socks, since you’re using #7 dpns and worsted weight yarn and there’s nothing else that requires much attention to be paid besides the ribbing.

So I figure I’ll do those, even if I never end up using them, and use that to cut my teeth on the general sock concept before I go back to the #3 dpns and sock yarn and sock pattern that has been waiting for me to have enough brainpower to try it.

Of course with me nothing can ever be simple, and I’m also tempted to fancy up the final product by dying my own yarn, but oddly I think KP’s dye your own is more expensive than the pre-dyed, so my Scottish nature - um, I mean frugal side will probably win the battle over my manic insanity.

Throw in the other scarf that I thought of doing and I’ve got a few WIPs on the burner. I’m tempted to be like Byrne and turn my sidebar into a nifty UFO list, but I’m not sure if that would give me a happy sense of accomplishment or a feeling of dread over how much hasn’t been done.

On the other hand, I think we can all admire Byrne’s nifty sidebar UFO list. Ooooo. Ahhhh.

I’ve made a blog for BGAL but the kinks are still being ironed out of it. As for example, people need to be able to make accounts in order to post there and so far we’re 2 out of 3 for trying with that.

Hopefully it’ll work out though. It’s got the right color scheme and everything!

So, getting back to everyone’s favorite topic, i.e. me, I thought I’d post on my other progress. With the scarf done the next on the knitting needles shall be another scarf but of a different type. I may start that tonight if I have time and energy.

I’ve also done more practice with crochet. I’m using The Happy Hooker and huzzah for a book that can explain crochet in a language that I can understand. Amazingly enough I still have the scarf I tried making years ago, so one of these days I’ll take a picture of it so you can see the horror of my last attempt to learn on my own.

But now I am much better! Here’s proof:

Look! Wee swatches of single crochet! The one on the left is my first attempt, which got screwed up because I started out with 10 stitches and somehow ended up with 8. But once i hit 8 I stayed at 8, so there was progress.

The second one started at 10 and stayed at 10, so I’m quite proud there. I shall also dare to say that my tension stays fairly even.

Huge steps for yours truly.

I worked up another swatch last night. That one was supposed to be 20 and turned into 19. On the upside I know where I lost the one stitch and just didn’t feel like going back to get it again. I did two rows single crochet just to refresh, then two rows of - erm - half double? I think it’s called?

My plan is to use that swatch to practice the next few sets of stitches in HH, then I’ll move on to actually making something out of crochet.

But tonight is knitting. In theory. We’ll see how that goes.

Looks like enough of us are into the idea of a blue and gold along (herein after referred to as BGAL, because I’m just. that. cool.) that it’s a go! When I have a little brainpower I’ll look into setting up a blog for it.

In the meanwhile what do we think about rules? I’d like something very laid back, so bare minimum I’d say no time limits. I was also thinking that it’d be useful to give everyone lead time. So even if I get the blog set up this weekend we may still want to wait a few weeks before it officially begins so that way people can find patterns, get supplies, etc.

Is there anything else we should think of? Age limits? Craft limits? So far people have suggested knitting, crochet, sewing, and cross stitch. Do we want to limit it to needle arts or is anything okay as long as it’s got the colors?

I’ll probably start throwing together a rough draft FAQ too to help us all get on the same page in these early planning stages.