Circle Hot Pad pattern - totally giftable

I consider myself a tight crocheter, but I did have to go down two hook sizes to match the designer's gauge on this Circle Hot Pad by Esther Thompson. As she said, gauge isn't very important for this potholder/trivet, but you do want to have a nice firm fabric to protect surfaces or your hands from the heat. This was very quick to make and is so cute and totally giftable. The Hobby Lobby Crafter's Secret Cotton in the Desert Gold colorway looks modern and chic. There is a free version of this pattern on the designer's website.

I added a hanging loop by chaining 10 at the end of the last round, slip stitching the chain to the trivet next to where I started chaining, then turning and working 20 SC's back over the chain. A 1-inch wooden or metal ring sewn to the trivet would also look nice as a hanging loop. 

There was also just enough of the main color (Desert Gold) left to make a coordinating 4-inch-diameter coaster in 6 rounds. I made it double-layered like the trivet, but for the coaster I slip stitched it together with the ivory yarn for a bit of contrast on the colorful side. 

The multicolored balls of this Crafter's Secret cotton are 57 grams, whereas the solid color balls are 71 grams. So, using the solid color as the contrast color for this project, you have enough of the solid color to make two trivets (if you don't use any to make a coaster, the way I did).

I gifted the colorful trivet set to my niece Renee, and I made another set to give to my sister Juanita in the Hobby Lobby Crafter's Secret Cotton in the more neutral-looking colorway called The City.

Winter in the South - new free pattern

Hello, everyone! I just published a new free pattern at Ravelry for my Winter in the South hat, so click on this link to head on over to Ravelry and download your free copy. I sincerely hope you enjoy this comfy, wearable design, and if you're inclined to give it a heart or make a project page where we can all see the lovely hat you made, that would just make my day. 😊

 Winter in the South is a top-down, seamless, slouchy ponytail/messy bun beanie made in an airy double-crochet mesh that’s perfect for winter conditions that are chilly but less-than frigid. I used Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn for the sample in the photos, but most any worsted/aran weight size 4 yarn should be suitable. My sample hat used slightly less than half of the skein of ILTY.

This is a copyrighted, free crochet pattern offered by Yarncraft by Susan in adult/one size only. Written with standard U.S. crochet terms.

Sparkle Pumpkin

The Taylor Lynn YouTube tutorial at this link suggests 45 rows for pumpkins made on the Sentro 40, but I made this one 52 rows tall because that was how many rows it took to use up the small hank of this yarn I had on hand. I mean, after all, real pumpkins come in all shapes and sizes, so why not add a few extra rows to this one? 😉

I wasn't sure how this metallic yarn would work in my machine (wasn't sure if the metallic filament would get separated/tangled in the needles, etc.), but the yarn ran through perfectly smoothly. In fact, I'm used to having to constantly monitor the stitches on my machine to make sure none has dropped (because my machine ALWAYS drops at least one stitch during every project), but this yarn ran through without one single stitch dropping. Amazing!

Finished it off with half of a cinnamon stick for a stem. I think the green color will make a nice contrast to more traditional color pumpkins in my fall display.

Update 10/20/2022: Two years later and I'm still tinkering with this pumpkin. 😊 I decided to crochet a stem to replace the cinnamon stick, figuring that the crocheted stem would fit the scale of the pumpkin better and also be child-friendly. The stem is made with a small amount of Big Twist yarn in the Taupe colorway. And then I went on and added some curly vines, one in Taupe, one in Red Heart Super Saver in Saffron, and one in a double strand of Fixler Brothers Quick Knit Sport in 018 (yellow). How you like me NOW?!? 😂

Proud Santa Hats

I started this project right after last Christmas after seeing a photo of something similar online, but for whatever reason I didn't make a project page on Ravelry at that time. So I actually mostly finished making the hats months ago, but they sat on the table in my sewing room waiting for me to weave in the ends and add the pompoms, which I finally did today. 

I made the tail on one hat a little longer and on the other hat a little shorter just for some differentiation between the two. Fiber Spider has a good tutorial on YouTube for how to crochet a seamless, top-down stocking cap. I modeled these caps after most of his instructions and then added the rainbow stripes using HDC in the 3rd loop before finishing with the ribbing in white.

But since I did most of the work on these nearly a year ago, I can't remember anymore what size hook I used or what colorways the yarns are, etc.! Oh well. I'm still excited to get these in the mail to Mika and Emmy so they can wear them this coming holiday season. I hope they like the hats!

Doughnut Buddies

These Doughnut Buddies toys are so sweet (pun intended) and quick and easy to make. Each one can be made in an evening (about 4-6 hours each max, depending on the level of detail). Watch out -- these are fun and addictive. 😊

The only reason these project took me multiple days was because I had to wait for an order of safety eyes to arrive in the mail. 😄

Rachel Zain, the designer of all these adorable Doughnut Buddies, generally doesn't tell you in the patterns which colors to use at each step -- and that's fine because it allows for individual creativity. I made my Baby Yoda buddy on a burlap-brown base doughnut to represent The Child's robe, with green icing (of course) for his face and ears. (Rachel used the same green doughnut base on her alien as the icing, which is perfectly all right, too, of course.) 

And, of course, I simply HAD TO make a Mandalorian to go with my Baby Yoda. 😜

Tip: Leave a 14-inch-long tail before chaining to make the icing layer. This gives you the length you need to attach the center ring of icing to the doughnut.

I freehanded a couple of Doughnut Buddies last year as a gift for Lilliana, but it's fun to now have the official patterns to learn from and use as a jumping-off point for more creativity.

The knitting clock

Asking price for this is not disclosed, so it's probably not in my budget. 😆 But aside from price this grandfather clock is SO me. 

http://www.sirenelisewilhelmsen.com/#grandfatherknittingclock

Boho Summer Cotton Swingy Shawlivest

I like the look of the four-row repeated stitch pattern of the Boho Summer Cardigan (there is a free version of the pattern on YouTube), which got me wondering whether I could use that stitch pattern in the shape of a Swingy Shawlivest. 

I'm making this one with cotton yarn for wear during the warm summer months. This was an experiment in melding two different patterns, and you can see by the way the center increase veers off at an angle (rather than staying centered) that it didn't turn out totally perfect, but it's still completely wearable and comfortable and will be fine for me. If I wanted to do this again to give to someone else, I'd have to recalculate how to keep the center increase in the center. 😉

Decided to finish this one with crocheted rope-twist fringe along the bottom to complement the boho style. There are many tutorials on YouTube for how to make this type of fringe. I like this one and this one. 

For 6-inch fringe: SC into first st. ( * SC into next st and pull up a loop that's 16 inches long. Using your finger, twist the loop 40 times. Place end of loop back on hook and sl in same SC where you started the long loop. SC in next st. Pull the twisted loop open and then drop it to allow the rope twist to settle evenly along its length. ** ) Repeat from * to  ** across hem, ending with a SC in the last st. Finish off and weave in all ends. 

Some people twist the loop while it's on their hook, and if it works for you to do it that way, great. But I find it easier for me to twist the loop on my finger. I'm always dropping the loop when I try to twist it while it's on my hook. So use whichever method works best for you. 

Since my loops are 16 inches long, that means each strand of fringe actually uses 32 inches of yarn, which is only 4 inches less than a yard. Keep that in mind if you want to make fringe this way; it requires a LOT of yardage. Generally more yardage than cut fringe would require. But the upside of the rope-twisted fringe is it can safely go into the washer and dryer. 

To make 3-inch fringe, work the same as above but only pull up an 8-inch loop and twist it 20 times. I suppose to get a 4.5-inch fringe you would pull up a 12-inch loop and twist it 30 times. (etc.)

Total yarn weight used: 928 grams, including fringe. 

True Blue Swingy Shawlivest

I love the look of ombre/gradient yarns, so I wanted to try using one to make another Swingy Shawlivest, since I practically live in these vests all winter - they are so comfortable. 

Here's a link to my Ravelry project page. Vest total yarn weight: 1,000 grams. Estimated actual yardage totals the length of about 3.5 skeins, but I needed portions from another two skeins to match the stripes in the armhole section, so at least 6 skeins are needed to complete the project with this yarn.

Abracadabra!

Abracadabra! 😄 My friend Terri sent me this funny meme, which is sooo apropos!! Although, as my other friend Joann pointed out, crochet only takes ONE wand. *hehehe!*

Zebra Fringed Barn Jacket

When I was in first grade I had a classmate who wore a rabbit fur coat that all the girls in my class simply adored. (This was in the 1970s, OK, so wearing fur wasn’t yet culturally verboten.) All I can remember about this girl now is that her name was Elaina and she was of Russian descent. She spoke English with a Russian accent, and to the rest of us 6-year-olds who had never heard a foreign accent like that before, all the words she spoke sounded deliciously exotic to our ears.

As I recall her jacket was made with either a white-mottled-with-black rabbit fur or dalmatian rabbit fur. It was mostly white with black spots. In my mind’s eye the jacket looks more like the mottled rabbit fur photo below than the dalmatian rabbit (notice how the mottling creates some areas that look gray in the transition spaces between the black and white), although I remember her jacket having more white all over than this mottled swatch shows, but memory can be a funny (and incorrect) thing at times.

Anyway, I had several skeins of the Red Heart Zebra colorway yarn on hand, and looking at the colors reminded me of Elaina’s rabbit fur jacket - which, by the way, she never let any of us other girls in class try on (LOL) - so I decided to try to make a vest for myself using this yarn - and then I could pretend I was wearing Elaina’s sumptuous jacket any time I wanted to! :-)

This is a variegated yarn with moderately short color changes. (White about 13-15 inches, gray about 10-12 inches, black about 30 inches.) Personally I think variegated yarns with short color changes look better when worked in crochet vs. knitting.

I started this project back in July 2019 working it as an improvised top-down raglan vest in a granny stitch and got most of the way done with it but then decided I didn’t like the way the vest looked on me. Ultimately I decided to rip it out and start over using the On Point Poncho (paid) pattern as the shape inspiration for a long, fringed barn jacket. Fingers crossed that I like the way it turns out this time …

OK, I’ve reworked the jacket to the point where I can safely say that I do like it much better now by doing the On Point Poncho pattern as a cardigan. The body and fringe (two 14-inch strands folded together and placed in every-other stitch across the bottom hem, resulting in 7-inch fringe) are complete, and now I just have to decide how long to make the sleeves. I think I’ll finish them at 3/4 length (19 rows plus 1 row of SC edging) with minimal tapering (to 60 stitches around).

Total yarn weight: 945 grams or about 4.77 skeins / 976.0 yards.

Virus Blanket for RV free pattern

Well, it took me a little more than a year (only working on it when we were camping in our RV), but I finally finished this afghan. The colors in the afghan coordinate nicely with the color scheme inside our RV, and the finished size makes a nice topper for the queen-size bed to add another layer of warmth on cold nights or to snuggle up with for a nap.

This is the Virus Blanket free pattern by Jonna Martinez. Her free video tutorial is on YouTube. And I like to use the edging from this video by Kiki Crochet on my virus blankets.

Total yarn weight: 1,113 grams, or about 5.59 skeins / 1985.5 yards. Please see my Ravelry project page for details about the yarn colors I used here. 

Nifty crochet spiral square

An idea popped into my head for crocheting a square-bottomed tote bag, but I wanted to make it in a continuous spiral (like I've done with some round bags I've made) to avoid having an ugly join at the end of each round. So that got me wondering if there was an easy way to crochet a square in a continuous spiral. If so, all I'd have to do is crochet the square bottom until it was as big as I wanted it to be (I'm thinking about a 12-inch-square base would make a good size for a tote), and then stop increasing but just continue working until the sides were as tall as I wanted.

I googled "crochet spiral square" and this video tutorial (below) popped up. It's exactly what I was hoping to find - a quick, easy way to crochet a square shape in a continuous spiral. So nifty! This could work for lots of different things ... coasters, tote bags, placemats, trivets, blankets, cushion covers ... the list goes on and on.

I'm working with stash yarn for this project. I started the spiral square in the Dark Sage yarn then switched to the green vintage Pingouin yarn when the Dark Sage ran out. When the spiral square was about 11 inches on each side I decided the base was plenty big to be a tote bag, which meant it was time to stop increasing and start working the sides of the tote.

I do admire the vintage look of crocheted totes worked in a ripple stitch, so instead of working straight sides I decided to make rippled sides instead. To do that I had to count the stitches on each side to identify the midpoint, which is where the ripple "pinches" or "valleys." The corners I already had from working the square base become the "peaks" in the ripple pattern.

Each side is 32 stitches, not counting the extra stitch at the top of each peak. I stopped working the five-stitch increasing corners used in the spiral square base and started working three-stitch corners for the entirety of the tote bag's sides. So the sides are worked, starting from the top of a peak/corner; DC 15 then work 2 DC2tog (double crochet decrease; you have one decrease on each side of the center of the tote bag's side (this creates the "valley"); DC 15 until the next corner; 3 DC in center-corner stitch from previous row. Continue this way until the sides are as tall as you want.

Six rows after starting the sides of the tote the Pingouin green ran out and I switched to an unlabeled royal blue yarn from my stash. After five blue rows the blue yarn ran out, so I switched to a purple yarn from my stash. I worked six rows in the purple.

To stabilize the top edge of the bag I continued in purple by working a row of SC. Then I turned the bag to work the next row of SC in the opposite direction (to prevent the edge from curling) and added a ch 1 at the top of each peak. I turned the bag again and worked one more round of SC, placing 3 stitches in the ch 1 space at the top of each peak. I finished off and weaved in the ends. So the finished bag is made with a total of about 25 rows.

I added a set of brown microfiber braid purse handles from Everything Mary, which have been sitting in my sewing room for nearly 10 years waiting for the right project to come along to attach them to. I most likely bought the handles at Joann or Michaels.

I ended up gifting this bag to my sister, Linda.

I decided that if I make another bag like this someday, I think next time I would keep the 5-stitch peaks and offset them with two DC3togs in the valleys to make the peak and valley shapes sharper. But overall I think this project turned out well as is.

 

And it wasn't long before I made another one using some leftover Zebra colorway yarn from Red Heart. At first I finished this bag using a set of faux bamboo handles, which looked kind of cute, but the rigidity of those handles made it uncomfortable to wear the bag over my shoulder. 

 

So instead I found these nifty black faux leather 16-inch purse handles on Amazon that have lobster clasps at the ends, making it possible to easily put the straps on/off and use them on another bag, if the need arises. It would have been even better if I could have found these in a 24-inch length (like the straps I used on Linda's bag), so I'll be watching to see if I can find some longer straps eventually. (Update: Found some 24-inch ones at Amazon here.)

Pandemic knitting?

My friend Christine shared this funny meme with me today. 😂

I told her I have already crocheted a mask for myself. LOL!! 😄

Going Gray Swingy Shawlivest

I wanted to try making another Swingy Shawlivest, but this time with pockets. 

 

The pockets are lined with fabric and are about 6 inches wide by 7 inches tall. I worked the pockets in an edc post stitch faux rib to sort of resemble the pattern of the vest fabric beneath but with a solid fabric to conceal the pocket lining.

It's nice to have pockets, but I decided if I make another Swingy Shawlivest with pockets, I'll make the pockets bigger next time. Maybe 8 inches by 9 inches or so. Here's a link to my Ravelry project page.

Big Mug Hug - free pattern

I've been wanting to make a mug cozy that was big enough to fit our oversized, square-bottomed mugs. The cozy needed to be made with cotton yarn so it would be microwave-safe. After all, it's so much easier to put the cozy on the mug when it's empty, and THEN filling the mug with water, and THEN zapping it in the microwave for tea. 

 

Who wants to pick up a mug filled with scalding-hot water and then try to slip on a cozy without sloshing the water and burning yourself? Not me.

This cozy is quick to make and extra-thick thanks to the post stitches used on the cozy sides, and because the cozy covers the base of the mug it also protects your tabletop. It's easy to put on and remove thanks to the handy button loop.

Big Mug Hug

U.S. crochet terms

Materials: Worsted weight 100% cotton yarn, 5.5mm crochet hook, yarn needle, scissors. (My sample uses Peaches n Creme Ombre in the Blue Moon Ombre colorway.)

Start off working in the round:

Setup/row 1: In a magic circle, ch 2, DC 10. Join with sl at top of first DC. (10) [ch 2 doesn't count as a stitch in this pattern]

Row 2: Ch 2, 2 DC in each st around. Join with sl at top of first DC. (20)

Row 3: Ch 2, [2 DC in first st, 1 DC in next st.] Repeat around. Join with sl at top of first DC. (30)

Row 4: Ch 2, 2 DC in first st, 1 DC in each of next 15 sts. 2 DC in next st, 1 DC in each st to end. Join with sl at top of first DC. (32)

Now continue working back and forth in rows (do not join at end of rows for the rest of the pattern):

Row 5: Ch 2, FPDC in each st across. Turn. (32)

Row 6: Ch 2, BPDC in each st across. Turn. (32)

Repeat rows 5 and 6 until the cozy sides are a total of 10 rows tall. 

Row 15: Ch 1. Turn. HDC in each st across. (32 HDC)

Finishing: Sew a button in a top corner of the cozy as shown in photos. Slip cozy over your mug, hold the sides snugly around your mug the way you want it to fit, and then measure how long of a chain you need to reach from the other top corner of the cozy (the corner without the button) to the button and back to the other corner. Add a crochet chain of that length to the top corner without the button. Tie ends of chain to cozy to secure. Weave in ends, slip the cozy onto your mug, and enjoy.

Swingy Shawlivest with pineapple hem for LadyU

For her birthday, my daughter LadyU was hoping for a loose-fitting crocheted sleeveless poncho type of garment of about hip length, preferably from a pattern that incorporated pineapples and an asymmetrical hem. She said her favorite colors are pale teal, purples, and blues, or greens on the blue side of their color scale. She texted me a couple of photos showing some similar pieces that she liked, but I was having trouble finding a pattern designed to be anything close to what she was describing.

So I texted her a photo of my Swingy Shawlivest and asked if it would be something she might wear. I mean, I totally live in mine all winter long -- it's like my own personal blankie to keep me toasty all day and night. She said she liked the look of the vest and if I could add a row of pineapples along the hem that would make it perfect for her. That is how this project came about.

Based on her color preferences I knew the Caron Simply Soft Paints yarn in the Oceana colorway, which I've worked with many times before, would be ideal.

I worked her Swingy Shawlivest following the pattern through row 40 then started working the pineapple border starting at row 19 of the chart from the Cute Halter Top pattern.

I had looked around for some time trying to find a pineapple border that looked the way I wanted it to -- with a bottom edge that let the pineapples hang with individual "teeth" along the bottom edge (as in LadyU's second concept photo) rather than a totally straight bottom edge. The bottom edge of the halter top pattern fit the bill.

I worked on most of this project while I was on vacation, so when I ran out of yarn on the very last pineapple (UGH! yarn chicken fail) I had to set it aside for a few days until I got home and could order another skein (of which I only used a few inches).

And so, naturally, since I had to buy another skein of the Oceana yarn but only used a tiny bit of it to finish the Shawlivest, it just seemed logical to use part of the rest of that extra skein to machine knit a coordinating turban twist headband for LadyU. (80 rows on the Sentro 40, gauge of about 4 sts/4 rows to the inch on medium tension.) This gives her two pieces that she can wear either together or separately. 😊