Condensation fighter

This is just another quick cotton cup cozy I whipped up to fit my glass filled with a refreshing drink with ice. 

I hate dealing with condensation on the outside of my glass, so I use a lot of cotton cup cozies in the summer. 

No pattern for this; I just crocheted this to fit the size of my glass. The cozy is secured with straps that fit over the handle in pretty much the same way a face mask's straps fit over a person's ears. 

A woman in a crafting group shared her idea for securing a cup cozy this way, no buttons or other fasteners required, and I thought it was very clever, so I wanted to try making a cozy that way too. 

Here's a link to my Ravelry project page.

Zuzu's Petals - fingering

This is my very first project using fingering weight yarn! And if that weren't a cool enough fact all by itself, the yarn I'm using is a lovely ball that I found at a thrift shop for only 99 cents! How's that for cool?!

The yarn didn't come with a manufacturer's label on it, so I have no idea what brand it is or even what the fiber content is. It kind of feels like it has cotton in it; it might even be 100% cotton, for all I know. I just liked the color - it reminds me of the faded grayish blue of denim blue jeans, and I think it will make a lovely Zuzu's Petals cowlette. This is a paid pattern designed by Carina Spencer.

Because the width of the neck opening was only 16 inches when I reached the end of section 1, I knew I would need to keep adding width to make it be possible to pull the cowlette over my head. I decided to work two more 12-row repeats, hoping that would bring the width to something closer to 20 inches wide, which I figured would be a dimension that would fit better over my head. That meant my final stitch count at the end of section 1 was 151.

End of section 1 with 103 stitches

 

End of section 1 with 151 stitches

As I got toward the end, I was worried about losing at yarn chicken (running out of yarn, in other words). So I skipped the optional purl round and instead went directly to the cast off. But then, after casting off, I could see that I did actually have enough yarn left on the skein to be able to do the purl round, so I tinked back the cast-off round and added the purl round before casting off again. I just knew that I would always regret not having the purl round in there, if I didn't add it, because it really does help straighten out the edge curling, even before blocking. 

Before blocking

I could have saved myself the trouble of tinking back if I had weighed my skein when working the last few rounds. If I had weighed it, I would have been able to  know that I'd have enough to work the last optional purl round before casting off. Live and learn! But it was pretty close!

Blocking

Gauge