Fair time is coming

Fair time is coming. ... CROCHET FASTER!!!! 😂🧶

This is a candid shot of me working on my C2C moss stitch Montie's giant blanket WIP. The blanket is approximately 80% complete here. The final dimensions will be 60 inches by 84 inches. Whew!!! Here's hoping that I finish it in time to enter it into the fair. 😁🤞

Boho Crochet Hexi Cardigan

This is a hexi cardigan designed using a modified version of the stitch pattern from the Lazy Diamond Boho Pocket Shawl by Crystal White-Van Cleemput.

Toggles and twisted fringe added

I started out using a six-sided hexagon instead of a four-sided square, but other than that, the stitch sequence is identical to the pattern in the original design. I think this design lends itself well to the hexi cardi style, and I'm looking forward to being able to wear this because it's cozy and looks super cute in this Red Heart Super Saver Ombre yarn in the Anthracite colorway. 

Hexagon

The magic of the hexi cardi is what happens to the shape when you fold the hexagon in half: You instantly have the shape of half of a cardigan with a sleeve and half of the body.

Folded in half, plus extension rows on body edges

It's easy to crochet a hexi cardi shaped in a way that best fits your unique body. Begin by crocheting the two hexagons until they have enough rounds for the sleeves to easily fit around the widest part of your arms. If you still need additional rows to make the body of the cardi fit around your torso, you can add those rows later on the just center-back and center-front edges.

I suggest that you fold each hexagon in half and mark the edges that you intend to join across the top of the sleeve, then join those edges together before moving on to add any extra rows to the center-back and center-front edges. Sewing the sleeves closed first helps to make it easier to see which edges you should be adding to for extra width around the body.

Each hexagon is one-half of the cardigan, and the hexagons are joined at the center-back to create the cardigan.

Assembled, with extra length rows before adding pockets

If you want your cardigan to be longer, I suggest adding more rows to the bottom edge after joining the two halves together for a more polished finish. If you want to add pockets to your cardigan (and who doesn't love having pockets?!?!), wait to add those until you have finished adding any length to the bottom edge, to help ensure that you are able to position the pockets where they are most comfortable for you.

With pockets added

After completing those steps, you can then choose whether to add cuffs to the ends of the sleeves and/or whether to add a placket to the front edges. These cardigans can be worn without any fasteners, so you might not need to add a placket at all if you choose not to use buttons or a zipper on the front of your cardi.

I also added twisted fringe along the bottom edge using my handy Maple Quad End Fringe Twister from Etsy seller theknitstore. 

I debated whether I wanted to leave the front of my cardi open, but after my husband found a set of nice toggle closures (similar to these), I decided they would be a nice finishing touch.

I will be entering this project in our local fair this year.

Facet Keychain wristlet

This is the Facet Keychain pattern by Amy Kate Sutherland of The Graceful Tangle. These keychain wristlets work up super fast and are easy to finish. The pattern is a great way to use up small remnants of cotton yarn. I had a random remnant of this yellow/green/turquoise colorway of Lily Sugar N Cream cotton yarn in my stash. There wasn't quite enough yardage of the colorful yarn to finish two wristlets, so I alternated every two rows with some white cotton for the second wristband.

These would work with a variety of different keychain hardware types. I had these D-ring swivel lobster clasps that I found on Amazon on hand, so that's what I used, but there are many different keychain clasp styles and even ones with prettier finishes available online.

Amy shared this full video tutorial on YouTube:

 

Ginkgo Night Moves scarf

This free pattern is Night Moves, a lovely shawl or scarf designed by PurpleIguana. For my project, I followed Fiber Spider's video tutorial and patern mods. His mods begin when we reach the first decreasing row. 

I also greatly appreciate PurpleIguana's notes about yarn usage that she included on her Ravelry project page. 

The shape of these crochet shells reminds me of ginkgo leaves. 

Fiber Spider project inspo photo

I had a partial cake of the Red Heart It's a Wrap Rainbow in the Foggy colorway that had 134 grams  out of the original 150 grams. (I also had two other full-size cakes on hand.) I wanted to try to use all of the partial cake for this scarf, so, based on the notes on PurpleIguana's project page (linked above), I calculated that I needed to crochet my scarf until it weighed about 89 grams before starting the decrease rows described in Fiber Spider's mods.

I was working from the white end of the cake to the gray end of the cake. On my first attempt, I started the decreases a bit early and ended up with still having quite a bit of the gray left, so I placed a marker to indicate where I started decreasing and then ripped back to that point. Then I crocheted another four-row repeat section using the original (increasing) stitch sequence before starting the decreasing rows again.

As you can see in my photo, the plies of this yarn are not spun at all, which can sometimes make it a bit fiddly to work with. But, overall, it is a lovely yarn that feels soft and light.

Plies not spun

On that second attempt, I ended up running out of the gray a few rows before the end of the scarf, so I stole a few grams of the gray end of one of my other cakes to complete this project. 😂 Hey, it's my yarn stash; I can do what I want with it. 😹

Before blocking

I soaked the scarf in a washtub with a splash of Woolite and a few drops of peppermint essential oil mixed in, with the hope that some of the fragrance will remain in the fiber after it's dried. I would have liked to have used lavender essential oil for the fragrance, but I only had peppermint on hand, so I used what I had. But now I'm thinking that I need to add a vial of the lavender to my collection soon (ha!!). This project turned out so well that I'm intending to enter it in the fair this fall, and I would like the fiber to have some lingering fragrance, if possible, to please the judges. 🤞

After rinsing and gently squeezing the scarf, I rolled it inside a fluffy bath towel and pressed out the remaining excess water. Then I pinned it to the blocking boards, gently pulling out the bottom sawtooth points and opening up the lace. As you can see in the photos, the blocking makes the scarf several inches taller than it was before blocking. But it would be lovely either way, with or without blocking.

Blocking

Dimensions after blocking: 80 inches by 14 inches. I will be entering this project in our local fair this year.

Levi's shirt gusset

I try to keep a lightweight cardigan or overshirt in the car during the summer for those times when we're already out (running errands, going to doctor appointments, etc.) and we spontaneously decide to stop someplace to eat. Most restaurants keep their summertime air conditioning set to what feels like sub-zero, and I've reached the age where I get uncomfortable when I'm cold or sitting in a draft, so putting on an extra layer goes a long way toward keeping me content on those occasions.

We recently had a day where we were out and about, and we decided it was a good opportunity for us to eat out before heading home, except I didn't have a cardigan with me to put on in the restaurant. So, before heading to eat, we stopped at a shop and bought me this lovely lightweight denim/chambray Levi's shirt to slip on over the t-shirt I was wearing.

The shirt fit me well enough off the rack (I could button it down the front, etc.), and it kept me comfortable at the restaurant, but it was a snug fit, and I could tell that I would like the shirt even more if I added gussets for some extra ease. 

So, a few days later, I searched online and found some lovely light blue floral-print chambray fabric. I ordered 1.5 meters, which was way more yardage than I needed for the gussets, but I figured that I would eventually find a use for the remaining fabric. 😂

Even though the floral fabric isn't stretch chambray (which the description says), it's exactly the color and print that I envisioned using for the gusset panels on my Levi's shirt, so I'm happy with it. (The shirt doesn't stretch, either, so it's actually better that floral fabric isn't stretchy.)

Shirt and fabric before cutting:

First, I measured the length of the side seams (from hem to cuff) to know how long the gusset strips would need to be. My shirt measured about 29 inches from hem to cuff, so I cut my gusset strips from the floral fabric about 32 inches long (to give myself plenty of length for seam allowances) by 7 inches wide.

Before cutting the shirt open along the side seams, I had to remove the cuffs. This step made me a bit nervous, because I hadn't sewn anything with nice cuffs like this before.

I used my seam ripper and worked slowly and carefully until the cuffs came free from the sleeves. I set the cuffs aside to be reattached later.

Whew!! 😅

After the cuffs were removed, I took a couple of pins and pinned the tabs (the ones that secure the sleeves when they're rolled up) out of the way inside the sleeves, to keep them safe during the shirt cutting and gusset sewing.

Then it was time to cut the shirt open along the side seams. Using my sharpest scissors, and again working slowly and carefully, I cut as close as I could on either side of the bulky side seams, removing and discarding the strips from the old seams.

The next step was to zigzag stitch along all the raw edges of the shirt and the gusset strips, to minimize fraying later.

Now it was time to start sewing the gusset strips together with the shirt.

I finger-pressed about a 3/8-inch hem along one short edge of each gusset strip and then stitched across that hem to secure it. Then I put one side of the shirt and one of the gusset strips together with right sides facing, carefully lining up the bottom edge of the shirt with the bottom (hemmed) edge of the gusset strip, then sewed the pieces together from hem to cuff using a 3/8-inch seam. I repeated that process for the other three long seams. Then I pressed the seam allowance toward the gussets and topstitched over the seam allowances to secure them.

With all that work done, the only thing left to do was to reattach the cuffs. But, of course, the sleeves were now about 6 inches bigger around than they used to be, with the added gussets. So to get the sleeves to fit the original cuffs, I stitched two rows of basting stitches in the seam allowance of the ends of the sleeves and used the basting to gather the cuffs to a size that would fit in the cuffs. I pinned the inside edge of each cuff to the corresponding sleeve and stitched along that inside edge to secure the cuff to the sleeve. Then I enclosed the raw edge of each sleeve by positioning the outside edge of the cuff in place and topstitching to finish.