FINISHED

Right side up.

Sideways.

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with more time on my hands.

Fiber Friday, Can't think of a cute title

Hello:

Another totally fun Fiber Friday. 

I wasn't early enough to see Tatting Guy.  But Colleen and I had the table to ourselves for a bit.

She has finished her first sweater.  It's a baby sweater that she is planning on donating to charity.  I just love how it came out.

hahaha you can see the shadow of my hand and the camera.

Winterpromise31 has made nice progress on her Trellis Hat.

CathieC was working on her Racing Raindrops.  I tried to get a photo of the beads.

But, it was a bit cloudy, so even under the skylight, my camera did not want to focus.

So I tried again, and then again with the super macro setting.

At least you can see there are beads.

JulieMustKnit came again.  She fits right into the group.  She brought her lovely Union Square Cowl.  The beautiful MadelineTosh Vintage looks washed out in this light, but you can see how nice her stitches are.

I worked on more stitchmarkers.  I have over 30 now. 

We talked a lot about dancing.  

And how much fun the LYS Tour was last spring.  And, how much fun Julie will have visiting yarn shops here.

Peace,

f1bercat

shaping the planet with lots of stitchmarkers.

Nerd Attack! Or, Why My Kids are Embarassed By Me

Hello:

Ugh!  hot and humid today.

Last Fiber Friday, I was laughing at admiring CathieC's nerdy very cool magnifying headgear.  However, since I am making some pretty small items right now (stitch markers),

I really wanted my own pair.  Sometimes, especially if I am using dark yarn or doing something intricate or tiny, my eyes are super blurry by the time I go to bed.  I need something more than magnifying or "cheater" glasses.  I have a pair of reading glasses, but they just don't seem to be focused at the right distance for knitting/stitching.  The optometrist  and I have a discussion about that every time I go to his office (Hi, Riley!  - hahaha I'm sure he doesn't read my blog).  We decided on computer distance.  But, that doesn't really help my knitting/hooking.

So, here they are:

There are a whole bunch of different lenses that snap in to make the magnification higher or lower. 

And...

It has a light on the top!

The light and the lenses are adjustable.  You can tilt them so they are at just the right angle.  Also, I have also noticed that I can put the lens at an angle for hooking in my lap, and easily see over them to the computer screen.  This is helpful for me because I like to keep the charts on the computer rather than print them out. or, watch Netflix while I am working on something relatively easy.

I am not sure that I will wear them out in public, however.

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with a  new "professional jeweler's lighted magnifying visor."  Oh, I got them on Amazon.

Eastside Stitchers Discuss the Twins

Hello:

Just got back from the Wednesday night meet up of Eastside Stitchers at Crossroads Mall in Bellevue, WA. 

We spent a lot of time talking about babies, and especially our two newest members, Hrvdmnky's twins.  No, the twins were not at stitch night as they are 2 days old.  But, they were there in spirit.

GwenS made it for a bit at the beginning of the evening, but she ducked out before I got my camera ready.

Tara1682 was working on the last of her baby gifts, these adorable baby booties.

Wajio is also making baby booties, but hers are these sweet Baby Janes.

Wireknitter has worked some magic.  She brought the "cat barf" yarn that she overdyed on our dyeing day.

Here is the before photo again:

and here is Wireknitter's Maia shawl in the overdyed yarn:

CathieC is making huge progress on her Racing Raindrops scarf.

Skeinherder, also brought a baby project.  She is almost finished with her Elephant Sweater.

Colleen was working on the border of her lace baby blanket.

VanesaPolo brought a Baby Sophisticate for Show and Tell.

She has almost finished a Baby's Ladylike Cardigan for her new baby.  She finished one sleeve tonight, and was getting ready to tackle the other sleeve.

The picot bind off might just do her in, however.

Chockelet dropped by to chat, but didn't have any knitting tonight.

Peace,
f1bercat shaping the planet with... the stitch markers that I was hooking!

Four of Six Rows Hooked Together

Good morning.

Doc and I are painting at our daughter's rental house this morning, before it gets too hot, and I wanted to get a post up this morning since tonight is Eastside Stitchers at Crossroads.  I know you are all just dying to see what the Graduation Afghan looks like now.

Last night when I went to bed, I had finished hooking together 4 of the 6 rows of squares.  I modified my dc join a bit, and I like the way it looks even more.

Instead of hooking a dc into each a back loop of each square, I hooked a dc2tog.

It went like this:

Hold squares (or rows of squares) together with the wrong sides facing outwards.
YO and insert hook into back loop of one stitch on top square.

Pull through, yo, and pull through 2 loops leaving the dc half finished and 2 loops still on the hook.

Yo and insert hook into back loop of matching stitch on the bottom square.

Make the first half of that dc (pull through, yo, pull through 2 loops leaving 3 loops on the hook).
You can see the original loop, and the 2 half finished dc still on the hook.

YO one more time

 and pull through all 3 loops.

Repeat your way across the two squares.
This is what it looks like on the back side. You can see the ridge.

 Here is the front side.  It is a totally smooth join.

Here is a photo that shows the original dc join (Vertical in white) and the sky blue new dc join.  The light blue join is much cleaner looking.

And here is what the four finished rows look like:

It is huge.

Honestly, why is it so big?  I guess I was thinking about how Pookie is over 6 feet tall.  And, maybe that I would like it to go on a Full Size Bed.  Crazy to be hooking this together in August.  I was getting hot last night with those rows in my lap.  Even in Bellevue.

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with 4 rows finished.

Finished All the Squares

Hello:

I love these mornings when there are clouds on the horizon. 

I have been working monogamously on the Graduation Afghan for my baby, Pookie.  He graduated from high school in June, and will leave for college in 1 1/2 weeks.  His college is in New Jersey, so he will need a warm blanket.  I made most of the squares last year, but they sat in a bag in the cave (our sub-basement) while I made 3 other afghans. 

I had forgotten how pretty the colors are.  The Doc asked why I wasn't using Princeton's colors (orange and black).  I started this afghan when Pookie was a Junior in High School.  When I knew he was applying to Princeton, I asked him if he wanted me to change the color, or make a different afghan, and he said, no.  He didn't want me to jinx him.  Also, now, he said he doesn't want his room to be all orange and black. 

Yesterday, I finished the last row of squares.  I am making six rows with five squares each.  I needed four more squares.  All of the original squares are from the 2012BAMCAL Group on Ravelry.  For the last four squares, I chose 3 squares from the 2013BAMCAL Group, and added my own design, Spider Square.  

The first square I used is  Squaring the Big Circle by Kate Jenks.

This square is very very easy.  It looks great with lots of color changes.  It's almost like a big round granny.

The next square is a 6 in.  Diamond in a Frame by Rhonda Rowley.

The BAMCAL Group has two 12 in. squares for each month, and one 6 in.  Sometimes I make four of the 6 in. and hook them together into a "foursquare."

Never Fading Flower

Sometimes, I hook four different 6 in. squares together.

Sometimes, I take the 6 in square, and add some type of border, or just keep crocheting until it is a 12 in.  That is what I did with this square. Because the square is very open, I didn't want to make a solid frame.  And, I wanted to skew the square.  So I chained a sort of web, and then attached that to a square frame.

The third square is Cocoa Puff by Melissa Green.  She uses Triple Crochets (tr) in a cool way that adds texture.  You can see this in the puffy white round in my square.

The last square is my Spider Square (have I mentioned that I designed a square?)  I added more rounds so that the 6 in square is now a 12 in.  I used inspiration from the Not in the Middle square by Pia Linden, a Swedish designer.  She says in the pattern that she didn't actually design the square, but more figured out a technique.  I used some of her idea and then added my own.  I am not 100% happy with what I hooked, I tried to use the white yarn to make the extra rounds look like bricks with white grout.  I wanted my Spider to look like he was in the corner of a brick wall.  But as I hooked I got another idea of how to change it to make it look more "brick-like."  I will certainly make another version of this very soon.  Anyway, this how it looks.

This will be the very bottom square on the right side of the afghan so it looks like the spider has just crawled onto the afghan.


I have hooked all the squares together into their rows of five, and added a row of white dc to the top and bottom of every row.

I will start hooking the rows together today.

But, not right now.  I just had some wonderful news.

Right now I will head to the kitchen to bake a batch of brownies.  Then run to the store to get some beautiful flowers.

Our Eastside Stitchers Group has grown by 2 very new members.

Welcome Twins!  And Congratulations! to Hrvdmnky and her DH.

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the planet ... as a new... Yarn Auntie!