I finished a crocheted poncho recently, Lion Brand's "Martha Stewart Coming Home" poncho. I didn't use the Homespun yarn; instead, I used two strands of worsted weight yarn (non-boucle texture) held together throughout. I also crocheted up a matching cloche-style hat, which I don't know why I did that...I love those style hats, but they look terrible on me. I keep crocheting or knitting them, then(sigh) wind up giving them to my daughter because they look cute on her (well, she's not complaining!) I'm too lazy to post pictures right now, but maybe in the near future, I can add a few. I think I may have liked the hat a bit more too if I would've made another round or two before the decreases...I like my hats to be deeper, and this one isn't really deep enough for my liking. I wear the poncho over my coat as an extra layer of warmth, which suits me excellently. I really don't like the bulk of heavy coats or sweaters, so being able to wear shawls or the poncho over my coat to keep my back warm during these winter cold snaps is really an added bonus. This poncho was a victory for me because I had been eyeing different "Martha" ponchos for a very long time, but until recently, I didn't know how to crochet. So when I learned, I made it my personal goal to eventually make a "Martha" poncho, and so I did it.
I've got TONS of projects I need to work on, but it seems I have no time to do so. My only time to work on projects relatively uninterrupted is late at night when everybody's asleep, but I've been so tired lately (I think I have the "winter blahs") that all I want to do when I hit the pillow is sleep. Meanwhile, there is a fingerless glove on a set of knitting needles, haunting me to be finished (nevermind a mate for it!), and a wool legwarmer stranded with a laceweight of 100% alpaca that speaks to me, "Wouldn't I be so nice and warm to wear if you would give me a mate???!!!!" And some lovely 100% alpaca bulky yarn and a pattern to make myself a felted hat that I had to frog completely because my gauge was off. Yes, I did check my gauge with a gauge swatch, and it was fine then on the swatch; not sure what went wrong...maybe the yarn doesn't want to be a hat? Or, maybe it doesn't want to get felted? ;-)
Crochet seems to be a "vacation" of sorts from knitting for me, so I've been kind of involved with that more than I have the knitting. I LOVE to knit--don't get me wrong--but crochet seems to have more of a relaxed feel to it for me. I didn't really think about it before, but I think that the possibility of dropping stitches off of the needles really is a source of anxiety for me...with crochet, you don't have that same possibility. Sure, you can skip a stitch by accident, but it's not going to leave a "run" down your whole fabric, that's for sure!
I recently saw two crocheting projects I'm going to do. The first is from Lily Chin's book, "Knit and Crochet with Beads". It's the stole shown right there on the front cover--I think it's GORGEOUS!!! And the pattern looks pretty straightforward, too (a nice bonus!). The pattern calls for some laceweight mohair blend yarn, but I can't wear mohair; too itchy (which I'm sad about...it has such a lovely halo), so mine will be in 100% alpaca laceweight. Mmmmmmm....I can hardly wait to finish it and wrap it around my shoulders!!!! The second item I'm dying to try is the "Babydoll Dress" from Kim Werker's "Crochet Me" book. It's a big commitment from me, though...lots of crocheting time, so I'm waiting to start on it until I get some other needleworking works in progress out of the way first. I'm going to have to try to find a way to enlarge the pattern in the bust size because the largest size listed in the pattern is too snug for me.
I saw a cool idea recently on a web site: 101 things in 1,001 days. The idea is that you make a list of 101 things that you commit to try to complete in 1,001 days. I'd like to try to do this for
some of my knitting projects that I started but "ran out of steam" on. Here's one thing I REALLY want to finish...my "Candle Flame Shawl" (yep, I need another shawl!) I started it a while ago, and haven't finished it. The original pattern called for bulky weight yarn, and when I started it, I didn't know about double-stranding yarn to substitute for thicker weight yarns, but I figured, "Oh, gauge doesn't really matter for a shawl...I can just keep knitting until it's the size that I want, it will just take me a bit more time". Yeah, well, it's taken A LOT more time; there are so many stitches now on the needle, that I'm daunted to go back to it (which is why I put it away in the first place)--every time I need to do a set of the repeats, it takes forever. But I really loved the color yarn; it was the exact color I was looking for, and it wasn't available in bulky weight yarn. And foolishly, I didn't buy a bunch of the yarn at the same time, so I'm convinced that when I go back to buy more--because it's been so incredibly long since I started (nearly 9 months ago I think)--there will be no matching dye lots. (If I redo this shawl and decide to go with worsted weight again, I will DEFINITELY double strand it--no doubt about it!) While it might look fine to the naked eye right now, will different dye lots wear evenly with time and washings? It will certainly be a learning lesson for me. There are a couple of small glitches in the fabric, nothing that interfered with the pattern in itself (I had to frog a few rows here and there when that happened); maybe a stitch or two got twisted or something? In any event, they are small, and I think I will be the only one to notice (well, hopefully only I will notice!). It's one of those ponderings, "Do I really want to frog out all the way back to THERE to fix this tiny mistake?" or "Do I really want to perform 'knitting surgery' with the crochet hook, reworking all the way up from that particular stitch?" See why I get so stressed out with my knitting? :-) Normally, I probably would, but because of the way this pattern works, I'm too scared to try the "knitting surgery" option, so I will have to deal with my itching, knowing that there is two mistakes that I won't be fixing. You know that every time I put the shawl on to wear it (if/when I ever finish it), I will intentionally search out those two mistakes (or if I make more mistakes before it's all said and done) and abuse myself for not redoing it. Ooooohhhh.....I just touched this shawl to scan an image of it, and it's soooooo soft.....must....finish....it.....!
