Week 3 Challenge: Flowers!

There are so many beautiful flower patterns out there - I spent a ridiculous amount of time browsing on Ravelry.  (I know, so what else is new?)  But I finally chose this pattern by Lucy at Attic24, for Japanese Quince Flowers.

I ended up making two versions of the flower itself, as I didn't love the first one.  I wanted to use some pretty scrap yarn I had lying around...



...but I found that it was too fuzzy, and the flower lost its delicate beauty.




So I started over with thinner cotton yarn...




and was happier with the outcome.



Here is my final notebook page for this project.  I had to translate into US crochet terms.






And here are my two lovely quince flowers, complete with little green leaves:

New Poll!

Hey there hookers!

I've posted a new poll on the top left of this page, and I'd love it if you'd take a moment to vote.  I have struggled with crocheting into the foundation chain, and now I use foundation single crochet whenever I can.  But for some patterns you do have to use that (tight, twisted, uneven) chain, and I recently learned that there are different approaches.  I think the most common way is to insert the hook under the top two strands, but you can also do back-loop only, back and bump, bump only, and probably a million other variations.  I'm curious as to who does which, and when, and why.

Regarding the other poll, I can only apologize.
I used to research test construction, and yet I provided you with that horribly crafted question.  How could I have asked about "most often," and then encouraged you to choose as many answers as you wanted?  There is also the matter of being a self-selected sample: are any of us really surprised that there are more crocheters and no knitters reading this blog?
*sigh*

Hopefully I've done a better job this time ;)

I hope this installs Bloglovin...

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Running With Scissors

Scissors are terrifying.  Useful, sure, but when you've worked hard on something, it's difficult to take an honest look at it and acknowledge that there is a problem, and it has to go.

One of the great things about crochet is that it is relatively painless to go back and fix mistakes, as long as you're willing to pull out a few stitches.  From what I hear, this is much more difficult with knitting.  But once you've crocheted pieces together, and cut and woven in your yarn, things get trickier.

Fellow hookers, I am here to tell you that there is hope!  Here is my story.

I am in the middle of making a blanket.  It is large.  I am really excited about it, because I love colors, and this blanket is full of them.  Here is the color scheme for the top right corner:

These are the colors I wanted to use.  But the selection of yarns at Joann's was uncooperative - there was no light yellow or bright green in worsted weight.  I consider myself to be a flexible person, so I chose a darker green, and a bright yellow with a lot of green in it.  So much green, in fact, that it was awfully close to my light green yarn.

Despite my reservations, I forged ahead and finished the first seven columns.  They included a light yellow (actually greenish) hexagon three rows down in the sixth column.  It looked terrible, but I couldn't handle the thought of undoing hours of work to fix it.  I tried to convince myself that it would blend in when I added the other greens and blues.  But it stuck out like a sore thumb, and I finally acknowledged that it would have to go.  So I got out my scalpel...er, scissors, and prepped my baby for a hexagon transplant.

Here is a picture mid-surgery:

I was extremely careful not to cut the yarn from other hexagons!  And here it is, post-hexagonectomy:

Then it was time to place the new hexagon.  I ordered a bright yellow yarn online, crocheted a new piece, and hoped for the best:

Successful surgery!  The yarn is thinner than the rest - stay tuned for my rant about dirty, lying belly bands - but I think it will do.  And now, back to work on the rest of the blanket!

By the way, here is the link to the pattern I'm using.  It's $3.75 on Ravelry, by BabyLove Brand.

Playing Dress-Up

Hey everyone!

I'm having a good old time with this blog.  You may or may not have noticed, but I have changed the background image many times.  I wanted something crochet-related, and preferably a photo I had taken myself, but it took me until today to figure out how to make my photos small enough to upload. Anyway, the current picture is a blanket I made for my aunt - by far my largest project to date :)

So we're all creative, crafty, visual people, right?  I, for one, cannot keep my sticky fingers off the "Design" link at the top of this blog.  I could mess with the layout and colors all day!

Aside from the obvious procrastination problem this presents, what do you think about changing the appearance of your blog?  Does it make it more or less interesting to readers?  I'm not worrying too much about this, I just wanted to start a conversation.  Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Celebrate!

I'm going to elaborate on my celebration of National Crochet Month.  Starting this blog is definitely the main event, but I have some other plans up my sleeve as well.

1. I plan to spend more time engaging with the craft/crochet community (i.e. probably anyone reading this)

2. I would like to contribute a little something to this community.  My goal is to create a free pattern to post on Ravelry, but I'm not sure that's realistic before the end of March.  For now, I'll just put out something silly - on the top right corner of this blog, you'll see a poll with a craft-related question.  Submit your votes and I'll write about the responses!

I imagine I will find even more ways to celebrate as the month unfolds :)

Keep hookin'!

Thank you RedBerryCrochet!

I have been thinking about starting a blog, and now I have the perfect excuse: RedBerryCrochet has set up a 52 week Crochet Challenge, and the second week's challenge is...setting up a crochet blog!  The first challenge is in the form of a question: How do you celebrate National Crochet Month?

This year I am celebrating by starting a crochet blog :)

So, umm, I don't know if anyone noticed, but I just completed the first two challenges in one post.  BOOM! (mic dropped)

Seriously though, thank you for this motivation and your thoughtfully laid out challenges.  I look forward to improving my skill and watching other crocheters do the same!

Here is the link for the challenge, and here is one for RedBerryCrochet's blog.