I knew my granny square bunting was going to be way too heavy if I put all of my squares on it so I set aside 8 squares to make into another pair of granny square mitts. I like how colorful these ones are.
The construction is pretty simple. Eight granny squares, a few seams, and an edging. I like making the occasional granny square, but I could never commit to a full blanket so little projects like these are perfect for me.
This week was a lot better than last week in terms of photos. You can see some glimpses of the projects I’ve been working on here. The 6th photo, day 21, shows what I did the most this weekend. I was sick and, when I wasn’t working on essays or other school things, I was watching Buffy, drinking tea, and doing crafty things.
I’ve had these granny squares lying around for a while since I scrapped the original project I had planned to make with them. I also had a really blank wall that was between two windows. I decided to solve both problems in one go and made my granny squares into bunting to hang between the windows.
The construction was simple. I chained two stitches, slip stitches across the top of a square, and then chained two more stitches before moving on the the next square. After that I single crocheted back across the top. The squares ended up nicely spaced and they look good up on my wall.
The only problem is that this bunting is kind of heavy so it falls down occasionally. It’s longer than my knit bunting, but I was still surprised by how much more the crocheted bunting weighs. I guess that’s the downside to crochet.
Remember these? I was secretive about what I was doing with my granny squares in case I never got around to finishing them like with my other granny square projects. Not surprisingly, I finished the first mitt in late November or early December and the other one sat around for quite a while only half seamed with no edging. I finally dug them out this weekend and finished them up.
They’re pretty cute, but not really my style. I’m tempted to make myself a new pair without picots in colors that better suit me, but I’d have to either buy new yarn or use worsted weight to do that because I don’t have a lot of fingering and DK weight leftovers. They’d be a really quick project in heavy yarn so I might give it a go, but I think the teeny tiny granny squares really give these mitts a lot of character.
Anyways, the big break I took between crocheting the edgings has led me to a sad discovery. My crochet gauge is inconsistent. The edgings I worked during finals are neat and flat. The ones I worked over the weekend are loose and ruffly. I’ve always been proud of my consistent gauge in my knitting so finding out that my crochet isn’t nearly as even is a bit of a blow to my ego. I wonder if this is my project’s way of telling me that I need to crochet more?
I’m in the habit of making people gifts and then giving them without ever photographing them. I made my sister this collar for her birthday six months ago. I realized the other day that I never photographed it or blogged about it. I mention it to Britta and she was kind enough to model her collar for my blog.
I made this back in June when I was still in England using Paton’s Linen Touch DK and 5mm hook. I wanted something similar to the first collar I made, but I needed to streamline the construction. The original collar was made up of individual half circle motifs that were joined together. It involved a lot of pointless finishing work. For Britta’s collar I made the whole thing in one piece. I spaced out some shells so I had room to build on them and make the larger scallops. The end result is a similar looking collar with much less work.
Britta seems pretty happy with it and she wears it a lot. That’s the best indicator of a good gift.
I’m not sure when this happened, but granny squares have become my procrastination craft of choice. I worked up a handful of these squares while working on an essay proposal earlier this week. I have a vague plan for what I’m going to make them into, but I’m not sure if I want to use this yarn for that.
The yarn is Malabrigo sock that someone gave to me. I really like the colors, but I’m not a huge variegated yarn fan. I’m debating what to do. I might switching to a solid colored yarn and maybe use this for an edging (or not at all). I also might just continue on with this yarn and then make a second project with solid yarn if I like my FO. I have quite a few essays coming up that I can procrastinate on with granny squares.
School’s getting busy as the end of the semester approaches and I’m getting behind on blogging things! I haven’t shared my Halloween costume yet. I dressed as Harley Quinn from Batman.
I love that this costume had a little bit of all of my favorite crafts. I sewed the dress/tunic while I was home visiting my parents and had access to my sewing machine. It’s made out of two identical tops I found at H&M. The white cuffs and collar are crocheted. I knit the belt awhile back. I think it all came together quite nicely.
Tonight’s crafting time will be spent trying to finish my Halloween costume. I still need to crochet up a few pieces to pull everything together.
This is the first time in a long time that I’ve had a crafty costume. I usually go for make-up based costumes. Are you making your costume? Have you finished?
When I went to visit my friend in Boston in July, her mom let me go through her giant stash of old craft magazines that she had bought at a yard sale. I loved looking through all of the old issues. She let me pick out a few and take them home with me. I mostly went for the 60s issues, but the 70s ones are pretty entertaining, too. The notes are from the original owner.
Some of the projects are actually kind of cute, but most of them are not. I rather enjoy going through them and laughing at the ugly projects, but I thought you might find the attractive ones more interesting and less frightening. Some of the projects were kind of terrifying like weird clown dolls.
Mostly I like looking at the ads. Some of them are very well done and some are so dated that they’re a little horrifying like the ads for diet plans. And since I’m very juvenile at heart, I’m always amused by the number of ads for adult diapers in these things. Half of the small ads in the back are for them!
My mom just finished this crocheted afghan and it looked too pretty sitting on that chair to not share it.
She’s been working on it for a couple years now. My mom doesn’t spend as much time crafting as I do and she’s also very meticulous. She’ll rip out 30 rows to fix one little detail so it takes her awhile to get anything done. Her work is pretty impressive when it’s finished. I admire her patience, but I think I’ll stick with my “no one will ever notice that mistake” style of crafting.