Thursday, March 31, 2011

Our Kind of Hooker!

I want to take a moment to clarify that we're not the type of hooker one immediately thinks of when hearing that word. I was watching 30 Rock last night and thought I must share this short clip because I believe this video could be a shining example of what we'd be capable of!

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Crocheted Treasure!

Once again I went hiking this past weekend with the hubby, looking for geocaches along the way. I was pleasantly surprised when inside one of these caches was a crocheted coaster! I ended up leaving the coaster behind so the next cacher could marvel at it.
Super excited with this find!

This has now given me an idea to perhaps crochet some other small items to leave behind when geocaching. Unfortunately the only thing I can think of is the banana tampon cover…

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Crochet Fail - Wire Jewelry

About a month ago I took a visit to my local library and decided to take a detour over to the crochet books. I was in the mood to try something new, and I became super excited when I stumbled upon Crochet with Wire, a book by Nancie Wiseman that had multiple jewelry patterns inside. The next day I went to Michael's where I found their bead/wire section had a 40% off sale! All signs were pointing that this was going to be a great addition to my hobby.

Crocheting with wire is quite a bit different - there are new terms to learn and different materials to use. Once I entered Michael's I was a bit overwhelmed, but glad that I took this new book in with me. I had to figure out what gauge of wire I needed, and not only did I need to know the difference between a 5/0 and an 8/0 size bead, but I also needed to know where to find this information on the beads! (I feel this could have been more obvious.) So with my 40% off sale I purchased everything I needed to get started.

...then reality set in. I found crocheting with the wire, odd. If you make a mistake on a stitch, it's hard to get out and forever kinked (however, they do have a smoothing tool you can buy). I practiced with a tight stitch, an average stitch and with a loose stitch but never seemed to find my groove. Adding beads were easy, but perhaps too time consuming for me as they need to be pre-strung before crocheting in the correct count and color order. I took a break for a day and picked it up the next day, took another break and tried again. Finally this past weekend I returned all my unused 'crochet with wire' items...

Overall I didn't like my end result, and I didn't feel like investing more time mastering this new art was worth it. Perhaps if I had practiced a bit more, and not been obsessed with immediate perfection I would have enjoyed it, but as you can see from the picture below, this looks like a bracelet curling and curling around, however it's supposed to be a necklace.

Despite being wire, this can't be forced to lay straight.


I mainly disliked two things about crocheting with wire - my inconsistent stitch and the way the necklace would not lay flat. The two patterns I tried were aimed for beginner's, but I just didn't like how mine looked.
In addition to this necklace pattern being wavy it would not lay flat.


Perhaps in a few years I'll try and crochet with wire again...

Luck of the Irish

As March is upon us, so is the luck of the Irish. Many people may not know that the Irish actually had a big influence in crocheting in its early years. When the Great Potato Famine hit Ireland poor farm families needed a way to supplement there income. Women were able to crochet Irish Lace and sell it to the wealthy to embellish there clothing and home decor. This March as you're preparing for your corned beef and cabbage St. Patrick's Day dinner perhaps you can embellish your table decor with some Irish Lace.

For those of you that don't like to read patterns, here is a Irish Lace Demonstration.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBWGTNM8SMU