Winter Janboree - Downtown Waukesha

Last month, Hazel and myself went to the Waukesha Winter Janboree for a geocaching event!  We enjoyed the delicious breakfast of pancakes, applesauce and bacon and then were on our merry way.

 

We were excited!

After we found our 18 caches, we walked around downtown Waukesha to see all the ice sculptures that were being made.  (Sadly all the yarn-bombing artwork from the summer had been removed.)  It was a rather warm and sunny day so unfortunately some of the sculptures were melting as they were being created. 

 At a Penguin freezer

Anyhow we continued walking around downtown and we spotted a store with some very cute crocheted projects inside. There was a nice hat and a necklace.  It's always nice when you can find some crocheted work in your everyday life. 

Hazel wants to make this hat with fun-fur.

Let us know if you've found any cute crocheted projects near you!

Hooker!

Enough said...



HOOKER!

Crochet dog

My dog coco, learning her crochet stitches. How cut is that?

Baby Afghan

One of my friends is having a baby so of course i thought the perfect present would be a beautiful baby blanket.

Wanting to try a stich I haven't used before I pulled out my Reader's Digest "The Ultimate Sourcebook of Knitting and Crochet Stitches" that my mother had given me for Christmas a few years ago. After browsing through all the stiches I decided to go with the Ridged Chevron Stitch which is an easy quick stitch to do.

Starting chain must be multiple of 12 sts + 3.

The pattern for the Ridged Chevron Stitch is 2 rows repeated for the length desired, rows as follows:

Row 1: Skip 3ch (count as 1 dc), 1dc into next ch, *1dc into each of next 3ch, [over next 2ch work dc2tog] twice, 1dc into each of next 3ch, [2dc into next ch] twice; rep from* ending last rep with 2dc once only into last ch, turn.

Row 2: 3ch (count as 1dc), 1dc into 1st st, always inserting hook into back loop only of each st *1dc into each of next 3 sts, [over next 2 sts work dc2tog] twice, 1dc into each of next 3 sts, [2dc into next st] twice; rep from *ending last rep with 2 dc once only into top of tch, turn. Rep 2nd row.

For this Afghan I used the Caron Simply Soft yarn in colors Strawberry, Soft Pink, and Heather Grey, and Size H/8 hook. I did 10 chevrons/per row with 7 rows of Strawberry, 3 rows of Heather Grey, 7 rows of Soft Pink, 3 rows of Heather Grey, repeating that pattern ending with the Strawberry. Final Afghan size measured 36x50 which is a little larger for a baby afghan but should be perfect for the toddler to childhood years.

From A Land Down Under - Tea Cozy

While on my trip to Australia last month I noticed that crochet is very 'in' over there like it is here. A lot of our styles are the same so I was excited when I came across a crocheted tea cozy at a local coffee shop, as I hadn't seen anything like that in the United States. It was so cute with all the loops and the big bright orange flower... I always like when you can incorporate things other than yarn to a project.

I definitely enjoyed that this was a "groovy" tea cozy!

So if you know someone who loves tea and always brings it out at a get-together, perhaps this would be the perfect gift idea for them. I found a few cute patterns here, and you could always modify one to add a cute flower with fun bright loops.