New to hooking?

This reminds me of our dear friend Emalina, and our "HDH Initiation" blog from 8/5/10 :)

Thank you obeycrochet.com for this wonderful sketch!

Halloween Crochet Ideas

Looking for some crocheted Halloween Ideas?  Try renting/buying Nicki Trench’s book SuperScary Crochet: 35 Gruesome Patterns to Sink your Hook Into, which boasts that ‘these toys and accessories are murderously macabre rather than the usual cute and cuddly.’ I recently rented this book from my local library to see what kind of fun decorations could be made for this upcoming season. While I don’t think I have time to work on any of these little projects this year, I thought I’d share them with the rest of you. It’s a fun little pattern book to pick up because each of the patterns has a little story behind how the object you’re crocheting has become haunted or evil!

Here’s a picture of ‘Willy the Wily Wolf’ scarf from her book, this would definitely be a conversation starter.

Or perhaps you could make this pattern...

Make this pattern from the book, "Bubbles In Trouble."

There are a bunch of other great ideas in the book too, from making the killer tomatoes to more creeped out dolls and vampires.

Will hook...

Hehehe

Picture credit to http://www.obeycrochet.com

Prayer Shawl Ministry Afghans

Two weeks ago when I went to church, we decided to go to the my husband's old church since his retired pastor was coming back to do the sermon.  While there I noticed a large rack of quality afghans at the entry way, as well as a handful more near the pulpit. 

This greeted me as I entered the church.

I opened my church bulletin and saw that they had a 'Prayer Shawl Ministry' going on.  It mentioned that 'as each shawl is being made, the person will be praying for the recipient.' I thought this was a nice idea and perhaps one day I can make one of these.  However, upon further reading this bulletin I saw that these could be made for any reason (medical, death, celebration of engagement, birth of a baby, divorce, illness, jail, loneliness, celebrate a friend).  So perhaps we're all making these prayer shawls already.  Because with each project I create I'm thinking about the person I'm making it for... I just need to add a prayer in there too :)

Baby Bobble Afghan

For my birthday this year, my mother-in-law got me a huge bag full of Red Heart Super Saver Yarn.  I received the basic colors - pink, yellow, blue and green.  Since there again appears to be a boom in people who are pregnant near me, I decided I would make a pink and yellow and then a blue and green afghan. So I went to my local library to pick out some new crochet books since I wanted a new pattern.  For my pink and yellow afghan I wanted to use the Baby Bobbles pattern from Donna Kooler's Encyclopedia of Crochet.  For me this pattern was perfect, because it had the bobbles that I love to make while adding a new spin on the overall appearance of the afghan.

I liked the little bobbles and small v-stiches it created in the different color for yarn each row.

As you can probably tell from my previous posts, I usually aim to not change yarn.  It's one of my least favorite things to do.  The afghan is done and then I need to spend hours sewing in the ends... yuck!  So when I saw that this pattern changed yarn at the end of each row, but had a fringe for them all instead of being sewn in, I thought I'd give this pattern a try.

It took awhile to cut all the fringe,but it was definitely easier than weaving in each end!

This pattern came out to be 40"x50" with the fringe, so it will allow the baby I give it to, to grow into it through its toddler years.  I also loved this pattern because it was a relatively quick pattern that was easy to follow.  One row of bobbles and single crochets, then next row just double crochet and then repeat till you reach your desired size.

Final result, ready to gift!

I have a good chunk of pink and yellow yarn left that I hope to make an Owl hat with it.  The pattern seems relatively easy, but I first need to finish my green and blue afghan that I just started.  So hopefully I'll be able to post about that one soon and then get started on the hat!

HDH gets a visit from the East!

Last night was our monthly HDH meeting.  We had the distinct pleasure of welcoming two new members to join us. It was exciting because they were from out of town and of the male persuasion!   After our potato dinner and bangers in the mouth, we sat down, turned on “The Devil Wears Prada” and got to work.  I had the pleasure of teaching Herman how to crochet, while Hazel taught Ken the stitches.  We both taught them the double crochet and it seemed as though we made some good progress.  After we explained the differences of knitting and crocheting as well as the difference between needles and hooks, the guys seemed to really enjoy their experience.  

I mean look at Ken, he seems excited!

Look at Herman showing off his stitches to Ken!

Herman seemed to really take an interest in the basics of crocheting, asking questions that we didn’t even know the answers too.  I feel it made Ethel, Hazel and I want to learn more about our favorite hobby and perhaps even blog about this more!  He now has earned the bragging rights to explain which end one should properly pull yarn from on a skein. (Writing this I now realize that I failed to explain what a skein is to Herman, not sure if Hazel told that to Ken…whoops!)

Ken started with a rather fuzzy and plush yarn and realized that this might not be the best yarn to use for a beginner project, so he checked out my surplus bin and picked a different yarn to restart his project.  He then couldn’t stop talking about how yarns differ from one skein to the next.  Anyhow, they both genuinely seemed interested in their projects and wanted to learn more!

After asking more about their needles and then having us explain to them for the fifth time that Hookers use HOOKS and not needles, Herman and Ken felt a little stupid once they realized their mistakes.

We've all been there. (Must click on photo to enlarge their amazing faces!)

Overall, we all had a great time catching up and crocheting.  We even got to watch some Arrested Development!  Stay tuned for more blogs to come this month!  It seems HDH took a little bit of a summer vacation from blogging, but now your inboxes will explode… I hope!

We all really got into our projects by the end of the night.

Happy Labor Day!

How are you spending you're Labor Day?  Im taking advantage of they day off by getting some crocheting done!