Simple and Beautiful Sampler Afghan

Patterns are funny things. Sometimes they spring into life, fully formed, like they've been lurking in my brain all along. And sometimes I need to play around with some yarn and a hook and see what the fiber "wants" to be.

I had a supply of Malabrigo Rios leftover from another project, and I knew I wanted to make an afghan. The colorway I had - Piedras - varies A LOT between hanks, so I knew that making one big blanket wasn't the best option. So it would be done in blocks ... and I'd been meaning to come up with a sampler pattern for my not-quite-experienced crochet students to use ... and Erika is always up for holding new classes at the shop ...

After a few hours of digging around, I found the wonderful block-of-the-month afghan designed by Ren Murphy (http://theinspiredwren.blogspot.com/p/crochet-along.html). It had many of the traits I wanted - it was reversible, textured, and relatively easy. But not all of the blocks were exactly what I had in mind, so I designed a couple blocks based on some of my own favorite textures. After getting Ren's permission to use her designs for the class, I rearranged her blocks in order so that they go from easiest - nothing but single crochet - to the most complicated - some very straightforward front-post double crochet. Voila! A new pattern (and class) is born!

The class is offered at River Colors Studio, and I'm teaching two new blocks each month. I'll post the previous month's instructions here periodically, in case you're not in the Cleveland area but want to play along with us. Feel free to post links to pictures of your own projects in the comments!

And now, without further ado, here's the first handout:

Simple and Beautiful Sampler Afghan

Materials needed:

• Size I (5.5mm) crochet hook
• Washable, worsted-weight yarn in two colors - about 50 gm of each for one class, about 600 grams of each for the entire throw-sized afghan (but you can purchase as you go along, if you want), or about 300 grams of each for the baby blanket. Shop sample used Malabrigo Rios in colorways Pocion and Piedras.

Time to pick your project size!

• If you want to make a 36” square baby blanket, you’ll be making one block using each stitch pattern.
• If you want to make a 54”x44” throw, you’ll need a total of two blocks in each stitch pattern.

Class 1: March 6, 2016

Abbreviations to know this month:

st: stitch

ch: chain

sc: single crochet

sc blo: single crochet back loop only

Block One:  Rib-It! Rib-It!

(inspired by http://theinspiredwren.blogspot.com/2015/01/announcing-crochet-along-afghan-sampler.html)

Instructions:

Row 1: Ch 39, sc in second stitch from hook and each ch across; 38 stitches

Rows 2-55: ch 1 (does not count as a st), turn, sc blo in each st across (including 1st st); 38 stitches

Border: *work 38 sc along one side of the square, ch 1 (does not count as stitch), repeat from * on each side of the square.  Fasten off and weave in ends

Block 2: Tiramisu

(inspired by the stitch pattern in http://rosylittlethings.typepad.com/TiramisuBlanket.pdf)

Instructions:

Row 1: Ch 38, sc in second stitch from hook and each ch across; 37 stitches

Row 2: Ch 1 (does not count as a st), turn, [make 2 sc in next st, skip a st] across, ending with ONE sc in the last st of the row.

Repeat Row 2 until block is approximately square.

Border: *work 38 sc along one side of the square, ch 1 (does not count as stitch), repeat from * on each side of the square.  Fasten off and weave in ends

Lever knitting sample, or, how to fix your tension in one fell swoop

My regular style of knitting (yarn in the left hand, otherwise known as "picking") is fast, but my tension is so loose I often have to go down FOUR needle sizes to get the right gauge (or, more frequently, just redo all the math in the pattern to match my gauge).  I wasn't expecting to "fix" this when I took Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's class on knitting for speed and efficiency at Squam ... but amazing things happened when I switched to her lever knitting technique:

 The top and bottom rows of the piece were done in my usual style, and the middle section was done using lever knitting.  Same number of stitches, same needles, vastly different gauge.  Wanna see it closer?

Now Stephanie told us that whatever tension problems we had when initially learning to knit in our original style would be duplicated when learning the lever knitting, and I was an insanely tight knitter when I learned several years ago, so I guess the tighter tension shouldn't come as that much of a surprise.  But it's still really cool to see, and I thought I'd share it with the class :)

Whoa, cutest lollipops ever!

http://zakkalife.blogspot.com/2011/02/its-bird-its-plane-its-super-valentine.html

Way to go - these are awesome!  Although I have to admit, the idea of cutting out 20 little bitty masks makes my scissor hand hurt ...

Best use of embroidery ever

http://vintagericrac.blogspot.com/2010/12/options.html
(not exactly kid-safe, although it's not smutty, either ... just not something you want to have to explain to your kindergartener, so be warned before you click through)

I came, I S.A.W., I Squammed!

I'm still planning to put together my thoughts on the experience, but here's a video from Jen Grey that shows where I was last week.  I'm in the video (look for the red capris around 1:30-2:00) and my partner in crime is the lady in short overalls walking through the dining hall later in the movie.  Thank you, Jen, for capturing the experience so wonderfully and sharing it with us all!

Something that's making me happy

Check out the patterns here:

http://www.magpiepatterns.com/embroidery-patterns.php

Makes me want to drop my yarn, pick up my floss, and get started. If only I could ...

Lazy Dad's shawl pins, now available!

My very handsome and talented father has been carving for decades - actually, we can actually measure it in fractions of a century at this point - so it was no problem at all for him to whip up some shawl pins for me when I started whipping up shawls. They were so beautiful and functional that I encouraged him to make some extras to sell. And the owner of River Colors Studio in Lakewood agreed that they're awesome, so now you can buy them there!

Stop in and grab one before they're gone, because you never know when Lazy Dad will get sick of making these and then they'll be gone for good.

Queen of Hearts and Alice in Wonderland Costume Set GIVEAWAY!!!!

http://grosgrainfabulous.blogspot.com/2009/10/queen-of-hearts-and-alice-in-wonderland.html

Okay, I sew pretty well, but there is no way I would ever be able to pull off anything as complicated as this without going completely insane. And she did it without a pattern! Gahhhhh!

You really should click over and check it out ... just don't enter to win it, because the only way LazyKid is ever going to get any costume like this is if WE win!

This looks like a really cool idea

photo from http://www.spiraleyeneedles.com/index.html

Has anyone tried them? I'd love to know how they work.

I also love the idea that you can buy them enclosed in a greeting card. Now that's unique marketing!

The last of the cotton market bags

Pattern can be found here: http://cerdeb.googlepages.com/SuperSelfPouchingStringShoppingBag.pdf

The construction on this is really nice - there's a double bottom that isn't joined all the way around, so you can flip the whole thing inside out and stuff the bag into the bottom to keep it tidy when it's not in use.

I think I've got one more market bag left in me before I'm done with this for a while, and I think I'm going to combine the bottom of this bag with the sides of the sea shell tote, just to see how they work together. Wish me luck!

What I've been up to

Well, first of all, I've been dealing with the near-record January snowfall (around 40" ... just in January) here outside of Cleveland. The snow has come regularly in large quantities with no thaws in between, which is why both sides of my driveway look like this:


The snow is so deep that Lazy Kid hasn't been able to get out to play, since every time she tries she either gets stuck in a waist-deep drift or loses one of her boots somewhere in the side yard. This means we're all going stir-crazy, which may be why these have been so much fun:

I went stash-diving and came up with a whole bunch of kitchen cotton and leftover Paton's Grace mercerized cotton, most of which has been crocheted into reusable shopping bags. I made these two ... on Sunday. God, I love crochet. It's fast and uses lots of yarn, which is a good combination when trying to clear out stash.

You can find the pattern for the top bag here: http://shepherdscrookcrochet.blogspot.com/2008/05/she-sells-sea-shells.html

And the second bag here: http://momles.blogspot.com/2008/05/old-fashioned-string-bag.html

The first bag is cuter, but smaller, while the second bag holds a lot more but looks more utilitarian. The load in the second one during the photo shoot: fourteen library books and seven CDs. The librarians were impressed when I got there - it was like one of those clown cars where more and more people keep getting out, only in my case it was almost-overdue library materials.

I have a third bag in process that should be finished tonight or tomorrow, and it's both gigantic and a HUGE suck on my yarn supply, so this may be my last one for a while. Unless I can make shopping bags out of leftover sock yarn ... hmm ...

Shameless cross-promotion

One of my friends has an etsy shop that hasn't had its first sale yet, despite her attractive products and reasonable prices. Check her out, and if you buy something, tell her LazyMama sent you!

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5846926

What I would buy for my husband ...

... if only I had sold a few more things on etsy this year. It would look awesome on the wall in his office.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=fp_feat_10&listing_id=15233947

Go check it out, and be amazed.

Show a Clevey some love

The Cleveland Handmade etsy team is doing a series of interviews with featured artists in the NE Ohio area. The first one is SaraKate, who makes really cool purses. You can check out the interview here, and her etsy shop here.

Way to go, SaraKate! You've got much more interesting answers to the questions than I'll come up with ;)

Another reason I love Ravelry

http://woolly-knit-bits.blogspot.com/2008/08/pratchgan-2008-mission-accomplished.html

Bandana pants!

I've been wanting to make a pair of these for a while, but when I saw the patriotic bandanas in the $1 bin at Target, I knew what my kiddo was going to wear for the 4th of July.

I started them when LazyHusband was reading LazyKid her bedtime stories, and they were finished except for fitting the elastic waistband - before she actually made it into the bed. Yes, they're that fast. Dang, I need to make more of these ... can you say, scrap-tacular? I can!


Edited 7/2/08:
I finished them up this morning, and of course she wanted nothing to do with them. I wanted her to try them on tonight so I could get a photo of them, and after LazyHusband referred to them as her "twinkle twinkle" pants, we couldn't get them off her. She's decided they're pajamas ... and I can't really say she's wrong.

Boy, do I feel better about my stash now!

http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/archives/2008/05/23/stash_toss.html

More gifts for the kiddo

LazyToddler's third birthday is looming on the horizon, which means I've been sneaking off to Toys R Us instead of crafting, and I've been spending waaaaay too much time browsing on etsy. I have to admit, etsy is a little short on non-clothing gifts for the toddler set - lots for babies, lots for older kids, not so much for those who are short on attention span and long on destruction. So with that in mind, I've been trying to find things I think she'll enjoy, at least until she breaks them into (hopefully) non-lethal pieces within 20 minutes of opening them.

Not really. I have found a few things that I think are age-appropriate and fun. In the order in which the packages made it to our door:

Pixie Dust star-shaped goat's milk soaps from abreathofFrenchair. These arrived super-fast, in great condition and in the cutest packaging I've seen yet. Yes, there really is that much pink packing paper in that adorable black-and-white box! I think LazyToddler is really going to enjoy using these in the bath, and the small size means that we won't be stuck using one yucky bar of soap for weeks and weeks. And she's going to smell yummy, just in time for the stinky sticky summer season. Bonus!

Handpainted ceramic pendant from LisaEverettDesigns. They're available in all of the colors shown above - I ordered the white one, figuring that it's likely to match more outfits that way. Of course, we're dealing with a three-year-old's sense of style, so that was probably unnecessary :) I'm going to pick up some ribbon to use to make the "chain" for it, which I'm hoping will prove more durable (or at least more easily replaced) than the regular link chain on some of her dearly departed jewelry. If this one works out well, I may pick up some of the artist's other paper-covered pendants for the kiddo or myself - but these looked more durable for now.

"Pink PJs" ribbon wand from (who else?) ribbonwand. I think this is soooo cute, with the stripes and the pinkness and all. I'm hoping that the "Brass swivel hardware to ensure ease of movement" will prevent some of the tangling problems we had with a stationary-mount silk streamer we got for Christmas last year. Plus, the stick is shorter, so it's less whackable than her current rain-stained, knotted, pathetic-looking one. I wasn't sure this would make it here in time for LazyToddler's birthday, since it was coming from Canada, and Canada Post is notoriously laconic when it comes to getting stuff to the lower 48. But it showed up today, a little more than a week after the order was placed, so, Go, Canada Post!

That's it, at least so far. I may keep trolling for a while to see if any t-shirts strike me as must-haves, even though LazyHusband will kill me if I bring one more item of clothing into her room. It's okay if she never wears anything more than twice, right? Back me up here, peeps!

Showing some love

Found at Huntington Beach this afternoon

With love and admiration to my fellow Cleveys who are obsessed with beach glass and stones:

Lake Erie Beach Glass
zJayne
Kimberly Monaco Designs
stonz

... and possibly some others, but those are the ones I remember off the top of my head.

A little etsy love

I was just poking around the list of items I've marked as "favorites" on etsy, and I found this:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=8805717

Oh, how I love it. Anyone want to make a donation to the "Lazy Mama needs some new art for her studio walls" fund?

Or, if you're feeling a little more generous, how about this:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=8802838