FuoriBorgo

little bear cardigan

Some of you may have noticed that the yarn I chose for my second knitting project, a hooded cardigan for our neighbors' great-grandson, was too dark for a baby.  True, babies have no choice but wear whatever you put on them, yet this dark chocolate brown didn't seem suited to a little one.  See, I have this little rule: I have to use up stashed yarns.  It's a yarn-frugal rule dictated both by our small house, and by lack of yarn stores around here.  Since I happened to have three balls of yarn - the perfect amount for a baby cardigan - I just had to make the color work.

Good thing I can crochet!  To lighten up the dark brown, I made two white bear appliques (using more stashed yarn, naturally).  They made the dark brown cardigan look much better.  But I still wasn't happy.

So I made a white-brown-beige tassel with a twisted cord, and attached it to the hood.

I'm biased, but I think it's adorable.  This is the problem with making little things for little people: you just want to make more and more of them.  Fortunately, I do have a lot more yarn in my yarn stash which, my rule states, simply must be used ...

Little Bear Cardigan on Ravelry

February mitts

A local proverb says that when it snows on the beach, then it will snow seven more times that winter.  It did snow on the beach back in December, and we had our fourth snowfall of the winter this last weekend.  If the proverb is right, there'll be more snow - but it's February snow: kindly snow that melts away in a few days.  (Crossing my fingers...).  

I started these mitts during the previous snowfall, and I finished them in time for this latest one.  I made them fingerless, because - according to my own superstition proverb - if you make full wintertime mitts in February, you're inviting even more snow.

pure & dazzling

The day of the snowstorm on Monday, everything was gray, loud and dramatic out there.  You couldn't tell the cloudy sky from the snowy ground, as strong howling winds that made the house creak and squeak blew the falling, drifting snow in big pale swirls all around.

We woke up the day after to an almost eerie silence.  All was quiet, and the world out our windows was pure, dazzling white.  "We have had more winter weather this February than any other month this winter" wrote the Edwardian Lady in her country diary in 1906 - and we too have had more winter weather this February 2013 than in all winter.  But it is February: still wintertime, but the days are longer, the sun is higher in the sky.  It is February snow - the month that derives its meaning from "purify" - and I can take it:  the occasional day when we get snowed in, and all we can do is watch the storm, and then enjoy the brilliant clean snow before it melts. 

(making these super simple crochet mitts, combining the brown color of the soil & the gray of the blizzard)

2 for 1

 

I'm a little ashamed to confess that I finished Tom's birthday present a tad later than expected - a week or two . . . or three . . . after the big event.  

On the day, I gift-wrapped an unfinished scarf, along with the two working balls of yarn (alpaca and tweed) and the hook.  But because he was so understanding, and because I adore having my work admired and appreciated, when I finally gave him his present, I threw in another scarf that I'd crocheted for myself in blue yarn, and that he'd been eyeing admiringly all along.  

All in all, I think he feels it was worth the wait.

the princess and the pea

Sometimes we're the grateful recipients of hand-me-downs and discarded random stuff.  Of which we don't get all that much, since most people around here are quite thrifty, and usually what we receive are odd bits and pieces that don't always have an immediate or apparent use (as Tom sometimes points out).  For instance, we've recently received dry corncobs and a rusty garden trolley, which Tom begrudgingly hauled up to the garden, to my great delight.  

But the other day something very welcome came to our house: a pillowcase, with a matching sheet that had gotten in the wrong wash and also had a piece cut off.  I always know how to use a new pillowcase: to make another crochet edging, of course!  (The sheet is a different story, and I haven't yet decided how to use it)

I was waiting around at Rebecca's ballet class when I made this new edging, half wondering what the other parents thought of me, refashioning a hand-me-down pillowcase for a six-year-old girl.  I doubt any of them thought it particularly useful, but I enjoyed my little creative moment, which made hanging around so much more enjoyable.  Plus I knew Rebecca would appreciate it.  Especially as she slept.

(The other crocheted pillowcases are making purple petals and pillow case gift-wrapping.)

crochet astrology

As crazy as it may sound, I'm still working on the same sweater I unravelled for the third time almost three months ago (here and here).  And even crazier is the number times I've unravelled, made adjustments, and started all over again since then.  I'm not sure what went wrong, exactly, but this sweater kept threatening to become a wool giant, an enormous garment that would fit all three of my children together.  Which wasn't my plan at all.

My first attempt was a clever (I thought) escamotage (French always sound better when trying to make a confused point): I used a bigger hook size than required, to make the yarn feel as soft and fluffy as possible, and compensated by making a smaller pattern - a size 4 sweater for my 6 year old girl. I was so sure that my math was right that I was two thirds of the way done before I realized that I was making something colossal.  Oh, dear.

The next several attempts were all along the same lines: bigger hook than called for and a smaller size pattern than needed (each time I went one hook size down), and fewer decreases here and there.  Which just proves how wrong I sometimes like to be.  

At some point during the holidays, I realized that the yarn was going to felt on me, if I continued this guessing-and-unravelling game.  Was it an unfixable problem?  Could I ever find the right gauge?  Should I just give up on this project? 

On New Year's Eve, I unravelled for the last time, and made a resolution: I'd start afresh, using a smaller hook size than required in the pattern, and making (again) size 4.  I've now been working on this for the last 10 days, putting behind me all the failed 2012 attempts - all good learning experiences, I tell myself - and crocheting ahead, hoping that the New Year and its fresh constellations will have a positive effect on my 2013 stitching.

a snowflake garland

We have a new snowflake garland in the house.  This is how it went:

~ I crocheted the snowflakes.

~ Rebecca dipped them in sugar starch one by one, and set them on towels to dry.

~ I chain-stitched them together.  With her help.

~ Rebecca said it was as beautiful as a necklace, and asked to keep it.  Which seemed only fair.

She put it up on her purple wall in the kids' room, and although the garland was originally intended for our living room, I now see it really belonged here from the beginning.

making a cardi-robe

This definitely isn't one of my best crochet projects. I worked without a pattern, which no doubt is the main problem with how this cardigan turned out: had I followed a pattern for a cardi, in fact, I would have made a cardi. Instead, I followed my instinct and, even worse, my family's advice. “A cropped cardi for winter?! It ought to be longer!” and “Can I have a ribbon instead of buttons?” and “Red and green? A bit Christmassy, isn't it? Make the trim purple instead!”.   And on and on they went, until I got so confused that instead of making a cardi, I made a robe.

Honestly, doesn't it look like a robe to you too?

This cardi-robe, though, is now one of Rebecca's favorite garments (because of the purple “ribbon”, of course), and it's very useful when:

working – on letters with big brother, and

lounging in front of the fireplace – as a cardi-robe should.

aqua scarf

It all started with some yarn that I wanted to use up.  Then, the way projects on a whim often go, it evolved as new ideas came to mind.

The yarn was just enough to make Rebecca a scarf, and because of its aqua tones, I found a motif that would create crochet waves.

It still didn't look finished, so I made some mini-pompoms with leftover yarns in aqua hues that I'd used to make the African Flower Blanket.  These took only a couple of minutes to make - wind the yarn through and around a fork, tie a knot in the middle, snip-snip (inspired by this tutorial) - and are so cute that I was tempted to continue winding yarn around the fork the whole afternoon, to make an entire extended family of mini-pompoms.  I resisted, and managed to limit myself to eight.

When I looked at my completed project, I felt that I'd not only made something that was really rather pretty, but also that I myself now needed a wavy scarf with mini-pompoms, too.

crochet colored buttons

I know it may seem a little silly, but I'm totally in love with these crochet covered colored buttons.  I'm in love with them because I made them, and they perfectly match the dress I made with the same colors as my garden on a mid-August day.  Most of the time, I'm quite happy with the things I make (though there have been many failures and forever-in-progress projects).  Sometimes they evoke a sense of wonder even: "Wow!  Look! I made this!".  But these little buttons make me especially happy.   They're made out of nothing, really, just plain old buttons, bits of embroidery floss and a touch of creativity.

Once I came up with an inspiration for upcycling those drab old black buttons, it only took about twenty minutes to do the job:  I dug out some embroidery floss, a small crochet hook, and improvised a circular pattern, which worked quite well - though as often happens, the second button turned out much better than the first!

What do you think?

PS I wrote some project notes in my Ravelry page here.