Many little things

My convelescence continues, and I have been trying to keep my hands busy.  I've been working my way through the two colours of mill end cotton yarn I have handy.  The things I have been making are small, so I'm not going through the yarn very quickly.

I broke out a double ended crochet hook and worked up this pot holder.

The result is quite thick and flexible.

There is quite a lot of stretch to it, too.  I've made others in the past that were far denser and less flexible.  Same doubled ended hook to make them, and the same weight of cotton yarn, as far as I can remember, so they should have been the same.  Perhaps my own tension was simply more relaxed. 

Then I played around to make a small drawstring bag.

It's maybe 2 inches across the bottom, and barely 4 inches high.

The cord is just chain stitch with two strands.  I like it, but have no idea what I would use it for.

Then I used an Afghan hook to make another potholder, with the teal bordered in rounds of sc in the white.  I couldn't sleep last night, so a made another, reversing the colours, to match.

Here is how the backs look.

Tunisian stitch tends to curl, and still wants to, even with the borders.  I added a round of slip stitch where the colours meet, to further reinforce the border.

Our crocheted dishcloths have been finally wearing out, so I made a couple in linen stitch.

There is little difference between front and back.

Just the sc border has a defined front and back, and the dishes don't care.

Then there is this little group.

The round coaster is as basic as they come.  A flat disk done in sc and DC stitches.

The square coaster is double thickness.  Sc rounds done, without any increases or decreases, around a foundation stitch chain.  The "bag" naturally closes in on itself as it gets taller.  Once it's tall enough that the edges meet in the middle, I sewed it closed with a contrasting blanket stitch.  I've made larger versions of these, and they make great trivets, and I would close them with a crocheted slip stitch but, at this size, it was easier to use a needle. 

The tawashi dishcloth is something I finished just before I started this post.  The last ones I made wore out long ago, and I do like their function compared to flat dishcloths.

Here are the backs of the coasters, and the tucked in tawashi.  I could have added more rows so it could lie flat, but I like this size and shape.

I still have more of this yarn left.  I realized I have another ball of the white with an unfinished water bottle holder attached that I started whike working the market this past summer.  I will dig that out, next, and finish it.  Then see what other yarn I've got laying about and think of other things to crochet.  

Or maybe another craft I can do while in my cat free zone recovery space. 😂  We can't keep the cats (mostly rescued yard cats we've been trying to adopt) out of my bedroom.  If I close my door, they literally try to tear it apart to get in.  I normally would not mind their company.  I rather enjoy being cuddled by them when I sleep.  What I can't risk is having them climb up onto my abdomen, or parkour off my belly, like they sometimes do.  That could cause serious problems with my internal stitches!  Our living room is our cat free zone, which means it's where we shove things that needs to be protected from cat damage.  Which currently includes me. 😆  I sleep on the couch and work on the coffee table, for now.  Crochet is the most portable and flexible craft for this.  Or knitting, if I were a knitter.

Speaking of which, one of my daughters is a knitter.  She is currently working on ankle socks with glitter yarn in Christmas colours for me.  I quite look forward to when they are done!

So this is how I've been spending my time, and will be for another 4 weeks or so.  I feel quite well, and the family has been very stern about making sure I don't start doing things I'm banned from during recovery.   Which means my daughters have taken over the outside winterizing and garden tending.  I need to do crafting or I will go stir crazy with wanting to be working outside! 😆 🤣 

A sturdy bowl

One thing about being in recovery and feeling really good.  I've done more crochet in the past few days than I have been able to, in ages.

I have mill end cotton yarn in two colours right now.  After whipping up a little critter last night, I decided to make a bowl.  Two strands of yarn and a 6mm hook, working only in sc, makes for a sturdy little bowl.

This was worked in a spiral, starting with a flat disc until it was as wide as I wanted.  I worked the sides straight for a few rounds, then made two decreases, opposite each other, before continuing without anymore changes.

To reinforce the edge, I working one last sc round over the previous round to encase it.  At the end of the round, I continued,  working slip stitches under the top V loops of the last sc round.  The slip stitches should reduce any stretching and help maintain a sturdy edge that shouldn't flop around much at all.

I am happy with it.  

Little critter

I had some safety eyes and a small handful of fiber fill.  So I made this.

Because I could. 😆

Crochet hanging bag

I am currently under significant mobility instructions after undergoing abdominal surgery that turned out to be more complex then expected. 

The restrictions are quickly becoming a challenge, because I'm feeling better now, just 5 days after surgery, than I've felt in a long time.  I'm being good, though.  Mostly because my husband and daughters know me very well and are keeping their eyes on me. 😁

During the summer, I started on a simple project, while working a table at a farmer's market.  Something that could be worked in 30C heat.  It was set aside when the market was done, and I fished it out, a few days ago.

It was inspired by something I saw on Pinterest.   A hanging bag made from a basic triangle, with the bottom corners folded in by thirds and stitched closed. 

I chose some mill end, medium weight, cotton yarn I had, and a 5mm hook.

Of course, I changed it up a bit, from the vague instructions I saw on Pinterest.   I used solid single crochet to make the triangle, rather than linen stitch.  To make the point, I worked 1sc, 2ch, 1sc into the 2ch of the previous row.

The bottom, I noticed, was not going to form straight without increases at each corner.  Not at every row, though.  Mostly, I did increases at every other row. 

The bottom was still a bit wonky, though, but that got cleaned up.  Once I was satisfied with the size of the triangle, I did the last row's point as a loop of 10ch for the hanger.  On reaching the corner of that last row, I turned to work a row of sc along the bottom and continued, working in rounds.  On reaching the chained loop in this first round, I stabilized it by slip stitching across the point below it.  In the next round, I worked 20sc over the 10ch loop.

On finishing and tying off the kast round, I folded the corners in, in thirds, making it as even as possible.   The bottom was sewn closed with a running stitch through the 3 layers of fabric, from the folded corner to the corner with a point on top.  Then I continued stitching up the edge, to secure the overlapping fabric.  Once at the V formed in the middle, I sewed a few stitches around the join to further strength and secure it.  Last of all, I turned it inside out to sew in the loose ends.

This is the final result.

At some point, I will get my daughters to find a place to hang it and test it out.

I think I am happy with it.  If I were to change anything, it would be to make a bigger triangle to form a wider bag.  The cotton yarn in single crochet makes for a stiff fabric sturdy bag.  Changing the yarn, the stitch pattern, or even a larger hook, would make for a more flexible bag and softer drape.  It all comes down to what's needed for how it will be used.

It's definitely a very basic pattern, and easy to make.  

Supplies in

Yesterday, while on my way to a doctor's appointment, we were able to stop at the post office to pick up a parcel.  My bead supply order was in!  This is what I got.

It's actually two orders.  The small case on the bottom right has two bobbins of beading thread, one white, one black.

The kit I ordered (not an affiliate link) has the case of glass seed beads (upside down, as they were easier to see), two rolls of clear elastic beading thread, a bag of jump rings and a bag of findings and charms.  The title says needles included, but the description doesn't, and I haven't seen any in the kit, yet.  I have bead needles, though.  

I'm glad I ordered the separate bobbins of thread (not an affiliate link), as I'm looking to do some peyote stitch bead weaving, and elastic thread is not good for that.  This is something I've done before, a very long time ago.  I'd made small treasure bag necklaces, rings, bracelets and quite enjoyed the process.  My problem was the seed beads that were available.  They tended to not be consistent in size, resulting in misshapen weaves and designs.  The only brands of seed beads that were uniform were not available locally, and were expensive to order in.

How times have changed!  I haven't opened any individual bags, yet, but these should be uniform in size.

Along with peyote stitch weaving, I expect to use this kit for some of the Christmas ornaments I'm planning on making, though those plans may need to change.  I got a diagnosis at the doctor's yesterday.  Endometrial cancer.  I should be getting a full hysterectomy within the month, with further testing in between to determine what stage it's in.  It should be early enough that the surgery will be all I need, but I'm having to be referred to specialists in the city that have the equipment to do the required testing.  Which is unfortunate, because I really like the doctor that the ER was able to contact to see me on short notice.  That and her clinic and the hospital she works in are in a nearer, smaller city and much easier to get to.  Ah, well.  It is what it is.  Between that and medical appointments for my daughters, plus managing pain, I don't know how much time I'll have for anything, never mind crafting!  Still, I am not able to do the outside work I would normally be doing this time of year, and the lack of activity is driving me stir crazy.  I don't quite have all the materials I need, yet, but I should have enough to get started, at least.

We shall see.

For now, I'm looking forward to getting back into crafts I've enjoyed in the past.

A quick note

So... crafting has not been happening much of late!

For the past few years, it has simply been a matter of time and the effects of manual labour on my hands.  It's rather hard to crochet, for example, when your skin is so rough that yarn snags on it and pulls right off the hook - and yes, even with the use of hand lotion.

Other things have changed.  I am now officially considered disabled, though my physical disability usually means needing to sometimes use a cane or a walker, or having trouble sleeping due to pain.

More recently, I had some very strange things going wrong and, before my referral to a specialist went through, I ended up in the ER, then had surgery, then back in the ER.  I will probably be getting more surgery, though when and what kind will depend on test results.

It has meant, however, that I am severely restricted when it comes to physical activity.  

It's driving me nuts.  I loved the work I was doing outside.  Manual labour feels good!

Depending on how things do, though, I might be able to increase my crafting again, if only to do something productive and not go stir crazy from imposed inactivity. 

Which means I might actually be able to start posting more frequently here again.  

We shall see how it goes!  

Crochet cat sweater

Since moving out to the boonies, we have basically become an unofficial cat rescue.  

Not only do we care for a colony outside, but have brought a number of cats indoors.  Usually, it is due to illness or injury, or we grabbed females before they reached their first heat, so we could get them spayed when we had the funds.  Once they come in, they don't go out again!

One kitten was brought in with eyes leaking so badly, they were stuck together and he couldn't see anymore. It took several weeks of careful eye washing before he healed.  He became known as F*d Up Dave, but now he's just David.  He was the first long haired cat to show up among the yard cats.  We still don't know where that long haired gene came from, but since then, more and more have been showing up!

Unfortunately, he absolutely hates to be brushed.  That glorious long fur gets seriously matted.  We would sometimes manage to have one person hold him down while another used scissors to carefully cut the mats out, which would always take several sessions.  

Still easier than trying to brush him!

We now have a grooming kit and last summer, we were able to shave the mats off.  It was a very bad hair cut, and he did not like the process at all, but it was substantially easier than trying to use scissors!

Well, he's all matted up again.  We figured we could wait until it starts getting hot before buzzing him again, but it's getting pretty bad.  Unfortunately, while it may be near the end of March right now, winter still has us in its grip.  It would be too cold to just shave him and leave him as is.

So I made him a sweater.

It looks small and blue in the picture.  My phone camera does not like to pick up the emerald green!  The back portion of the sweater is larger than the stomach portion that is in view.

I made it following this video.

In the video, she is making a sweater for kittens.  Rather than sizing up the pattern, I sized up everything else.  

The yarn I used is Bernat Softee Chunky, Super Bulky, in Emerald.   Only one ball was needed (108 yds/99m).  The hook size I used was an 8mm.  With those, using the same number of stitches as in the video (though I did make the collar one stitch wider), I got a sweater for an average adult sized cat.

Which David will be, once he's been shaved.

I expect it will take several attempts over several days to get the mats shaved off.  After that, we'll have to get the sweater on him, so he doesn't get too cold!

He is NOT going to be happy about this. 🤣😂

Making a muff for Mom

Well, it's a new year, and a lot has been going on!

One of those things is that my 94 year old mother is currently in the hospital, and we've been really pushing for them to NOT discharge her back to her apartment.  She actually wants to be in a nursing home and we've been trying to get her approved for one.  It's our provincial government run health care system that decides if she's allowed to be in one, though.  It's been two years of trying, while she's been getting increased amounts of home care, but as long as she had home care, and I was able to cover for them the many times they were short staffed, she was considered able to live independently.  It's an incredibly cruel system.

My mother got to the point of using her Lifeline to call an ambulance to take her to a small local hospital, after weeks of increased swelling, and my siblings and I have basically told them, flat out, she can't go back to her apartment.  It isn't safe for her, and none of us are in a position to take her in.  In my case, I've got a disabled husband, I am now officially disabled as well, and none of us have homes accessible enough for her.  Plus, we're all getting on in years ourselves.  I'm the baby of the family, and I'm now 56.  My sister, the oldest, is almost 70.

They seem to accept that she cannot be discharged to her apartment (her needing help because she fell off the toilet served to prove that even more), and she has been there through Christmas and New Year's, but they don't seem to be doing much for her.  Every time I visit her, she tells me the doctor (there is a rotation of 5 doctors) hasn't even seen her, and no one has been able to give us a straight answer as to what the next step for my mother will be.

One of the things she has complained about is how cold she is.  Her hospital bed had only a sheet and she asked for a blanket.  They gave her one thin blanket and she was still cold, but they never gave her another blanket.  My SIL was able to bring her one from their home during a visit, and I was later able to bring her another from her apartment, but for a while she was sleeping with her parka over her sheet to get warm!  We've also had to bring her her sleep slippers, because her feet get so cold at night.

When she saw the hat I made for myself, pictured in my last post, she mentioned her head got cold at night, too.  So I made a simple hat for her, using the same variegated grey and cream yarn that I used for my own hat.

She has been very happy with it, and wears it every night.  During a recent visit, she told me that she sometimes even tucks her hands into it to warm them up.

So today, I made what will be a surprise for her.  A muff for her hands.

I didn't have enough of the blanket yarn I used for her hat left to make a muff, so I had to get more blanket yarn.  The only place locally that carries blanket yarn is a dollar store in the same town my mother is currently in.  They didn't have the variegated yarn, but they did have a solid grey that matches one of the greys in her hat, so I got that.

The design is really basic.  A tube, twice the length needed, folded in on itself to get a double thickness, then closed up at the end.

To be able to fold it in on itself, I made the second half slightly narrower.  Here is the finished tube.

Using a 7mm hook, I made a starting chain of 30 ch joined into a circle, then did a 30 sc round into the chain.  After that, I did rounds of dc, using my own hand to decide the length needed.  After 11 rounds of 30dc, I did one round of 30 sc, then a second round reduced to 28 sc.  I used a bit of cotton yarn to mark between the two sc rounds, as the fluffiness of the blanket yarn made it harder to see.

Once it was reduced to 28 stitches per round, I did another 11 rounds of dc, then finished the tube with one round of 28 sc.

I had enough of the variegated yarn left to use as an accent so, before I folded the tube in half, I did a round a slip stitches between the rounds of 30 and 28 sc, using the solid grey.  This would give me something easier to stitch into, later.  

When I started the new ball of yarn from the centre, pulling out a small yarn barf, I discovered the yarn had a break in it.  That came in handy, as I was able to use this extra bit of detached yarn to do the slip stitching.  Otherwise, I would have found the opposite end of the working yarn and used that.  

Doing the slip stitch was a bit awkward, as the working end of the yarn had to be on the inside of the tube, so I was basically going by feel when it came to pulling up loops.  It got easier once the first two or three ss stitches were done.

In the above picture, you can also clearly see where my starting dc stitch for each row is!

In flipping the tube in half, I would need to pass the yarn through the tube, so I re-balled it to make it easier to push through the tube without getting everything all tangled up.  It was still a tight fit, but I got it through!

The above picture shows the open end, with the 28 stitch half inside the 30 stitch half, ready to be ss'd together.

This photo shows the folded end, with the ss at the very edge.  That row of ss actually made it easier for the tube to fold in half neatly, too.

After that, the open end got ss'd together.

With the tube being two layers thick, it was easy to hide the yarn ends between the layers, after being secured.

Last of all, I did a round of sc into the slip stiches at each end, using the variegated yarn as an accent.  It tidied up the ends quite nicely, too.  

The finished muff has enough space to fit both hands snuggly, but not too tight.  My mother has hands similar in size as my own, so it should work out quite well for her.

It'll be at least a couple of days before I can visit my mother at the hospital again, but when I do, I'll have a nice, cozy surprise for her to keep her hands nice and toasty!

 

A quickie

Crafting has become more difficult for me, for the past few years.  Most of my time in the summer is spent working outdoors.  That does mean less time for crafting, but it also means my hands become too rough to handle things like many types of yarn while trying to crochet.

The other issue is that we have rescued too many yard cats. I no longer have access to my craft table, and most of my supplies have had to be stored up I bins to protect them from inquisitive and destructive beasts!

Today, however, I did a very quick project.  My daughter bought me some blanket yarn.  That, and a 7mm hook, resulted in this.

A very quick, very warm, hat.

The body is done in rounds of double crochet until the ear flaps were made.  Those were done in rows over 3/4 of the hat, skipping the section that would go over the forehead.

I changed stitch lengths to create ear flaps, doing sc, hdc, dc, hdc, sc over 1/4 of the hat on opposite sides, until the rows reached the bottom of my ears when i tried it on.  When it's windy and cold, I get severe ear aches.  If need be, I can fold the flaps for extra thickness.

The ear flaps rows in the back quarter of the hat are done with single crochet only, so it is shorter and won't get pushed up when I move my head.

The hat was finished with two rounds of single crochet.

That's it.

Taking out the times I was interrupted, it took maybe an hour to make.

Also, blanket yarn dies not get caught on the rough skin and callouses on my hands. 

I'm quite happy with it.

Trying something new

Well, it has been ages since I posted last!  It has been a very hectic year, and I've done very little crafting.

With a somewhat extended fall, I've been busting my butt getting things in the yard and garden cleaned up, readied and put away for the winter.  Today, however, we had rain all day.  Which is great, because it isn't snow!  It also meant I had time today to try a new craft.

I have had a Martha Stewart loom weaving kit for quite some time.  I got it to do loom knitting, but never really got the hang of it, and didn't enjoy it enough to keep trying.  So it's just been sitting there.

Recently, I had something pop up in my Pinterest feed that caught my attention.  It was peg weaving, but on the diagonal.  From the photos and diagrams, I could see that it started from the in middle of a square peg loom and worked outwards, and I was pretty sure I had figured it out, but none showed how the project was finished.

I went looking for a video and found this.

I'm glad I found it, because it turned out I hadn't understood the diagrams or photos for starting it, either!

I really like the concept.  You work with a continuous strand of yarn, and the top and bottom are woven at the same time, in each pass.

So I dug out my loom weaving kit and put together a small square peg loom.

The pegs form a square of about 4 1/2 inches.  A good size to learn on, and to make something coaster sized.  I had a longer Tunisian crochet hook that I used, rather than the super long hook in the kit.  

I had some smaller balls or medium weight yarn I could spare for learning and got started.  My first square, using a plain white yarn, was done very quickly.  Compared to the crochet I usually do, it used almost no yarn at all.

The tutorial video said that the weaving would be smaller after being removed from the loom, and I expected the yarn to relax and form a tight weave.

I was wrong. 

I tried again with a slightly thicker yarn, which happened to be a reflective yarn.

Here are my first two squares.

I wasn't very happy with the thicker yarn, either.  Especially the loose and floppy edges,.  I also didn't see how the method of securing the end of the yarn as in the video would hold for long.

I tried a third one, using both yarns.  With such a small loom, I also found it easier to work the yarn near the top of the pegs, rather than pushing it down to the bases.

At the finish, I tried securing the end (using a large plastic yarn needle from the kit) by weaving it along the edges, inside the pegs, until I ran out of the tail end.

Better, but I still wasn't happy with it. 

I made a fourth one.  This time I used two different colours of the thicker reflective yarn.

Here is how it looks, finished, before removing from the loom.

Doubling up the thicker yarn was much nicer.  I also finished by cutting a tail end long enough to wrap around the pegs five times, then went around the edges doing a back stitch, right against the inside of the pegs.  

Having pegs that could be removed helped.  The back stitching made it pretty tight around the pegs, making harder to slide the loops over the flared tops of the pegs.

Here are the four squares I made, numbered in the order I made them.

The top two are single strands of yarn, the bottom two are doubled.  

The last one, the blue and grey with the back stitching, holds its shape really well.  From the front, you can't really see the back stitching, as it disappears into the weave, but it forms a sort of ridge on the back, so it doesn't really sit flat.

The white and grey's edging is even with the weave; no ridge at all.  Weaving the ends through while 

on the loom basically resulted in a running stitch.  In the end, I think that worked out nicer than the back stitch.  

These work up so quickly, it would be easy to churn out a dozen or so in no time.  It's also very satisfying to work on.  I wonder if I have a heavy variegated yarn in my stash?  It would be interesting to see if any patterns emerge, from having the top and bottom being woven at the same time.

Definitely something I want to keep experimenting with - on days like today, when I can't be working outside!

2024 Christmas ornaments: Singlade balls finally done

Talk about down to the wire!

I actually finished the first 5 of these much earlier, but it took forever for me to get to that last one.

Here are the finished Singlade balls.  As I used reflective and sparkling yard, I took photos in a dark room with flash, so they're not the best quality, I'm afraid!

Here are all six of them.  I used leftover yarn from other projects, and it was a matter of using what I had enough of, when it came to the colour combinations.

Here is one made up of grey and hot pink reflective yarn.  Each triangle is done the same way.

For this one, I used black reflective yard to border the triangles, red yarn with a silver metallic strand, and a tiny accent of neon yellow reflective yarn.

With this one, I did alternated using the dark green reflective yarn and the peacock blue, together with the red sparkle yarn.  I had intended to do all green and red, but didn't have enough green.

This was actually the last one I did, and changed up from doing 8 triangles to 4 oblong shapes, all in reflective yarn.  The blue and grey were in alternating single rows, then two rows of the hot pink.  I changed the stitch for the neon yellow in the middle, to create a raised line down the centre.

This one was pretty basic: solid triangles in hot pink and peacock blue reflective yarn.

This one was actually one of the first I did.  Red sparkle yarn with a reflective black yarn accent.

I'm rather happy with how these turned out.  For these first Singlade balls, since they were specifically for Christmas ornaments that I wanted to be sparkly, I used thicker yarn than I otherwise would have.  It made for chunkier stitches and you can see the white base in some places, in between the stitches.  If I were to do these again, I think I'd try making smaller ones using variegated embroidery yarn.

Christmas for us this year is a much quieter one, with minimal decorations.  These will be a table decoration in their basket.  If we wanted to hang them, I would use simple wire hangers.  The reflective and metallic strands in the yarn are the focal points in them.

This is definitely an enjoyable, almost meditative, craft that I would definitely recommend.

Something new for our 2024 decorations

Well, it's that time of year!  Time to work on our annual, hand made Christmas decorations.

This is something I've been trying to do every year for quite some time, missing only a few years due to personal circumstances.

This year has been a bit different, in that my challenges are more physical in nature.  Osteoarthritis has set into all the joints of my fingers, making finer motor control more painful.  I'm losing my grip strength, and drop things far more often.

I can still do big stuff, though.  Manual labour, which is something I enjoy doing, is still an option for me.  Mostly, that involves gardening, but also all sorts of other outdoor chores and activities.  Most recently, my big project has been building an isolation shelter for our more feral yard cats that we will have to trap to get spayed.  They will need two weeks of monitoring as they recover.  Using what scrap pieces of lumber and salvaged material we could find around the property, with a few items that needed to be purchased, we now have a two level cat shelter on wheels that we will be able to use to isolate any cats from the colony we are caring for.  It even has a heat lamp, food bowl and heated water bowl set up in it, and the cats are already using in and getting used to it.

The down side of all this is that my hands have become very rough.  I don't crochet much anymore, as most yarns get snagged on my fingers and pull off the hook, or fray.  Some yarns are okay, but few yarns I'd like to use for most of the projects I'd like to be working on.

All of these factors had to be considered as I decided on this year's Christmas decorations.

In the end, it was a Pinterest suggestion that lead me to a new craft I decided to try this year.  Making Singlade balls.

 

This project has a lot of similarities to the temari I've made in the past.

Of course, I use the materials I have on hand, so for this project, I cheated a little.

I had a 6 pack of Styrofoam balls handy, so those are the core of the balls I am making this year.  I had some white yarn left over from another project, and that's what I used to wrap around the foam core, then secure the strands, the same way I wrapped sewing thread around the core of a temari project.

Here, you can see how things are going so far.  Once the cores were wrapped, I found some cotton yarn that I used to divide the balls into 8 sections.  This is also similar to temari, without the need to be so precise.

From there, the sections just needed to be filled using buttonhole stitch (also called blanket stitch).

With these intended for Christmas decorations, I like to include sparkling or reflective elements. I was able to include both.  I had some red yarn with a silver metallic strand in it, plus a bag full of leftover bits of reflective yarn.  

I've finished stitching up two balls so far.  I started one in red and green, but didn't have enough this green yarn to do both halves, so the other half was done in blue.  

I still haven't decided on how I will attach hangers yet.  I also have some miniature Christmas decorations I might use to jazz them up a bit.  For now, I'm just focusing on stitching them up.

This yarn is a lot bulkier than what is used in the video tutorial, so these do work up fairly quickly.  Working with a needle and thread has proven to be easier on my hands, and the yarn doesn't have as much opportunity to snag, compared to crochet.  

I do miss crocheting, though!

I'm happy with how these are turning out so far.  In the future, I can see making some of these using actual scrap bits, like in the video, but with something like a bell and maybe a bit of catnip, inside.  They would make great cat toys!

So that is what we are doing for our Christmas decorations this year! 

How about you?  Are you doing any special crafting for the season?

 

Old tools

I haven't been doing much crafting lately - unless you consider rebuilding garden beds and planting, crafting!  We have had so much rain this spring, everything it set back by it.

Yesterday, my mother gave me some storage bins of stuff.  Mostly fabric odds and ends, and other stuff she hasn't touched in years.  There were some treasures tucked among them, though, including a lacy thread crochet tablecloth my mother made herself.  I believe she finishes it before I was even born, which would make it more than 50 years old!

There were also old crafting tools and sewing supplies that had belonged to her laye aunt, and a few of those may well be even older!  Here are some of them.

I tried to get legible photos of both sides of the hooks.

The thread crochet hooks are some of the smallest I've ever seen!  I will be looking up the brands for some of them.  Only the Boye brand is familiar to me.  At least, when it comes to crochet hooks.

My late great-aunt was an amazingly skilled woman, and I have a few of her fine crochet lace and embroidery pieces.  Some of the embroidery is on sugar and flour sack fabric.  It's amazing what beauty she could create, with so few resources available!

As for the hook with a point at one end, I can't quite remember what that is for!  I'll have to look that up, too.  I have seen similar before, but the more I try to remember, the more it escapes me! 😂

A quick incense burner

I have some incense sticks I really like, but they are ever so slightly too wide for the burners I have.  I have to carefully scrape one end of the sticks to get them to fit, and even then, they easily break when I try to set them in the burners, or fall out.  Not a good thing to happen with a lit incense stick!

So I picked up some cheap dollar store, oven bake, no name, modeling clay and made a new burner.

It's not the greatest, but not bad, considering I've never done anything like this before, and have no modeling tools.

Of course, as soon as it was cooled down from being baked, I had to test it out!

For the "bowl", I used the inside of a small dipping sauce bowl as a mold to get the shape I wanted.  Then I rolled out a small amount of dark brown to create the decorative lip around to top edge.  After that, I just made various shapes to decorate the middle out of the light and dark brown clay, while building it up to a depth that would hold an incense stick securely.  

Last of all, I used an incense stick to create the hole in the middle.  The hole goes all the way through so that, if the last, unburned nub of incense were difficult to get out, I could use something to push it out from below.

My makeshift tools were a straight sided water bottle to roll out the clay, a repurposed can to cut the circle, and a bamboo skewer to help position things, then gently tamp them into place, so the layers of clay would stick to each other.

I'm sure all those nooks and crannies will collect ashes, but that's okay.  The main thing is, I finally have a burner to hold my favorite incense sticks!

Crochet Christmas ornaments

For this year's Christmas ornaments, I went back to an old standby: crochet!

I saw some patterns on Pinterest that I liked, and used that as inspiration, but in the end, each one I made was different. 

I had some unexpected challenges.  Funding Christmas yarns was one.  I wasn't able to get to a Michael's, the only craft store option, during my trips to the city.  The best option I had was Walmart, and their Christmas craft supplies were almost non-existent.  I couldn't even find the miniature decorations I used to be able to fund easily. 

Then, after my first few, I started running out of stuffing, but when I tried to buy more, I couldn't find any!

I even had a hard time finding Styrofoam balls, which I used to see everywhere.  I did finally find some at a dollar store, along with some miniature decorations. 

So I made do with what I had, with white and sparkly red yarn as the main connecting theme.

This is all that I've made, and I think I'm done for this year.  We aren't even putting up our usual tree, so we don't have space for them on the mini tree on the piano, in the cat free tool!

This is the first one I made.  Just diagonal lines in back loop single crochet, sewn together.  One end was closed up, the stuffing added, then the other end sewn closed.  When I finally found some mini decorations, I added the little present on top.

The next one I tried was straight rows of back loop double crochet.  Otherwise, it was assembled the same way.

I didn't like the sewing, so the next one was done in simple rounds.

I found some wooded beads and the little bow to dress it up a bit.

At this point, I was almost out of stuffing, and switched to the foam balls.

This variation is really just a tawashi dish cloth pattern I'd made in the past, except stuffed.  The rows are done in the back loop, starting with sc, then hdc, then dc, then hdc again, and ending with sc. The end result was bigger than the balls, so it is quite loose around it.  A miniature bauble got it's hanging cord removed, than added on with the excess yarn used to sew the sides together, and close off the end.

Again, I didn't want to sew things together, so I did this one in rounds.  Once the foam ball was added, though, it was pretty awkward to stitch around it.  Especially when doing decrease rounds.

Time for something different. 

This one was done as two circles.  Those were crocheted together, with the ball added inside when they were half joined.  This fit more snuggly, so those last stitches were harder to work, but I liked the end result. 

Then a friend gifted me with some craft supplies, including miniature decorations!  I used a tiny garland in this last one.

The mini garland was worked into the last round on one circle, only.  I tried sewing the circles together at first, but they turned out to be juuuust too small. So I did a different crochet join that added the equivalent of another round in the middle.  I'm quite happy with how this one turned out!

With the Styrofoam balls, making two halves and joining them together was much easier than working in the rounds, but takes longer.  With the stuffed ones, working in the round was easiest and fastest.  

I'm rather pleased with how they turned out.  Even considering they turned out to all be experiments!