No Longer a Virgin

That's right, I am not longer a Wolltraum virgin. I just finished my first project made from the oh so exquisite and awesome Wolltraum yarn. I have been stalking this yarn for ages via Facebook and Ravelry projects and so many beautiful blog posts, but I could never quite justify the cost of paying $17 - $22 a skein for yarn plus whatever it would cost to ship from the UK. A month or so ago, Wolltraum in their deviousness sent me an email announcing the release of their Halloween themed yarns. I couldn't resist any longer. They broke me finally, and it didn't even take water boarding or the removal of any fingernails. All it took was an irresistibly gorgeous colorway called "This is Halloween."

So, I ordered it and waited. Waited impatiently ... checked my email every day for a shipment update, checked my Facebook for an update, checked my PayPal account to be sure my payment wasn't cancelled ... did I mention waited IMPATIENTLY? I got my shipment notice! Yes! Oh, and then I had to wait some more for it to arrive. Anxiously, impatiently (yeah, it's a theme). And then it arrived. 

It was even prettier than the online picture. The yarn was sooo soft and delicate. The colors were super vibrant. The skeins I ordered had a 4ply, 50% cotton / 50% Acrylic make-up. Wolltraum wraps their yarn in a round cake that unfurls from the inside middle rather than the traditional skein shape. The colorway started out as a soft lemon yellow in the center and gradually transitioned to mango orange and then pink and then purple. The ingenious way the transitions were handled changing first one and then two strands and so on until the color hand changed completely alters how you think the colors will appear from just looking at the cake of yarn. The mix of yellow and orange created areas of gold and the orange and pink looked more like a soft red when it was crocheted out. The purple is so dark it looks black until you get close up.

I decided to use the yarn to make a virus shawl because I knew from the hundreds of projects I had perved on various sites, Wolltraum is a favorite yarn for those. My other reason for choosing the virus shawl pattern was that I didn't want anything that would stitch out in horizontal or vertical stripes. I wanted the transition from color to color to be as subtle as possible, and I have seen quite a few striped patterns end up with very abrupt color changes when using long run variegated yarn.

This particular type of yarn seems to be one that people either love or hate. I've read a lot of blog posts complaining about it being too thready since the individual threads are not wrapped together into a single rope like most yarns. I didn't have any problems working with it, but I could see me having more of an issue if I had decided to knit something with it instead of crochet. I may have to try that next just to see.

I absolutely love the finished product! It is full of firelight and flames. I ended up naming the finished piece Phoenix Rising because it reminded me of a phoenix rising from the ashes. I've posted the finished piece up for sale on my Pandora's Handmade Etsy page, but I think I will hold onto the second cake of yarn to make something for myself.

P.S. Each cake of yarn comes with a little metal charm. One of them had a jack-o-lantern, and the other had a skeleton bone.

Crocheted Wedding Bouquets

Working up crocheted daisies and sunflowers for two friends' wedding was how I spent the last  several months. It was time consuming and labor intensive, but I promise it was a labor of love. Seeing how everything came together at the end to form the bridesmaid and bridal bouquets made it all worthwhile.

My wife, Stephanie, was asked to be a bridesmaid in Cass and Torrey's wedding, and I was asked if I would help Cass crochet flowers for the bouquets. It was really nice to have something I could help do for the wedding. We live just under five hours away from where our friends live and where the wedding would take place, so we weren't able to participate in and help with a lot of the prep work for the wedding.

Cass and I pieced together the patterns for the daisies, buds, button flowers, and sunflowers by taking little bits from this pattern and that pattern that we liked. Cass made the button flowers and buds, I made the sunflowers, and we both worked on making the daisies.

After everything had been crocheted, stemmed, and beaded, we set aside a weekend a few weeks before the wedding to assemble everything. We ended making a trip to the craft store for silk greenery to fill out the bouquets once we started assembling them. Then, we wrapped the stems in burlap ribbon and attached cotton lace as an accent. I think they turned out beautifully! They really looked fantastic with the green bridesmaid dresses, and the bouquets will be a wonderful keepsake for each attendant.

I was particularly proud of how the sunflowers turned out. I ripped those devils apart three or four times working and reworking the petals and centers to get them just right. Then I beaded the centers to add a little shine and glitz.

Sophie's Universe Crochet-a-Long Blanket 2015

This is what I am working toward. It was made by the lovely Dedri Uys from the website Look What I Made

Project Name: Sophie's Universe CAL 2015
Pattern Name: Sophie's Universe CAL by Dedri Uys
Designer's Ravelry Project Page
Designer's Website (Great Tutorials for each Part)
Craft Type: Crochet
Size: Large (King Size Blanket)
Hook Size: 3.25 mm (D)
Yarn used: 4,851 yards

Yarn: Caron Simply Soft Solids
How much? 2 skeins = 630.0 yards (576.1 meters), 340 grams
Colorway: 9712 Soft Blue
Color family: Blue

Yarn: Lion Brand Heartland
How much? 1 skein = 251.0 yards (229.5 meters), 142 grams
Colorway: Joshua tree
Dye lot: 113108
Color family: Green

Yarn: Lion Brand Heartland
How much? 1 skein = 251.0 yards (229.5 meters), 142 grams
Colorway: 105 Glacier bay
Dye lot: 117446
Color family: Blue

Yarn: Lion Brand Heartland
How much? 1 skein = 251.0 yards (229.5 meters), 142 grams
Colorway: Everglades
Dye lot: 111857
Color family: Green

Yarn: Lion Brand Vanna's Choice Solids, Heathers & Twists
How much? 2 skeins = 340.0 yards (310.9 meters), 200 grams
Colorway: 300 Denim mist
Dye lot: 74034A
Color family: Blue

Yarn: Lion Brand Vanna's Choice Solids, Heathers & Twists
How much? 2 skeins = 340.0 yards (310.9 meters), 200 grams
Colorway: 306 Tangerine mist
Dye lot: 51453
Color family: Orange

Yarn: Lion Brand Vanna's Choice Solids, Heathers & Twists
How much? 2 skeins = 340.0 yards (310.9 meters), 200 grams
Colorway: 303 Purple Mist
Dye lot: 73904
Color family: purple

Yarn: Lion Brand Wool-Ease Solids, Heathers & Twists
How much? 2 skeins = 394.0 yards (360.3 meters), 170 grams
Colorway: 140 Rose heather
Dye lot: 74040
Color family: Pink

Yarn: Lion Brand Wool-Ease Solids, Heathers & Twists
How much? 2 skeins = 394.0 yards (360.3 meters), 170 grams
Colorway: 139 Dark Rose heather
Dye lot: 73076
Color family: Pink

Yarn: Purl Essence Sincerely Everyday Solids
How much? 5 skeins = 1660.0 yards (1517.9 meters), 850 grams
Colorway: 103 Sincerely Cream
Dye lot: 7421
Color family: White/Cream


I chose to make the large size blanket, which is suppose to be around 7 ft square when it is done. I did not use the suggested yarn because I could not find it locally. Below are the conversions of the colors from the original pattern to what I used.

Moonstone = Sincerely Cream
Amazonite = Soft Blue
Green Agate = Glacier Bay
Blue Apatite = Denim Mist
Canada Jade = Joshua Tree
Lemon Quartz = Everglades
Deep Amethyst = Purple Mist
Garnet = Dark Rose Heather
Corundum Ruby = Rose Heather
Coral = Tangerine Mist

Part 1: The outer edge of cream that make up the last four rows were a bit tricky. I had to take out the final row a couple times before I got it just right. I do love how it looks though. The flower turned out beautiful, and the high contrast between it and the cream background is really nice. (7 inches in diameter at finish)

Part 2: Round 13 was a tough one to get exactly right. I almost whooped with joy when my stitch count was still right on the last stitch. I had never done a picot stitch before. I am not totally sure I did it correctly, but I liked the way it turned out. The two shades of rose add a nice complimentary color to the cream and blues. (13.5 inches in diameter at finish)

Part 3: I love the pops of light green and blue that were added during part 3. Getting the V shape right was tricky, but it wasn’t too bad once I was able to visualize what to do. The trickiest thing about part 3 for me was the last row of crab stitches. Crocheting backwards takes some serious concentration. (20 inches in diameter at finish)

Part 4: Part 4 is taking much longer than the other parts to finish, but I’m getting there. My beauty is growing exponentially in size, and there are so many color changes in this part. It finally has at least one row of every color that will be used in the blanket. Opinions are still out on if we like the contrast that that coral/orange color brings to the table, but I don’t hate it. More to come as I finish the last couple of rows, block, and take pictures.

Whew! Part 4 is finally done. I stopped around row 32 to make a few hats and a blanket for my dad because he’s going through chemo treatments, but I just picked it back up a couple days ago. The contrast between the jewel tones and the cream is really nice, and I really like the optional flowers. My count is still spot on!!! I was really afraid it wouldn’t be. Now on to part 5. (26 x 26 inches at finish)

Part 5: Round 41 = UGH! This is the first time my count has been off … by 1. Insert sad face here. I did find out the problem and was able to pretty easily fix it. Thank goodness! I finished my first skein of Purl Essence Simple Cream (332 yds.) about a third of the way through the last round. This is the first color that I have finished a full skein of so far. I haven’t blocked anything yet. I think I will do that after part 6. (30x30 inches at finish)

Part 6: The last row of part six (round 53) made me question if I was doing it right. I took the first side apart a couple of times. Because of the way the arches form, it causes the edges to curl in a bit under the tension, but I think it will all lay flat again after the first couple of rounds of Part 7 are stitched. So far that is how it has always worked out with previous rounds I have questioned due to curling. I have faith that it will all lay flat again shortly. Otherwise, this part of the blanket went very smoothly if slowly (slowly not due to the difficulty but because I took some time off to make crocheted wedding bouquets for a friend). I am almost finished with my second skein of Purl Essence Sincerely Cream at the end of this part. I have just a tiny ball left, maybe a yard to a yard and a half of yarn. Lots of cream in this section! (36x36 inches at finish).

Story of the Furious Fowl - Crochet, Games, and Popcorn

How many of you have sat at home in the evenings, at family gatherings, etc and watched any number of adults and kids engrossed in the latest Angry Birds incarnation on their phone, ipad, or tablet pc? I'm betting all of you have at one point or another. I watched a couple of my nephews and nieces doing just this the weekend after Thanksgiving when we were visiting Steffie's parents.  It set into motion a plan to make the game a bit more interactive for everyone involved both player and spectator and started me to work on a new crafting project.

There are a lot of different Angry Birds related out there, some free and some for sale. I ended up using a combination of each of these as well as made up a couple of patterns on the fly.

The first item I made was a hat designed to look like one of the green pigs from the game. I used a basic adult sized beanie for the main hat portion. Then I made half moon shapes to form the ears before sewing them onto the hat. For the inside of the ears and the eyes, I did basic magic circles in black (for the inside of the ears) and white (for the eyes). For the nose, I started out with a magic circle and then only increased on two sides to form an oval instead of a circle. I sewed all of these elements on and added a few decorative stitches to finish things off. The hardest part about this particular element in the project was finding the safety eyes. Michaels in our area has stopped carrying them, Hancock Fabrics never carried them, and Joann Fabric and Crafts was out of them. I ended up picking up a few packages of safety eyes when I visited friends in Iowa because the only place I knew for sure would have them was Hobby Lobby. (Oh why can't we have a Hobby Lobby in the Twin Cities area?)

Now that the hat was complete, I needed birds to launch at the unfortunate soul chosen to be the green piggy. The Cardinal is my favorite of the birds, and I have to say it was my favorite of the crocheted hacky sacks that I made. There is a free pattern online for this particular bird that turned out awesome. The pattern can be found here on the Digital Mom Blog. Instead of filling the bird completely with fiber fill, sand, or dried beans, I opted to use a combination of cotton fill and popcorn kernels until I reached what I thought was the right weight.

I purchased the patterns for the rest of the birds from Pioneer Primitives Ravelry Shop. The patterns were fairly quick and easy. I will make a note in case you decide to purchase these patterns that the yellow triangle bird and the chicken are Very large compared to the other birds. For the chicken, I ended up using the body pattern for the blue bird in a size larger hook and then downsizing the beak from the original pattern to get a better sizing differential between it and the round birds. One other change I made to the chicken was to do the head feathers in red just because I thought it made it more chicken-like. I also downsized the pattern for the pattern by two hook sizes for the yellow bird for the same reasons.

I paired all of the birds and the hat together and gave the set to my father-in-law as a gift for Christmas. He and the grandkids seems to enjoy and be amused by the game. Who says video games have to be a bad thing? With a little creativity they can be inspiration for fun, social, interactive game for both kids and adults.

Viking - Paloosa

My lovely Valkyrie wife Stephanie modeling the first Viking hat.

So ... my latest project, or as it turns out projects, has been making crocheted Viking hats. What started as me thinking I really want a more realistic looking Viking hat for days when I'm not wearing my Jayne Cobb hat, has turned me into a Viking hat producing madwoman!

The first one that I made was pretty simple. I made the beanie portion in Caron Simply Soft light gray yarn paired with Simply Soft pale yellow for the horns. I trimmed out the edge of the horns with variegated cream/brown/gray fun fur. The edge of the beanie has bobble spaced all the way around to resemble rivets. The line of rivets is bordered by two cables to make it appear as if this section is raised. On later ones, I also did a vertical cable to mimic the center seam on a metal helmet. 

Here is a picture of the horn before I attached it to the hat.

Here is an up close picture of the riveted edging along the cap.

Since I finished that first one, I've been playing with other variations in the same basic style. My first variation was doing top portion of the hat in a different color and then trimming it out in the silver to make it resemble the leather helmets with the metal band around the edge. 

I have done a few different colors so far. I did a dark purple one made from Red Heart Eco yarn and trimmed it out in the same Simple Soft gray. I've also used a Simply Soft brown for another and added ear flaps to it. I even made a red one with black edging and horns trimmed in black fun fur for my best man as part of his thank you gift for being in our wedding. I wish I had a picture of it. I think his and the brown one below are my favorites so far.

Now as Halloween and then Christmas approaches, I think I have 10 or so hats to make for family members and friends. By New Year, there will be a Viking invasion of the Southeast US!