{From Scratch Club Guest Post} Crocheted Face Cloths

Those of you following this blog for a while may know that I am a blog contributor over at the amazing and wonderful From Scratch Club blog on a monthly basis. 

Here is a little excerpt from FSC's about page to give you some insight into what the FSC is all about:

"WE ARE {MAKING} FOOD MATTER, TOGETHER

We live within the Capital Region of New York State (Albany, Troy, Schenectady, Saratoga Springs) striving for a sustained connection to our kitchens, our gardens and our communities by inspiring people to jump back into the kitchen, their gardens and food communities as a daily way of life regardless of income, space & time. We host community food swaps, a podcast on iTunes, virtual food-focused book club on Goodreads and lastly, we teach DIY classes around the area. The rest of the month we are here, on the blog, sharing stories, recipes, DIY projects, homesteading tutorials, kitchen tips & tricks and food policy news."

I have been dubbed the FSC Crafter and on a monthly basis I post a crafting project for all of the FSC members and readers to recreate. I try to maintain a utilitarian focus when it comes to the craft projects that I choose to write about, as the men and women of the FSC really like to get stuff done!

My post for September was instructions for your very own set of Crocheted Face Cloths!

My past posts have included:

• Thrifted Silverware Garden Markers
• A Mug Rug
• Embroidered Jar Lids

I hope you check out my posts over at the FSC Blog and also take a look at the recipes and projects blogged about by other FSC Contributors. The website is a wealth of knowledge! 

HOLLER!

Apparently I've Been Crocheting

I hope that everyone has been enjoying their summer as much as I have been enjoying mine. 

So far this spring and summer we've been to 5 weddings, Europe, Cape Cod, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Oswego NY, and several other visits to our respective home towns. I think we've been in our own home all of 1 weekend since May 1st. PHEW it has been crazy. I don't know why but this year I have been on quite the bender, too, drinking more than my fair share of ST&L's (sapphire, tonic, & lime) at each event, staying up well into dawn. Maybe my body knows that I could be getting pregnant soon and it is allowing me to regress to the college years without too much punishment? Either way ... we have a wedding this weekend, and reunion each weekend through labor day so with those plans we will be hitting my home town in Upstate NY (Watertown), the town I grew up in on the Jersey Shore (Spring Lake) and then we are renting a huge house in Burlington with a group of college buddies for Labor Day weekend to end my summer binge on a high note. 

Ramble over. 

So I promise you that I HAVE BEEN crafting. I have been crocheting a shit-ton. It is the  most portable craft that exists, any size crocheting project really travels like a dream. It is sooooo much easier to travel with than knitting! I have mostly been working on pretty mindless crocheting patterns, which is awesome, especially after several ST&L's.

I have been working on a sweet white soon-to-be blanket. It is made with mercerized cotton and is a traditional granny square pattern. Right now it measures about 15 inches square, and I plan on crocheting it with white yarn until I run out in the center, and then ivory yarn around the outside until I run out of that as well. Naturally, the yarn I chose is now sold out so I am just going to make it as big as I can and maybe it will be a good light-weight stroller afghan.

I also started another crocheted blanket with yarn I already had in the stash. This is another traditional granny square pattern that I started uses a worsted weight wool yarn.  Honestly, I had 4 skeins of yarn and desperately wanted to use them up. I absolutely loved the way the ivory, navy, and chartreuse colors looked together and wished I had more of those colors to end the blanket there. But I had this other kind of seafoam-y color to use up and is so didn't match the chartreuse that I just planned to place is as far away from the chartreuse as possible. I don't think the result is that bad, although its not my favorite. I have about 1/4 skein each the ivory and seafoam-y color left and will stitch until I am done. I think that this will be a good sized crib blanket when I am done with it, or a small blanket for a chair or sofa. 

One of my (many) New Year's Resolutions was to make sure I wash my face every night. I am seriously so bad at keeping up with this. I don't know why its so difficult for me, I mean I can manage to brush my teeth and floss every night, why can't I just wash my face while I am at it? I digress...

So I whipped up these crocheted face cloths to entice me a little. They are definitely working! I hope to sell these in my soon-to-be-opening Etsy shop as well (more on that soon!) so I tested out several different patterns to see which one I liked best. Starting from the left, the first pattern is a traditional granny square and I think that it was a little small. The middle face cloths are a great granny square pattern I used in a blanket early this spring, and I love the size and shape. Crocheting with two colors is kind of a PITA because you have more ends to weave in, but compared to the face cloths on the far right which are the exact same pattern, the pattern stands out more in a two-color format. So we shall see which ones I whip up for the shop. 

So that's what I've been working on this busy summer. What have you been up to? Any suggestions for other crafts that travel easily? 

OH! I almost forgot to mention ... I NEED YOUR HELP!! Remember the knitting needle roll that I made? Well I made a matching crochet hook roll as well. I had grand plans of designing the pattern for a complete set of tool rolls, which would also include a double pointed needle roll, circular needle roll, an accessory bag, and a notebook cover BUT naturally my Joann's no longer carries that great red fabric that is the inside of the roll, and of course I cannot find it anywhere on their website either, after hours of searching. I know that this is a lot to ask, but if you are out at your Joann's and happen to come across this fabric, please for the love of God buy me some (like 3 yards) and I will reward you handsomely. I know that this is a long shot, I am not delusional. I e-mailed the company and sent them a picture of the fabric asking for their help but they said they cannot help without the selvedge info and that is long gone. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE.

HOLLER!

Some Sewing

As most of you know, April 15th has come and gone and now this CPA can get back to some normalcy for the first time in a long time. 

I worked on a few projects sparingly throughout busy season, but none of them are in a state to be photographed for your enjoyment. 

I've done my fair share of day dreaming over the past few months and knew that one of the first things I would work on was getting organized!  First up .... a revamp of my knitting and crocheting tools was in order for sure. 







I totally ditched my previous crochet hook organization before I could snap a picture of it for you, as it was pretty hideous. It was one of the first projects I worked on when I started sewing a few years ago and it was truly atrocious. 

I happened upon this really great black & white linen fabric and decided to use that as the outer fabric, and then walked by this raspberry red sketchbook-like floral print that I quickly became obsessed with. Do you think they pair well???

I originally wanted to embroider each section with the respective needle size, but knew that if I did that before I actually sewed the thing together, there would be no chance of the embroidered section actually lining up properly. So I opted out. I also tested some fabric stamping, but it just wasn't crystal clear enough for my liking. 
 

I tested a few different models of this baby before I settled on this exact pattern.

For such a simple item, it certainly took a lot of thought. I considered the number/sizes of steel crochet hooks vs aluminum vs wood, the varying heights of the different styles of hooks as well as the different brands of hooks, etc.

Do you love it as much as I do?

How much would you pay for it at a craft fair? 

I am sooo excited to get organized after a hectic busy season and was even more excited to knock another item off my Bucket List. See this project and my other projects at my Finished Projects page and Flickr Account.

HOLLER

Crocheted Littles

I am not sure if this was "cool" in anyone else's high school years, but in my high school crocheted earrings had their moment in the sun.

While fishing through old boxes, I found a couple different patterns that we designed in Home-Ec class. 

A few years ago I made some accoutrement rolls for my knitting needs and crochet hooks... 

I have significantly more knitting needles than I do crochet hooks, but that is expected because I am pretty new to crocheting:
 

I found this Robin's Egg or Martha Blue colored crochet thread at a flea market a few years ago and decided to pull it out for this project. It has no label so I actually have no idea what it is made of or it's thickness, so I decided to use it for practicing:

I decided to use a size 8 steel hook for this project, just to practice with gauge and what-not:
 

I forgot to take a picture of the pattern, but this is the cute little earring I ended up with. One major thing I forgot to do was actually start the project around an earring like you're supposed to. Woops. I guess I was really just practicing anyway:
 

We are heading to the in-laws for the weekend in CT, so maybe I can bust out a few pairs and perk up my spring/summer casual jewelry collection.

xoxo

A finished crocheted hexagon throw (and some osso buco) . . .

I finished it!!!!! Yesssssssssssssssss!! I really loved this project, it is a perfect summer throw for our sofa and I love how it turned out.

 I have blogged about this throw here,  here,  and here!

 

Project Stats:

Inspired by: attic24, one of my favorite reads 

Yarn: 2 of each color Cotton Ease 100% cotton yarn in white, off-white, mustard, poppy, celery, navy, & taupe

Finished hexagons: 126!!!!!!!

Finished size: 3 1/2 ft x 5 ft

Hours to make: 1,000,000 (est.)

Guess what? That's another item off the bucket list! You can find a link to all of my finished projects on flickr here.

Oh, also, today is my husband and my 6 month wedding anniversary! Husband has been on vacation for 10 days and got back around 8 o'clock tonight and I surprised him with Osso Buco (essentially, braised veal shanks) and it turned out amazinggggg!:

Only one more week until tax season is OVER and I will get some serious R&R. However, I did find time in my day to take a little nap with the new lovely throw:

 xoxoxoxo

Progress and yet another fail

I have been working DILIGENTLY at completing my hexagon throw. I finished almost all 98 pieces, sans a few because guess what? I started this project soooooo long ago that they no longer make the navy blue yarn (which is the center of every hexagon). Fail.

So I started with the layout:

I should have laid out a ruler so you all could see how tiny this "throw is". I realized that I just had to make some more hexagons to take this from a pillow cover to a throw. Considering that I ran entirely out of navy, I made solid hexagons using all the other colors. I think I ended up making 3 or 4 of each color and that really helped make the throw larger and I think that it also brightened it up a bit.

 

There is the official layout! I plan on measuring it when I am all finished, because right now it is probably quite a few inches bigger than the end result will be. I am so excited to finish up this project, it has been a long time coming and the end is in sight!

Looks like I have lots and lots of crocheting ahead of me... 

xoxo 

Mini-fail

In my last post I mentioned working up some crocheted hexagons to finish a project I started a while back. Well, I made about 20 in the past week and guess what? I used the wrong hook. I don't know why, but for some reason I thought I made all my other hexagons using a 5, but really I used a 4, therefore the newest hexagons I made came out 1.5 times larger than all my others. I had to rip them all out. ALLLL OF THEM. It hurt my feelings. I didn't take pictures because when I realized that this happened, it was Sunday morning (my only day off) and I ripped out every single one and re-did them all. I had to.


I am not sure how big I plan on making this afghan. By the end of the week I should have 98 completed. I might just crochet them all together and see what it amounts to - a summer lap blanket maybe?


xoxoxo

In the meantime...

Last week I was forced to put away ALL OF MY QUILTING (which occupies all of our dining room) in order to make room for some guests that will be staying with us until the end of March. Remember the adorable little lady and her wonderful mommy that I visited in this post? Well, they are moving to Germany in a few weeks and are staying with us to get all their visiting in before they cross the pond. 

Since I knew that they were coming (months ago) I have been trying to think of what to craft while we have company. I couldn't get inspired to knit wintery things like mittens and scarves, because I am SO OVER winter. 

Given that, I pulled out this item from my bucked list. It is the "Finish crocheting hexagon granny square afghan". This project was entirely inspired by one of my favorite bloggers, Lucy @ Attic24. She is a wonderful blogger and she inspired me to learn how to crochet a few years ago when I saw this post.

I immediately went to the yarn store and grabbed lots of yarns in lots of colors and started going on this project. I know that I needed 7 colors (thought process: a hexagon has 6 sides, plus one for the center = 7. But I didn't want any of the 6 sides, to be the same color as each other or as the center, so I needed 7 colors total, if that makes any sense at all to you). I wanted this afghan to be a summer blanket, so I made it out of cotton yarn so that it was nice and light. I used 100% Cotton Cotton Ease yarn in these colors:

 (White, taupe, celery, off-white, coral, mustard, navy)

The accountant in me knew that I needed a plan of action to tackle all of these colors, so this is what I came up with to keep this project organized:

 (Yes, I do understand that it might not make any sense at all to you, but it basically tells me which order to use the yarns, for each grouping of 7 hexagon squares. It really does make sense, I promise!)

Did I mention that I started this project long before I got engaged, so that makes it almost, umm, 2 years ago? I kind of lost my steam with the project and planning a wedding was a perfect reason to take a break. This is what I had accomplished already:

(There are 5 groups of 7 hexagons each which = 35 hexagons done!)

(I also had this group done, however, they weren't organized at all. This required some patience, as I had to match up each hexagon to the excel spreadsheet above and organize them as I did the others)

Ok! So here are all my hexagons, all sorted and organized so that I know how many rows I have done and how many I have left.

I have 8 stacks of 7 hexagons = 56 hexagons total. If you look at the excel file, you may noticed that I have 7 groups or rows of hexagons lined up. I mapped out what the hexagons will look like for 7 groups of hexagons. See the pic below... from left to right... that is row/group 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Notice that I have 2 stacks under row 1, that's because I plan on doing each row/group of hexagons two or 3 times to get a blanket big enough. So eventually I will have 2 or 3 of each row/group 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Makes perfect sense right? Sure....

I hope to make good headway on this project while my girlfriend and her daughter are visiting. I might just stop at 2 stacks for each row/group, which means that I will need to have 14 x 7 = 98 hexagons total. I have not yet tried to put the hexagons together and considering I am new to crocheting (like, this is my first project) I have literally no idea what I am going to do. I would really love some advice from all you crocheters out there!

xoxo