Couch Crafts

Ok, seriously…I suck. *hangs head in shame*

It wasn’t that long ago that I learned how to knit properly, after 2 years of participating in the craft.  Now, 2 months after the end of a semester of actual regimented crochet practice, I realize that I’ve been doing that wrongly too!

For those of you who don’t know, as a part of my skill acquisition class last semester, I taught myself to crochet. I did it almost every day.  I quantitatively measured my performance by timing how long it took for me to crochet various swatches.  I wanted a qualitative measure as well and, not having many crocheters at my disposal, I took pics and placed them on ravelry.  Every swatch I’d done over 7 weeks, 36 in total.  What I wanted people do to was rate them on a scale from 1 to 7.
One woman, rather than rate my swatches sent me what I would call a rather nasty RavMail message about how crappy my swatches looked, how uneven they were and how it looked like I rushed the job and didn’t even try to do it well.  I was (I think understandably) pissed off that this woman would go out of her way to basically tell me that I sucked, especially because she didn’t even give me anything usable. (And I’m not saying everyone had to love my swatches.  Many kind ravelers supplied constructive criticism, which is ok.  And if I’m trying to prove that I got better as the semester went along, obviously some of my work had to be bad, at least comparatively.

There was one thing that this woman said, and that was “You’re missing the last stitch on all your swatches.”  I had no idea what she was talking about, I didn’t see any missed stitches and I always counted, and since she didn’t offer any advice, I didn’t really worry about it.

Now I had noticed that my swatches, particularly the triple crochet ones were really uneven and appeared to zigzag back and forth.  I didn’t think it was bad, I kind of liked it actually, but I thought that I’d like to be able to crochet evenly as well.  I’ve been working on  Secret Project #1, which I may as well say is a gift for my boyfriend, because I already told him I was making him something.  One part of the project was just back and forth, even crochet.  I noticed that it looked bumpy on the edge in a few places, but not all edges, so I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I took a closer look at one of those bumps last night and sure enough there was a stitch there.  I had in fact been neglecting the last stitch, and I didn’t even know!

Being an experienced knitter, I know what knitting looks like.  And it’s always been easy enough to tell the difference between knit and crochet.  When I started crocheting, I had trouble learning the “structure” of a crochet stitch, where one ended, where one began, etc.  And as a result, that little bump on the end didn’t look like a stitch.  But last night, it sure did!

I’m really happy that I made this discovery now. Not just for my own edification, but because I’ve joined a Traveling Scarves crochet group, and I’d fell horrible if I contributed a bumpy bit to 13 scarves belonging to other people.

PS - That woman is still nasty.  There are right ways to correct someone, and there are bitchy ways.

God I look pale in that picture from yesterday… Anyway…

I got my package from my Ravelry Stash Knit Down 2008 swap partner today! I got ~800yds of merino green sock yarn, with a pattern for Jaywalkers. I might make something else with the yarn, cause I have another set of skeins that are great for Jaywalkers. But I love this yarn, and I love the color! (Obviously. If you know me…or if you’re even looking at this blog, you know I like bright green!) And I love that it’s sock yarn, but it’s not teeny and thus requiring me to use itsy bitsy needles that hurt my fingers.

The other two skeins are both wool as well. One Lopi and the other a mystery…though they both look like Lopi to me. Don’t know what I’ll do with it yet, but I like it all!

Oh, and those jars are a orange/grapefruit syrup that she made. I don’t have anything to try it with in the house right now, but it looks good

ETA: Oh, and I forgot to add what I sent her, now that she’s gotten it.  I send about 500 yds of dark green Mohair.  One of the oldest items in my stash, back when I bought yarn on Ebay with no bloody idea what I was going to do with it.  Now that I know I’m not trying lace anytime soon, I knew it was time to let it go.  And I actually had 2 balls and only sent her 1, so I still have some to work with.  (Tried and failed to make a tank top out of it once.) Anyway, I also sent her some stitch markers, and two balls of Superwash Wool.  I bought a toy for one of her sons and made a toy truck for the other one.  This is the aforementioned disappointment project. You can decide for yourself:

Yes, it’s a toy truck. I guess it’s not bad.  I liked the idea, and thought it would work well in crochet.  It’s probably not that bad, but it didn’t come out as nicely as I’d hoped. She says that her 2 year old will like it though, so I guess that’s all that matters.

After having my progress impeded for a week due to a kitchen knife to the index finger, I’m pretty sure I’m back.  I was luckily able to get some crocheting done, but knitting was definitely out.  I’m still a bit hesitant to knit, but I’m relatively sure I could seam stuff together now.

Unfortunately, everything I’m working on is a gift, and I’m pretty sure those involved will read this, so I will refrain from details regarding my current projects, so

But since it’s the beginning of the month and I’m supposedly attempting to stashbust, I shall post my May totals:

3 skeins of cotton-ease for my hoodie
And 3 skeins of Red Heart Sport for *surprise project #1*
TOTAL: 1070 yards

My stashbusting group on Ravelry has posted their next few challenges for the rest of the summer..and pretty much none of them apply to me, (though the Christmas in July sounds good) so I guess I’ll be doing my own thing, which is fine, because I have plenty of things to do.  But I’m going to take it one month at a time to try to give myself deadlines.  So, June goals:

• Stitch up my Mariah hoodie (hopefully today and/or tomorrow)
• Super-secret projects #1, #2, #3.  So numbered for when I started them, and not when I need to have them done by.  (That order is actually #2, #3, #1)
• Finish the second Broadripple Sock
• Do one project from my Ravelry queue.  Anything really, cause there’s a buttload of stuff up there. I’d be happy with finishing one thing.

I also have a pair of pants that I need to hem, but that doesn’t really count.  I’d like to get that done this week as well.

…and now I should get back to work.

I haven’t written lately because I’ve been feeling uninspired…I put the hoodie away when I was halfway done with the hood…I don’t know why, so I’m picking it back up tonight.  Just when I was finding my inspiration again I was thwarted.

I was at my parents’ this weekend for my awesome mom’s graduation.  I was working on a crochet project last night when watching a movie with my parents. When I was done, I set it down on the coffee table in front of me.  At the end of the night, I moved it maybe 8 feet to the dining room table.  This morning, as I was packing my carry-on bag for the flight back home, my crochet hook was mysteriously missing!  My parents and I looked everywhere for it! I don’t know how it could have disappeared when it was hardly moved.

At the last minute, I had the genius idea that I’d thrown it in the junk drawer when I was putting the scissors away, but no such luck.  So not only could I not crochet on the plane today, I can’t do it at all because I don’t have any other hooks of that size, and everything is closed on Sunday.  Grrr….

Luckily I don’t need this finished until July.

I didn’t make this, but I have to share it anyway:

It’s a fuzzy pineapple!! Isn’t is cool? My friend Kat made it for me. She crocheted the black covering and cut and sewed the rest. I was quite happy to receive it. And to learn why Kat had called me the other night asking “What is your favorite fruit?” Best homemade button ever.

After buying 3 pairs of shoes the other day (my previous sandals were kind of grungy and not acceptable for officewear), I decided to get rid of some of my clothes. I have far too many. I filled a bag to be taken to goodwill and filled another with clothes I plan to strip down for their fabric. Lining bags and whatnot. I don’t know when I’m going to do all of this, but I really like the idea of reusing the old materials. I’ve been into the “green” movement for a while, but I’ve been getting into it more lately; thinking more about sustainable options where I wouldn’t necessarily have considered them earlier. And using old clothes for material seems like a good option to me, as many others have demonstrated.

Someday when I’m not in grad school…

I must say that, as a graduate student studying usability, for a site that advertises that they specialize in usability, I have absolutely no idea how to use WordPress. I do not find this blog site easy at all, and I’ve been on many blog sites in the past.

Anyway, this it my forray into the world of craft blogging. I knit mostly, but I also crochet, and occasionally sew together strange monstrosities (sewing machines and I do not get along at all). And I even cook, though lately I’ve been too tired and poor to do much with that.

I’m too poor to do a lot of things, and I don’t apologize for that. I see a lot of people on Ravelry who let others make them feel inadequate for using OMG acrylic, or for shopping at craft stores, and it drives me crazy. You can make just as nice things out of acrylic, and if it works for them, then who cares what other people do?

Anyway, I guess as this is the obligatory intro post, I should provide the obligatory intro:

I was taught to knit by a friend–technically wrongly, but I make it work. When I started grad school, I had no friends, no thesis topic and hardly any work to do, so I started knitting more seriously, and there aren’t enough containers in my house to hold the yarn I’ve purchased since then. I spent a lot of time alone on the couch knitting, and now that my boyfriend has moved away, I’m back again! I adopted crocheting this past semester as part of a skill acquisition class. (For my other class, I conducted a study on Ravelry. How sweet was that?)

I’m currently in the process of trying to knit/crochet down my stash to some reasonable amount of yarn…but I just bought a bunch at the webs anniversary sale. Small setback. But I at least know what I’m going to do with all the yarn that I bought….or at least I thought I did. I bought some Cascade 220 superwash that looked olive on the site, a nice neutral. Five days later, I have three skeins of St. Patrick’s Day, Luck of the Irish, Erin go Bragh, Kelley green. Pretty color; not the neutral I was looking for.
…In the process of writing this post, WordPress has sent me an e-mail with all sorts of potentially helpful information. Methinks some user friendly salient links to said information on the site might be a tiny bit more efficient than an e-mail.