A Square with a mission and other WIPs

This Square is made for a good cause and is for an afghan that requires 12 x 12 squares. I was very excited as this is my own design. One of the things that I like about crocheting squares is that it is very dynamic and versatile the ability to design one.

Here you see one of my Lace projects to start, or rather that I have started it is the Joel Bison Lace Scarf. It is a masculine Lace scarf that I am making for Xmas this year. I guess a lot of us will be making lots of our own Gifts this year. There are two or more work in progress that I have no picture for or that are secretly being worked on, like Tapestry Crochet Hat patterns on the burner to be published and for sale soon.
Finally as I look out of the window and sip my Ambrosia, or food coloring colored water, I am at the edge of many projects at once and very exciting as I am making each of them a priority day by day. Thanks for stopping by.

Fall 2009 Tapestry Crochet

Welcome to Fall 2009, this year the theme will be Earth Colors for the Fall , white, browns, beige, black , greys, all the natural heather colors from Sheep, Alpacas, Goats, and Rabbits, put in there some other critters and the love of fiber is born. This fall I am going all out for the Earth Tones. I will be creating Hat patterns for sale on Tapestry Crochet, they are not for the faint of heart, but with patience and dedication, you too can create one of those beauties. Know that you can always contact me about questions or challenges about the pattern you buy from me.

I am very excited as the Creative Spirit has been reborn in me for this Fall , I think it had a lot to do with the Men Knitting Retreat and the great company from all those creative people around me. Hope you like the video and I have another one to load up later tonight or tomorrow it is about making a horizontal single crochet of surface single crochet. Thanks for stopping by.

Benjamin New Clothes

Some crochet for my crochet followers, but wait they will be more as I unveil a reformatted Tapestry Crochet Hat Pattern for sale Within the next two weeks. I love , You will love it more, it is one of the few Tapestry Crochet Hat Patterns on the Internet. Now back to Benjamin and his new clothes.
These are different views of a pattern that I came up with as I wanted to use some of this Lion Brand Home spun Baby yarn, this yarn was discontinued and I can see why it was. It sheds a lot and it is made out of acrylic and polyester very 70 's.

Here is is holding to his pacifier for dear life, he enjoys to hold it in one hand while grabbing one of the hat strings on the other. This pattern was created in about 5 hours. The Cardigan Coat has like a very nifty neck line on the back, and folds like a beauty. I was going to make a Hood, but I decided not to at the end and thus there is the nape fold of the neck.

Isn't he cute, I am also practicing my photographic skills and hope you like my latest pictures. Benjamin does not mind posing and he loves the attention, thanks for stopping by!

Hemlock Ring Baby Blanket et a Swap

This is the same Hemlock Ring Throw that FLood worked on , I decided to drop the needle size to 4mm or US 6 and this is what I got. It is made in Acrylic, but do not let that fool you it is lace and what a beatiful Baby Blanket it is ! If it was wool it would block nicier, but hey is acrylic, you can not ask much from acrylic. Just below you can see the beautiful center of the Blanket.

This is my swap from my Ravelry Battlestar FPB Group, it was a swap in which we did not buy anything, we just share some of our stuff with the partner and maybe spent about $ 5 to $ 10 on them if we wanted to.

One thing is for sure, I have found a new Love for Lace and for Alpaca Yarn, but that is to be expected. IN the next few months I will be working with this fibers and more and more into lace. There is also Tapestry Crochet which I am working on a Pattern to have for sale soon, probably within the next two weeks. I will be Using Pygora Dk Weight from Toots LeBlanc. Actually it is Blue-Face Leicester/Pygora a blend of wool from the Blue-Face Leicester sheep with Pygora goat. This combination creates a yarn that has strength and sheen. The Pygora blooms out over time, creating a lovely, subtle halo. It is available in DK and lace weights. Both are sold in 250 yard skeins. , and hopefully they will carry my pattern as well. Thanks for stopping by!

Persian Poppies , Moonshadow, Toot's LeBlanc

The Day Started with Kaffe Fasset's Persian Poppies class by James Herbison. James has his own Yarn Shop and has a specialty on Sock Yarn you can find it http://www.joyofyarn.co.nz I had such a great time and even though this swatch is a mixture of acrylic and wool, it gave me the opportunity to learn this technique of color. What I actually liked about learning from James is that his world at home is a bit different than mine, his winter is while are summer is. They definitely have a different way of looking at the world as we know.

Here we were trying different techniques and candies from New Zealand, all deliciousness aside it was fun to finally meet James and share some time with this wonderful guy!

The Same day we went to the Moonshadow Alpaca Ranch owned by two Ladies. What a great experienc to meet the Alpaca you bought the yarn from and to see how well they are treated. I know we all want to get cheap yarn, but nothing like seeing how these animals are taken care of by two caring people. Each yarn has the name of the alpaca it came from, what a fun place to visit.

The Alpacas are very shi at first, but very curious about us and what we were doing there, even though they scare easily by sudden movements, they are very friendly and daring. One of them was sniffing my wool bag, guess they liked the wool or perhaps they thought their hair wool end up in such a beautiful bag some day. I smell Cousin Sheeps on this one they said! There was a black Alpaca that had the best eyelashes I have seen , lol! He was gorgeous lol!
Later that day we Had Toot's Leblanc come for a visit. Owner's Carl Brittain & Michele Camacho gave us a wonderful presentation. I am honored to have the possibility of having them carry one of my patterns. I am working on getting it tested and when ready I will forward it to them. Michele was chatting with me in Spanish which was a lot of fun, she speaks very fluent Spanish. Her brother was a very Handsome shy guy.

That day we got a Knitting machine demostration by Morgan Hicks from All Points Yarn , and later that night we had a horrible Swedish Vampire movie for Movie Night PJ Party. lol! IKEA will never be the same after you watch this movie. Terrible choice, but it was fun to look at something through the eyes of the Swedish, I know I am so antropological sometimes. Thanks for stopping by!

Baby Hemlock Ring Throw

You know what is amazing, the more you know the more aware you are that there is so much more to learn. I learned the Emily Ocker Cast On and if You Google it you will see it. I will also be making a video to show you how it is done. It is amazing to me when people diminish one craft like Crochet for Another like Knit or vice versa, don't be foolish embrace the Dark Side lol!. So I have embarked on a Baby Hemlock Ring Throw, well is Baby size, I hope, because I am using US 6 when it calls for US 10. I am also using 8 ounces of acrylic , I believe is TLC or Baby Layette or Caron, is very soft for plastic. So far I am getting the understanding of what is lace all about and it is very interesting.

Yesterday I was able to give Benjamin his second sock. This is my First Pair of Socks on DPNs, so I have no idea what I like more. I can tell you that making a sock on a dpns is not as difficult as I thought and actually very enjoyable. So in all honesty dpns and two circulars or magic loop are just different techniques, so you have choice. I am using magic loop on the Baby Blanket and it is the first time I am using Magic loop also. This weekend I used three techniques I never used before, magic loop, socks on dpns and Emily Ocker Cast On. What can I say the Men Knitting Retreat was very inspirational and motivating. Thanks for stopping by!

Benjamin Get's a Sock

Believe it or not this is my first sock on DPNs lol! Yarn by Tactile and A verb for Keeping Warm! Both years we have gotten a mini skein to make a small sock, this year I decided Benjamin needed some socks. I am also working on what I learned about photography. Here is the recipient of the sock. It is a lazy Sunday afternoon and I am hoping to finish his second sock in time for his debut! Well I want to make him a very nice Set, I was think of the Peapod Baby Set.

Well This concludes my posting for the day, I am very proud of myself , I have made one sock with dpns and I am on the cuff of the second sock. Thanks for stopping by!

Photo , Hips Hems,Skacel & Cat Bordhi

I had the great pleasure of meeting Franklin and share some time with him. Franklin is a very talented man and a very interesting knitter which is very creative and can knit lace to die for. I consider him a friend and hope to continue our friendship with time.Franklin as you all know is the author of the hilarious book It Itches: A Stash of Knitting Cartoons.

We had the great honor this day of having Franklin Habit teaching a class on how to photograph your fiber or your finished object or your work in progress, even though I was not sitting at the class I was able to listen in. Today I go my Addis Complete Set, well almost complete, I will be getting two more sets of points in the next two weeks 13, 15. The bag is a beautiful green as you can see.

These two pictures were inspired by the class I took by proxy from Franklin. It opened my eyes as to what to do and how to be very experimental with the camera and to play with lights and shadows.

Stephen Houghton, HizKnits from Yknit gave us a class on Tubular cast on, and hip hems for him, which I will have to practice again because it was fantastic . He is a fun teacher.

Our tour of Skacel was fantastic, we saw the owner and the people that work behind the scenes. It is nice to see what a great place to work that is and how wonderful Karen is. Thanks to Brian Kohler for helping us arrange this and for the great SWAG we got from Skacel. Is a great company and if you want good quality needles this is the company to buy from.

So yes they allowed us in, it was like a kid in Candy Land, wonderful yarns, great needles, and all at our reach, we had the nity gritty about Skacel and Addis.

Last , but not least, we had Cat Bordhi giving us a very inspiring chat, she was very nice lady and gave us lots to think about. She liked my worked and encouraged me to write a book , something that I will eventually do, just have to start Chapter one.

Every Day was fantastic I wish we could do this every month lol! Thanks for stopping by.

Bi-Tone HoneyComb & Photography

Our Fierce Leader and Organizer WonderMike, here we are ready for introductions. The Dumas Bay Center was an excellent choice. Whether you got a lift from a friend or took the Express Shuttle, it was close to a lot of places we wanted to go.

The prices as always were fantastic, it was very hard to pick and choose, but you had too , lol. We have a trivia game and when you guess the game you get a chance to pick up a gift from the Table.
My first class was Bi-Tone Honeycomb by James Herbison from http://fibrealive.typepad.com/ who has his own yarn store in New Zealand. His great shop http://www.joyofyarn.co.nz/ is online and you can get possum wool!!! I have known James for over 5 years by Internet friendship, so it was nice to finally meet him and give him a big hug. What a nice guy and he comes with lots of New Zealand Candy!

The bi-tone honeycomb is a beautiful texture that you can use for a sweater , jumper or a bag or even a cushion cover. I wanted to learn that for such a long time and got the opportunity to do so, Thanks James and MFKR.
I took this class last year and it was a hit this year as well. Hand spindling there is Michael, Kent , James, WonderMike Teaching and Keith.

The Guys were just hanging out and chatting , getting to know each other and here enjoying the great meals that the Dumas Bay Center prepared for us with chef Bob. We had a great day. Please stop by later on, I will have day two of the retreat, hopefully today.

Bear on a Swift & More, LYS

This is the bag that I have created to contain my swift. Half of the bag is from yarn given to me by a friend, it is her hand spun and I dyed it in kool Aid colors. Very nice to knit with.

This is a Baby Misti Alpaca left over yarn that I over dyed, it was yellow, so I used purple and yellow to create this rich brown. Here at the bottom I am sharing with you some of my organizing ideas, well I got the idea from a friend and went to Staples to get some stuff. Thanks for stopping by!

Della-Q Bag With Addi Clicks

Della-Q Bag With Addi Clicks
Originally uploaded by Crafty Andy

One of the Great Tours we had was to visit the Skacell Family Store. We met with the Owner Karin and got the insight of the company and the wonderful caring family of workers. I bought some Addi Clicks then, after trying them at home I have decided to purchase a complete set from the Link below. It is a great price and you get a wonderful Della-Q Case. From this Addi Needle SHOP. Thanks for stopping by.

Men Knitting Retreat West Coast 2009

I just want to share the video first. This was at Dumas Bay Center in Washington State. The Second Video is about the outside of the place. We went to Skacel Company which makes Addi Turbos and yarn, we went to Moon Shadow Alpaca farms and saw where the yarn comes from and how the Alpacas are treated, we also met Toot's LeBlanc owners and saw some of their yarn as well. I hope you enjoy the little tours and I will be blogging later on with more detail about each day.

Thanks for stopping by!