Crochet-work Orange

I like crocheting. And I like my husband. I suppose it isn't surprising that I like crocheting things for my husband. In the past day or two, I've finished a couple of Dan-requested projects so I thought I'd share them. They've helped me realized that Dan like orange like I like pink.

First up, Dan wanted a doily for his bedside table. He also wanted me to make him something orange and black. So he picked out this pattern and ta-da:

That's Dan's new bedside orange and black doily.

Also, I can't remember if Dan requested a shower scrubbie or if I told him I'd make him one (I think option two) but we settled this (very cute) scrubbie:

This one is actually my second go at converting the pattern to fit his soap bar. The first one was cute but a little too big and, honestly, I had a lot of fun making it so I was just looking for an excuse to make another one and "improve" it.

First fishie (left) and second fish (right) are here:

  

I have a fair amount of the orange and white from the fishies (that yarn was part of the massive savings last weekend) and I have another 15-ish grams of the doily thread, so I imagine I'll be making some more orange goodies in Dan's future.

Go orange!

I Saved SO Much Money!

If you are reading this and are also someone that actually knows me, you might know that I was planning on taking knitting lessons this month. Well, sadly that was cancelled but they didn't tell me why. Now I know: the store is closing.

It's pretty sad because I just discovered the store in the past few months and they are awesome - lots of fun (and yeah, expensive) yarns. But now they are going away. Boo.

Of course, this means going out of business sales. Yesterday I got an email that everything was 50-75% off so I decided to reward myself after a long day of housework (seriously, scrubbing on hands and knees deserves a reward) by going to check out the goodies. Dan, having another comp day, accompanied me.

Dan is an enabler. A big giant dirty enabler.

That's my yarn haul. It's slightly over six pounds. That's right. I bought more yarn than Bitty weighs.

Naturally, if you "saved" that same amount of money buying 100% acrylic yarns, I'm pretty sure you could buy a Sam's worth, if not more. But if it gives you any idea of the truly lovely things I got, most of those are wool. Or wool and cotton. Or wool and alpaca. That pile of gray in the top left corner? Wool, angora and silk. (It normally goes for $20 a skein. I got four.)

Mind you, I have no idea what I'm going to do with most of this stuff. (The orange and off-white wool will be made into a fish scrubby for Dan. The green-ish stuff on the right will be a new mat for Ashes.) But I will say that typically, yarn goes a bit further with knitting than crochet. So even without my yarn store around, I am going to learn to knit because I want to stretch these lovelies as far as I can!

               
  

Is it insane? Yes. But it sure is fun!

Ack! I Made More!

Fortunately, I've about run out of my partial cotton skeins so hopefully I'll soon migrate back to Dan's doily or more potholders or something.

I Can't Stop Making These!

I have a new addiction: crocheting tawashi. I've made seven of these since May and I have no plans on stopping.

The first two I blogged about here but since then, I've made five more. Yes, five!

Here are today's two additions:

And here are three that I made as a set:

I actually made the first one (the smallest one) back in May and have been using it to wash my face. I loved it so much I decided to make one for the shower but it wasn't quite large enough (the medium sized one) so I made a larger one. Which means I have three and I'm not really sure what to do with the middle one. But I love them all and the cotton thread wears so well (much better than the acrylic). I so enjoy these!

   

Slightly less addictive but still enjoyable, crocheted magic potholders. My most current one:

I'm going to overflow my house with crocheted goodies.

Radio Silence Is Broken!

Gah! I've been dying to share this with people because it's been such a massive project and has taken up sooooo much time! But it was a birthday present for my mom and I didn't want to ruin the surprise since I know she visits my blog and Flickr. (Hi Mom!) But now I've finally gotten together with my mom and been able to actually give her the present so there is no more surprise to ruin.

This is what I've been working on since late March:

It's HUGE! Twenty-eight inches from corner to corner and I dread to think of the number of hours involved in making this. (I'd say at least 100, easy, partially due to having to frog rounds after massive mistakes on my part.) But I think it turned out delightful. (And Mom likes it too so even better!)

And considering how much work it was, I'm really surprised that I'm not cursing the idea of ever doing another painted doily again. I'm actually kind of wanting to. (I think this indicates some sort of brain damage, yes?) Mind you, I will never, never use embroidery thread again (too many ends to weave in and separating the strands is such a time killer) but I am contemplating checking out the sewing thread next time I'm at the craft store.

Since I haven't gotten to flood my blog with multiple posts about my progress, instead I'll just flood this post with multiple pictures of my progress.

Ravely goodies are here, if anyone is interested.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.