Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes

What a fun book! It's by Daina Taimina and features crochet, non-Euclidian geometry, art and science history, and so much more! I love it in a way that may be illegal.

Check it out here: Amazon link.

And check out some of her pictures here: Daina Taimina pictures.

Corded Bag

I made some modifications to the original pattern, and I'm pleased with how they've turned out. I made it taller than the recommended 3.5 inches - about 6. I added a crocheted shoulder strap. I also put in a button hole, and then after the strap was done, I continued around the inside of the bag doing a slip stitch ridge near the top. As part of this ridge, I crocheted the button to the inside of the bag so when it goes through the button hole it looks all cool and stuff.

Sorry for the low quality pics - it’s after 1 in the morning and I’m not going to set up the light box now. I’ll take better pics later.

New Book

Yay! Got a 40% off coupon so I bought this book: "Crochet Motifs", by Edie Eckman. It has many cool motifs, very good explanations of how to do them and good stuff on how to design your own. I am pleased.

Death, Now With Scythe

Here we go. Blurry pic, but I didn't feel like setting up the light box tonight. The scythe is made from Sculpy clay, with SIL's help. I made the blade out of a mix of black and white clay, but it turned out as a dark grey. Fortunately, SIL had silver paint, so that solved that. Yay!

Lots of Stuff

I set up the light box again, so here are pics of a bunch of things I've been meaning to get to.

This is a knitted scarf I did in December. I'm particularly pleased with it because it's one of the first times I've improvised something just because I wanted it. In this case, I needed a black scarf to go with an outfit for an Xmas party. I can wrap this around my neck a couple of times and still have enough length to knot it. It took me about 1 day to do:



Ravelry link for technical details.

And here are the better pics of the fez-wearing monkey amigurumi:





Ravelry link for technical details.

And improved grim reaper amigurumi pics. I still need to figure out the scythe, though:





Ravelry link for technical details.

And something new - a baby penguin! Addicted to amigurumi? Maybe. This one is for J.:





Ravelry link for technical details.

By the way, I thought the penguin eyes were blue, but be damned if they aren't green. I double-checked the yarn label and got M. to look at it too. Huh. I never have been all that good at telling green from blue.

And last, a crocheted dice bag I improvised for myself. I admit, there's a ball of yarn in there along with the dice just to show the shape:



Ravelry link for technical details.

Remind me not to let these stack up again...

Monkey with Fez & Grim Reaper

Pics aren't of the best quality since I'm at work without my spiffy light box, but here they are. The reaper still needs a scythe and the monkey's vest is a bit too big, but other than that I'm utterly delighted with these.

Grim Reaper, front view:


Grim Reaper, side view:


Monkey, front view:


Monkey, side view:


Monkey, back view:


I'll get technical details up on Ravelry soon, and maybe replace these with better pics.

Miami Projects

This year I took crochet projects to Miami instead of knitting. I was a bit worried about getting knitting needles through since we took only carry-on luggage, but I figured I wouldn't be too upset if they made me toss a couple of plastic crochet hooks.

A. inspired me to try making amigurumi toys. The baby octopus ended up going to our seatmate on our last plane back from Miami. She was a teenager who was very, very patient during our 3.5 hour delay on the runway (arg!) and since she squealed when she saw the octopus and called it "hecka cute!" I couldn't resist giving it to her as an Xmas present.

The duckling ended up going to my mother-in-law because she asked M. to ask me if she could have it. What have I learned? Cute is irresistible. :)

Baby Octopus:


Baby Octopus on dresser (to give an idea of the size):


Duckling:


Duckling & Baby Octopus together:


And while I'm at it, here are some quick-and-dirty coasters I did. Our room in Miami didn't have coasters, so...


Technical details on Ravelry: Baby Octopus and Duckling.

Crochet Experiments

I have to be honest - the slippers aren't my only escape from the blanket. I met with A. a short while back and learned some more about crochet. We experimented with crocheting a 2-color spiral and I also made my first granny square. The double spiral is prep work for the hat of obsession, of course. And I'm really taken with the whole idea of granny squares - they're so modular!

Slippers

I'm a bit bored with the baby blanket, so I took a break to work on slippers for the in-laws for Xmas. I was tempted to start work on the hat of obsession, but I don't want to completely forget the blanket. For the slippers, I used the Malabrigo loafers pattern.

Here's my first attempt, on size US 7 needles in worsted weight Berroco Comfort (50%super fine nylon, 50% super fine acrylic) used doubled throughout. It was way too tight, fabric stiff as cardboard. And the slippers were too small even for me. But these pics give a good idea of what the basic slipper looks like.







I frogged this rough draft slipper, then did a real pair on size US 9 needles. (Magic loop method, by the way.) These are not as stiff as cardboard, but they still have some firmness. They fit me, so I'm hoping they'll fit my mother-in-law. I'll have M. check with her on shoe sizes for everyone next time he calls her.

A. did the nifty crochet flowers for these. They're so cool! The flowers add just the right splash of color and fun. :) Speaking of color, the rough draft pics are closer to the real color. Those were taken in daylight through the window at Starbuck's, while the ones below were taken inside at A.'s house. Clearly, daylight is the way to go.

More Felting & Sis-in-law's Purse

Test swatch in Paton's Classic Wool Merino, needle size US 10. Hand-felted, took forever:

Coaster in 3 colors of Paton's Classic Wool Merino, needle size US 10.5. Hand-felted, took even more forever:

Sis-in-law's cool purse (she crocheted it, not me):

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How I made the coaster:

Cast on 80 sts. in yarn color A to US 10.5 DPNs using long tail cast on method.

Cast on counts as round 1.
Round 2: P all sts.
Round 3: (K1, K2tog, K 14 sts., SSK, K1) 4 times.
Round 4: P all sts.
Round 5: (K1, K2tog, K 12 sts., SSK, K1) 4 times.
Round 6: P all sts.
Round 7: (K1, K2tog, K 10 sts., SSK, K1) 4 times.
Round 8: P all sts.
Round 9: Switch to yarn color B. Then (K1, K2tog, K 8 sts., SSK, K1) 4 times.
Round 10: P all sts.
Round 11: (K1, K2tog, K 6 sts., SSK, K1) 4 times.
Round 12: P all sts.
Round 13: (K1, K2tog, K 4 sts., SSK, K1) 4 times.
Round 14: P all sts.
Round 15: (K1, K2tog, K 2 sts., SSK, K1) 4 times.
Round 16: P all sts.
Round 17: Switch to yarn color C. Then (K1, K2tog, SSK, K1) 4 times.
Round 18: P all sts.
Round 19: (K2tog, SSK) 4 times.
Round 20: P all sts.

Bind off by running yarn through remaining 8 stitches and pull to close.

Weave in ends then felt, felt, felt. Block in spiffy octagon-ish shape.

Some Finished Projects

Here are the crocheted purse and the really soft scarf. Finished!

The scarf is really more purple than blue. I ended up restarting it on much bigger needles (US11, I think) and making it really skinny so it would be longer.

Learning to Crochet

Turns out, crocheting is good for more than just putting edges on knitted projects and using the hook to pick up dropped stitches. Who knew? AD is showing me how to crochet. I've tried to figure it out from books, but I got frustrated with it. And why do it that way when I have an expert available?

This will be a little wallet-sized bag when it's done, very much like a messenger bag except smaller. So far it's 6 inches wide and 3 1/4 inches tall.

(There's M's cat again, helping. She considers the crochet hook a fine toy and likes batting it around. I'll have to find a way to block her efforts to steal the hook from me when I'm not paying attention. I may even have to resort to putting my project away when I'm not working on it, but I'm saving this as a last resort.)