This week on Instagram {3.14-3.24}

Good Friday, friends!

I'm combining the last two weeks because I didn't post as much as I usually do.

My phone (Sony Xperia) stopped working.  And I mean it completely bricked it self.  It took a few days to get a new one.  Then 4 days later, it bricked it self again.  I'm now on my third in 9 days.

Awesome.

Anyway.

Instagram, yay!

1. My biy is crawling.  It's an awkward jerky random crawling.  But it's also effective.

2. Baby's first mythos.  I love Greek mythology and Neil Gaiman.  Both of my kids are named after personifications and characters in Gaiman's The Sandman.  Violet Moirae (fate) and Westin Oneiros (dreams).  As it is Greek, there are beautiful explanations.  Google it.  :)  

3 and 4.  My dream catcher I won on a giveaway.  It beautiful!  It's by BettyB.  Like her page.  It's totally worth it to see what she makes. 

5.  New business cards with a preview of the new wordpress site.  This is my incentive to get the site going.  We're maybe 50% done now.  My husband is a software engineer.  I get domain names for my birthdays.

6.I bought a uke.  I hate learning to strum.

7.  Instamatic.  I need to take some photos and count and catalog all my old cameras.  So many are just so well made and good looking.

8. Sugar n Cream.  I love this color so much.  For an ex goth I really love these springy colors.  No shame!  I forget what I bought this for, but at the time I needed it.  :)

9.Size 6 toddler bowling shoes.  We took the kid bowling for the first time.  She's a smash and grab kinda chick, so she loved the concept.  My husband and I met through mutual friends at a bowling ally in 2002.  So, this was a bit of a special outing for us.   He's still a much better bowler than me.  Jerk.

10.  This afghan was started in September for a baby that was born 4 weeks ago.  :/  I'm not usually so behind.  I also like bright socks.

11.  A local theater plays free movies Sunday morning.  I took Vi to see how long she would last in a theater.  Longer than me.  This movie sucks.  But it was really fun watching her reaction to a theater.  She asked me for popcorn.  I have no idea how she knew. 

12.  Middle of the night exhausted selfie.  I still need a profile pic to put on everything that's recognizable.  As my "brand".  

13.  My boy is sweet and cute.  :)

14. My best friend most of my life moved to Italy in January.  I'm sending her a little care package.   This one is a little different from the other's I've made and I like this line up a bit better. It's tiny tho.  If her husband wasn't so tall it would fit in a 3" hoop.

15.  An antique wheelchair.  We were congregating in the hospital waiting test results.  They were not good.  I take photos when I'm upset.  And I have a thing for old medical equipment.

Do you have an instagarm?  follow for follow?  ;)

My "I need a break" mini afghan

I've been working on lots of small size and priced cute things for Alley Art Fest. This is my "I need a little break but I cannot simple stop crocheting" afghan.

As a very pregnant woman, there is nothing better than a good root beer float.

First Friday Free Pattern: Simple Modern Afghan

I love Mod.  The fashion, the hair, the lines, the structure, the colors.  Yum.  As a crocheter I see a lot of pretty flowery or complicated color worked afghans.  Don't get me wrong.  Its nice.  I love me an good doily.    But I just want something simple and interesting.  I hate variegated yarn.  I love neutral and neon.

I have a smallish Tiffany blue velvet love seat in my living room.  A love seat needs an afghan.  I decided on gray on gray.  But I still wish I had used lime.  I first made a baby blanket with this design.  I call it Pear Creamsicle. <333  (it's for sale....)

Materials
Measureing Tape
K hook
Darting Needle
Worsted Weight yarn

• 2 skeins of color 1 (Hobby Lobby's I love this Yarn in Graphite)
• 1 skein of color 2 ( Hobby Lobby's I love this Yarn in Lt. Gray)

Let me explain this huge hook.  This stitch is very simple and creates a beautiful texture.  You can use a smaller hook, very easily, but I like to use the bigger one to make it less heavy and more soft.  It's like there is more air in the stitch. Cause, well, there is.

Stitches
hdc - Half Doublt Crochet
dc - Double Crochet
ch- Chain
sk ch - skip one chain stitch
ch sp - chain space
( ) - this means to do all the stitches into one space or stitch

Techniques
changing colors

Firstly, I decided how big I want this blanket.  The baby one above is 35"x35".  The small afghan below is 50"x50".  You will need to figure out how big you want the inner square.  It's simple math really and then paying some attention as you go.  (I do see that this doesn't match up to 50.  It's really just an about 13 and about 22 and even about 50. Because the hook is so big it will stretch.)

I choose this odd size because I love anything square and it's the right size for my Tiffany Blue Velvet love seat in our sitting room. 

The stitch is called a Rope Stitch.  I'm sure you would be able to find it online.  I've seen it in a few different places.  If you happen to have the Crochet Stitch Bible it's page 74.  :)

Begin by chaining multiples of 3 until you have reached the desired length.  The following pattern is what I did to make my "Gray Squared Lover's" afghan.  (I like to name things.) 

Row 1 - Ch 135 + 3 for turning chain.  

Row 2 - dc into the 4th ch from the hook.  *ch1, dc in next ch, sk ch, dc in next ch* Rep*to * until the last ch sp and dc into that last ch sp. Turn your work. 

Row 3 - Ch3, *(dc,ch1,dc) into the ch-1 sp* Rep* to * until all spaces are completes.  dc into the ch-3 space of the turning chain. Turn your work.

FYI - This is called a "rope stitch".  

Row 4 to 18 - Repeat Row 3

Row 19 - Ch3, *(dc,ch1,dc) in the ch-1 sp* for the next 11 ch-1 spaces.  Change from color 1 to 2 between the 11th and 12th spaces.  Continue.  Change from color 2 to 1 between the 32nd and 33rd space. Continue until the end. dc into ch-3 space.  Turn.

*Tip* I used two skeins for two colors.  You can use three is it makes it easier, and it might.  I didn't cut the middle color at all, but carried it up.  The outside color needs to be cut so that you can connect it to the other end.  Leave at least 4 inches so you can sew it in really tight, if one of these comes loose its going to be a pain to fix. 

In theory you can carry the dark color over the light color but you are going to waste a lot of yarn and it makes it hard to hold onto cause it bunches all up.  

This is a little odd at first but you will get used to have two skeins going at once.  When I cut I didn't crochet on top of the cut yarn because I knew I was going to be sewing it in later anyway, so I didn't bother, plus this way I can pull it a bit tighter to make sure that the stitch matches well.

Row 20 to 36 - Repeat row 10.

Row 37 to 55 - Repeat row 3.

Finish off after Row 55.  

Your blanket is complete.  :)

The last thing you will do is tie in the million little 

Border:  (if you so choose to do a border)

It's just half double crochet all the way around.  
Start in the center of the last row, attach and chain 2, half double crochet twice in each space until the corner. 4 hdc in the corner. Continue with three hdcs in each space for the sides.  4 hdc in the corner. Continue around, join and finish off.

This blanket has become our favorite morning cartoon snuggle blanket.  Its soft, comfy and not too warm.

If you use it, here is the pattern on Ravelry and Pinterest. 

My Equilizer Baby Blankie

The story starts with my 27th birthday.  No further back than that.  I had a work friend that introduced me to his girlfriend. We hung out a bunch. Then she was in my wedding and I was in hers then she got pregnant.  In about a 6 year span.    

At my 27th birthday the work friend, not the girlfriend, wore a shirt that was an equalizer that actually worked.  I had a rave themed party complete with black lights, a DJ and me in yarn falls and a tutu.  It. Was. A. Total. Blast.

As not "normals"  I had to come up with something great for their offspring.  This came to me.  

It is traditional grannies, 9 high and 7 wide.  4.5 inches each. Right at crib size.  Sc-ed together.  I used With Love by Red Heart and a G hook.  I'd say it took about 12 to 15 hours.  I washed it before packing, and its a good thing I did because a few middles came unraveled.  So I sewed em back up and reinforced all of the middles.  Meaning, I sewed in a length of yarn in the centers.  Just around the center 2 or 3 times.  It will make it much stronger.  The washing made the blanket VERY soft.  

As for the cat.  I saw him in a book at Joann's and I just couldn't pass him up.  He's a traditional Japanese cat named Amineko.  

All ready to go to his new home.  

I LOVE making things for kids.  I feel like it's the best reason, to create something soft for someone you love.  This child is the child of two people that I love and respect like, if not more than some, family.  <3

DforV: DONE!

I ended up with 331.  I'm missing 5.  I'm not worried about it.

 And now for the hard part.  

Sewing all these little buggars together.

Also, I was shooting for her 1st birthday.  That was Nov 21st.  Then Christmas.  That's in 4 days.

Towards the end this wasn't something that I exactly enjoyed doing.  I can knock out 20 in an hour and a half.  I had about 30 other projects for Christmas, an ornament exchange with my lady friends and an art show that I participated in.  So I decided to lift my goals for this blanket.  Vi will not know or care when I gave it to her.  Just that I made it for her.  I hope she grows to like yellow, gray and blue.  I still hate green.

YAY!!!  

On to the next big project.  It's for baby of a couple that are awesome.  I just hope they get the reference.  I have one month to complete.  :)

Car Seat Afghan

I fell in love with the shell stitch I did on the cozies.  Its SO simple, yet so much more interesting to look at than straight sc or dc.

GOUR-JIS!

While I was daydreaming about the texture I was thinking Vi needs a blanket for her legs in the car, but she just kicks everything off.  She's like her dad.  No shoes, socks or anything else on her feet if she can help it.  So she needs something that is somewhat connected to her.

Simple enough idea.  An afghan that has an opening for the buckle.  She can't kick it off, but can still play with it and move it around so she doesn't just get mad at it.

So wha-la.

My gramma would be so proud of that razor sharp edge.  :D

With Ollie the Octopus! (Although doesn't he look more like a squid?)

This took me a day.  But probably 6 hours all together.  Very nearly an entire skein of Red Heart Dark Orchid.  And some definite wear on the wrist.  But DAMN it's cute.

Granny Squares of Doom.

This is my first real afghan.  I did this over 2 months.  Every night.  Sometimes day and night, while the kid slept.  Each round took between 5 and 7 minutes.  121 squares.  7 colors. Only one repeated pattern.  Queen size and warm as hell.

Many lessons learned.  

If you really want to learn crochet.  This is my recommendation. Decide on a project.  A big one.  And go for it.

This is the most basic granny square there is.  I love these colors.