Thursday Blog Review

Today's craft blog review is for Crochet by Faye, and if you don't know about her, you should. She's a crochet designer, and her blog is wonderful because it gives glimpses into the design process. For someone who doesn't like to follow directions (who? me?) and often comes up with their own patterns, her blog is an invaluable resource.

She does beautiful lace designs that you just want to sink your teeth into right away. Her writing style is friendly, and the website reflects her work: simple clean lines and appealing colors.

She posts lots of pictures, and does a variety of posts. The only wish I had was that she post more regularly, but I'd much rather quality over quantity. Still, she does manage to keep me coming back, so she must be doing something right.

I'm running my first swap!

Quite exciting, I'm running my first swap over at Ravelry, called Mix Makers. The focus is on created CD mixes and sending yarn to each other. We're trying to keep the cost fairly cheep, and put the emphasis on made gifts instead of spending a lot of money. There's still time to sign up... until Saturday, so if you're interested, you should come on by.

I'm anticipating this being a lot of fun. I've been in a few swaps that haven't been fiber related, and I participated in Secret Pal12 and am planning on being in Secret Pal 13, but I wanted to do something my way. I hoping it goes well, and I'm looking forward to having people stop by from the Swap (hi y'all if you're already out there!)

In other news, I updated my WIP's, and as you can see on my left sidebar, I have quite a few more going. I actually have to add one more, I'm doing an Alchemy thing on Etsy, where I'm making a squirrel for someone who wants one and in return I get some banners made for my Etsy store. I love bartering. To me it seems like I'm saving money... always a good thing.

Although, I've bought more fiber than I probably should have from Etsy and Ebay in the last few days... I'm afriad I've been feeling a bit down and lonely at college, and my normal two reactions are to eat and to craft. Since I'm trying to get my eating under control, I'm afraid that my crafting, and urge to buy yarn and fiber, has increased. I should really work on that.

What else can I tell you? Oh! Do you remember my post about my Firefly shawl? (I do have to say, for someone who has problems taking pictures {especially pictures of my wholemade yarn- why do they never come out FOCUSED?!?} that's a really good picture of the shawl) I'm working on making it a pattern you can purchase on Etsy and Ravelry. It should be lots of fun if I get it to work. Playing around with crochet graphing software and writing out instructions at least keeps me occupied. *grins*

Have you ever been in any swaps? Would you like to be in one or do they have no interest for you?

Wednesday Contest Shoutout!

Knit it Up is having an amazing contest. There's so many prizes I can't name them all, and you should definitely go over there. *drools* I really really want those prizes.

Baa Baa Blacksheep is having a contest involving the election. I'm willing to promote anything that encourages people to vote or increase interest in the election, so go take a look!

Midwest Knit Girl is having a contest where you try and guess how many posts she has done to late.

Jen La is having a caption contest. After having a bad day she needs something to pick her up.

My contest is going on until the 31st! Just leave a comment on any of my posts or put a link on your blog that goes back to me. The Drawing will be announced Friday as close to midnight as I can get, which means probably sometime on saturday.

Spinning Picspam!

I've been doing a lot lately, but I haven't been blogging about much of it. However, I'm too lazy and it's too late to be writing a big long post, so I'm going to do a picpost.










This is all the stuff I've been spinning in the last while. The biggest picture has a bit of a story to it. So I've been spinning up a whole bunch of yarn just because I've been stressed and it's a good way to decompress, and I've managed to spin up the last of my fiber on Thursday.

So I was rather dissapointed about it, but I thought it was a good thing because I DO have quite a bit of work to do. Anyway, I'm participating in FatCatKnits fiberclub, and I was disappointed how my last yarn spun up (not the fault of the dying, which was beautiful, but because I didn't think out how I was going to approach the yarn, and just dove right in)... not the way I imagined. Anyway, someone suggests that the next time I encounter a dye lot like that I navajo ply it.

I say, isn't that the same as making three ply yarn?

As I discovered, it is not. I watch a few videos on youtube, the most notable being This one:



Anyway, I'm DYING to try it... but I don't have any fiber!

Until, I remember that FatCatKnits (bless her heart) sends out little "treats" along with the main roving, and I pull that out of my button box (have I mentioned that I've been buying a lot of metal buttons lately? It's for one of my sculptures, but I'll talk about that later.) and I got at it. The Result was what is in the big picture... my first Navajo Ply.

It's amazing, I'm in love.

(ironically, uploading all the photos took about as much time as creating a real entry would have)

Addendum: Heads up, if you like any of the handspun, head over to my Etsy shop, where you can buy it. I'm still getting all the yarn up there. If you mention in the comments that you came to my Etsy Store through my blog, I'll throw in an extra surprise!

Wonderful support

Hey all, thank you so much for your well wishes and prayers. This last week I've been in a sort of daze, going through the motions and nothing more. My grandmother did get out of the hospital and is doing much better, though there were some rough patches while that was going on. Thankfully, things are better now.

Perhaps because of my emotional turmoil, and stress, but I've been doing a lot of spinning lately. The result is some very nice yarn, but even better, I was able to achieve some emotional blankness that was very welcome. I've also done quite a bit of crochet and knitting... I have a lot of updates for both my Etsy store and Ravelry.

Which brings me to another thing. I did not manage to post once at all this week, which is grossly unfair to those of you who have been reading. starrypurplehaze, I have not managed to send out your yarn, though I did get your address, and I have a proposal to make.

I'd like to make the second to the last week and this upcoming week count for one big, last prize. I would post more, and there would be double to the amount of yarn to send off. People who have commented in the last week, your comments would count towards this last drawing (if that makes sense).

I think this is only fair, because I didn't give people much of a chance to comment. Hopefully y'all agree with me, because that's what I'm going to do.

Look forward to some more posts this week!

Second week winner

So I did the drawing from the second week, and starrypurplehaze, you are the winner! The yarn to the right is your prize. E-mail me with your address and I'll have this in the mail to you in two shakes of a lamb's tail!

I intended to do a post about the other contests on Wednesday and a review of a blog on Thursday or Friday, but neither of those things happened for a variety of reasons, the largest being that my grandmother went to the hospital and I was in contact with my family and not thinking about the blog.

Also, I'm missing my boyfriend and my financial aid for my college has went wonky. However, things will work out.

In an entirely random vein, are any of you familar with Etsy? I'm trying to start up a store there, and I'd love some advice on how to get traffic so people are viewing your store. Any of you out there more expierienced than I can give me some hints? I would appreciate it!

Remember, Remember: The third week of my contest is still going on! Writing a comment will get you entries. Mentioning my contest in your blog will get you TWO entries. You can comment as much as you want, so keep them coming!

My Grandma has been in the hospital

So naturally, that takes priority over blogging. I'll draw the winner for this last week this weekend, and show you the third week's yarn.

Just not now.

I'm kinda embarassed

So as I posted on Thursday, I went home for the weekend (plus Monday and Tuesday). I was really excited because not only was I going to see my family, but also my boyfriend, and two of my best friends. It was a wonderful, fun filled break.

In preparation for the break, I prepared some posts that were scheduled to be posted while I was away. One of these was Friday's post, which was supposed to announce who had won the first week's contest, as well as show off the next week's contest yarn. However, I scheduled to post my draft, and not the finished project.

So I'll announce it here, and then I'm going back to change Friday's post. Bronwyn, you won the first week of Handspun contest! Congrats! E-mail me (it's on my profile) with your address and I'll get it packaged up to you and sent off!

Later today I'll edit this post with Wednesday's contest shutout, but for now I need to edit the other post and head to class.


The second week of my contest is going on! Writing a comment will get you an entry. Mentioning the contest in your blog will get you TWO entries, just make sure that in your comment you link back to your blog. Thirdly, if you make a halloween-themed object during this month, leave a link on the comments and you get TWO entires. You can comment as much as you want (if you spam my blog, that will get you disqualified), you can make as many halloween themed stuff as you want.

Musings on the state of my Blogroll

Okay, so I admit I read a lot. I'm an english major. I average about three books a week, either in literature, free reading, or some combination thereof. But that's not what I want to talk about today. What I want to talk about today is the amount of blogs I follow.

I used to use Technorati to keep track of my blogs, but that rapidly stopped working. The database couldn't keep track of the amount of blogs I read in one day. Literally, there would be days where I would sign in and the thing would just stop working on me because I read so many blogs. So, I switched over to Google Reader, and haven't looked back sense.

How many blogs, you ask, do I read? As of today? 139. Blogs. On an average day I read over 200 blog posts, and that peaks with about 300 blog posts on Mondays (the day when most of my weekly blogs post). The numbers dip down on the weekend... with Fridays typically having 170 posts, and Saturday and Sunday having 69 and 100 posts, respectively.

But surely you don't read all that material, you say. And I don't. There are posts that I completely skip, sometimes. I'd say I skip about 10% of the articles. Probably another 5% I read the first paragraph and move on. But the rest? I read them.

Of course, some of those blogs are photoblogs, and some of them are graphs and charts. I admit that.

But what I want to point out today is how many blogs of mine are craft, knitting, crochet and spinning blogs. Take a look:

I have seven spinning blogs I follow.

And FIFTY-TWO crochet and knit blogs I follow.

So I have two questions. The first, would you be interested in a post where I review these blogs, perhaps on a weekly basis? (and when I run out of my personal favorites, where are review other's blogs?)

And second, how many blogs do you follow? How many of them are craft related?

Remember: My contest is still going on! Writing a comment will get you entries. Mentioning my contest in your blog will get you TWO entries. You can comment as much as you want, so keep them coming!

Crochet Hooks

Crochet was my very first fiber love. When I was seven, I had a babysitter, and older lady that would sit and crochet when i was doing my homework or playing when my parents were out. She was a wonderful lady, and while I don't remember her name she's left a lasting gift with me.

She taught me to Crochet. And the very first thing she taught me? The Granny Square. I wouldn't say it was instant love for me... in fact, I found Crochet very very frustrating. But I had a little orange plastic hook (which I kept until my sister sat on it and broke it nearly ten years later) and I struggled through splitting the yarn, doing things wrong, and I managed to learn crochet.

And then life moved on, the babysitter stopped coming because she moved, and I didn't pick up a hook very much. Until my family had to move. My girlfriend made me a blanket as a goodbye gift. It was pink and white and beautifully done. My competitive spirit was aroused. I wanted to be able to do something like that. And I started to crochet again.

I practiced, and practiced, made a lot of really bad doll clothes, got a lot of yarn for Christmas, developed a regular stitch, made whatever I wanted, and flatly refused to use a pattern book. If I wanted to make something, I looked at a picture. It hasn't been until now, at college that I've started following real patterns. As in, actually reading the directions.

But what is my point in all this? Well, if you look at the title, it's supposed to be about crochet hooks. And my point is, until recently, I had been carrying my hooks around in a glasses case. (Hey, it worked and it was compact!) But as part of my SP 12 Swap, Kathleen made me a beautiful crochet case holder, and I've been wanting to show it off. So I gathered up most of my crochet hooks, and made some startling discoveries.

I have far more crochet hooks than I imagined. I have a full set of steel crochet hooks. I have a D, E, 2 F's, a G, a G1/2 (I got it in Sweden, it's between a G and an H). I have 3 H's, 5 I's, 6 J's, 3 K's, an L, M, 2 N's, and a Q. (This does not count the ones that are currently in projects, which is (I think) a G, an O, and an H.)

I think that totals 39 hooks. Now, I'm not surprised, because I like to keep my hooks with my projects, and I"m quite fond of my size H's and J's... they're two of my favorite size hooks. Also, sometimes I get them as gifts, and the range between H and K seems to be the size people like to gift. Anything else seems either too small or too large.

So, what size hooks or needles do you prefer? Do you have a collection, or do you have one for each purpose, and switch them in and out? Let me know!



The second week of my contest is going on! Writing a comment will get you an entry. Mentioning the contest in your blog will get you TWO entries, just make sure that in your comment you link back to your blog. Thirdly, if you make a halloween-themed object during this month, leave a link on the comments and you get TWO entires. You can comment as much as you want (if you spam my blog, that will get you disqualified), you can make as many halloween themed stuff as you want.