Sheep On My Stuff

The first project of the new year: a soap saver. It was a tiny project that I did during downtime in raid. :)

The pattern is the Rainbow Soap Sack from the 2009 Knitting-Project-A-Day (Or So) Calendar. I picked that up at a bookstore today; at 50% off it seemed like quite the bargain. So far there are two patterns I'm interested in trying; this was the first, and a pair of socks for Grant will be the second.

One of the soaps I've been using lately is a soap-made-of-many-tiny-inset-soaps, and as it got close to being used up, it sort of fell apart. Enter the crocheted soap saver, friend to frugal soap users everywhere!

So far I'm using the one on the left. It was a 20-minute off-the-cuff pattern, and it needs some refinement. It's honestly a bit too big! If I had it to do over again, I'd make it about 1/2 to 2/3rds that size (like the double-crochet version on the right), but I think the single crochet is the way to go. (We'll see how I like the double-crochet version.) Weirdly enough, I basically end up using the soap saver as if it were a bar of soap itself — it certainly lathers like one. But hopefully I won't end up losing soap shards down my drain with it!

I have quite a bit more cotton in my stash, so I'll probably keep making these. If I ever find The Perfect Soap Saver Pattern, I'll post it. :)

I had thought that I wasn't going to be able to show you a picture of the last-minute emergency rainbow squares I made for the charity blanket last month. By the time I remembered to take a picture, the squares looked like this:

However, luckily for this blog, the recipient (the person who's sewing the squares together) took some pictures of the squares as they came in! Hooray! And so here's the rest of the squares I made for the acrylic/synthetic blanket:

I got thirteen of those suckers done in a weekend, destashed all of my yellow, blue, and red Shine Sport, used up a bit of my Dark Horse Fantasy, and helped complete a blanket. :)

I have also managed to create six wool rainbow squares. Unlike the synthetic blanket, I'm not making squares with interesting stitch patterns; I'm just making stockinette squares and letting the color provide the interesting part. (I'm using leftover yarn from the rainbow sheep.)

Love comes in many colors.

I'd like to be more environmentally conscientious than I am. One of the ways I've thought about using a reusable, rather than single-use, resource is by using reusable bags for grocery shopping. Ah ha!, I thought, perfect! I'll crochet some!

Well. The patterns around for crocheted market bags tend to make these enormous things that stretch so far they drag on the ground if I'm carrying them on my shoulder. And they take a huge amount of yarn. Not what I'm after.

I decided to try designing something that takes the natural stretch of a simple cotton yarn into account, and this is what I came up with. It's a granny square bag with two short handles. Experienced crocheters should be able to extrapolate how to make larger (or smaller) bags (and handles) just by looking at the pattern; instructions aren't given for changing the sizes. This is the size I like, and I think it's a good one. I've taken a few of these to the store and come back with comfortably-sized bags of groceries. And if they get messy, you can throw 'em in the washer and dryer with your towels.

Please follow the link to my Small Market Bag pattern! Like everything on this site, it is Creative Commons licensed; please feel free to share and distribute (as long as you keep my name and website attached). :) Many thanks to Wyoming Knott, Sorcha, and Moonrose for testing the pattern for me!

Sent out today: six squares for a rainbow afghan (which raised money for the same charity as the Rainbow Sheep!)!

My pictures are horrible and awful, because the good camera is currently in Las Vegas along with SheepLad. However, here they are anyhow:

From left to right, the stitch patterns are: the 'prismatic' diagonal herringbone from this scarf on Feather and Fan, stockinette, seed, an unvented garter rib, stockinette, triple rib.

You remember how I had a Sneaky Sheep in my flock? Here, I'll refresh your memory:

Well, it turns out Sneaky Sheep has been going on missions. So far he's managed to infiltrate the study, while I was raiding Tempest Keep:

…the bathroom, as I was brushing my teeth…

…my bedroom window, as I was going to sleep…

…and now the kitchen cabinets!

(For fun and prizes, find the bonus sheep in each of those pictures. There are eight, plus an "extra".)

I do have other things going! I've been working on shopping bags, and two friends have graciously agreed to help me test a pattern. (It's crochet, requires about 300 yards of not-too-stretchy yarn, and roughly an H hook — mileage varies.) I'm also working on a shawl project, but it's a gift for someone; as such, I won't be posting pictures of it until it's complete and in the hands of the recipient. :)

…the Many Happy Returns shawl is done, and tomorrow I will block it! (I'll take pictures then.)

…work continues on the Obama socks; one sock down, one leg in progress!

…I started working on the Powers of Two blanket again!

…and the Meditation Knitting project continues, too!

Also, I frogged the Anya scarf; I could not deal with lace on every row and not just the odd-numbered rows. C'est la vie; I'll find another project for that orange laceweight, I'm sure!

So it's been a productive weekend/beginning of week, just not so much with the camera. Pictures to come on Thursday!

*
Yarn used: Lily Sugar 'n' Cream Twist, Taupe Twist. Hook size: 5mm.

ÜnterSchëpenFloppen is back, modeling the second of my granny square grocery bags. (The first one is not yet complete.) I've got two bags now, and I definitely like this one better than the first one I did. I hadn't intended to do two of the same pattern, but I realized midway through making the gusset/bottom that I didn't really want one done in a main color/contrasting color; I'd rather have them be the same color throughout. And thus I have two bags! The other one should be easy enough to finish.

I needed something to spice up my crafting life, and I'd been toying with the idea of making some crocheted grocery bags. (Reusable grocery bags are very in around the Seattle area these days.) It happened that I had some Cotton-Ease… in sweater form, but in the form of a sweater I wasn't happy with. I frogged the sweater, reclaimed the yarn, and made this:

Yarn used: Cotton-Ease by Lion Brand. Hook size: 5mm.

It was fun to break the crochet hook out again, but I can't say I love this pattern! Woolo, the sheep modeling it, doesn't mind it nearly so much. :)

The bag I'm more excited about is a granny square bag:

Yarn used: Sugar 'n' Cream Stripes by Lily (with a contrasting color to come). Hook size: 5mm.

It's working up so fast. I'll be done with it tomorrow at the latest, and I'll be able to make more of these easily. I'm quite pleased with how it looks so far, too. :) Meanwhile, ÃœnterSchëpenFloppen thinks the yarn looks like Neapolitan ice cream. Mmm… Neapolitan. I haven't had any of that in far too long. Why doesn't Häagen-Dazs make a neapolitan? It'd be so good.

I have nothing of interest! I've done a few more rounds on the Cable-Down Raglan since yesterday, but nothing else. In an attempt to make up for the boringness ("Look, more cables!"), I thought I'd offer a more candid view of my nightstand. This is my nightstand in its normal state of being:

Clockwise from bottom left, you can see a stack of books I'm currently reading ("Communicating In Sign" is on top — I've been taking an ASL class at my local community college, and have been reading as much ASL/Deaf culture stuff as I can get my hands on). This is not all the books I'm reading. This is just the two books I am reading that are stashed in the bedroom. There are three books I'm reading in the study, two in the middle bathroom, three in the back bathroom, and a pile downstairs waiting to be tackled. It's kind of like a sickness, a ravenous appetite. Unfortunately, reading this many books at once results in not finishing anything at all. I need to buckle down and start finishing things!

Piled between the books and the alarm clock are my abacus bracelets and a couple of stitch markers.

Next is my alarm clock, with lamp on top. Yep, the lamp lives on top of the alarm clock. Why not — it fits! The clock is one of those things that will play CDs (that's why it's big and flat like a sandwich) and has two wake-up times, though right now we're only using one. It also has different settings for weekday and weekend, so we don't have to remember to turn it off over the weekend and turn it back on during the week. I usually wake up about five minutes before the alarm goes off.

Hand lotion in the back; useful when you're knitting and have dry skin.

Black object is a rear speaker. Yes. It lives on my nightstand. I suppose we could put them on the floor… or something… but the nightstand is where they have always lived.

Far back corner is a Kleenex box. All hail Puffs Plus With Lotion. It saves my nose every time I get a cold.

Foreground, in front of speakers: three sheep. There may be a fourth sheep hidden under the knitting project. They're sneaky, sheep.

Foreground, right: knitting project and its chart. I recently switched it to a 32" needle instead of a 24" needle. I may need to switch it right back when the sleeve stitches get put on holders. I also just tried it on (it's top-down and the stitches get put on thread) to see if I could make myself a sweater one size smaller than I was thinking, and the answer was a resounding "Hell, no". Sigh. I really wanted to be on to the next part of this sucker. But no. I've got another eight-ish rounds to go, and then I should be ready to divide sleeves. Yay!