Malabrigo March Madness, NATCROMO, COM...Oh My!

Need I say more? Well, OK, maybe I do. March is a busy, busy month! It's National (and International on Ravelry) Crochet Month (NATCROMO/ITCROMO). It's also our 2nd annual Village Hopelessly Overcommitted Cast On Mania (COM). And it's Malabrigo March Madness (MMM). btw, it isn't a coincidence that COM is the same month as MMM. ;)

First, Malabrigo! Yep, I'm going backwards. *warning: shameless self promotion ahead* ...cause I need votes! I am a new Malabrigo Junkie. I've had this heavenly yarn in my stash for about a year, but never done anything with it other than occasionally take it out and pet it. And I wasn't really that in love with the worsted I had...the color YES, but the feel, no. So when MMM came around this year, I thought what better way to get me off my butt and try it. I'd always heard how soft it was but wasn't really seeing it myself...in the skein. Then I started using it! OMB! (That's Oh My Bob! for any non-Ravelers out there.) It really is amazingly soft and keeps getting softer the more I work with it! I am now officially in LOVE!

So what better way to show my new found love, than with a song! ...and an entry into the 2010 Show Your Devotion Contest. So here is my first ever attempt at 1) a video and 2) singing in public...so to speak. If you're on Ravelry, check out the Contest thread in the Malabrigo Junkies group and vote for me! ;) Voting ends the 31st...I think.



Now, onto NATCROMO! This year for NATCROMO, I got to be a little more active in the Ravelry Party than last year, but still not as much as 2008. Nonetheless, I was still crocheting and actively promoting crochet to others. I have worked on several things...

a dress for Thing 1's Ariel doll. She picked out the pattern (from the 80's!) and color. It just needs snaps and a little ribbon:



a scarf that will end up as a gift before too long (you'll have to wait to find out who for). It's taken a while to find out what pattern this Plymouth Baby Alpaca Lace wanted to be, but this is it! It's the Alpine Frost Scarf (Rav pattern link) by Amy O'Neill Houck from Interweave Crochet, Winter 2008.



And then I've also been working on a couple of new designs too! ...but I can't show you those right now. ;)

And finally COM! Crazy thing to do! The idea is to cast on/start something new everyday of the month. Sounds a lot easier to do than it is. I couldn't keep up last year either and then ended up with a TON of projects that are either still WIPs or I've finally frogged. This year, I've tried to be smarter about it. I have never planned to try to cast on something every day...just wanted to allow myself the freedom to start something new with no guilt. All the things I've done for NATCROMO have been included as well as a few knitted things...

Like this Faberge Neck Warmer (Rav pattern link) by Nina Machlin Dayton (that is also for MMM) from the gorgeous Malabrigo worsted I was given in a swap last year:



(I'm about halfway through this neck warmer now...need to take a new pic!)

And this Cable Band Bag (Rav pattern link) by Jennifer Jones using the GORGEOUS merino/alpaca Pistachio and Chocolate handspun yarn from my Danish friend, Lykkefanten.



Clearly, they're all still WIPs, but ones with a greater chance at becoming FO's than the COMs from last year. :D

And all this while dealing with colds in our house that took all but one of us out for 2 weeks! ACK! Anyway, I hope you all have had a better and more productive month. But it's still been fun!

And as always...Happy Crafting! :D

Freeform CAL and other goodies

I haven't been able to post for a little while as real life happen to get in the way. But the good news is that my super busy month is OVER!!!!! I still have a lot on my plate left to do, but the really big stuff is out of the way! YAY!

I haven't yet finished my last surprise for NATCROMO (yes, I know it's over). It's mostly done...just needs assembling. As soon as I can figure out the best way to do that, I'll finish it and still dedicate it to NATCROMO, since that's what inspired it.

Speaking of NATCROMO, the month has ended and so has our freeform CAL. I think I've delayed on this one just because it was so much fun, I didn't want it to be over. But I finally finished it and here it is (pardon the lego in the background)......

Reminds me of some really colorful fish, that's been caught up in a colorful net and has some really big colorful barnacles hanging off of it! :D I'm trying to decide what to do with it now. I have a few ideas and as soon as I decide and do it, I'll post pics of the truly completed project. But this still can be taken off of my WIP list!

I've also completed a few blocks from Jan Eaton's 200 Crochet Blocks book. I'm just thinking of them as individual projects right now. If I think too much about turning them into an afghan, I'll probably never finish it (or at least not for a few years!). But that is my ultimate goal with them. Possibly even turning them into the largest afghan I've done yet and make it to fit my bed. We'll see. For now, just one block at a time.

I've just started another project as well, that I'm really excited about, but can't tell you a thing about it in case the person it's intended for reads this. You'll just have to wait until after they've received it, and then I'll spill the beans.

I'm also working on improving my CLF Patch. I'm going to be writing it up and submitting for possible publication in the first ever CLF Book. It didn't win the contest for an automatic entry in the book, but I got enough of a response from it that I figured I'd submit it anyway and see. I'm also going to submit at least one story as well. So here's hoping! It would be too cool to be published! And I have soooooo many other ideas running around in my head too! Can't wait till I can actually get time to try some of them out.

And for my knitting friends, I have picked up the pointy sticks again (and apparently didn't forget how to use them!). I just have to bind off on my oldest's Noro Silk Garden scarf. It's 1x1 ribbing, so I'm debating between binding off in pattern or this Tubular Bind-off thing I ran across on Ravelry. Any thoughts? And I think I've decided not to block it. I kind of like the denser look to the unblocked ribbing and I can always block it later if I decide. Besides, I seem to have issues with not getting around to blocking! :D Anyway, I hope to have updated pictures of it next time.


So much to craft, so little time! Happy Crafting!

Another Secret Revealed....

"Ah!" Mario sighed. "What a beautiful sight! The refreshing sound of the water as it falls into the fountain. The cool mist that lightly sprays me as I stand next to it. I could stand here all day and enjoy the beauty of this moment. I know! I will toss coins into this fountain and make many wishes to come back here again someday."

OK, clearly, I am not a great novelist! But this was still a lot of fun. This crocheted water fountain was inspired after being named the Chair of the Water Subcommittee for our NATCROMO (National Crochet Month, in case you didn't already know) Party on Ravelry. And yes, I've been working on it for a while.....but really only off and on so it didn't actually take me a month to finish, it just seems like it! :D Even the little "coins" are crocheted!

This was really my first foray into making it up as you go crocheting! And believe it or not, this was my first time doing spirals! I've done many more since then and now know the correct way to do them. But I think I didn't do to badly on this. I had originally wanted to put some kind of statue on top, you know the kind....they either spit or pee the water into the fountain. Unfortunately, I couldn't decide what to do, or how to do it properly, and I really wanted to get this done. So after a trip to a beautiful garden this weekend, I decided on just a plain "stone" conical pipe. I think it actually suits it quite well. In fact, I'm not sure that a statue would have been better suited for it. I may have to play with that idea more and try one later anyway. I just think it would be funny! :D

Oh and to update on the last post....I did not win the CLF Book Competition. Although I do thank those of you who voted for me! :D It was enough to convince me to submit the patch to the book anyway! So we'll have to all wait and see if I will actually make it in or not.

And here are updated pictures of the Freeform CAL....

The yellow "fin" looking thing was really fun. It was made of really impractical super tall stitches. I would never have thought of trying to make stitches so tall! I got up to 15 wraps before I ran out of room on the throat of the hook and decided to stop. The only thing I would have done differently would be to space them out farther. Someone else did that and it made a really beautiful graceful flowing "fin" rather than my rather angular "shark" like fin. (That was for you Mike! :D)

Anyway....Happy Crafting!

One Secret Revealed!

OK, now that I have officially entered it into the CLF Design Competition, I can now reveal one of the secret projects I've been working on. The competition is to design something, in crochet, that is related to the Crochet Liberation Front and somehow includes the logo in the design. Someone had mentioned something about a beret and that got me thinking about military insignia. So I had a couple of ideas (some of which I may do anyway for submission to this book or later ones or just for fun), but the one that really jumped out at me was a patch, like on the sleeve of a bomber jacket. So this is what I came up with.....

I had a few issues with it, as I mentioned in a previous post, I thought the deadline was March 1st, so I busted butt to get it done by then and then stacked my schedule with all the things I had to put off that last week of February for the weeks following March 1st. So when I had a few bumps, I didn't have time to re-do, even with the extra time. And the weather hasn't been on my side for getting photos, but I finally found a day that was relatively sunny and my dear sweet husband agreed to be my model (and loan me his jacket!). Overall I'm happy with the design, there are a few minor things I would change doing it again.....including maybe switching the black and white around. And definitely, set the red before using!!!!!! I should have known better, but for some reason I took the labels word for it being colorfast. UGH! Still I'm pleased.....wish me luck! And if you're on Ravelry and a member of the CLF, you can vote for me! :D

And of course, in honor of National Crochet Month, I've been a busy beaver working on projects. I finished another bath puff and started a matching back scrubber (sorry no pic of that yet). Filled an acrylic tumbler with ice water and continued working on the NATCROMO Freeform CAL and two other secret projects that I will hopefully be able to finish and reveal soon.

And if you are on Ravelry, definitely, stop by the NATCROMO party group! We're having lots of fun in there and we've even gone so far as to make it International Crochet Month! And if you've never tried freeform before (like me), check out the freeform CAL. It's a LOT of fun! And great even if you have done freeform before.

Happy NATCROMO! And Happy Crafting! :D

Happy National Crochet Month!

It's here! Yay! :D

Yikes! I forgot to post last week! OK, I didn't really forget, I just got so busy that I ran out of time. So here's a little bit of what I've been doing....

In honor of National Crochet Month (NATCROMO), I'm trying to do a project a day. Well, OK, maybe not finish a project every day, but at least have some crochet project going on every day that I can work on. So this week, I started and finished a bath puff in Lily's Sugar n' Cream Denim Twist.....

Started what was supposed to be my first thread bear, but the color reminds me more of flesh, so I may turn this into some kind of doll instead......

Made a "diet" Dark Chocolate Orange cupcake (for my Miniature Crochet Group CAL).....

And I'm still working on a few secret projects for our NATCROMO party on Ravelry. In fact, instead of just doing two projects for that, I'm up to three now. But since they are "secret", I can't show them to you until they are completed and revealed at the party!

Also, I finished my entry for the CLF design competition. I thought it had to be posted March 1st, so I was rushed to get it done in time. I only found out about it like 2 weeks before the 1st and it took me about a week to decide what I wanted to do. I finished the morning of March 1st, just needing to take photos, when I found out I had until the 15th to post them. Oh well! I stacked my schedule in a way that doesn't give me time to do it again (without colors bleeding slightly) before then, so I will go with what I've got. I'm happy with the design and hopefully that part will be seen over the slight bleed. Anyway, I can't even show you that yet, cause the weather has been icky for photo taking and this is one I want to be sure to get the photo just right on, so......you'll have to wait to see it too.

I have managed to sneak in a little fun (as if this isn't fun already) doing my first freeform project. It's a NATCROMO Freeform CAL. I'm having a blast with it, but really wondering what this is going to come out to be.....

This picture was taken after the 3 day of instructions. We get a new set everyday.....yes, I'm behind on the photos.

We are having our first big NATCROMO party day tomorrow. I would like to have at least one of my secret projects done by then, so I'll probably be up all night!

And to top it off....It snowed this week! That's right, snow! See....

So, this will be another super busy week! I'm supposed to have my pages for my son's yearbook completed before Spring Break on the 17th and I just got the stuff to do it this past Friday! Hopefully, I'll still have time to get in my crochet a day! :D

Happy National Crochet Month! And Happy Crafting!