January One -- Larger Than Life Bag

May 24, 2007

Mucho JUJU!

My peeps! I totally felt the JUJU slinging it's way at me through the universe. I may have been hit in the face a couple of times, but that's okay! The intentions were all good. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

Don't you hate it when bloggers start asking for good wishes and all that and then tell you they have a big big secret that they can't reveal until all is aligned with the stars but trust them it's really good and exciting and life changing and blah blah blah? Yeah. Me too. But fortunately or unfortunately that's where I'm at. I don't want to talk about it. Or I do, kind of, but I can't. It's weird for me to have a secret because I'm not so good with the secrets when they pertain to me - I'll tell my life story to a stray cat in the back alley behind the supermarket. Poor cat. All he wants is some scraps but instead he gets me blabbing my life away. But it's also kind of nice to have this for myself. For a little while at least.

Now I know you all want to speculate and all that and that's good because I would too. Please, though. Don't ask me because I ain't gonna tell you! ;-)

I made it through yesterday and am looking forward to the next time I need to ask you for some juju. I'll be a bit crazy for awhile, but that's okay. I'm dealing with the crazies the best way I know how. With fiber arts!

Some more middles and some more 2nd color rounds of the crochet. I could have a finished pair of socks already if it wasn't for this hooking stuff. And then, yesterday, while out and about, I stopped in to Acryl-O-Mart and found yet another fantastic color of Red Heart. Damn! This could throw the whole square sequence out the window. Good thing I have enough of this yarn to...to.... I don't know. What do you do with a million yards of leftover acrylic?

I know EXACTLY what you do with a million yards of acrylic. But I'm not telling you until tomorrow.

MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

PS - Since I don't want anyone's head to explode, I can tell you unequivocally I am NOT pregnant and I am NOT writing a book. Doesn't that make you all feel better?

Posted by Cara at 10:50 AM | Comments (55)

May 23, 2007

Larger Than Life

Yesterday was all about crochet.

I'm still not sure about it. I haven't fallen in love or anything like that. Maybe it's the yarn. (Although I still love the colors.) Or maybe it's just crochet. Or maybe it's the fact that I haven't been doing it for so long, but I don't think so. Because when I started knitting it was all I could do to stop. I wanted to knit forever. I don't feel that way with crochet. Like last night. I wasn't ready to stop, but I wasn't ready to do a whole square. So I did some middles.

So far I've done a middle in every color I have - nine colors. Well, all except for the chocolate brown which is going to be the border and bottom and gusset of the bag. When I was done with the middles (which is actually the first two rounds of the square) I checked which colors I hadn't used for the next color change (the next three rounds) and I matched up middles to colors.

I'm going to knit CROCHET (duh! Thanks Tonya!) the next three rounds and then figure out the outside colors. That gives me nine squares. Three left to play with however I please. I see a lot of the blue in my future. I may also decide to throw out some squares and choose some others. I'm happy to be making this bag and I'm happy to be learning a new skill, but really, I'm a knitter. There's no two ways about it.

Can I ask you guys a favor? I've got some stuff going on today - not bad stuff - potentially very good stuff - but it's making me a bit crazy and I'm not ready to talk about it but I could use some good vibes. Everyone knows that knitter/spinner/crocheter/fiber juju is the best. So maybe you can sling some in my direction? THANK YOU!

And, as always, thank you for reading my blog. Your presence is greatly appreciated.
L, C

Posted by Cara at 11:06 AM | Comments (108)

May 21, 2007

LA...I AM YOUR FATHER!

La has dubbed me Darth Cara and truth be told, I LOVE IT! Not so much the crochet, but the moniker! I LOVE DARTH! Sometimes I walk around humming his theme music because it's just so...so...COOL. La said I had completely gone over to the dark side because you know, it's not enough with the crochet or the acrylic, but it's got to be RED HEART. La, my friend, when have you EVER known me to go half-assed on ANYTHING? It's all or nothing BAYBEE!

So the crochet continues. I like it. It's okay. I will not be making the Babette any time soon, though, I promise. I'd still rather knit than anything. I just can't get into a rhythm like I can with the knit and that's one of the things I LOVE about the craft. But it's good. Still. So far my pattern has been to use the last color on one square for the first color on the next square. We'll see how that holds up. I'm not sure about the colors I chose for this one:

I'm not sure there's enough of a difference between the purple and red. Or maybe too much difference between the green and red. I reserve the right to change this one. But I like this one fine!

I've got the first two rounds of green done on the next one. I just have to choose the next colors. I think I need to plan this better, but I'm only sort of into it.

Decidedly NOT an obsession.

Something that is an obsession? Monkey socks! I actually cleaned up a little bit this weekend - I made a dent, let's say. Enough of a dent that I pulled together all the random yarn lying around the house and actually got out the vacuum and all the attachments. I've written before about how much I love the attachments on my vacuum. Welp, I was at it again! It's always a bonanza to clean the sofas - I never find change, but I always find stitch markers! Anyway, while I was gathering up all the yarn, I ended up digging through my STR stash looking for the next monkey. I came up with this yarn, which I've always loved, and never used.

STR Crazy Lace Agate

Even though I've only just finished the heel flap on my lastest monkey sock, I started a new one.

Only one problem: I think it's much better suited for a jaywalker than a monkey, so I'm ripping it. I think the colorway will knit up very similarly to this carbon jaywalker and that's works for me just fine. I think the monkey socks look better with lots of colors all jumbled together. The blues in this one are too much of a break for me. So back to the stash! (You may ask why don't I knit a jaywalker then? It's not the right time for that. Soon maybe, but the pattern's not going anywhere and the yarn's not going anywhere so it can sit.)

Work has exploded a bit around here so the knits might not be as fast and furious as they have been lately. The socks are great for times like these - I can knit without thinking and have something wonderful to show for it in a relatively short period of time. The Monkey period has begun. I can feel it.

Posted by Cara at 12:53 PM | Comments (36)

May 16, 2007

Nothing says Granny Square...

like 100% ACRYLIC!

About ten minutes after I posted my granny square yesterday, I ran out to my local craft store to pick up a new crochet hook. I also wanted different yarn. I'm sorry, maybe I'm prejudiced, but I can't see using my glorious STR for a crochet tote bag. Just can't do it! To me, crochet just SCREAMS Red Heart. Lucky for me, I found some GREAT colors. Colors, actually, that mimic very closely the STR I have in my stash that I would have used for the bag.

There's actually another purple - darker than the one shown - but I can't find it. It's either in my car, or I dropped it on the way to the checkout. I'll have to go back and get it because I need the darker purple. Anyway, I came home and made another square.

I managed to do it all myself! I was able to follow the directions in the magazine fairly easily and Laura's crochet tutorial was very helpful again, but I did it! I definitely had a rhythm going there. I'm keeping good tension with my left hand, which astonishes me because anytime I try to knit that way it's a disaster. But, I guess, I don't have anything in my left hand other than the yarn.

The yarn is great! It's soft and I love the colors! It's also incredibly splitty and fuzzy and who are we kidding: It's freaking acrylic. But still, I'm pretty happy with the square. And I have enough yarn to fuck up many times over and change colors if I like and it was cheap. Cheapity cheap cheap! My plan is to do the sides and border in the chocolate brown. It'll be a very fall bag and it will also be machine washable and if it gets messed up or dirty or god forbid I lose it or it rips it's okay because I didn't spend a million dollars on the yarn. Bags are meant to be used, in my opinion. And I'm not going to feel bad about using this one.

Wait. I didn't tell you? I'm making the Larger Than Life Bag from the Spring 2007 Interweave Crochet. I guess I've committed. It's got it's own category now. I can't believe I'm doing this. Here's a shot of the two squares together - clearly the yarn is nicer in my first square, but I think my crochet is getting better in the second! I'm using a 5.0mm hook with the new yarn and I think it's working out well. All you hookers out there - what do you think? I have NOTHING to base this on. Nothing at all. I'm flying blind.

No post tomorrow - I'm off to my sister's again. Tonight is the dress rehearsal for my niece's ballet recital. You can only take pictures at the recital so my skillz are in demand. Here's what she looked like Saturday at the run through for the town at their anniversary festival:

How freaking cute is she? I would be over the moon thrilled if I didn't have the song for her number running through my head 24/7. "Put a little color on you! Red, green, yellow and Blue! What a great way, to brighten your day! Put a little color on YOOOOOOOU!" It's insidious. Did I ever tell you? My lifelong dream/fantasy - to this day - is to be a ballerina. Here is my absolute FAVORITE picture of me - I was probably around five or six - there's no date on the picture.

I'm bringing it with me to show my niece. In case you can't tell, I'm the first full body on the left. The one with the arm crossing in front of me. God I love that picture!

Have a great week! Not sure if I'll be here Friday either - depends on if I'm babysitting or not. I promise, there will be knitting when you next hear from me. Thanks for reading!
L, C

Posted by Cara at 11:00 AM | Comments (84)