Teal Shell Set

I brought a bit of yarn on our christmas trip, with the intention to make myself a hat, to match my new coat, while there. That didn't really happen in a timely sort of way, but I got it done and was able to use it the last two days.

I bought a single skein of Red Heart Boutique Unforgettable in Dragonfly. The teal, blue, green and purple ombre colors matched my favorite teal converse, my teal hoodie and my new purple coat. I figured that would make this hat very versatile for my go-to winter wear. One note about this yarn though, it is pretty thin for a worsted weight, and is not plied, so it felts together really fast, making starting over and ripping out the yarn a pain in the butt.

The first hat I tried had intricate cables on the outside, but I thought they got lost in the color change.

The second was a more simple beanie hat, but the scale was off and it ended up being laughably small.

So after frogging this hat twice, I decided to go with the Shell Stitch hat pattern by Elise Engh of the blog Grow Creative which can be found here: http://www.growcreativeblog.com/2012/02/shell-stitch-crochet-hat-free-pattern.html. You might recognize the hat as I made it once before in gray for a friend. She gets a lot of compliments on it, so I figured it would be nice.

For the hat I used a 5.5mm hook, which is a little larger than recommended, but this yarn felts very quickly and the larger size helped it work up. I followed her pattern up to row 6, after which I added an increase row [(Inc, 4dc) around (72)] since the diameter was not yet to 7.5 inches as would fit a normal adult head. I then did another row of 72 dc around. Then I proceeded with rows 7-8 of her original pattern to create the area of shells.

I kind of wanted this to be more of a slouchy hat so I ended up doing 12 total rows of shells before starting on the brim. I switched to sc as instructed in row 13, for one row which turned out to have 78 sc around, not quite sure how that happened. To get it a little more snug, I did a decrease row [(dec, sc 4)] which took it down to 64 stitches around. Then did four more rows of sc around to widen up the brim a bit. Bound it off, and hid the ends and it was done. I'd say once I started this actual pattern it probably only took about 4 hours to make the hat.

I still had a little less than half the skein so I figured it would be enough to make a pair of gloves. Figured they should match so I adapted the shell pattern.

Teal ombré gloves: Used 5 mm hook
R1. Foundation single crochet 30 and slip stitch to first to form a circle, be sure it doesn’t twist.
R2-10. (9 rows) 30 single crochet around for cuff.
R11. chain 2, *skip 2, 5 dc in next, skip 2, dc in next*, repeat around forming shells separated by one dc, end with dc in last and slip stitch to first.
R12. chain 2, work 2dc in same space as chain, skip 2 and work dc in center dc of 5dc shell, *skip 2 and work 5dc in single dc from last round, skip 2 and work dc in center of 5dc shell*, repeat around, ending with 2dc in first chain space to complete the first shell.
R13. chain 2, *skip 2, work 5dc in next single dc from row before, skip 2, and work dc in center of 5dc shell*, repeat around, slip stitch into first.
R14-18. Repeat rows 12-13, until you have 7 rounds of shells completed from the cuff
R19. should be a row 12 repeat: where you chain 2, work 2dc in same space as chain. Follow round 12 around but chain three at the end instead of completing the shell. That will form the thumb hole.
R20-21. Repeat row 13, then 12 again to add two more rows of shells.
R22-23. Chain 1 and sc around, join to first with slip stitch.
Bind off.

Thumb hole: In order to make it more stable and obvious, I reattached my yarn to any spot on the thumb hole and worked 12 sc around the opening. It was a little tricky and I had to go through some of the chains, but work it around and join with a slip stitch to the first. I then did a second round of 12 sc around the opening, slip stitched to the first and bound off.

Hide all your ends. Done! These gloves took maybe two hours. The hat is also pretty comfy as a beanie with the brim folded up. This is now my go-to set of winter wear.

Difficulty for both is Easy.
Time to complete: Hat: 4 hours, Gloves: Two hours each

Triforce Gloves

Making things to custom fit people is a tough job, and it is harder still when they aren't super nearby for regular fittings. As such, these gloves were started in February 2015 and were just finished in December... but that's the way it goes sometimes.

My friend asked for a pair in dark green with a gold Triforce on the back of the left hand glove. Since I wanted to use Cascade Heritage yarn, I went to Jennings Street Yarns, as they had the color I wanted in stock! I also got a tiny skein of a "gold" color called Dandelion from Madtosh while I was in the area.

Back in February, I had him try some gray gloves I had made for another friend on and though they seemed a little long on him, they fit nicely in all other aspects. So I dropped two rows right by the wrist to make it fit a little nicer. On these I decided to go with regular half double crochet instead of the modified hdc from the original pattern I have been using to make these from. For the triforce detail I decided to do it as in line as color changes. I used this chart by Becca of Crocheting in Canada as a base, but then while I was working decided to modify it slightly.

It became a bit more complicated since I forgot that I also need to increase on two rows around the palm where the design is created, that made the stitches not quite line up. I tried to make it as centered as possible and I think it came out ok. I do think the triforce is a little on the large size, but then again these are also boy gloves.

I stopped at the thumb so he could try them on. Turned out they were too wide though the palm and cuff, but the length was good. He also liked the size of the triforce. Still meant that I needed to start over from scratch. This was sometime in March and I didn't want to finish them without a second fitting.

Still after so long, we remembered to have him try it on at the Halloween party and I was able to see that my changes meant that it fit great. I just had to add the fingers on for this left glove, which was no problem. Making the second one in all green, meant I didn't need to worry about the color changes, but it had been so long since doing the first it was hard to remember what I had done and get back into it. Thank goodness for Evernote and the foresight to write out what I was doing.

Finished gloves.

I took my time and got it done though. I have to say, I will probably never make the mistake of letting something go for this many months again. It feels great to have nothing on my list of unfinished projects.

they have a lot of stretch, so they fit me too!

I still have quite a bit of the green cascade left over, so I am of course contemplating making a hat or something to go with the gloves... perhaps in the way of an apology...

Time to complete a glove: if you do it in one go, perhaps 8 hours
Difficulty: this pattern is pretty simple to follow, but has a lot of details, Intermediate

Brown Phryne Mitts

Lately I have been concerned that I am amassing too much yarn. I'm sure this is a concern shared by crocheters and knitters alike. I try not to buy yarn until I have a project in mind for it. However, I have been given a lot by friends. And if something is on clearance sale at Joann and I want it, I usually pick up a few skeins.

Starting off small though, I have one skein of Kroy Sock yarn in Flax. Not sure how it got here or why there is only one skein, when most pairs of socks take two skeins, but I started looking around Ravelry for what I could do with what I had.

the finished mitt

There was a pattern for a pair of gloves that caught my eye. The pattern is called Phryne Purple Mitts by Vintage Crafts. Unfortunately the pattern is in French and no one else has made any. The blog post on it does have a chart, in Japanese (but it does help), and being an intelligent person I could kind of piece out what the pattern said, but uncertainty makes for wonky items.

Luckily I attended an excellent college, full of interesting people, who like languages! One of my acquaintances happens to be a bit of a linguist and does knit and crochet too. So, a huge Thank You goes out to Beth, who translated the pattern for me and then proceeded to test it as well.

Next time I would start with a foundation single crochet. You can see the thumb opening here.

The pattern calls for a 3.00mm hook, but after testing it, Beth recommended a larger hook. I know I have larger hands and so I went up to a 3.75mm hook for these mitts. The yarn has a bit of stretch and so does the pattern, so you might be able to go with a 3.5mm hook, but I liked them a little roomier.

Finished mitt and finger opening. Arm detail next. Obvious where the thumb opening is. (it's the wonky rows)

The pattern itself is a tiny bit confusing but once you get that it is a grid it makes more sense. The arm opening has these lovely little flowery shapes with picots.

Arm opening detail

The pdf pattern download from the blog does not have instructions for a thumb, but her pictures do. So once the main body of each mitt was made I just sort of made up and added a thumb around the opening left for it and then added a few shells on top to make it match the finger opening.

Finished mitts!

Comfy!

One final thought is that her mitts look shorter to me than mine, which makes me wonder if perhaps next time I couldn't use half double crochets to make it a little more compact and warm.
Anyway, the pattern used up just about all of the yarn perfectly, just like I hoped.
One less skein on the pile.

Time to complete: 6 hours
Difficulty: Easy +
Finished size: 10" long from hand to arm opening, a little less than 8 inches around un-stretched, but expands to fit over arm and hand nicely.

Blue Shell Gloves

With almost 125 yards of the Madeline Tosh DK Twist in Mandala left over from my Pineapple Shawl I knew I had enough to make something else. I looked around and found the pattern for Christmas Crochet Mitts by Adriana Veleda. Again this is a great free pattern found on Ravelry or on her blog.

I made a few small changes to how I made these starting with the beginning. I started these off with a foundation half double crochet. I like how finished it makes the starting edge of gloves. I was using a 4.25mm G hook for this project and with my yarn I do feel like these came out just a little too big on me. I probably could have made it smaller, but I liked the way it felt on. That could probably be remedied by using a smaller hook.

Done!

I did 5 rows of hdc after my foundation row and then started on the shell patterning. The technique for the shells is something I am very familiar with from the many fish hats I made back in 2012. I do like her idea of using multiple leftover colors, but I also love how these look and I feel like they will be perfect to wear on those days I use my shawl as a scarf.

They have a nice stretch to them and should fit just about anyone.

Difficulty: Easy
Time to complete: 2 hours for the pair.

Francois Gloves

The reason I've been making so many gloves lately is because a friend who is a boy asked for a pair of half-finger gloves for himself. This is pretty cool since normally all my commissions are for girls, or are from a girl for another girl/baby/child, or for me.

The Crazy Gloves and the Round 2 Gloves were trial runs on the pattern for these. After making the other pairs I was able to get a running set of sizes going so I could figure out how to make them fit a guy.

He asked for ones in gray and at my recent trip to Twisted Yarns, I found a very handsome Charcoal gray wool sock yarn by Cascade Yarns called Heritage.

Using the F hook last time on the brown striped ones did make a larger size, but it was laughably too small for a guys hands. With that in mind I added 6 stitches (1 inch) to the starting row cuff to make it a bit larger around in all ways. From there I also added more cuff rows, another several rows to the palm height, and one to the finger length.

Basically I was trying to scale up the pattern in all ways proportionally. It was a little slow going, but I had him trace his hand so I had something to compare my work to, that helped to make sure the pattern might fit. I only did half of one glove and had him try it on next I saw him, to make sure I didn't do too much cutting of the yarn before I knew if it would really fit or not.

Stopped here for a fitting.

The fitting was good and bad. Firstly the width was perfect and fit nicely around his hand, however the length was really short. The textured cuff sat above his wrist on his actual hand, and the thumb was too close to the wrist. Basically I needed to add several more palm rows, which meant taking it apart back down to the cuff. So yay for fittings!

Since I was back at the cuff I decided to add a few more rows to the cuff to make it thicker. Then I added several more rows to the palm. I could then redo the thumb in the same way, but adding yet another row on it for length. I stopped again to have him try it on again.

Redone for second fitting.

I finished the glove up and waited for a chance to try it again. We had dinner before a party and he tried it on again. Better, but still too short to his thumb. So once again I took the thumb off, added a few rows and put the thumb back on. After doing so much lengthening of the piece I could safely assume I would need at least 10 rows from the thumb to the knuckles. But I wanted to be sure I could move on so I waited again for a third fitting.

"Friendsgiving" rolled around and I brought the work with me. I had him keep trying it on after I completed each section of work. That was smart, we needed to add more palm rows, and my guesses on knuckle area was too large. Made the rest of the fingers up and actually completed one glove at the party so that I had a finished pattern to make the second from.

Glove number 1 done!

At home it took me working a little bit on it over two days, maybe 5 hours, to complete the second one.

Glove number 2!

With so much alteration to the pattern that I bought for these originally I feel like I am not really helping you out to make some for the men in your life, but at the same time I don't want to violate any wishes. Sorry about that.

I have to say that this yarn was really amazing. It it nice and soft and perfect for these gloves. They will look very handsome with black or gray winter wear. These do look a little weird flat like this so maybe I can get a picture of them in action sometime. :)

Difficulty: The gloves aren't a tough pattern, but altering it to fit properly was a pain. Intermediate.
Time to complete: about 15 hours for the first, 5 for the second.

Update: Picture obtained!

Autumn Diamonds Gloves

Found this pattern for Autumn Diamonds gloves when looking around Ravelry for half finger glove patterns. I filed it away for later use because the only drawback to crochet, is that it is not knit. There are just so many darn cool patterns for knit and some of the most intricate and coolest, I think, are Fair Isle patterns. So when I saw someone actually make something close in crochet, I HAD to try it out.

I got a coupon in the mail for yarn, went to Joann's, and found something suitable. It calls for a 3 weight yarn and I went with Patons Silk Bamboo in Sapphire, Stone and Ivory. These are 50g skeins and it should have been enough to do both gloves in the pattern as called for, but you in fact need more like 100g of the "base" color you want to use. It is slick and shiny and I thought it would feel lovely on. Obviously, I have chosen different colors than the pattern... One thing to note, the pattern calls for a 4mm hook, but I used a G marked 4.25mm**. That I thought would help keep my stitches looser to be able to work into.

Paton's Silk Bamboo

I had to slightly rework her chart colors to make sure I knew what I was doing. It was a pretty simple matter in Numbers (Mac excel) after I changed the grid size around. And it gave me an idea of how they might turn out looking. I decided to do the blue as the base and have the pattern in the ivory and stone.

This pattern, right off the bat, gave me a lot of trouble and I couldn't get two rows in without having to rip it out. The start is a chain and sc (she used the term "UK dc" which is the same as a US sc) into it like a lot of patterns. It is worked in the round as well. The knit look of these gloves comes from something called the Waistcoat Stitch.

Now perhaps it is the yarn I am using, but I could not find the spot on the post of the single crochets to work into. You have to work into the v of the post to make the waistcoat stitch. I watched several videos and studied all her pictures and just couldn't find it on my work. Perhaps I work too tightly too. Or my G hook has too big of a return and not a pointy enough head...

I started over the fourth time and decided to take a nod from my crazy gloves and start with a foundation row single crochet, rather than chaining and working into it. It certainly made my first row look much nicer and neater. When joining this foundation row you need to use your tail to close that first chained edge to get the circle nice and neat. After the foundation sc row, I did another row all the way around of sc, joining with a slip stitch and chaining one at the end. This way I had a clean row of sc to try to work the waistcoat stitch into.

This time it was a bit easier to see the v of the post, but it was still a gigantic pain to get the hook in, let alone pull up a loop. It was super slow going. I got through the first full design with little trouble, but switching colors every three stitches made the work even slower.

Still, I had no idea how tough it would be until I got into the rows of the diamond design. By the first rows of white I had a lot of trouble making sure I was switching colors on the right stitches. I printed out my sheet to try to make sure I was doing it right. It is tricky since only a few of the rows in the diamond pattern are repeating color change wise.

After I did the first full set of three white rows, I decided to simplify the pattern immensely.

I really like the scaled down version. It seems cleaner, and I love that the negative space of the blue looks like hearts. Obviously I am now worried that by removing so much of the secondary stone color that I will run out of blue yarn.

The fabric you create with this stitch is so thick and stiff, it is kind of amazing. there are virtually no holes or spaces as in most crochet fabrics. I was also worried that carrying the yarn along the inside would make it tough to put on and wear, but you change color so frequently that is it tightly controlled. And the places where you don't change color gets bound up inside the next row of stitches.

35 rows in on the left, right is what the inside looks like

At this point I had competed row 35 and now had to start working on the thumb gusset , while maintaining the pattern and switching into rows of stone color accents. For the thumb area, you are adding a stitch at the beginning and end of each row. This meant that at the full width of the thumb, I had 14+9+8 stitches of blue in a row. I decided then for those rows to cut the gray at the end of each row in order to have that thumb gusset as tangle free as possible.

Pattern wraps all the way around. :)

A single glove took me almost two months of working. I stopped and rested a lot since it is really tough on your hands if you don't have a sharp topped hook. And sometime it took a full minute to get the hook into the right place. I'm easily guessing 30 hours for one single glove.

At the time of posting this, I actually only have one glove made. I plan to make the second glove in the reverse accent colors, blue base but where there is stone(gray), use ivory(white) and vice versa. And I did run out of blue though making this single glove, so I will have to get another skein of the Sapphire to complete the pair.

Unfortunately, after all this work, the glove does not fit. Sure I managed to get it on, but it is like a contortioner's trick to fold my hand in on it self and pull it on over my thumb. This yarn and stitch has no stretch or give to it whatsoever. So I kind of have no motivation to make the second to match... unless I can find someone it fits on, who wants it, and is willing to pay for them.

Fits like a ... vice.

I have another set of three yarns, that I wanted to make a second set in as a gift. However, with such a tough pattern, I might not. But now that I have a grid to work from, I could make these with just about any design I could think of. Pretty cool.

If I ever sell these, they would totally fall at the more expensive end of the price spectrum.

Difficulty: Hard
Time to complete a pair: about 60 hours

**Note on G Hooks: Fun Fact: I found out while working on this pattern that old G hooks, like the ones I got from a garage sale, are 4.25mm, while new ones that you get in the store today are 4.00mm. So please do check your hook and just make sure you make both gloves with the same size. I can't find a reason for the size change, maybe manufacturers just wanted to keep it uniform in the size increases, but now you know. :)

Gloves: Round Two

So those Crazy Gloves are pretty cute, but they are also pretty tight.

With that in mind the next time I had a friend over, who is pretty petite, I asked her to try them on. She also found them to be very tight on. So I guess it isn't just me. She also asked for a pair of her own and having a few skeins of sock yarn on hand I was able to start on a pair the next day... with a few changes...

The yarn used is a Paton's Kroy sock yarn. It is self striping and is called "Brown Striped Ragg". Pretty sure it is discontinued since it was in clearance and is not on their website.

I decided to go with an even larger hook on the pattern than suggested. For a small/medium you used a D hook, large use an E hook... I used an F hook (3.75mm) for this new "extra-large." It has made the stitches a bit farther apart, but gives it some much needed stretch.

Finished gloves. Love the solid fingers.

There really is not a visible difference in the size between my crazy ones and these, but I can tell that the increased hook size made a big difference in how it fits. These gloves are still pretty annoying to take off, though. I hypothesize that the thinness of the yarn and the shortness of the fingers is the reason. But I had her try them on and they do indeed fit much better on her as well.

Perhaps the next next time I do these I will use a 2 weight yarn, as opposed to sock (a 1 weight) yarn, with the F hook to keep the gaps smaller.

Difficulty: Still pretty easy once mastering the two unique stitches.
Time to complete: 8 hours, cause I was lazy about it.

Crazy Gloves

Last post I mentioned I bought some colorful new yarn for a new project based on an inspiration piece... that inspiration is Coraline's crazy gloves!

Those tiny gloves were really hand knitted by the same lady who made her star sweater. O.O

Those bright, striped gloves have stuck with me, and yes you can buy more accurate versions on Etsy, but I wanted to test a fingerless glove pattern and thought I could make myself a pair at the same time.

The Koigu yarn I bought was really spot on color wise I thought (if a little brighter). Same tones of orange, yellow, green and gray. Yes, it would not make the same kinds of stripes, but I am already getting away from their actual look since my pattern has open fingers too. That's ok. Hence Inspiration Piece.

The Koigu yarn...

Scrapped: Arched Cuffs pattern... too small I think.

The pattern I first tested is Arched Cuffs Fingerless Mitts by Cascade Yarns, I found it just doing a google search and since it was free I thought I would give it a go. Unfortunately, their "average woman's hand" size did not look like it was going to fit once I got about 7 rows into the pattern. I tried slipping it on and even though I could get it past my knuckles and to sit on my wrist it was a very tight fit. So, worried that I would put hours in and not have a product that I could use I decided to stop and try another. Now that I look back perhaps it could have been ok with a larger hook size as it called for a D hook and in the next pattern I used and E hook.

So I decided to go back to the first pattern I found for half finger gloves by PlayingwithFiber on Etsy. This one has two sizes so I know I can make the larger size and be assured it will fit. It's probably what I should have done from the start...

About halfway through, no thumb yet...

I had a little trouble with the foundation double crochet as it was new to me, but quickly picked it up after watching the video she links to. I am not sure why you couldn't just do a chain and then double crochet into it, like you might with other patterns, but I do like the way it turned out because it looks very polished. It was nifty to learn something new. Her modified half double crochet was also pretty cool and not too hard to master. It is important to know that the modified half double is not the same on both sides. There is a textured side and a smooth side, so I simply made sure the smooth was on the inside of the glove.

Almost done. Second needed knuckles and four fingers.

Although the variegated yarn did not stripe like I hoped it might, I think they came out great and will look lovely with the yellow raincoat I ordered... Even if they are a tiny bit too tight on me. Perhaps at some point I will make more accurate versions if I can find solid colors that match the movie gloves.

Kind of reminds me of the cover of a VHS or Beta cd...

Time to complete: 5 hours (10 hours for the pair then)
Difficulty: Intermediate

BTW, my 50g skein was more than enough for these both, so much so that I made a new chain for my yarn cutter out of the same pattern as the bracelet for my mom, just shorter.

After that I had a small ball... too much to throw away for sure. Not enough for much of anything... but maybe... a Headband!! Couldn't get one made that I liked though, so maybe I'll just make a few more long chains like this and wear em in the summer.

Also, one final note: From here on out, updates will be Monday only. That gives me more time to work on projects between posts and lets me keep up a nice buffer time. That means I can get ambitious or work on longer projects!

Kitty Mittens!

It is finally starting to cool off in Texas. Where high 50s might be warm for many parts of the country, it is positively freezin' in the Lone Star State. I am one of those people who can never be warm in winter, even with the heater going! With fingers rapidly freezing into icicles as I type, some hand-warmers might be nice, I think to myself. Naturally they have to be fingerless, so as to not hinder my work, but long enough to cover about a third of my fingers, cover my palm and enough of my wrist to tuck into a sleeve.

Hunting around for free patterns I found this one here by Suzetta Williams. Didn't look like much, which made me think it would get the job done perfectly. This pattern whipped up in about 2 hours total! FAST! I only changed the pattern slightly since after the pattern's 16 rows I didn't think they would fit all the way around my hands. I have a feeling it is because I was using a smaller hook than recommended, so I increased the rows to 20. To finish, rather than simply sew the first and last row I slip stitched them together and then turned them inside out to keep the seam hidden inside.

I know that frillier/girlier people then me could easily add a trim or buttons or embellishments, but I liked them as they were. But then I remembered it was almost Halloween and regular hand-warmers are for the boring people of the world. SO, with two flat heart shapes and six little circles I created Kitty Mittens! Since the seam is already inside the long tails from the shaped used to sew them on will never be seen, either.

Simple, easy and fun. Meau! Just FYI: I used Red Heart in Grey Heather and I Love This Yarn in Rosy Cheeks. Now to find a ribbed hat pattern to match and make some ears.... OH and then I could make a scarf that looks like a tail! ...and then be looked at strangely forever more.

Stay Warm!