Button, button, who's got the button?

well actually I do.

This has been the latest craze of mine and a way to connect "throw" with "hook" although the buttons are not thrown, they are made of clay and fired  and glazed and fired again.  And then sometimes sewn onto crochet hats, cowls, or headbands.
There are more still in process. Lots more, I may never need to make them again!

Some will be for sale at the craft fair and at the pottery guild sale.

Still nearly a hundred to glaze and finish. I may have become over-enthusiastic here!

What are those crocheters doing now?  Pooling around with colour!

Whenever we crochet with a variegated yarn the pattern of the colours seems ( but clearly is not) random.

There seems to be no way to control where the colours stripe or pool.

But if there is a regularity to the colour sections it is possible to plan your crochet to get interesting effects.
I did NOT figure this out myself. I read a comment about colour pooling on a spinning FB group and googled it. Several blogs and a video tutorial by  Mikey of The Crochet Crowd and I had to give it a try.
 It took a few attempts to get the pattern going ....

 The beginning is upper right, there is a pattern but it is a bit off, and about 14 rows in, I missed a stitch and threw the whole thing off...or did I?  Actually I lucked into finding the correct number of stitches and from then on the argyle type pattern appeared.
But the start is not good so... I took it off.
This sounds awful but there are a few tutorials (google "remove crochet stitches")  and following 2 of them I managed. I have done the same thing before so I knew it was possible. This time  I saved both parts and am working on 2 scarves.
First one

It still needs a fringe and the pattern is not perfect, in fact each time your tension changes, the design morphs as well!  But I am OK with it as first try.

The second is just started

Now to see if I have any more variegated yarns to try!

Sooner or later you have to DO something with all those finished pieces.

A very busy half year, not doing crafts. Now however a craft sale in November looms. I have not done one of those in decades, more than 3 decades actually, so I am definitely out of practice. Worst part: pricing things!

New laptop. Am having trouble with the photo thing.

What on earth is a twiddle muff?

Well it is also called a sensory band, but that is such a dull name, probably thought up by a committee.
By any name it is a cylindrical band of crochet or knitting with different parts and bits sewn on. It is intended for Alzheimer's patients or others with dementia to hold and fidget or twiddle with.  I first saw one on a facebook group I follow.  Now I have made 11.

First batch. These were given to Hillcrest. They asked for more so ...

these they volunteered to pay for, but I will only charge what it cost me to make them.














And yes I know that does not add up to 11. I must have missed photoing the one I made first, for my mother.

Inspired, or nagged depending on your point of view, by a crochet mittens group on facebook; I have made a number of pairs of mittens this year. The first ones were, by request, for Rebecca: lined crochet mittens.

 These are "Unicorn" from the crochet mitten drive. Patons Canadians  100% superwash wool. (a goodwill find).

Handspun wool, pattern is a simplicity pattern from the '70s.










Then I got right into the program, although I did start a few and ripped them out this was my final result.

In more detail: Landscape

 Red Heard Comfort,white; and Lions one pound, taupe. These are quite warm due to the back and forth stitching which results in thick ridges between rows.
5mm hook

Same pattern and hook size, brown yarn was a bit thinner. but still a [4].








spike aka winter

These 2 pairs were done just the same except for the wrist. Shows the effect of different yarns!

then I moved on the patterns from books ( library):

I can't even remember the names of these two pairs.









And after all that when a pattern I wanted to see blocked me and asked me to sign in I just said  fergeduboutit and made two pairs without a pattern.

What I have learned is: there are at least 3 ways to make/attach thumbs, the hand can be made wrist up or fingers down, the ribbing can be made separately and attached or as an integral part of the hand, horizontally or vertically. Just making these changes alone, with a single stitch can give many different mitts..

This one is about throwing, or at least the results from throwing.
I have a long standing thing about dark deep blue. We had a "slops" glaze that was perfect, but eventually it ran out and then I was left with poor substitutes and trying to make a similar result. Not always very successfully.
Now I seem to have hit on a method that gives pretty good glaze. The plates are actually much deeper than the photo shows.

I have not yet decided whether to keep these plates or try to sell them at the Xmas sale.












This bowl and the lidded jars will be for sale.

The lower left front sold Saturday.

For the last few years I have been making a "Christmas special" a decoration for my short list of card recipients who deserve more than just a card.
In 2014 I found this design

in a book and made seven of them.  There is also a Christmas tree on the left side. I only took this photo then finished them and sent them off. Not keeping one for myself!

This year I found this sweater pattern online:

Everyone needs an ugly Christmas sweater!

I got caught up in the idea, floating around in some circles, that it might be fun to crochet a pair of socks. One of the blogs I read released a new pattern, they look nice, even possible, but 4£! for a pattern! I could buy socks for that much. Nice ones! I did try a while ago and made some using a free ( probably from a book) pattern and cheap thrift store yarn.

Actually they are pretty weird looking but they make acceptable bed-socks for cold winter nights.
After trying a couple of versions I realized that crocheting socks is a clear sign of not enough to do.
So I switched to mittens. Perhaps I can find a victim to give these to. May need to line them if they are going to be useful in our normal winters. This year so far we are having an el nino winter and it is very pleasant indeed.

Beehive Canadiana 100% superwash wool. a thrift store find.

Three different batches of hand spun wool, all from New Zealand, 35+ years ago .

I have been interested to see that the post I did talking about the virus shawl I crocheted has had more views than any other. I guess the term virus is valid for that pattern. No more of that though, just non infectious crochet.
I made another shawl, entirely my own pattern. Well a couple of ideas from things I saw online and stitches from a "stitch bible" but still no one else worked on the pattern in any way

 It is too late to hang the shawl on the outside dryer, as it is away for the season.

 This is made with about 100  gm of acrylic/mohair blend. Two colours each found at a different thrift store in a different city and year.


The spun yarn was starting to accumulate so I made something with that too. This is 170 gm,  handspun and plied New Zealand wool which I have kept all these years. It was drum carded about 35 years ago, and spun this fall. The wool has lived with me in 6 houses and has crossed the width of North America twice ( after being shipped to me from a sheep farm in New Zealand in the late 1970s).

.It is very warm to wear!

I thought I would try a "test crochet" so signed up with a group on Ravelry, found a project that did not look too bad and gave it a whirl. Well what I have discovered is, if I choose some project I don't like I can just quit and rip it out. But if I am doing it as a test I feel constrained to continue and complete the project. The tester receives a free pattern, makes whatever, takes and posts digital photos and everyone is happy. At least in theory.
I had gauge issues with my projects ( set of 4 items) and had to make 3 gauge test squares moving down from 8mm and [4] yarn,  to 7mm and [3] yarn,  before I actually got the test square down to the size specified. The original called for 9mm and [3] yarn. Then when I actually crocheted the items, they are too small. And the stitch is unnecessarily complex, imho!

First item finished. I want to do other things, a shawl, a blanket, spinning, cookies, pottery. But I need to finish the other 3 pieces. One of which I have done but will have to comlpetely rip out and redo with a larger hook. And maybe a changed number of stitches too.

I think maybe I won't do this again! I do not need the aggravation just for a free pattern when there are so many others online and I can probably do any of these things without a pattern anyway.

Mostly spinning...

the only craft, in my mind, which has background music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w24wMyy8cBI



Spun, plied and skeined. ready to wash

Most of this wool is still "in the grease" and the water runs very dirty!

Drying

and the first crochet item made recently from handspun, natural colour wool:

winter cowl.

Having succumbed to the virus...
Last week I heard for the first time about a shawl pattern with a controversial provenance.
It was a free pattern so as far as I can tell no one is losing money on this. There is a chart floating around and also a Ravelry  contributor is claiming it as her own. Others say it is very old and she just grabbed it. There are also totally unhelpful ( and copyrighted) videos where we watch someone crochet.
So to cause my tiny bit of trouble I decided to give it a try.
I used Bernat baby softee [3] and a 5mm hook. The chart is perfectly clear so away I went. And finished in just a few days. Except there was no border or edging on the chart and the only one I found online was boring, with just sc and the occasional picot. The shawl already has shells along the edge so there was no need to add shells. I researched possible borders then ended up using a simple one, modified from  the summer sprigs shawl (special picot) and added to my own base edge.

The Virus Shawl

Edge:
crochet to the end of third row of the four row repeat. Turn {each shell has 10 dc, wewill dc into the 1,4 7, and 10 dcof each shell as follows} ch2, dc in same st, * ch3 sk 2 dc, dc in next dc, special picot, sk 2 dc, dc in next dc,ch3, sk 2 dc, dc in next dc, sc in ch 4 sp. dc in first dc of next shell* repeat to end of row.
special picot: ch 4, sl st in 3rd ch from hook, ch1,

The picot is clearer while blocking but this is acrylic so the blocking relaxes after pins are removed.