A New Stitch for Crochet Month - Raspberry Stitch

So I have a new board on Pinterest called Stitches - it's a collection of stitch tutorials (which makes it different from the My Projects board and the To Do By Hand board, of course).  One I came across is called Raspberry Stitch.  The pin link goes here - a text only tutorial that was a bit confusing.  So I turned to YouTube and found this:

(She sounds Australian, so I appreciate very much that she's using US terminology!)

The video was helpful in understanding what the pattern meant by "single crochet around stitch" - it's a front-post single crochet.  The video varies a little from the written pattern - she uses a straight single crochet for row 3, while the written pattern flips whether you start with sc or fpsc.

And here's my attempt at the stitch using the written pattern:

This is just  a 10x10 swatch for practice - J hook, Caron Simply Soft in Orchid.  (Yes I've already unraveled this because this is one of the colors I'm knitting with right now.)  

If you look closely, you can see that this stitch really does look like a bunch of raspberries.  It creates really nice ridges and a very firm fabric.  I think it would be great for scrubby-type things!

Some tips if you try this stitch - if you want even edges, use an odd number of stitches.  That way you'll start and end each row with a sc.  With an even number of stitches (like I did), your even rows will start with sc and end with fpsc, and your odd rows starting with row 3 will start with fpsc and end with sc.  (Row 1 is all sc.)

One problem I ran into was an unintentional decrease.  I found that when I was starting the odd rows I was not working the fpsc correctly, and somehow ended up going from 10 stitches to 8 (until I pulled it out and started over).  You actually need to work the fpsc on the edge of the stitch from the previous row - I wish I'd taken a picture of this step, because it's difficult to describe in words.  But you can see on the left edge of the pic that the edge is a little rippled - you may be able to tell that I'm using quite a bit of pressure to hold it down.  You definitely want to block this stitch, because it really wanted to curl on me.  The ripple is where you can see that I was working the fpsc on the edge of the stitch.

March Is National Crochet Month!

Does anyone have any crochet projects to share?  I found this free pattern for a crochet necklace - I was in a conference call one day and made a test one (shhh, don't tell!) - it was in a yarn color I would NEVER wear around my neck, I just wanted to see how long it would take me to do the chain part.  But I'm planning a trip to Vegas this summer with some mommy friends, and I really want to make this for one of our nights out.  I do wish the pattern author had included instructions for the flower, but I'll figure something out for that.

Here's what it looks like on the original blog post:

I'm thinking about using black cotton, and making a colorful flower, using a large pretty bead instead of a button.

My Weeks In Stitches

In the last 2 weeks I've accomplished all 3 of my February goals!  Here's a look:

Fairy Sisters - This is row almost-18 for this month - goal was 10!  I think with stitching tonight I'll be able to reach 20 rows for February.

15-sided Biscornu - 2 more squares done.  I also outlined the remainder of the squares and started the next motif.  New goal - to finish-finish this by my birthday, April 14.

New start - a knitting bag.  This started as practicing with circular needles before I start making a sweater for myself.  Then I practiced changing thread colors.  And before I knew it, it grew into a striped pattern that I've decided with be a bag.  However, I decided it was a bag AFTER I started, so I'll have to go back and figure out how to close it from the first row.  The next picture will show why...

Notice that it's the same basketweave pattern as K's scarf, except that I decided to put in gussets on the side - it's 60 stitches in pattern, 1p, 18k, 1 p, 60 stitches in pattern, 1 p, 18k 1 p (160 total stitches).  No matter where I am in the pattern, the first and last stitches of the gussets are p, which is making nice definition.  I made this decision all by myself, and it's working! Yay me!

But because I didn't start the gussets in the first row, I feel like that has to be the bottom of the bag, which is why I'll have to go back and close it up.  Does anyone have any advice on an "afterthought" decrease in the round?  I'm tempted to switch to crochet so I don't have to feed my needle through so many stitches at once!

My First Knitting Finish!

I finished this Monday while K was home sick from school, so she got to try it on right away.  She hasn't yet had a reason to wear it outside, since she's been home with an ear infection all week.  But the bonus was that she was handy for checking the length and photographing. :)

She tied it herself.  I was going to something with her purple coat and hat and gloves - because she really does love this color. (Rebekah - you 2 would get along so great! LOL)

This is a little bit closer look at the overall basket-weave pattern.  And also me playing with the text/watermark options in Picasa.

I really enjoy the light weight fabric this created.  Crocheting was faster for me for these kinds of scarves, but the finished product would have been more bulky.

So here's to a FINISH in February!

My Week In Stitches

So now the problem isn't the stitching, it's remembering to take pictures and then POST! LOL

This past week my little one came down with what we thought was a mild cold - it's turned into a "nasty ear infection" (quote from the medical professional she saw yesterday).  So she has antibiotics, and we're still giving her pain reliever and decongestant as she needs it.  I hate it when she's sick, but I love that I'm the one she wants to cuddle with. :)

On to stitching:

Fairy Sisters - I only accomplished 2 more rows this week, which brings me to 8 for the month (again, these rows right now are the width of the page - somewhere in the 65 st. region).  And I only have 2 rows left to meet my goal for the month. (And apparently I have to clean my camera, sorry for the weird spot.)

15-sided Biscornu - I can't remember now why I put these "opposites" not-next-to-each-other.  I must have had a reason.  Maybe I felt I was being too predictable...Anyway, this motif is done.  As a reward, I back-stitched another empty square so I could start the next one right away.

Where's the purple scarf?  Well, it's no longer a WIP, and thus deserves it's very own FINISH post!  Watch for that one coming up!

My Week In Stitches

It feels so good to be back to a normal stitching schedule again!!  I'm making serious goal progress, as you'll see:

Tuesday, Friday - Fairy Sisters.  6 rows in, out of my month's goal of 10!  14 rows left to the top of the moon-shadow.

Wednesday - 15-sided biscornu.  This is about halfway through the 7th motif, so I guess this is the true halfway point of the stitching process.

Thursday, Saturday & Sunday - purple basket weave scarf.  It's at 24 inches right now.  Since I'm making it for the still-under-4-foot child, I'm somewhere past 50%.

I hope you all had a great weekend!

February is Heart Disease Awareness Month

I know I've talked about this in the past - my family has a history of heart disease, my grandfather has had 2 bypass surgeries, my grandmother has a pacemaker.  But the importance of heart health has been reinforced to me during this past week.

One of my high school teachers died of a heart attack on Thursday.  He was not only a teacher, he was an advisor to my graduating class.  I don't know if other schools have advisors, we were a very small Christian school and didn't have a "guidance counselor."  Honestly, any of our teachers were available for guidance for whatever we needed.  But our advisors were the ones who went through all four years of high school with us.  They supervised class elections and meetings and chaperoned our senior trip.

They knew us better than anyone.  As a graduation gift, they gave each of us a paperweight engraved with a character trait they felt each student embodied.  Here's mine:

The trait engraved there is "Boldness."  I'm not certain anyone else would have described me as "bold."  I was smart and shy, and often came across as stuck-up.  I never felt bold - I was always unsure of myself.  Especially as I neared graduation and I felt the pressure to know what I was going to do with the rest of my life!  But Mr. S. (and Mrs. S. and Mr. M.) saw something in me.  The Bible verse inscribed below the trait reads, "When I called, you answered me; you greatly emboldened me." (Psalm 138:3, NIV)  They saw beyond my uncertainty, to a person of faith who was never afraid to ask her Father for what she needs.

I know, I never write like this.  I try to keep my blog happy and light and kind of neutral.  I hope you don't mind this deeper glimpse into who I am.  As my classmates and I are reminiscing on Facebook about Mr. S., most are remembering his sense of humor.  (He gave wet willies to almost every student in my school, although I'm pretty sure I avoided getting one.)  But I will never forget his ability to go from cracking jokes to speaking spiritual truths that he hoped would stick with us.  Don't worry, Mr. S. - they did.

So in honor of Mr. S. and all those who have lost the battle to heart disease (which kills more people than cancer every year), will you consider giving to the American Heart Association?  If you are outside the US, please give to the local chapter of your country's equivalent - I suddenly realized I don't know if there is a Canadian or British equivalent, and I don't want to give the wrong links here.  (I am not being compensated in any way for any donations made through this link.)

Cooking Ahead

When things got crazy-busy a few months ago, I discovered I was having trouble getting dinner on the table at a reasonable time.  Or, we were having the same easy-to-make things over and over again! So my hubby decided to try to make things a little easier by taking over the meal planning.  A friend told us about a computer program that makes it easy to plan a month's worth of meals in advance - and they're freezer-friendly.  It's called 30 Meals in One Day.  We've never come close to accomplishing 30 meals.  To be honest, in the 3 months we've been doing this, I think our record is 8 meals in one day!  For us, it translates into about a week of intensive cooking and cleaning, and 3 weeks off.

So what is great about this is my husband is doing most of the dinner cooking - I just have to remember to pull something out of the freezer the night before to re-heat!  And yes, that can be a challenge for me, so I've gotten very good at chopping frozen things up and reheating in a saucepan.

It's a little bit frightening to trust that the meals you're making over the course of one week will last an entire month.  But it always does, and we have cut our grocery bill in half by cooking this way.

So why am I telling you all this?  Well, because looking for yummy freezer-friendly food is a new obsession of mine.  (Yes, Pinterest is good for this, too!)  I will occasionally share some of my new favs, because we all get tired of having the same thing every night!

Besides lasagna, what's one thing you've tried (successfully or not) to make ahead, freeze and reheat?

This is a Great Idea

and it's pretty, too!  Organizing embroidery floss on clothes pins - because the plastic bobbins are really expensive, and the cardboard ones don't always hold up.  If you don't wrap it super tight, you could still open and close the pins enough to clip them someplace - maybe if you use a clipboard to hold your patterns?

I really love how this looks, so colorful!  The blogger said she did this for her daughter who makes friendship bracelets - and the clothes pins make perfect sense for that too.  Click the link to go to the original blog post.  (And yes, I found this on Pinterest - pinned it to my "Wish I'd Thought Of It" board.)

New Interest - Knitting!

I resisted the urge to learn to knit for a while.  There were a lot of reasons: I already had enough WIPs without learning a new thing to start, I like the one-handedness of crochet (2 needles seemed like it would be more complicated), I kind of liked being on the "outside" of yarn arts....

But the downside of being on the "outside" of yarn arts is that most of the patterns that catch my eye are for knitting, not crochet!  And I really like the feeling of knitted fabric - it's not quite as bulky as crochet.  You may remember a couple of years ago I learned afgan stitch, which produces a knit-like fabric.  But it takes FORever to crochet.

So a couple of weeks ago I was waiting for a prescription at Walmart, and I didn't quite have an hour's worth of shopping to do - you know how it is.  So I wandered into the yarn aisle.  I'm fortunate that my Walmart still carries fabric, yarn and beads.  So instead of buying yarn, I bought knitting needles and a book.

In my efforts to learn how to do knit and purl, I found this pattern for a basketweave scarf.  Knit 3, purl 3 - I think I have the hang of it now!

I'd knitted up a swatch of it for practice, and K saw the Simply Soft in Grape (purple is her favorite color) and begged if she could have it when it was done.  So now I have to finish it!  I'll try to find my upstairs tape measure and use it in the progress pics.