Mary Jane Slippers

Knitting may be the best choice for sock making, but crochet makes some darn cute slippers. There are many awesome slipper patterns available for purchase and for free on Ravelry and Craftsy. I decided to take a crack at a popular free slipper pattern by Lisa Gutierrez, her Mary Jane Slippers.

 

The best thing about this pattern is that it's really easy to customize it to your desired size. I used Martha Stewart Extra Soft Wool Blend and a 5mm hook to make my slippers. While they look good and are cozy for lounging and walking on carpet, I wouldn't recommend them for walking on hard floors. The stitches are just too big to be comfortable for that. The original pattern calls for Wool-Ease which may or may not be better to walk on. I may work up another version of these slippers with a much smaller hook and DK or even lace weight yarn to see if that makes them more comfortable for hard surfaces. In the meantime this is still an excellent pattern that the designer has so generously offered for free and I'm pleased with my FO. You can find these slippers on Etsy.

Viking Hat

I am very particular about taking commissions. I will only take commissions for things I have never done before. Although I take a lot of pride in my designs (and put a lot of love into them, too!), I don't derive enjoyment from working up the same project many times.

Recently my dear friend Maddie bought the sample set for the Sleepy Panda Baby Set for an upcoming baby shower. Hooray! That was awesome enough, and then she and her husband commissioned something different... a viking hat. I had seen all of the fun people were having with crochet viking hats on various social networks but hadn't yet made one myself. I accepted the commission and here's the finished product.

I used this pattern by MyntKat to make my hat. There are some free patterns out there but it's worth paying for a pattern when you can see that the design is closer to what you're looking for. Indeed, this pattern was quite comprehensive with multiple sizes and thorough directions.

Maddie's husband requested black horns on his hat. Since stuffing the horns with fiberfill would have shown through, I stuffed them with cheap black yarn instead. Okay... this is totally silly... do you want to know what was running through my head the whole time I was making this hat? This song.

:)

Friday Focus: Stace Clement

I don't care if Monday's blue, Tuesday's grey (and Wednesday too). Thursday -- I don't care about you! It's Friday I'm in love :) Yes my friends, another Friday is here! Do you have exciting plans for the weekend? I'm going to spend my weekend finishing this interesting novel and... crocheting!

Today's featured crocheter is a brand new designer with interesting, colorful patterns. Stace Clement's patterns caught my attention with their bold, chunky texture and nature themes. Nature is important to her. In fact, she works hard to make her designs 100% vegan. She's definitely a designer to watch. Let's take a little time to get to know Stace, aka Zonal, and her style. 

 Who taught you to crochet? How long have you been doing it?
When I worked at Michael's Arts & Crafts in Custom Picture Framing as a freshman at the University of Albany in upstate NY, it wasn't long before I bought one of their 'Teach Yourself to Crochet' booklets & was spending part of each paycheck on yarn.  This was in 1994--twenty years ago now (holy cannoli).  Ever since then I've been learning new techniques & crocheting for all my loved ones, through living in San Diego in southern CA for 4+ years & returning to NY two years ago to live here in Brooklyn.  Ravelry itself is relatively new to me; the first pattern I published there was a 'Sideways Heart <3 Hat' for Valentine's Day just last month!  Now within a month my 'Free Rainbow Cables Cuff Bracelet' has had 500+ unique downloads. This boggles my mind.

Why do you crochet?
Remember the line of that old song "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha Haaa!" when he says "And basket weavers who sit & smile & twiddle their thumbs & toes & they're coming to take me away, ha haaa!"?  A focus on productivity with a rhythm, such as basket weaving or crochet, helps some of us stay sane in this sometimes bonkers world of ours--particularly those of us who are math enthusiasts, because crochet involves a wonderful amount of math.  It has the added benefit of helping me keep loved ones warm through the Northeast US winters, & keep my Southwest friends cool in crochet bikinis. 

Crochet Favorites

Hooks: it's relatively exclusively Clover Takumi bamboo crochet hooks these days in sizes F, G, and H.

Yarns: when I learned about what really happens to animals involved in wool production, it was traumatic (don't look it up if you don't have a strong stomach); as a vegan for 5+ years & a vegetarian for about 22 years for my love of all animals, it's exclusively the cruelty-free fiber blends including acrylic, bamboo, cotton, hemp, linen, nylon, polyester, & rayon.

Books: the one I'd learned by far the most from was The Crochet Answer Book by Edie Eckman, which is small-ish & thick-ish to fit perfectly in any handbag or backpack.

 

What are you working on right now?

Next in the series of outdoor scenes I've been posting crochet patterns for--following 'Crescent Moon Treeline Hat', 'Mountain Sunset Hat', & 'Southwest Desert Sunset Hat', all of which feature color changes (a.k.a. tapestry crochet) with cables--will be an 'Ocean Beach Sunshine Halter Top' inspired by the Pacific Ocean beaches of the Southwest US, which I have completed most of the stitch chart for.  After that will be a 'Deep Forest with Black Bear Hat' inspired by New York, Vermont, & Maine (the stitch chart for the bear is complete), & something with a 'City Skyline' inspired by NYC where I currently live.  Outdoor scene suggestions are welcome, so if anyone has an idea, be in touch! 

 

A few finished objects...

Southwest Desert Sunset Crochet Hat: Inspired by my recent years living in the Southwest US in southern California with trips to Arizona, Texas, & Utah, this design is the most recently posted in my Ravelry series of outdoor scenes that feature color changes (tapestry crochet) with cables.  It contains several saguaro cacti at the request of a fellow Raveler, & a second fellow Raveler had suggested "Georgia O'Keeffe colors" for it in prior pattern comments so I've incorporated his suggestion as well, primarily into the unusual sky, with credits to them both in the notes.

 

 

Crescent Moon Treeline Hat: Away from cities, the sky is sometimes so clear that above the treetops you can see the dark side of the moon fairly well; memories of this, now that I'm in Brooklyn, inspired the Crescent Moon Treeline Hat.  It features tapestry crochet, cables, & a vertically ribbed bottom edge, & has been my best-selling pattern in my month on Ravelry.

 

 

Free Cable Cuff Rainbow Bracelet: It stunned me that this relatively simple cable weave/braid design I'd come up with had not yet been published online, & I'd done quite a bit of searching for it before uploading it to Ravelry as a free pattern to make sure I wasn't stepping on anyone's toes. With 500+ unique downloads just a month after joining Ravelry, it seems others love a rainbow colorway as much as I do!

 

 

Zzzonal.com is my crochet photo gallery site; in addition to a contact form, there are social media links at the top including a link to Ravelry where my crochet designs are.  If you have an idea for a crochet outdoor scene, or if there's a completed project on my site that you'd like to see a pattern for, contact me whenever's clever & I'll be in touch, usually within 24 hours.

I just love her Crescent Moon Treeline hat. Having lived in the Pacific Northwest for most of my life, that hat reminds me of home. Thanks for sharing your fun, new designs with us today Stace! I hope everyone has a super weekend. 

Kiss Me Bag

Oh, cotton yarn. So necessary and yet so hard on your hands. Some cotton blends or very high quality woven cotton yarns are nice and soft, but really durable cotton can do a number on your fingers. I had some extra cotton and wanted to find a project that wouldn't be tight and stiff. The Kiss Me Bag turned out to be just the thing. The finished product is not as awesome as I'd hoped, but the pattern was certainly enjoyable enough and used up my cotton skein. I turned my bag inside out because I prefer the other side of the shells.

What are your favorite ways to work with cotton?

My New Etsy Store

Aside from blogging, my main focus is crochet design. I love designing new patterns and bringing my ideas to life with my hooks. I get bored quickly if I have to make the same thing over and over again. Some folks truly enjoy making many items and building a business selling lots of hats, scarves, amigurumi, etc and I'm happy to leave all of that hard work to them :)

That said, I do end up with a lot of high quality finished objects leftover from both designing and from working up others' patterns to blog about. Thus I have opened an Etsy store. I'm not so much looking to make a huge profit as I am to recoup materials costs, re-home finished objects, and expand my brand.

I hope opening this store will help connect me to crochet admirers who would like to adopt my FOs. Etsy is pretty saturated with crochet items at this point so I'm going to have to be creative to get noticed. Since I'm new to Etsy I'd love any advice from those of you who are seasoned sellers. Stop by my Etsy store sometime and let me know what you think!

Experiment: Crocheting with Roving

Hello! Happy Friday my friends. Unfortunately, there won't be a Friday Focus today. Fortunately, there will be a funny story.

The other night I was antsy pantsy. I had been alternately working on a difficult design and doing chores all day so I wanted to have a little random fun. I dove into my Ravelry queue expecting to pick out a simple, fun project for my evening entertainment. For some reason, nothing appealed. I love all of the projects in my queue but that evening I didn't have the yarn for any of the things I felt like starting. After combing through my list about 5 times, I decided to let it go and get new inspiration. Staring into my yarn storage, I spied an unlikely candidate.

A while back at Fiber Fusion Northwest I had purchased some roving. Roving is fiber that has been processed and likely dyed but not spun into proper yarn yet. It is thick and soft. I had never crocheted with roving before and thought it might be a fun experiment. And so, with the pangs of unfulfilled creativity sharp in my hands, I plucked the roving out of the drawer, grabbed my special wooden crochet hook (of unknown size), and finally got to work.

Spoiler Alert: I had no idea what I was doing.

If you are looking for a tutorial on how to crochet with roving you are in the wrong place. If you are looking to be entertained by my attempt to crochet with roving for the first time, hello. Let me spin you a yarn. Er, I mean, not spin it.

I began with the notion that I would make a pretty headband. A few minutes of messing around with the roving told me that this was much too high an expectation and that I should be satisfied with a single crochet swatch. The lovely woman who sold me the roving said all I had to do was pull it apart and hook it. Easy peasy. Apparently I am horrible at pulling it apart. Here's a casualty of my fumble fingers.

A moment of silence for the wasted roving. So soft, so pretty. Okay, it was time to pull off big chunks, kindergarten style. That worked a bit better. Once I got used to it I noticed that the roving would come off evenly if I was gentle and pulled in one smooth motion. Crocheting with the roving was actually pretty easy. It slid nicely on my hook and was very forgiving given my inexperience. Before long I had a little chain going.

I probably should have looked up a tutorial on crocheting with roving before I set off on my adventure but hey, what can I say? I let my free spirit get the best of me. It went okay. My tension was all over the place. However, I am happy to say that adding more roving onto the end of a strand was a piece of cake. I simply overlapped the end of the old strand with the beginning of the new one and rolled them together between my fingers.

All in all I had fun. I think roving would make a great chunky hat or cowl. This roving swatch is destined to become a luxury cat toy for little Ranna :p Have you ever crocheted with roving? Tell us about it!

Flock of Birds at Caffe Zingaro

Spring is coming! It will be here tomorrow! Are you as excited as I am? Just in time for the change in season a flock of birds has landed at Caffe Zingaro, one of my favorite places to sit and crochet. The owner and baristas there are so fun and friendly.

Hmm, I wonder how that flock of birds could possible have gotten there? ;)

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd think they were a modified version of this free pattern by Lucy of Attic24. Welcome, birds. And welcome, spring!