Remix Friday: "Hook" Hook Case

I have a lot of respect for people who are bistitchual. Also referred to as multicraftual, which sometimes includes crafts outside of needle arts, bistitchual people are proficient in both knitting and crochet. My forays into knitting haven't gone so well, but I'm not giving up hope! It's especially motivating when I see awesome hybrid projects like today's featured Remix. Kristy's crocheted Hook Hook Case goes from simple utility to truly inspired with her special knitted addition. Take a look!

The Crocheter
My name is Kristy.  I have my BA in Textiles, and I teach different kinds of textile classes to both children and adults.  My main teaching focus right now is crochet (I teach 3 to 4 crochet classes a week - depending on the week).

The Original Pattern
Aluminum Crochet Hook Case by Priscilla Hewitt

The Story 
This hook case was for me, and it has been a real conversation starter.  The reason why I made it was that there was a challenge in one of the Ravelry challenge groups that I was in at the time.  I don't remember what the challenge was, I just remember what my inspiration was.  I was a member of a Disney team, so my tie in had to have something to do with Disney.  I was watching Jake and the Neverland Pirates while crocheting the case, and it was an episode about Captain Hook's hooks being stolen by an orange octopus.  Bingo!  I knew that I wanted to add an orange octopus to the case and call it Hook's hook case.  I love that I was able to combine both knitting and crochet together, and that I could control what the octopus looked like on the case (how I sewed the tentacles).

The Remix
I followed the pattern exactly.  The inside plastic canvas is brown, because the store was out of black at the time.  What I added to the pattern was a knitted orange octopus around the outside of it.  I also added a black snap button to keep it closed.

Crochet is... fast, easy, and fun.

Incredible. I have a soft spot for octopi because they are so intelligent and mysterious. Certainly sneaky enough to steal those hooks! What a beautiful bridge between knit and crochet. For more crafty goodness check out Kristy's blog, YouTube channel, Facebook group, and website. Thank you so much for showing and telling today, Kristy!

Yarn Review: Celestial Strings

Celestial Strings is a new indie yarn brand by dyer and shopkeeper Angela Moon. I recently had the opportunity to test out two of her yarns. Score! Since I love all things space, hence the name of my own brand and the appearance of my blog, I was all too excited for my yarn to arrive. It was worth the wait! I got two adorable little sample hanks, one worsted and one DK. I wish I had thought to take a picture of them in their cute little hank form, but I was apparently too focused on getting down to business. Here's what I did with them. Side note: This is my honest opinion and I am not being compensated in any way for writing this review.

The worsted weight yarn was so squishy and inviting that I immediately thought of making a hat with it. Here's my tiny hat swatch. I should have included a scale object. This little guy is only about as big as my hand. The yarn was really smooth to work with, no snags at all. The colorway is Cosmos. Love it! I have totally been wishing for a tweedy yarn that has tasteful built-in white star flecks (no, really!), so I totally adore it.

Here's a closeup to show more of the colors. I had a hard time capturing them. It's just gorgeous in person. I think I'll end up frogging this swatch and trying to make something useable out of the yarn because I really don't want it to go to waste.

Since I worked in the round for the worsted I decided to work in rows to test the DK. It worked up just as smoothly as the other. This colorway is Quasar. I like the worsted better but that's just because I'm a worsted or bulky weight kind of girl in general.

I turned my DK swatch into this sweet little bow. It is going to become either a hair clip or a pin, I haven't quite decided yet. And guess what? This isn't going to get sold in my Etsy store. I'm keeping this one for myself because I like this space yarn so much!

I have no complaints about this yarn and I intend to purchase some in the future. I may even design with it! Celestial Strings is certainly a brand to watch. As far as I can tell Angela is still setting up shop and ramping up, and I can't wait to see the awesome colorways she comes up with as time goes on. Thanks for the samples, Angela! I had a great time experimenting.

Little Crochet Crab

Here's a sweet little crab that I made following this pattern by Eden Dintsikos. Nautical stuff is always on my mind in spring and summer.

Woo, red sure shows up hot on my camera! I used Caron Simply Soft for this amigurumi, though I wouldn't really recommend using SS for toys. The shine is quite nice but it's a bit difficult to work with when you are trying to crochet tightly. This little crab is destined to live on my husband's desk at work along with his octopus and lobster.

Remix Friday: Amineko 2013 Temperature Cat

Hello, friends! Today is the day for the first ever Remix Friday! As I mentioned in this post, Remix Friday is a time to celebrate beyond-the-pattern projects by everyday crocheters. I am so excited to show you what talented crafters from all over the world have been up to. We're kicking things off in a big way with Karin's Amineko 2013 Temperature Cat. This project is super impressive and creative.

The Crocheter
I'm Karin, 33 years old and from the Netherlands. I'm a freelance programmer. I've been doing crafts all my life, when I was little it was one craft after another and back. My main hobby from 2005 onwards was scrap booking, which I still do too. There wasn't much in the way of fiber arts, I did do my share of making friendship bracelets when I was 14-15 but that was it on the fiber front until three years ago when I saw a book in a craft store ad about making amigurumi dogs. I went to town the next day to pick up the book and materials and got started. From there it kept going, I quickly found Ravelry and of course the Amineko pattern. I bought the book on Amazon and finished my first Amineko in February, about a month after I started crocheting. I made several more and a few months later made and gifted a couple modeled after my friend's cats. She liked them so much she also started crocheting and then ended up challenging me by making them smaller and smaller, using the original pattern but thinner yarn, up to the point where we made one with size 80 tatting cotton using a 0.6mm crochet hook. I also crocheted several shawls, cowls, a bag, and a big blanket that proudly lays on my bed every day. I also started knitting in 2012, and my Aminekos soon got company from a couple of Jacobus monkeys. Recently I've added weaving to the lineup of fiber arts. 

I mainly use acrylics and sport cotton, for budgetary reasons mostly. I crochet because I like doing it so I don't mind using cheaper materials, I find it a challenge to make something beautiful out of something cheap. Color wise I often lean torwards pink but mostly I like to find color combinations that really work.

The Original Pattern
Amineko Crocheted Cat by Nekoyama

The Story
I was chatting along in the Crochet Small Talkers group on Ravelry where I learned about the year in temperatures scarf idea. This 'pattern' by Kristen Cooper is a concept where you take a pattern with rows to make up a total of 365 rows where each row represents the temperature for a day in that year. I loved the idea, and then I thought I could take it a step further by altering the Amineko pattern. I wanted to do this for 2013 for a few reasons. First of all I'd had a few rough years before and I had the feeling this was going to be 'my year', when things would get better. A year worth remembering. Secondly, even though I'm not superstitious I often found myself avoiding the number 13. If I was on a project and I was about to call it a day but I found myself on row 13 I would continue and finish row 14 before stopping. I figured this would be the ultimate way of stopping that, doing a project all about 2013. As it turned out it was an interesting year temperature wise too, which was a nice bonus.

The Remix
For the Temperature Amineko I carefully looked at the differences between the original and bigger Amineko patterns from the book. Basically you'll see that for the big pattern the number of rows and stitches is multiplied by two. So for the head, for example, you'd normally start with 6 and increase by 6 for 8 rows giving you 48, now you increase for another 8 rows giving you 96 stitches at the widest point. I wanted to recalculate this pattern in such a way that you'd have 365 rows from the coloured part of the legs up to the tips of the ears. This meant multiplying the big pattern by about 2.4. This made the widest part of the head 228 stitches long! I picked 26 colours for the different temperatures from my sport cotton stash. I did a lot of the calculations and charts for which color to use for which rows in Excel (actually, libreoffice calc, which is like Excel).

Crochet is... de-stressing, challenging, cuddly

Wow, what a cat! All of the vibrant colors make it so special. I've heard of temperature projects before, but this is the first time I've seen it done as a stuffed animal. Neat! If you'd like to see more of Karin's ongoing craft adventures you can visit her blog. Thanks for sharing your cat with us, Karin!

My Patterns Are Trending!

I was browsing Craftsy a little while ago when I noticed something awesome. Two of my patterns are trending! My Sweet As Honey Baby Set is in the top 50 of all crochet patterns and my Nebula Cowl is in the top 20 of all cowl patterns. I found the baby set when I was just casually browsing. I became curious so I searched for "cowl" as well and that's how I found the other pattern.

Since there are 27,700 crochet patterns on Craftsy and 845 crochet cowl patterns, this puts the Sweet As Honey Set in the top .2% of all crochet patterns (yes, that's a decimal!) and the Nebula Cowl in the top 2.5% of all crochet cowl patterns. Of course, this is all subject to change, but wow! Talk about an uplifting tidbit. Thanks for helping me make my patterns such a success! I promise to keep unveiling fun, imaginative, high-quality patterns for everyone to enjoy.

Nautical Infinity Scarf

Good morning and Happy Monday! I don't know about you but I am super ready to start the week. I have lots of mini-goals and lots of drive to accomplish them. Speaking of accomplishments, I posted a new pattern today! The Nautical Infinity Scarf is now available on Ravelry and Craftsy. Take a look and tell me what you think. I think it's pretty darn adorable and a little French-inspired. It can be worn wrapped once or twice around.

Thanks go out to Katie for modeling for me :)

Friday Focus Retrospective

It's May. Did you know that the Friday Focus feature began last May? That's right, this month both the Friday Focus and my blog turn 1 year old. Time flies when you're having fun! In the past year I've had 44 amazing crochet designers and artists visit us on Illuminate Crochet. It's been really interesting collaborating with so many talented people. I am so thankful to each of them for taking time out of their busy lives to be a part of my feature. In order of appearance, here is a list of all of the Friday Focus designers who joined us this year as well as what they specialize in (though they often do much more).

Britni Husband - amigurumi
Rose Langlitz - food amigurumi
Carol Ventura - tapestry crochet
Tamara Kelly - accessories, home, baby
Heather Sonnenberg - baby, amigurumi
Joyce Lewis - afghan blocks
Dendennis - amigurumi
Stacey Trock - stuffed animals, baby
Jess Rollar - amigurumi
Elizabeth Ann White - doilies, home
Susan Lowman - home, accessories
Jade Red - accessories, clothing
Trish - clothing, amigurumi, accessories
Gabriele Meyer - hyperbolic art
Justine Gerns - microcrochet
Aeron Aanstoos - ocean amigurumi
Joy Koestner - amigurumi 
Ann D. Angelo - amigurumi
Renate Kirkpatrick - freeform crochet
Lucy Ravenscar - amigurumi
Aaron Matthew - hats
Sonja van der Wijk - amigurumi
Maja Masar - baby
Liz McQueen - hats
Kathy Clark - accessories, home, clothing
Lara Mouttham - nerdy hats and wristwarmers
Norma Lynn Hood - food amigurumi
Sarah Moss - accessories
Lee Mac - tapestry portraits 
Jen Atchison - accessories
Joyce Overheul - amigurumi, hats
Danielle Kassner - colorwork
Maggie Weldon - home, kids, baby
Jean Herman - amigurumi
Vendula Maderska - amigurumi, accessories, appliques 
Tammy Hildebrand - clothing, home, accessories
Maya Kuzman - accessories
Regina Rioux - home, accessories
Stace Clement - hats
Jenn Wolfe Kaiser - accessories 
Marken - baby, hats
Twinkie Chan - accessories, home, amigurumi 
Carol Wolf - clothing, accessories

Oh man, I am so excited about today's post! I've been keeping an exciting secret for a while and now I finally get to share it with you! I am going to be shaking things up on Illuminate Crochet this year. This month I am unveiling a new feature: Remix Friday!

Here's the story behind Remix Friday. I've had such a fun time interviewing designers. However, for every designer there are about a gazillion hobby crocheters out there who are making amazing things as well. I really want to take the time to appreciate all creative crochet folks, not just designers. Remix Fridays will showcase finished objects by everyday crocheters that go above and beyond the patterns with additions or complete revisions. You're going to love what I've lined up! I hope these Remixed objects will inspire you to make patterns your own and try new things. If you love the Friday Focus, don't worry! I'll still be featuring a designer on the last Friday of each month.

Great things are happening here on Illuminate Crochet. Thanks for reading!