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Wednesday, September 26, 2007

the week so far

On Saturday I spent my time crocheting to have the face/wash/dishcloths done in time for our dinner Saturday night, as they were a hostess gift for my mom's friend who was having all of us over. I managed to finish 4 in time.

I used worsted weight Bernat cotton from Wal-Mart and a 4.5mm crochet hook for all of them.

This Brick Wall dishcloth was inspired by the one in the Mason/Dixon book. The free pattern can be found here. I followed the pattern but added a row of single crochet around the outside to finish off the side edges nicely.

This one is called the Chain-8 cloth and the free pattern can be found here. I really enjoyed this one, and plan to make more for our house.

This is a closeup of the cloth. What is really cool is that you knit the cloth much wider, with these chains of 8 chains wide on every row (hence the name). Once you are done your height, you use your fingers or a crochet hook and link the chained areas up in exactly the same way you would hook up a dropped knit stitch. As a variation you can give the loops a twist first before linking them up. I did. It gives a nice raised line that would work well for scrubbing.

This is the Diamond cloth and the free pattern can be found here. Instead of working to 21 rows then doing a fancy border, I did only 17 rows then a row of single crochet around since I had to leave for the dinner.

This is the Sunshine cloth and the free pattern can be found here. If I knit this one again I would make one of 3 alterations: I would either do it all in orange or yellow, or I would do the last row before the border in the border color, or I would do it the same as I did it, but I would do the border through both loops not just the front one. Doing it as the pattern states leaves a clear "front" and "back" whereas any of the other ways would have it reversable.

We had a nice dinner to break the fast (not that I fasted) and Jakob was a big hit, being passed around from person to person and behaving wonderfully.

Sunday we had my friend's daughter's first birthday party, and again Jakob was scooped from my arms the moment we arrived, and only given back to me to feed him. My friend had moved to Toronto and the guests were all of our old high school friend and her family, so even though most of them were people I have known since I was 12, none of them had ever seen him before and it was great to show him off. Everyone was amazed at his smiling, bubbly personality, and especially how, when it was time for his nap, he fell asleep in my arms (even though I was sitting on the floor in the middle of a crowded room while everyone talked and laughed and the birthday girl opened her gifts and cried and screamed).

On our way home from the party we did an impromptu stop- I bought a Nintendo Wii! I was talking about it with Yannick and next thing I knew we were in front of the store...and it is mine! We didn't set it up because we had planned a date to go out and celebrate my birthday. My sister and her boyfriend came over to babysit Jakob and Yannick and I went for dinner and a movie. Dinner was great 'cus we got to watch football at the restaurant, and I had a really yummy steak sandwich. Then we saw Good Luck Chuck which was a very cute movie. Also very wrong...in a few ways LOL. Penguin pr0n. That's all I'm saying.

When we got home it was still early so we hooked up the Wii and played some Big Brain Academy with Laura and Mike.

Monday Yannick babysat while I went to have an old root canal worked on a bit (over a year later and the tooth still hurts), then I spent the afternoon both tidying up the house and playing on the Wii some more. When Yannick got home we challenged each other in the bowling and golf games that came with the system.

Tuesday I went into town to hang out at Robyn's house. I didn't get any knitting done, but we had a good walk and some lunch then watched Knocked Up together. I found it cute but hard to catch all the jokes with the kids playing, so I'd like to watch it again with Yannick once Jakob's asleep.

And finally today I took Jakob to the movies with Robyn, Sean and my aunt. We saw Across the Universe- the movie with all of the Beatles songs. I really enjoyed it, although it was REALLY trippy. Now we're at my mom's for supper then will be heading home later. I plan on putting Jakob to bed then knitting while I watch CSI:NY so hopefully I'll have some knitting progress to post by tomorrow.

Labels: crochet, dishcloths, FO

posted by Jennifer Lori @ 12:07 pm 2 comments

Friday, September 21, 2007

crochet? worms? boxes? I thought this was a knitting blog!

It is. But I'm tired, and taking a break from knitting 'cus I'm bored with repeating the same 4 rows over and over.

Today I took Jakob for his 4 month vaccinations. My big boy is 14 lbs 2 oz and 25" long! He was great and didn't really cry, but between the shots and his teething, he has been really needing extra cuddles today.

I went to Toys R Us on our way home to buy a gift for a friend's daughter's first birthday, which is coming up. While we were there I decided to buy Jakob a Gloworm. I like thinking that he'll enjoy toys that I used to play with, but I was really disappointed to see that they changed the design!

This is the GloWorm I remember. I'm also having vague recollections of a TV cartoon...or am I crazy? Oh- speaking of cartoons, anyone remember The Racoons? Did it air outside of Canada?
Anyways...this is the new GloWorm:

It's cute, but totally not the same thing. It does play a few different lullabies though, so I guess there is some improvement. I'm going to wait until Yannick is around to give it to Jakob and see what his reaction is. It's rated for ages newborn and up, so we're good.

When we got home there were more boxes waiting for us! I think there is only one more package to go, and then I can open up all my books. Woo hoo! :)
Tonight starts a holiday called Yom Kippur. It is the Jewish Day of Atonement. You're supposed to fast until sundown tomorrow, but I'm breastfeeding so I get out of it. I got out of it last year too 'cus I was pregnant. (If Jews had hell, I'd be SO going for saying I'm "getting out of it" LOL). We went to dinner at my mom's for the traditional "eat before the fast" meal, and tomorrow will be going to a friend of the family's for the "breaking of the fast" meal. As a hostess gift I'm making her a few crocheted dishcloths. (As many as I can do by tomorrow night). Here's my progress on the first one:

Finally, for Tara, I will tell you what yarn I used for the hat, but only once I remember to bring up the ball band so I can tell you. :)

Labels: crochet, WIP

posted by Jennifer Lori @ 8:14 pm 3 comments

Thursday, November 25, 2004

Le Cochon Est Finis!

(translation: the pig is done!)

I redid the eyes 'cus both Yannick and Annette (the CLSC nurse who comes by once a week to check how I'm changing Y's bandages) thought the original had psychotic eyes. Apparently an "evil" stuffed toy is not thought of to be the best choice of gift for a 14 year old. Apparently this will cause severe traumas including sleeplessness, delusions and a paranoia of all things porcine. Who knew?

As a last minute addition I was asked to incorporate the recipient's name. I made up a knitted scarf and spent this evening trying to duplicate stitch her name. Apparently I don't do duplicate stitch. I do, however, cross stitch. Voila:

I had to make the scarf tube-like so I could hide the back of the lettering, so this is what I did:
CO 80 sts
Row 1- k
Row 2- k
Row 3- k3, p to last 3 sts, k3
Row 4- k
Repeat rows 3 & 4 twice more
Row 9- k3, p to last 3 sts, k3
Row 10- k3, p to last 3 sts, k3
Row 11- k
Row 12- k
Rows 13-18- repeat rows 3 & 4 three times more
Row 19- k

Rows 9 through 12 gave me a garter border that matched the border of the first 2 rows, then a purl row to fold over, then repeated for the back. Once I finished the lettering I just stitched up the live sts to the CO row and added a fringe.

I hope Trish gives him a good home. Now I can knit! :]

Labels: crochet, Free Patterns

posted by Jennifer Lori @ 11:52 pm 2 comments

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