Dolled up

Cute ... or bizarre?  Check out the latest yarn fad to go viral:

Cute cloche

A gift for my cousin Rosemary in Montreal, made to go with her gray coat and a pink-purple coat.
Very fast - sometimes I love crochet!  I'm really happy with the way this turned out.

Pattern:  Jeannette's Retro Cloche

Yarn:  Rowan Cocoon
merely inches left of the gray skein

blanket

When I visited my cousin this summer, she took me to her local yarn store and she loved the colors of this yarn.  So I bought it and asked her what kind of baby blanket she might like.  Turns out she had already gone through Ravelry and noted on one of her 'favorites' - "Mel, can you make this?  :)"

Indeed.  Though she had to pick a pattern with a lot of purl rows :)

Pattern:  Mountain Chickadee
Edging:  found in a book ("Crochet Edging," appropriately enough) I found at a Stitches East book signing
Yarn:  Casbah.  Used every inch!
 rimmed with a sea green sock yarn I found at Stitches Midwest

Shine bright

Last year I started going to a young survivor's group.  It is a wonderful group of thirty somethings who have all suffered through cancer.  We laugh, we cry, we get angry, we commiserate.  Cathartic and cleansing.

Their stories are inspiring.  One of the members, Ruth, founded a school in Haiti and had dedicated much of her life to improving literacy and education there.  

Doctors could never figure out the source of her cancer.  It kept coming back.  A month or so ago I knew she was not doing well, and I made her this blanket - just one of my simple crochet-edge fleece blankets.  I attached two strips of color to roughly symbolize the Haitian flag.  It was an interesting exercise in joining two fabrics.  I just whipstitched them together with a navy blue yarn, and the seam wasn't bulky at all.  It's very simple, but I liked it.  I also wanted to get something out to her quickly.

This weekend, she lost her battle to stay on this earth with her family.  

One image that lingers is a picture of a beach, and in the sand someone had written "Ruth - Shine Bright."  Rest in peace, Ruth.  You touched many lives and will not be forgotten.

blast from the past

one of my first projects.  unearthed at my brother's house - i made this for his son when he was born ... so that would have been summer of 2003.  this may have even happened before i took up knitting again.

yikes!

this was before i knew there was a concept of choosing colors so that they go with each other, rather than colors that i liked individually.  the red is really more of a dark red than the picture suggests.  which probably makes it even more unforgivable.

i do not remember making this blanket.  but i do remember picking out the yarn.  i think it may have been the first time i ventured into a real yarn store and picked real yarn.  i believe the blue heathery yarn might be an alpaca yarn.  too bad my skills/eye/taste did not live up to it, because by itself it really is quite lovely.

she showed me another blanket that i allegedly made.  i didn't take a picture because i really don't remember making it at all.  it's miles of white triple crochet with a couple of stripes of light blue.  it's made with about my level of skill back then.  i feel like i would remember working with that much white acrylic.   but maybe i have blocked it out.

Elving

Finished just in time for a certain little boy's stocking!

Pattern:  The Mean Red Bird

Yarn:  Cascade 220 (red), Simply soft acrylic (beige belly, orange beak, black eyebrows)

The Green Pig

Yarn:  Simply soft (green)

Edited to add:  Christmas day photo:

oh, the structures we can build!

best use of bobbles i've seen

... a crochet lego blanket!