Summertime and the thoughts turn to crochet? Maybe not for everyone, though for me, crocheting is a year round pursuit. This month, I’ve been finishing my red scarf goal and I’m on my twelfth scarf and the goal was 10. Before the end of the year, I hope to complete 5 infinity scarves and a few hats for a couple of groups and 28 more sets. Crocheting never gets boring because there is always something to do and watching YouTube videos or looking at patterns makes me thing of different things that I would like to create. There’s always another…

There is nothing like getting your hands a little messy. When Easter egg dye was on clearance, I bought a few packages and used some of the colors. Since I had purchased several kits, I put the similar colors together, wrapped in plastic so that they would stay dry. Three colors that I thought would be in the red/orange/purple family weren’t. The colors ended up being orange, yellow and blue. After adding the vinegar and water, there was no turning back. My lovely assistant, my mother, selected the order of the colors before the tablets were dissolved based on what…

More yarn has been purged from the working stash. After looking for space to put new yarn and wondering why I didn’t have any even though I have been using up a lot, I realized that there were some yarns that I didn’t like, weren’t going to use and felt no remorse adding them to the donation bag. One large container of yarn along with other yarn that I have abandoned have been added to the donation bag. A set of auxiliary hooks that I bought from Amazon and aren’t quite standard sizes have been added to the bag too.…

It’s ok to give up on a project. Some projects don’t work out. There’s some yarn that I have that was from a friend’s family that looked lovely. There were two colors of the yarn, both boucle: a cone of black and a royal purple. The purple I unwound from an unfinished project of that my friend never finished. The yarn is lovely, soft and fun, and I thought that would be an attractive yarn to use for a set. We fought. After finishing the hat and working up about six rows or so of the scarf, I threw in…

A year of hats and scarves – won’t that get boring? Not to me. Many people might find making the same thing over and over again repetitive. To keep the projects interesting, I have been using different yarns and patterns or trying the same pattern with different yarn. Lately I have been making coordinates instead of matching the hats and scarves with the same stitch pattern in both, I have been using the same yarn and changing the stitch pattern. The sets are made for warmth and may be the only warm item a person has, so I try to…

The new yarn that I ordered was tempting me. I went to bed early the night the box arrived and didn’t play with any of the new yarn but the next day however, that was a different story. I selected a new yarn that I was unfamiliar with and started a hat. Within roughly 75 minutes of uninterrupted crocheting from the starting magic loop to weaving in the ends, I had a finished hat. The pattern is simple top down basket weave with two rows of single crochet for the brim. First of all the yarn, Universal Yarn Classic Shades…

My mother asked me a couple of weeks ago if I wrote down any of my patterns. Sometimes, not really. “You should write them down to remember when you are using the same yarn.” I have thought about getting a nice notebook and writing information for myself, the closest I’ve come to is has been random notecards or scraps of paper/receipts. Some hats and scarves basic stitches but I do make some adjustments or have tips that I use for myself – such as using a larger sized hook when making the foundation chain for a horizontal scarf.  A recent…

Last year I decided that I wanted to use up a lot of my working stash, even before the pandemic. That worked well. Now in 2021 – all bets are off. I have taken advantage of sales and bought new yarn while still using some yarn that isn’t set aside for afghans. As much as I crochet and make hats one of my favorite patterns is the basket weave stitch or some variation that includes front and back post stitches. It doesn’t make a difference how many new patterns I try for hats: I like the look even in different…

2021 will be a great year for crocheting. For this year’s crochet goals I’m thinking 60 hat and scarf sets and 10 red scarves. This will still give me time to make some other things. At first I was thinking 50 sets. But since I finished a set, a hat for a second and have made good progress on the accompanying scarf and the first week of January hasn’t even ended, 60 sets and 10 red scarves is a manageable goal. This will also give me time to work on some other projects or use some oddballs to make hats.…