Valerean

This brand-new stuffed dog that I thrifted had Valentine's Day tags on it and smelled of chocolate (a nice change from the usual thrift-store smell.) From Dollar Tree I bought two skeins of chenille yarn in orange and green to make a little pumpkin costume for him. I didn't follow a pattern but made up my own, fitting the pieces to the toy as I worked. I also stuffed the pumpkin body with a little fiberfill to plump it out. The pumpkin puppy turned out better than I expected. Again the pieces are removable, so he doesn't have to be a pumpkin forever. I'm quite pleased.

Real time Valerean here. I'm almost fully recovered from the flu, with just a bit of residual congestion and a lot of weariness from lack of sleep. I'm also back to work at the day job after losing 2/3 of my vacation to illness. At the moment I'm finishing work on this crochet throw I started while I was sick. I did not really start my summer art quilt; the flu + stiff fingers derailed that project just as I was beginning it. I shifted to crochet because it's mindless and I needed to do something while I was recovering. Some of my favorite projects are those that I've done when I've been ill. I have a beautiful but slightly wonky tote that I stitched while I was waiting for cataract surgery. I love that silly bag so much; working on it helped me get through a terrible time in my life. Now every time I look at this throw I'll think about my summer vacation with the flu. Not giving into sickness but creating in spite of it is one of the ha...

Being sick with the flu really limits my ability to work on projects; the most I can manage at the moment is a bit of crochet. So I started a new throw in the free Ocean Tranquility pattern from Anastacia Zittel, which is just interesting enough to keep me engaged without having to overthink everything or deal with complicated stitch counts. It works up really pretty, and I'm making it in random blocks of thrifted yarn in colors that appeal to me. I pulled these from my stash this morning, although I may change my mind on the off-white. Stay tuned to the blog see how it turns out.

While out wandering last Saturday my guy and I visited Mossy Oaks Antique Mall in Belleview, Florida. It's a bit north of where we usually drive, but we wanted to see the place. The lovely goods there had such excellent prices I found all the autumn decor I've been searching for, plus extra goodies for my impending two-week vacation. I got a large pack of old magazine pages, which I'll use for a junk journal I'm planning to make. That also included two vintage full-color Christmas illustrations of Santa at home with the missus and the elves. This green and white vintage tablecloth was in near-mint condition with no rips or stains. I found three newly crafted fabric pumpkins and some autumn novelty fabric yardage to add to my fall decor, and a little fox planter that I think I'll use as a yarn bowl. This cardboard train case isn't really vintage, but it looks like it is. The inside is the right size to store buttons and threads f...

I love old sewing thread. I collect wooden and paper spools with old darning silks on them. I also have a couple hundred spools of vintage threads that came in old sewing boxes, bags of thrifted notions and auction lots. Most are still in good shape, but I rarely use them for anything except basting here and there. For quilting and textile art I prefer Gütermann thread, which I think is the best quality on the market. I have Gütermann in basically all colors. When I saw this video by Maeli Designs about turning sewing thread into yarn I simply had to try it, and pulled twelve spools of my vintage threads in different shades of blue. I did the technique from the video by hand because I don't own a yarn winder, and it works just like the video said. I then crocheted this little disk with a 4mm hook. The gathered threads are not like yarn, so they're hard to hold together. It's easy to turn the threads into a bunched mess with a slip of the hook (and I shou...

Back in April I had a lot of fun working on my fourth crocheted throw of the year, but I ran into a snag: I didn't have enough of the Lion Brand Mandala orange/white/teal yarn to make a complete throw. I decided at first to use a one-pound Caron skein in a pretty light orange color to fill in the center of the quilt. Although the Caron and the Lion Brand yarns were the same weight, they were very different. The Caron was noticeably thicker, and had an unpleasant stiffness to it that might or might not be chemicals, which often don't wash out. I ended up yanking out a row of the Caron yarn I'd added and went hunting in my stash. This time I found some other Lion Brand Mandala yarn in an orange/white/pink ombre that could work, along with scrap balls of the same. The orange and white scraps worked much better than the Caron, as they matched the orange/white/teal yarn I'd been using in thickness and softness. I weeded out the pink sections and just us...

After finding this Caron one pound skein of lovely peach yarn in my thrifted lot I raided my stash for two cakes of Mandala in Pegasus, which matches it perfectly. For practice and hand therapy I'm going to make another Worth Street Afghan with this free pattern , but this time I'll use the yarn that was recommended for it plus the one pound skein. I'm not quite ready to do the vintage/recycled linen quilt I had planned (still a bit too nervous about the idea), so I'm going to use some color therapy and make a quilt from these thrifted green fat quarters. I considered doing another Yellow Brick road patchwork pattern, but I might go with a split rail fence like this one.

Making three different throws from thrifted yarn taught me a lot this year. While I followed a free pattern for this Ocean Tranquility throw, I used my own color scheme. so that it resembles the beach and the edge of the ocean. That was fun and gave me confidence to try more/different palettes. I'd like to make another, this time in rows of garden and sky colors. Learning new stitches has also been fun. This shell stitch variation pattern, also known as drunken granny stitch, helped me expand the range of the one-row stitch patterns I know. I'll definitely be using it again for another crochet throw project. Revisiting my crochet past has also been good for me. It was a little difficult and time-consuming, sewing together all these squares (I much prefer row patterns for this reason) and I made some mistakes with the finishing that I had to correct. Yet this brought back some good memories, too. I might make a rectangular gigantic granny square out of scrap ya...

When I decided to do a crocheted throw by asking AI to suggest a pattern I pulled about twenty different skeins of thrifted yarn in colors I like from my stash, and ended up using fourteen or fifteen of them (some came to me in balls, so I have to estimate here.) Again I was able to save these prefectly good skeins from ending up in a landfill, which always delights me. It's excellent physical therapy for my hands and fingers. Making the granny squares also allowed me to revisit the first crochet pattern I ever tried on my own (my grandmother taught me to use single stitch to make hats when I was very little.) It was a bit like going back to high school; I crocheted a lot in those days. I also didn't know I'd be diagnosed with arthritis in my twenties, so I had no fear or worry. I thought I could do anything if I just kept trying (which turned out to be basically true of everything I wanted to do as a youngster -- except be a ballerina, ha.) I know AI is ge...

I've heard so much about crochet patterns that are AI generated (and basically useless) that my curiosity got the better of me, so I went and asked ChatGPT this: Can you show me a simple crochet pattern to make a throw blanket? In return I got this detailed pattern to make a granny square design. I know how to make granny squares, and it looked right to me, but of course to be sure I needed to test out the instructions. Granny squares are about the simplest crochet design out there, and they're very beginner friendly, too. I made lots of big granny square throws when I was a teenager, before I taught myself to read patterns. I followed the pattern, went with seven rounds and ended up with this. It needs blocking, but otherwise, yep, it's a granny square. I can make as many as I like and stitch them together to make a throw. Thanks, ChatGPT.

I finished pulling all the yarn I wanted for my next crochet project from my stash. I then went to the free pattern I intended to make, but after studying it a little closer I realized it was more complicated than I wanted. I also couldn't print it out on paper, and working from a pattern on a screen is uncomfortable for me. So I went back to the internet to find another one. I can do advanced patterns, but the whole point of me crocheting is to exercise my fingers and work out the pain and stiffness. I prefer the simple and easy patterns I can memorize and work without a lot of thought. I found five that that I could print out from the free afghan pattern collection on Mary Maxim's website. I ended up printing out five that I liked so I could read them over, try a few stitches and see how they worked for me. I settled on this Lion Bran Worth Street pattern , which was intended for their Mandala ombre yarn (the worsted I pulled is all #4 like the Mandala so it...

I got two of these jumbo skeins of ombre yarn in a bag of four that I thrifted from our local Goodwill for $7.99, and made them both into a V-stitch crocheted wrap for myself. The wrap was one of those effortless, mindless projects that let me work out a lot of stiffness in my fingers. It took six nights to make. The wrap is warm and soft, and I love the colors. This yarn retails for about twelve bucks a skein, I paid less that $2.00 for each by thrifting it.

I like to buy thrift store bundles like this one from Goodwill, as they often are cheaper than single items. You have to get a good idea of what's inside, which is sometimes difficult because you often can't open the bundles. This bag of seven yarn skeins caught my eye because of the big white one-pound skein. I use a lot of white yarn. Caron one-pound skeins retail for around twenty bucks new now. Also I like Red Heart yarns, and these super savers are $3 to $4 new. So this bundle would have cost me at least $38.00 if I paid retail. Some bundles I buy just because I'm intrigued by the contents, and they catch my eye at the perfect time (I'll do another post in the future about why with this particular bundle.) Although there were only three skeins of yarn, the bundle had so much more fun inside, from a dozen different crochet hooks and knitting needles to pretty craft edging scissors (the first pair I've ever owned!). The very long crochet ho...