9 posts tagged “crochet”

I need to stop drafting posts and then not actually posting them.

I haven't been posting much lately because I'm super-duper busy as heck. Both the lead bloggers at DIY Life (one is darkmatt3r) stepped down at the beginning of March, and a couple of other ladies and I replaced them (the fact that it took three people to replace two harried ones, and the fact that all three of us are still very busy, might give you an idea of how much work we're talking about).

I wrote two long things in March, too. My article about Hinamatsuri, a holiday I think is really nifty because it involves super-fancy dolls, didn't get a ton of hits (but maybe people will discover it over time). There are some craft patterns at the end... a paper diorama, little cloth dolls, etc.

I also did a free knit/crochet pattern round-up for Easter: bunnies and lambs (or, if you prefer, rabbits and baby sheep). More cuteness per column inch than I knew what to do with. I want to make just about everything I listed, but I can't justify doing so. Anyway: Bunnies and Lambs to Knit, Bunnies and Lambs to Crochet.

I'm getting back on those "best free patterns of the month" columns, but skipping a few months. I have notes for a month that I'm not going to cover, so I will post them here. Later today, probably.

W/r/t my last post, I haven't yet bought any dolls. I did find that my local Japanese market is selling a few basic Re-Ment sets, so I bought one (single, not case) box of "Kawaii Kitchen" and one box of some food-based set. I don't think these are the new Americanized versions. Most of their other candy toy sets are based on, like, Power Rangers or some kind of mecha.

I banged my finger up pretty good last week, and in doing so, learned something: if you have a choice between Hello Kitty Band-Aids and non-Hello Kitty Band-Aids, get the Hello Kitty ones. They're bigger than the WaterBlock style anyway, and they will make you smile (at least, they will if you are me). I've been covering my bandaids in porous clear tape, then wearing a rubber finger cot every time I have to wash my hands.

I have managed to get a friend totally obsessed with Death Note. Now we are having long philosophical debates about A) whether or not we would use the Death Note, and how, and B) our deep, abiding love for L. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you clearly spend your leisure time more wisely than I do. (To be fair, though, everyone I know who sees the show becomes mildly obsessed with it. This includes my previously-animation-hating mother, who has also fallen hard for Ratatouille and anything from Studio Ghibli.) 

(I'm also giggling at the moment, because Law & Order: Criminal Intent is on, and the suspect's last name is Morrissey, so they're saying things like, "I DON'T THINK MORRISSEY COULD HAVE PLANNED THIS ON HIS OWN," and I'm like, NO, HE WAS TOO MISERABLE, HE WILL BE CAUGHT WHEN JOHNNY MARR TURNS HIM IN....)

A) I just had a pattern go horribly wrong... well, a week or two ago. It was supposed to be a Halloween pattern, and it just didn't happen. Overambitious? I don't know. (One of my problems was that it was awfully big, on purpose, and the other was that I kept changing my mind as I went along.) Maybe it will show up on Etsy after I rework it, maybe I'll save it for next year... something like that.

B) I'm over-inspired. I have so many ideas lately that I don't have the time to put all of them into action. I bought an "idea board" and I use the Stickies program and I have more notebooks that you do, I can guarantee, but I'm still not sure I'll ever get to all of this! It's frustrating to feel overflowing with creativity (since I'm so often blocked) and to literally not have time to pursue most of my ideas. Like, I'm not doing NaNoWriMo even though I had an idea. One of the others reasons I'm not doing NaNoWriMo is....

C) I have some wicked carpal tunnel feelings in my right wrist. I think it's related to the elbow, and I think it's related to mousing (because that is very uncomfortable too), and it's really getting on my nerves! My fiance wears leather wristbands all the time... not because he's a hard-core six-plus-foot-tall guy with a shaved head and leather wristbands, YEAH!, but because he used to be a grocery store cashier and he got carpal tunnel that way. (T. is tall and shaven-headed, it's true, but definitely not menacing.) I do not want to wear leather wristbands for the rest of my life... I wear very little jewelry. But I will wear Hand-Eze gloves or a wrist brace or something for a while.

Anyway, I have not been able to handle my 18-hour keyboard marathons recently. Some nights I can't really type at all.

The wrist issue may or may not have something to do with the regular metal Clover crochet hook I was trying to use in developing the pattern in "A." I couldn't figure out why my arm was tiring quickly and hurting when I crocheted; then I assumed it was because of the shape of the hook head. It wasn't.

Clover is a Japanese brand, and the hooks are approximately 1/2" shorter than the similar metal Susan Bates hooks I'm used to! Is this because your typical Japanese lady is approximately 6" or so shorter than me with a much smaller frame? No idea. I picked up a Clover deluxe comfort handle hook to try, and haven't had problems with it at all... so the issue wasn't the head of the hook.

This week I also have pain and stiffness straight up my right arm, shoulder, and neck. It's the most problematic my back has been in months. I'm only seeing the chiropractor once a week now (the insurance company wants to cut me off and I don't want to owe my firstborn child to the chiropractor if they do)... it was OK for a while, but the last two weeks have been hard & I would have gone twice this week if I could have.

(Obviously, it feels a bit better tonight, or I wouldn't be able to write this.)

There's this whole "Buy Handmade for the Holidays" thing going around: clever collective marketing on the part of people who make stuff! I considered taking the pledge, but here's the thing. I'm going to buy whatever I think is best for the people I'm buying stuff for, whether or not it's handmade, without being made to feel guilty. Consumerism is consumerism whether the item came from Etsy or not. (We're not talking about imported Fair Trade goods per se, though I believe those also fill the criteria of the pledge.) 

On the flip side of that, I have a friend who made a family agreement a few months ago that all holiday presents would be handmade by the givers, and she doesn't feel like she's going to have time. I'm not making anything for anyone this year, probably, because I know that I don't have time. (See also: ouchy wrist.)

& speaking of Etsy, I'm noticing a trend I don't love: people opening shops to sell thrifted/vintage stuff that is not in any way handmade. I'm not talking about revamped stuff or vintage craft supplies. I'm talking about home decor items and used boots. HI, THAT'S WHAT EBAY IS FOR! People are setting up Etsy shops these days to sell totally inappropriate things because A) Etsy's interface is prettier and B) it's hipper to be on Etsy. Whatevs. I feel like a jerk complaining about this trend, because I've seen cute things that I liked in these shops. But I still think it needs to be said.

Finally, I added a gigabyte of memory to the computer I use, a week ago, and it's made my life so much easier: things that used to stall the system indefinitely now only take a second.

As some people know, I write for a relatively new blog called DIY Life... I've spent most of the last month working on a big intro/tutorial about amigurumi. I came up with so much material that it turned into four posts, only one of which is an intro/tutorial. The editors decided to call it Amigurumi-o-rama. I think that you can probably learn anything you'd want to know about amigurumi there, if there's anything you don't know.

(I'm adding this to the amigurumi group even though I'm pretty sure that they do indeed know everything in the articles.)

Please check it out! I really hope that people like the posts, and that you can get something out of them, because I worked so, so hard on them, and I got to feature some work that I totally admire.

The tutorial is based on the Amineko pattern, because Best Bunny is behind a registration wall at Lion Brand, and the doll at Stitch has all that hair to root... it's, "crochet along with me, these are some potential pitfalls, hey check out the shapes you're learning to make." There's a post with links to animal patterns, one for food patterns, and one coming up today (10 August) with pop culture patterns like Daleks, Yoda, and Pikachu. The tutorial is crochet-based, but the articles have both knit and crochet stuff in them.

(I've been a member of this group since way before I was asked to write for DIY Life, but I never had anything I was proud enough to post about until now! & next week, I hope I'll be posting a free pattern of my own.)

 

 

Traveling across West Africa, it's easy to tell when you're coming to a town or city: the spindly brown trees become decorated with plastic bags like Christmas tree tinsel. Caught in shrubs and on fences, the bags clog sewers and water sources. They are ubiquitous; simple plastic bags are handed out with practically every purchase at a market stall or container shop.

Unlike in the United States--where the same litter is often visible but where waste bins and recycling are common--streets in many West African cities are devoid of garbage bins and there are few street cleaning crews to collect the waste.

This is a really interesting article about women in Burkina Faso who started an initiative to collect and recycle plastic shopping bags. Their goats were eating the bags and dying, so the women, troubled, started collecting and cleaning the bags and turning them into yarn. With the yarn, they make small saleable crafts, like the dolls shown above, as well as bags in various styles. They formed a collective under the Houet Women's Action Group for Economic Reliance, and both sell their crafts within Burkina Faso and to exporters. (Their stuff will be coming to the Hunger Site, if it isn't there already.)

For many of the women working in the collective, craft-making has become the only source of money-making. Many of the women are widows and single mothers who have come together to find ways to support their families in a country where incomes average around $1,200 annually.

Totally worth a look. The dolls in the photo above are crocheted and represent brides. Thanks to what these women are doing, their city is cleaner and more people have work.

First of all... the lack of posts around here is illusory; I've been working on filling in the archive with content from my old blog. I also wrote a FAQ, but haven't posted it publicly and wanted to look at it a lot more before I do. (Sometimes my sense of humor doesn't read well on the internet.)

Last night I actually went to the craft store and spent money, which is notable for two reasons. One is that I never have any money. The other is that I don't usually go anywhere alone, particularly since that car accident a few months back, and since nobody ever wants to go to the craft store with me, I haven't set foot in one in a while.

So, this was a trip to Jo-Ann Etc, where they're having a big sale. I went in armed with the usual 50% off coupon from the mailer. Nothing I bought was earth-shattering, but I thought people might like to come along with me for the ride anyway.

I was looking for this fabric, which I saw there a year ago, couldn't afford, and haven't been able to find in a store since. It's by Alexander Henry and it's called Star Sign. It is my number one fabric crush. One day I will get a yard or two of this fabric and make a tote bag or pillow or quilt or something, and then the madness will end. I'm not even into astrology; I just like the style of the illustrations. (I borrowed these photos from Cia's Palette, to avoid direct linking.)

 

 

Can you see and feel the cuteness? CAN YOU? At any rate, I struck out again this time. It doesn't seem like they've restocked any "hip" novelty prints (Alexander Henry, Michael Miller, etc) since last year, alas. It's a good thing I picked up "Mini Calaveras," below, at that time, in a pink colorway: I could only afford one yard of fabric, and I was looking for something to line a small purple bag with. "Mini Calaveras" has gold glitter accents just about everywhere that looks yellow in the scan. I didn't pick up the pink and white "Flora de los Muertos" faux-lace pattern, either, and I regret it.

 

I still haven't lined that bag, primarily because I now want to use the pink "Mini Calaveras" in a much more visible manner. It's so cool that it would be a shame to hide it. I think Alexander Henry is my favorite fabric designer.

But the subject of this post is supposed to be last night's trip, and all I'm saying is that they didn't have any of these fabric designs that I was looking for, so I left the fabric department and headed for patterns. Butterick patterns are on sale for 99 cents, but it happens that all the patterns that interest me right now are by Simplicity. I looked at a few pattern books for a while, then moved on to yarn. Well, I detoured in scrapbooking and beading, but wasn't really into looking at those supplies last night.

I have a serious lack of basic, plain, worsted-weight, solid-color yarn in my stash. There are amigurumi I've wanted to make and/or design, but I haven't been able to do anything about it due to the sheer scarcity of appropriate yarn at my disposal. I wanted to take advantage of the sale to remedy that. Unfortunately, I was completely unable to make up my mind, and running out of time, so I ended up with a skein of ecru Red Heart Soft and another of Mushroom brown Wool-Ease. Not very exciting at all, but appropriate for things like bunnies and deer and Totoros.

Knitting needles and crochet hooks are mostly 40% off, but a few were on clearance. The clearance needles were Jo-Ann's store-brand tubular plastic needles in very large sizes. They normally go for about $7-10, but are currently less than $2. They have #17, 19, and 35 for sure; not sure about 15 and 50. I've needed some #19 needles for a while, to knit a single small project, so I picked some up. I don't know how the quality is, but since I'll only be using them for a few hours, I'm not too concerned. 

Sugar & Cream kitchen cotton was on sale for $1.79, so I picked up three balls. I've wanted to make some washcloths for a while, not because I enjoy washcloth knitting (dear god, NO), but because I like the finished product. When I finish these, I probably won't even post them here, because they're really not the sort of knitting you brag about much. My favorite pattern is the plain, diamond-shaped garter stitch one with a square of eyelets around the edge, because the first knitted washcloth I ever had - made by a relative - was in that pattern, and I think it has an elegant simplicity, as utilitarian household items go. 

I bought this yarn because I have it in an unbleached shade, but the pattern is so mindless that I can't actually bring myself to use that color... YAWN. I made it in a purple/berry blend a couple of years ago, and that was tolerable because I at least got to see the color blend happening. Solid beige yarn requires something much more difficult, maybe a lace swatch.

Anyway, here are the colors I chose: Swimming Pool, Summer Splash, and Beach Ball Blue. They go together pretty nicely, and they will go with my bathroom gear. Erika at Red Shirt Knitting did some "garterlac" cloths with what looks like the first two.

 

The store was about to close, so I only had time to pop into the embroidery department to pick up a pattern I've wanted for a while: Clover's "Animals." Clover's patterns are made for their punch embroidery tool, but they're just heat-transfers like any other embroidery patterns, so you don't necessarily have to use them with the tool. I like Sublime Stitching's patterns as much as the rest of the kids do, but these Clover patterns are also very appealing, have a different, quirky line-drawing style, and are maybe not as hipster-trendy. They're identifiably craft products from Japan, with the cute style that implies, but you can probably actually buy them at your local store! (Or you can, indeed, buy them at SuperBuzzy.) This pattern retails for $3, so I used my 50% off coupon on it and got it for $1.50. Almost everything else was on sale!

No time, alas, to look at buttons and patches.

Total spent? About $15 for 5 balls of utilitarian yarn, a set of #19 needles, and an adorable embroidery pattern. This satisfied my desire to add a few little new things into the mix, without completely breaking the bank.

Here are the other embroidery patterns that I know of in Clover's line: Kitchen, Garden, and Flower. (All the Clover embroidery pattern pics are lifted from the Hancock Fabrics site.) 

Have you gotten any craft bargains lately?

A few weeks ago, those Envirosax bag sets, large polyester fabric shopping bags in a variety of prints,  were being pimped on half the blogs I read. They also make hemp bags, which might be less objectionable. One of the blogs had been discovered by someone from the company that makes the bags, and I wound up getting into it with him a little bit, because I really didn't appreciate his attitude. Here's why, and here's what I think you can do about it.

I don't think anyone can disagree that reusable shopping bags are a good thing, and I think that can be extended to most basic eco-friendly measures. However, the way that "green living" is being pushed these days... it's an issue of privilege, to a large degree, and an issue of trendiness and consumerism, and that bothers me. That is, being or at least appearing eco-friendly is a trend these days, one that also surfaced in the early 1970s and early 1990s. That seems antithetical to the spirit of green living... cognitive dissonance ahoy! I don't want, as it seemed in this instance, for someone to preach environmentalism to me primarily because they want to sell me something.

My friend Maggie points out that in localities that ban plastic bags, people who don't have enough extra money to invest in reusable shopping bags all at once, and who have to walk or bike their groceries home, or choose to do so because of the environmental impact of driving, are kind of screwed when they're stuck using paper bags, particularly if it rains. Paper bags are even less eco-friendly than plastic, though they biodegrade more easily. Sometimes while you're using them. I would link to Maggie's Livejournal post about this, but it's friends-only.

On a similar note, I live in a notoriously wealthy district that has free recycling, but charges residents by volume for trash collection. We pay by purchasing special stickers at local grocery stores and putting one sticker on each of our (33 gallons or less, 50 lbs or less) trash bags. These stickers now cost over $3 and have gone up $1 in the three years since I moved here. Sometimes the collectors behave in a discretionary manner, refusing to pick up a bag that's "too heavy,"  but taking its stickers, even multiple ones meant to cover for its weight. 

The end effect is to force recycling on the lower-income residents of the area. This plan is overwhelmingly favored by wealthier residents, who never have to choose between having a house filled with garbage and eating or going to the doctor, and who presumably can afford to "throw money away" if they choose not to recycle. (In my house, this plan is resented on principal, although we recycle a lot regardless, and usually only throw away 2 to 3 bags of trash per month, making it way cheaper for us than flat-rate municipal trash collection would be. Mostly we miss having helpful trash collectors.)

Anyway, it distresses me that the eco-friendly message that is filtering down to the masses is mostly consumerist: you can buy this and this and this to be eco-friendly, and for a while, it won't be fashionable to be without these things. What happens when being eco-friendly goes out of fashion again? Is it only in fashion because Bush has such a low approval rating? Because some celebrities are doing it... not just the wacky pothead ones?

In England, Sainsbury's, a retail chain, sold a cloth bag designed by Anya Hindmarch for a few dollars each; there were lines around the block when it was introduced, and some of the bags went for hundreds of dollars on ebay. There is a move to issue a slightly different version of the same bag in the US, because the launch was so successful. The punchline? It was made in a Chinese sweatshop, and the materials used weren't organic.

That's why I went at it with the Envirosax guy... I explained several ways in which plastic shopping bags are useful (example: most dog owners find them incredibly handy*; they are used in my house for that, and in place of other plastic trash bags that would be thrown out anyway) and that many supermarkets have recycling bins for them, and he replied that "they all end up in a landfill anyway, and recycling is hard on developing countries" (the latter might have been his only really valid point, and there are a couple of other good arguments against plastic bags: for one thing, free-roaming plastic bags are bad news for wildlife). But when I mentioned both that my family already has a pile of plain canvas bags and that Whole Foods sells great, cheaper fabric shopping bags, he called canvas bags unfashionable and claimed you wouldn't want to use them for anything but shopping. (As if you don't probably already have three bags you can take to the beach.)

That's the point where I got really ticked off, and thought I'd rather eat my own hat than buy one of Envirosax's bag sets. There is nothing particularly eco-friendly about having a manufactured product shipped to you, particularly if you slip from using it for its intended purpose after a few weeks or months. He also never (at least, not before I did the virtual equivalent of storming off in a huff) addressed my point that a bag that holds at least twice as much as a regular plastic shopping bag and is carried on the shoulder might not be the best thing for people's backs. Regardless: using what you have or making something yourself is almost certainly much more green and much less consumerist than buying "fashionable" shopping bags online just because they're cute and you can. 

So, in response to all this consumerism and greenwashing, here are a few patterns for shopping bags. Some of which recycle plastic shopping bags, so they won't end up in a landfill for a long time, if ever. Plain tote bags are a pretty simple thing to sew, so I'm not going to try to include sewing patterns.

• Reduce Reuse Recycle in Magknits, May 2007 - Knit from "yarn" made of plastic shopping bags.
• There's a similar crocheted bag, "Bag O' Bags" by Diane Bromberg, in Tsia Carson's book Craftivity. (Which I really mean to get around to reviewing one of these days.)
• Love To Shop Shopping Bag, at SpunMag, seems relatively large. Another bag made from plastic shopping bags, carefully melted to "block" it into shape. (Can those fumes possibly be healthy?)
• Knit Net Shopping Bag by YarnDemon.
• Reduction Tote in CrochetMe, Spring 2007 - a string mesh tote with a relatively solid bottom panel. This bag is designed to fold into the pocket on the front, for easy carrying.
• Also worth looking at: CrochetMe's Sack Dress Sack, a bag crocheted with "yarn" that was recycled from an old dress by cutting it into strips. You could adapt this into a basic tote and use sheets bought at thrift stores to make the yarn.
• Check out the "Bags, Totes, and Purses" category at both Knitting Pattern Central and Crochet Pattern Central; make a point of looking at anything labelled "Shopping Bag" or "Tote Bag," since many bag styles are represented in this category. "Mesh" isn't a bad keyword either, and there are a bunch of linked patterns for large felted solid "market" totes, too, if you'd prefer that. (Here's another meshy Shopping Bag.)
• One of the companies known for linen yarns, probably Louet, has a free mesh shopping bag pattern on the yarn label. This is usually advertised in the back of magazines like Interweave Knits and Vogue Knitting. 

As to which yarns you use... well, hm. There was an eco-friendly yarn post on Treehugger recently. The trouble is, once you add in shipping (to yourself or a local store), and the manufacturing process even on organic yarns, it can be hard to decide what's actually eco-friendly. For example, a ceramic mug would seem to be the better choice than a throwaway cup, but studies have shown that given what it takes to manufacture each (and keep the mug clean), the mug doesn't begin to be a better choice until you've used it to replace 300 cups, and doesn't actually outstrip the cups until the 600+ mark. So if you drop the mug in the sink and break it after you've had 30 cups of tea out of it, you haven't been as eco-friendly as you thought. The numbers vary based on whether the cup is paper or styrofoam, but not that much, and there are, unbelievably, some respects in which styrofoam is the most eco-friendly up to over 1000 uses. Ceramic is still better - and when it breaks, you can still use it in other ways, like as a pencil holder (if it has a hairline crack) or in a mosaic (if it's really shattered). But it takes a long time to realize the actual benefits, and it works best if you only own the one mug and use it all the time.

(A few of these links originally came from CRAFT. Some of the environmental information came from replies to Maggie's LJ post about banning plastic bags, which is friends-only. I am particularly indebted to "chaotic_heat"'s well-researched comments on that entry. Also, anyone who uses plastic shopping bags for dog business ahem ahem might want to look into the Doggie Dooley, an enzymatic breakdown system for dog waste. If you have a 2'x2' square of yard available to you, you can use it. It costs around $40 and has the side effect of fertilizing any plants around it.)

Oh, as far as me? No, I'm not an environmentalist or fair-trade guru or someone who manages to completely sidestep consumerism. I try to do what I can when I can do it, and sometimes that isn't much. I try not to use animal-tested cosmetics of any kind, and I'm trying to use non-toxic cleaning products in my house, eat organic foods when possible, look for fair trade goods. I'm also trying to at least question and fend off the worst of my own consumerist impulses and to DIY (DIM?) when I can.

If you're really in need of shopping bags, have money to burn, and don't resent the statements made by the company's rep, you could probably do worse than to buy the Envirosax, particularly the hemp ones. But you'll note that I'm not linking to them. I've been told that Trader Joe's also has inexpensive fabric shopping bags that last a long time. I'm not stumping for the eco-friendliness or fair-tradeitude of the Trader Joe's or Whole Foods bags, only their accessibility and the fact that nobody involved with either company has ever tried to shame me on the basis of fashion into buying their bags.

Because it's almost Talk Like A Pirate Day (19 September), here are some pirate-themed craft links for you.

Hello Yarn might be your one-stop Jolly Roger-themed free pattern shop. There are some great patterns here, with Norwegian-style pirate mittens and cap taking the cake, but don't miss the squirrel mittens, the many other skull chart items, the anime character bonnet, the great sweaters, or anything else.

Moth Heaven provides this pattern (PDF) for an "arrrgyle" sock enhanced with a skull-and-crossbones motif. (via BoingBoing.) She also has a pattern for a felted pirate hat for kids. (How much more awesome could this lady be?)

In the Arrrgyle pattern, she references this excellent pattern from Katydid Knits: Jack Sparrow's Favorite Socks, which references and sends us back to...

the We Call Them Pirates hat at Hello Yarn.

(the reinterpretation of the chart at Katydid Knits suggests that the same chart might be useful for the cuff of an otherwise plain mitten, or for a wrist-warmer. Also, the Jack Sparrow's Favorite Socks pattern looks like an excellent first project for someone wanting to do stranded knitting. Katydid Knits mentions that this pattern is now linked from Knitting Pattern Central, which is where I found Hello Yarn to begin with. It's getting to be the time of year when a girl wants some wrist warmers....)

You can try knitting this great Skull and Crossbones Lace, which could have many applications. A scarf or shawl? Edging for linens? It's up to you! Be as creative as you want to. In colors other than white, it would be perfect for some Mexicana-style crafting for Day of the Dead.

Maybe you would prefer to crochet a little skull motif?

How about a pretty little pirate dress for your Blythe or Pullip doll, courtesy of MagKnits?

This post was initially titled "Knit Like A Pirate." As it turns out, the official site for Talk Like A Pirate Day actually has a Knit Like A Pirate page, with a free downloadable pattern for a cool bag, "The Pirate Queen's Booty Bag." They link to a page by like-minded folk, KnitLikeAPirate.com. Not much there yet, but so far it looks like they're planning to put up several hat patterns and a pattern for a "yarn galleon"!

Here are a few skull charts for general purposes: basic shaded skull chart from Flickr user "notanartist", skull and crossbones chart in two sizes from supermitten.com, another skull and crossbones chart from BrainyLady, and a skull chart for many uses from domiKNITrix.

Glampyre Stefanie uses her own skull and crossbones chart in a felted fair isle bag.

Street Legal Designs offers a most excellent item for your trusty first mate: a Skull and Bones Dog Sweatshirt. There's even a glow-in-the-dark yarn for the skull motif! Removes all traces of scurvy from your dog.

Here's Rhonda K. White's skull and crossbones washcloth or dishcloth. The simple knit-and-purl pattern could be adapted to other projects. It's subtle, and you can't be too careful on the high seas.

Strange But Trewe has a Lacy Skull Shrug, and promises a pattern in the future. (The question is: is bubblegum pink a properly piratical colour?)

AndSheKnitsToo offers a fabulous skull scarf, featuring both jolly roger motifs AND black and white stripes. Possibly the most buccaneer-friendly scarf on all the internets.

Ysolda has a skull and crossbones illusion scarf. Confound your friends, perplex your enemies, and pass safely under the eye of the Royal Navy!

Yorick, a felted, skull-ended scarf by Kate Kuckro, made its debut last fall in Knitty. The suggested white yarn not only felts properly, but is also snuggly soft.

Getting away from the skull motif, there are these cute striped and ruffled armwarmers designed by Vickie Howell. I suppose if you wanted, you could intarsia-in a skull pattern, too. =/

If you don't knit or crochet, perhaps you'd like to sew yourself up an eyepatch?

Hobbyists can tackle this plastic "Jolly Roger" ship model, one of several pirate ship models that are widely available (see also Captain Kidd).

A search on "beads", "pirate", or "skull" at Century Novelty will turn up lots of crafting possibilities. Especially of the bead variety. Old Fashion Halloween sells a skull pan in both cake and cupcake sizes.

Looking for something for kids? How about a pirate ship or Spanish galleon made from a milk carton? Or a "pirate playdate" inspiration site, complete with craft ideas and fun recipes? (I stole one of their cute pics for this post!)

And all pirates should beware of the giant squid! Squid-shaped phone case by Winged Kamui, squid hat (PDF) by Strange But Trewe. Perhaps these squids are haunted by skeletal fish... they don't look upset, though, do they? However, this squiddy is, supposedly, naughty.

 

Edited to add:

Skully Purse and iPod/Cellphone Cozy for machine knitters.

Kpixie (formerly KnitPixie) also designed a skull chart. Nicely detailed, with cartoonishly uneven teeth. Love it!

(Stripey!) Skinny Skully Scarf from one of my Craftgrrl crewmates on Livejournal.

How could a pirate function with no place to keep their booty?

Pieced Paper Treasure Chest pattern for papercrafters.

Treasure Chest Pattern for woodworkers. This one looks more complicated than it is. (Mirror site of sorts.)

Another Treasure Chest Pattern for woodworkers. This one is more difficult than the previous one.

For kids, a Pirate Treasure Chest to make from a tissue box. Also, a pirate themed Enchanted Learning page with crafts like a treasure box and a little boat. At HearthSong, you can buy this treasure box kit for older kids who are just learning woodworking.

Kids of all ages can enjoy this Treasure Chest Cake... complete with edible booty! Here's another Treasure Chest Cake, filled with M&Ms and other candies.

Here's some booty that almost anyone can make. It's a series of jewelry photos from magazines like W, glued to cardboard, cut out carefully, and joined into a necklace with wire rings. A kid could easily do this with paper clips, cereal boxes, and a couple of magazines.

Beyond that, you might be interested to see this pirate-themed embroidered diorama.

Or you might like to sew this handsome young cartoony skull bag.

And don't forget that Sublime Stitching has a pirate-themed set of embroidery transfer patterns, for the low price of US$3. (I don't know about you, but I've paid more for a cup of coffee.)

Don't like crafts? Do like puzzles? Check out The Treasure Hunt at The Problem Site.

*

I don't think I linked the following above, but it's possible it might be a double link: Zombies Need Not Apply, a skull fair-isle wristwarmer pattern from MagKnits.

Check out Spirals Free Patterns for several cool things, including a diagonally-striped scarf (photo 1, photo 2) and lace-up skull armwarmers (chart, photo 1, photo 2).

Published since Talk Like A Pirate Day:

Jack Sparrow Chart.

I may come back in the next few weeks and tidy this post up by category: skulls, sea creatures, treasure, etc. I will also be adding a parrot pattern or two, though they are thin on the ground. (As parrots often are.)

Also, thanks to Talk Like A Pirate (yes, the official site of the day!) for the link!

4 October - Edited to add some parrots! For knitters, a Painted Parrot Cloth. For beaders, a chart for a colorful parrot (along rainbow macaw lines), and another for a cockatiel amulet bag. Several free parrot designs are featured on the bird page at Dawn's Cross Stitch. Not free, but very dramatic, is this 3D Parrot necklace or kit for beaders.

And Vickie Howell's book New Knits on the Block, which features fun and funky patterns to make for kids, has a whole pirate set in it, which includes a knitted parrot. (I think. Also, a mermaid costume for little girls.)

 

 

Big Girl Knits - yes! Helpful, interesting, and beautifully produced. On the other hand, some of the patterns have to be taken on a case-by-case basis, and I occasionally do not agree with the editors' estimation of them. A bigger review at another time. Though I'm on the small side of this book's audience, I definitely consider it a must-own. (Rowan's description of a 40" chest as "XL" really aggravates the heck out of me, but if you read this blog, you have probably already learned that. I am not a particularly large person, but I have a 44" chest. I'm one of those in-between people who are too small for plus sizes and slightly too large for most regular sizes.)

 

Wendy Knits - What happened? This book is text-heavy and may be worth reading, especially if you like Wendy's blog, but the production is terrible. I've only had a few minutes to look at it. I'm pretty sure there isn't a single color photo. Many of the patterns have either appeared on her blog before and/or are not that exciting (there seem to be a lot of tees and tanks with simple lace borders on them, and some of these garments don't fit their models particularly well). There are a few shawls and sweaters that look more interesting, mostly towards the back of the book. Bad Penguin! Bad! There are other books selling at the same price point that DO have color photos in them. I saw a proof of Edith Eig's book last summer that looked like this, but it was only a proof. So, I don't know... it seems unforgivable to not show us a colorwork sweater in, you know, color.

 

Inspired Cable Knits by Fiona Ellis is just lovely, though: beautiful, well-photographed designs.

 

Also - what's with all the t-shirt customization books? A spate of them has come out lately. I have Generation T to review, I just saw Tease at the bookstore last night, and there is a third, smaller book called something like 99 Ways To Customize a T-shirt.

 

 

Generation T is more about cutting and tying and repiecing tees, where Tease seems to be more about embellishment, though each dips a toe in the others' pond. Tease has a weird "craft celebrity" angle (look, I don't care if someone has a column in Paper or a show on the DIY Network, I care if their project is worth the time and materials it takes to make it), but in this case the projects seem generally worthwhile. The third book I mentioned is all line drawings with brief instructions, while the first two have full-color photos and detailed instructions.

 

There's also a spate of general "alternative crafts" books. Bazaar Bizarre looked pretty bad to me - for one thing, not a single item in it was something you couldn't figure out how to do online, and some of the crafts were fairly poor examples of their genre (the hairpieces! I've made those, and the ones in the book are bad), and IIRC some of the instructions were just incorrect. Way to cash in! It's been a while since I looked at it, though, so take the above with a grain of salt, except that my impression was negative.

 

 

I thought AlternaCrafts was better, better design, better projects, but still a book full of things that mostly have perfectly respectable free tutorials available online. The only thing I haven't seen before, at least not in this craft renaissance, was the cutting board customized with a wood-burner-inscribed design. The book seems to present a wide range of projects.

All might be fun for beginning crafters, but if you are reading this blog, the two books are probably not for you. Good for 14-year-old siblings and children of siblings. Good if you work with teens. Etc. You can still get the information online for free.

 

 

Higher on the scale is Super Crafty, which has finally arrived in my area... that one, I can recommend. Good instructions, good photos, good ideas, though some aren't as special as others.

 

I know I'll take a closer look at some of these in the near future. Right now another book I'm looking at, and plan to review soonish (after the, like, 20 other books I've been considering) is Art de la Soul by Kathy Cano-Murillo, aka Crafty Chica. It's pretty good.

On the other hand, you know better (or should know better) than to think that I'd go anywhere near Elissa Meyrich's Rip It!. Not recommended, on principle.

(All these links! Pardon me if one or another doesn't go where it's supposed to. I'm late for a party. A friend is moving to the West Coast. I made a bracelet for her last night, the first I've made in a long time, as I have not had any workspace for beading since moving to Ohio in late 2003. It came out pretty well, though it was not until after the knots were tied and the glue all dry that I noticed that it's asymmetrical in the length of each side and the number of beads on it... however, if I had added another bead, it would have been too long anyway. Just trying to get back in the swing of things. For my wedding this fall, I will either be dyeing silk shawls or making sets of fire-polished Czech glass bead jewelry. I'll post pictures of the bracelet I made last night, if they came out.)

Edited to add (5/2007): This is a post transferred over from the ashes of my old blog. Oh, I totally didn't get married last year; my fiance had to spend the entire wedding fund on emergency dental surgery & we're still working on saving up more money again....

For the Love of Yarn: new online crochet and knitting magazine; it seems to me that the emphasis is on crochet. There are a couple of cute amigurumi patterns (a turtle and a snail).

via WhipUp, who also launched their first contest today! Do something on the theme of "Everyday Creativity" and you may win a copy of Jeffrey Yamaguchi's great book 52 Projects. I liked it so much that it's one of the only books I've actually purchased in the last year. (You didn't know I was a habitual library rat? That's where all the books for this blog come from.)

There's also a new Knitty, which I'm sure everyone knows about by now. Every so often I feel like doing a line-item overview of all the patterns, but I refrain because they're free, and you don't have to make them if you don't like them!

However, one of the few Knitty patterns I've ever made - the "Sueet" purse from two years ago - was a horrible knitting experience, a lousy pattern in so many ways, so much so that I'm never touching another of Natalie Wilson's patterns again. There were silly errors in the pattern (ex: a four-stitch decrease procedure to deal with three stitches at the end of the straps). The overall method of construction was simply non-intuitive. Instead of being done in a wide, flat piece, the bag would be better knit in the round and either grafted on the bottom with kitchener stitch, which would make it slightly more difficult, or given a flat-panel bottom (rather than trying to force one into the shape of it after the fact). The yarn, Berroco Suede, was unpleasant to work with, snagging on my every callous. I finished the bag ages ago, dragging my heels the entire time, but I still haven't lined it. When I do, it will probably be a present for someone, or sold at my cost (that is, without a profit). The whole pattern almost scared me off of free patterns in general and Knitty patterns in particular - for pretty much ever. The compromise is avoiding Natalie Wilson's other patterns, which aren't really my style anyway.

On the other hand, I've been making the recent "Branching Out" lace scarf pattern, published in last spring's Knitty, and it couldn't be simpler: everything is working out just as it's supposed to. I started it in November and set it aside for a while. I'm not in a hurry to finish it, so I knit a few motifs each week... I've done perhaps 12 so far. I'm using the Silky Wool in purple - I had some around - but I may actually make another in laceweight yarn at some point in the future. Each pair of leaves in the center of the scarf, one on each side of the center axis, is a pattern repeat.

There's one pattern in the new Knitty that I think is gut-bustingly awful from the top down; I'll have to think long and hard about whether I wish to elaborate on that point. Probably NOT. But I will elaborate on my favorite (which, given my predilections, may not be difficult to guess): cute and simple little Nagano Sakura. Most everything there that isn't the sweater I hate looks pretty nice, overall.