Purple Chair Crochet: September 2012

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Hiccups and Hats (Finished!)

A friend of mind requested a newsboy style hat for her very-adorable new baby. Eeee, baby hats!

I had a couple hiccups in the making of this hat. The first hiccup occurred when I looked at the listed measurements for a 3-6 month old hat and declared to myself, "Oh no, that's much too small," and proceeded to make just a smidge bigger.

Three quarters of the way done and I suddenly realized the hat was much to large. To prove it to myself, I plunked it down on my 2 year old's blonde head. Fit like a glove (but in a hat sort of way). So, I unraveled the majority and began again. Note to self: Babies are that small. And math doesn't lie.

The second hiccup occurred when I went it came time to photograph the hat. Laying it flat was a bit uninspired. Where's a 3 month old when you need one? So I dug through the not-very-vast collection of stuffed animals my boys have acquired and this little St. Bernard popped right out, ready for the task of hat wearing. He's too small, but you get the idea.

Finishing touches. :) Now to pack it up and mail it out!

Have a Lovely Day!

~Jess
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Check out the pattern by following this link! C'mon, do it!

Friday, September 21, 2012

The Farm Bus Produce Bag (New Pattern!)

The Farm Bus Produce Bags (sold exclusively at Farm 2 Family) is now available all over the world wide web! I finally made writing this pattern a priority and it's now happily listed in my Etsy shop.

Check it out, world.

Have a Lovely Day!

~Jess
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Sharon's Blanket (Finished!)

On a very perfect nearly-Autumn day, I took the opportunity to finish Sharon's blanket.

Such a gorgeous day for crocheting outside while slurping coffee and watching blonde boys play.

Border details :)

Sweetly soft colors. Sharon's aunt made some beautiful squares and I'm so happy they joined up easily.

Can't wait to deliver it to Sharon!

Have a Lovely Day!

~Jess
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Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Poison Ivy (Flowers)

I have poison ivy on my arm. This is relevant to crochet- you'll just have to keep reading.

Last weekend my husband, brother in law and I dug up a plethora of weeds that worked their way into the patch of dirt that is to become my flower garden. Though we've flipped our calendars to September, the mugginess of August still remains, and I foolishly wore flip flops and and a t-shirt to do my work. Gloves, I did wear, but the poison ivy managed to work it's magic (evil magic) on my forearms. My husband's, too. And likely my brother in law's.

As I flipped through my copy of 100 Flowers to Knit & Crochet, ignoring the tingling in my arm (I refuse to scratch, I refuse, I refuse, I refuse), I thought of how much safer it would be to crochet myself a garden, rather than this nonsense of rooting around in the dirt amongst aggressive toads, crawling centipedes, creatures with very large stingers, and plants that want to poison your skin.

I haven't made anything from 100 Flowers to Knit & Crochet, but I'm itching to (and just itching).

Maybe I'll start a series. I'll do 1 flower a day/week/month... something manageable. Upon reflection, once a day is a bit too much, I know myself too well to commit to that.

The best bit? No poison ivy. :)

Have a Lovely Day!
~Jess

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Tuesday, September 4, 2012

It's a Start (Inspiration)

Back at the tail-end of spring we had a mishap with my laptop. One minute, we were goobering it up in front of Mac's Photobooth, me and my bedtime bidden boys. And then the computer froze. I attempted to restart it, and finally did a force shutdown. And then: blue screen.

The diagnosis? Dead hard drive. Good bye, videos of my children (all the ones that didn't make it to facebook). Pictures, too. Good bye all those crochet patterns I'd been working on. At least 10 in-progress patterns were lost. ~~I could have cried.~~ I cried. A lot more than I should have. For a couple of days. I obsessed over the whole thing. Kicked myself for not backing things up on our external hard drive. Was upset I never uploaded all those baby videos to facebook (I mean, who wanted to see a 5 month old baby playing with blocks for 8 minutes? Besides his parents, of course).

And despite getting my lappy back from the lovely people at the Apple store "fixed", I couldn't bring myself to write more patterns. Not the more complex ones, for sale on Etsy. I distrusted the daggon thing (I *still* do, if I'm honest. The screen's getting wonky. I need to shop for a computer...). And the idea of starting over with my pattern template, with my pictures, with my folders, with my Purple Chair Crochet in general made me queasy and reminded me of the loss of everything. Honestly, losing the patterns was the sprinkles on the cupcake (I don't like cherries. And I suspect I'm misusing this metaphor).

So, I gave myself a break. I put the etsy shop on vacation mode (despite my PDFs being safely stored in my gmail account). I blogged a bit, here and there this summer. The inspiration struck to start crocheting for charity. But the designing? Nope. Didn't happen.

I gave my break a deadline of Labor day for no other reason than it seemed appropriate. And now Labor Day's come and gone (gulp) and I have to get back into designing. I started sketching a few things in my notebook earlier today. A cowl I want to make. Very basic. A wardrobe staple. I'll start back small. But it's a start.

Have a Lovely Day!
~Jess

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