Yesterday the Pearly Hook docked at the Woolie Ewe for a short time to pick up supplies and replenish stock. As usual the WE was busy as ever, but the Captain was smart and had sent a carrier bird ahead with her requests. For this trip had a specific purpose. There were gloves and legwarmers to be made and sent off before the holiday season truly started.

Cascade Yarns were on the list of requirements, both 220 and Kid Seta.  Amazingly, the Kid Seta was easily harnessed while the 220 was not so forthcoming. Eventually though, I found what I was looking for. I also found some Berroco Peruvian in the most wonderful shade that I am looking forward to working up into a pretty hat as well as gloves.

As soon as I returned to the Pearly Hook I started working with the Kid Seta. Two of the three skeins brought back are destined to become the legwarmers I tested and wrote about earlier.  I have to say, I love the way it is working up. And it brought into focus just how different yarns can be. While the original test pair were pretty – and I thought fairly lacy in quality…the Mohair/ Silk blend of the Kid Seta is leagues beyond that. And I must admit this is the first time I’ve actually worked with a yarn that automatically had that lace quality about it. These legwarmers are going to be gorgeous.

The Cap’t feels like dancing. Of course this may have to do with the fact that I just finished a lovely pair of legwarmers and am reminded of Flashdance and Footloose -all of those wonderful movies from the 80’s that had dancing in them.

For The Dancer In Us All

I made these to test the pattern offered for free by the lovely CrochetKitten before diving into the most divine mohair/silk blend yarn from Casscade.

These lovely pink ones will be gifted to my pirate-in-training niece for Christmas.

I love the pattern and feel that with some adjustments it would make the most loveliest of fingerless gloves. (And off I go with the fingerless gloves….)

More to come soon.

Picture Spam time!

Gloves for a Rabbit

These lovely gloves were recently shipped to a wonderful rabbit friend. (Note the nifty band!)

Pretty In Pink

And these lovely pair of gloves were whipped up as a birthday present for the little girl of an old friend. Not shown is the beading detail I added after the fact.

I am also making a second pair (not the same) of gloves for the birthday girl’s sister as when she found out from her father what I was up to expressed sadness that she was not going to get a pair. I remember well the younger years of having a sibling…

On the hook as well is another design -this time I am working on a pair of wristers that can also be worn as gloves. At the moment they come across as rather steamy to me. (steam punk) but that might be due to the color I am working with. It’s a nice dark red.

That’s it for now.

Alright mates. As I said before, there have been some noises regarding the Knitting Machine. I decided I needed to become more proficient with the machine and the basic fabric that it makes. (And I also wanted to see if I could use a yarn that didn’t come with the machine.

So out came the leftovers of  some Cascade 220 as well as the KM….this was the result:

Anarchy In Pink and Purple

Knitted Anarchy Wristers with crochet detailing at either end, because lets face it, the Cap’t has to have a hook in there somewhere. The fabric is the most even fabric I have managed to date on the machine. Which made me happy. I also particularly like the way they contrast each other.  I liked these so much that I am fiddling with the pattern a little (how many needles and rows) and writing it up for anyone else that would like to make a pair.

The Cap’t took a trip, made some gloves and gave them away while on the trip. Upon returning she fell ill and is just now recovering.

There has been some noise in the galley with the KM recently and we think the Cap’t may have made something that she is relatively proud of.

Expect another post to follow soon…

Last week I made a cozy. Not a tea cozy or a beer cozy. A water bottle cozy. I needed one for my hot water bottle because I tend to put really hot water into it and I was getting tired of wrapping the thing in a towel. So I pulled out some yarn from my stash and started working on one.

I used an acrylic yarn – Vanna’s Choice in purple and silver – it was yarn left over from a project that I was testing out. I worked the cozy in two separate pieces. One side had small stripes and the the other had larger ones as I was not entirely positive that I had enough to finish the project.  (Obviously I did.) Pictures can be seen over at Ravelry on my project page.

It was a fun little project to do before I dove back into the lacy stuff. I started a pair of lace mitts right after this and have one almost completed. I always seem to loose interest when I get to the part where the fingers are (this pattern actually has them defined somewhat but are considered fingerless mitts.) and I am not entirely certain I know why. Hopefully I will have the motivation to finish the second glove because they really are pretty…

So Maties, what have I been doing the last week? Well I’ve been harvesting pineapples. Actually, to be more precise I learned how to hook a pineapple and managed to make my first ever doily.

I have always been a little intimidated by the idea of making something out of thread that thin. Some time ago I decided to try fillet crochet to get used to handling thread. Part of the stash that inherited from my mum consisted of size 20 and 10 thread – though for the life of me I can’t tell which is which. That didn’t stop me from trying.

I have a set of crocheted coasters that are made from a doily pattern that my aunt sent me a few years ago. A friend asked me if it were possible for me to make a set similar to them as a gift for a friend. Of course I immediately agreed then realized I didn’t have a single pattern that I could use. Off I went to Ravelry to look for some patterns that I could test out.

This of course led me to look at doily patterns. I found a pattern for “Vintage Pineapple Doily” offered for free by Coats &  Clark. It looked relatively simple to make so I decided to try it.

It took me a couple of times reading it to understand the way the pattern was written, but once I got the hang of it, the rounds just flew off the hook. At least the did until I got to the part where I had to do each individual point.  7 points took me an entire week to finish. Not because it was difficult, but because my fingers hurt.

It was really cool watching the pineapples appear, their mystery unraveled before my eyes. The only thing I didn’t like about the entire pattern was the actual edging. It consisted of two rows, the last one being a picot row. The last two rows are also the only place I have errors. (Missed a dc twice on the first edging row.) The edging instructions were also the most confusing to me. And I think if I make this one again (most likely) I will forgo the edging completely.

Here are some of the pics I took while working on the doily and then a couple of the finished but unblocked doily.

measurements unblocked 9 inches.

Look there's a Pineapple!

Take a closer look

A little fuzzy, but still pretty none-the-less!

This one is a little better.

I do a bit of writing now and again on some fiction. Some of it’s fan-based, some of it’s not. This past week I have been doing research for a fan-based story game that is to take place at Hogwarts School of Magic and Wizardy. I have never read the books, but I have seen the movies (all except the newest one-I might be the only one)

I don’t think it would surprise anyone to learn that when I took the sorting hat quiz I landed square in Hufflepuff. (It was a tie with Ravenclaw actually but Hufflepuff was listed first) So the character I was creating was going to be sorted into Hufflepuff. Off I went to do research on the different Houses and what the school was like.

Now I am not a fan of the colors yellow and black and was not looking forward to having a character that wore them (pale skin does not make a nice contrast to yellow and the black and yellow remind me of a bumble bee) But I was quick to notice that the yellow Hufflepuff used looked more of brownish-yellow [golden?] as depicted from the movies and figured that would be alright.

Now I’ve been itching to make a house scarf, tie and what ever else I can think of out of Hufflepuff colors. It’s maddening I tell ya. And I’m not even a big Harry Potter Fan! (I do enjoy the movie though) But everything I have found is for knitting! I’ve found maybe two patterns that are crochet-both are variations on the scarf. [I did find some really cool 'owlets' though] Sometimes it amazes me where inspiration comes from…

What…wait…July is almost over already? Where have I been all this time? This Pirate can’t say that she’s been hookin’ up a storm. I haven’t actually. In the last week and a half I picked up the hook once and actually made something. I am a shamed Pirate I am…

What I did work on was the preliminary design for a bracelet. It was inspired by a button that I have in my growing button collection for the hats that I am supposed to be making…yeah, onward…I made a simple cuff and attached the button as a closure. I’ve been fiddling around on how to actually close the cuff  (there are a number of ways) in the best and most appealing way possible. In doing this I have to ‘redesign’ the cuff slightly to accommodate the closure. So this was definitely a designing experience.  And before you ask, I haven’t taken pictures yet because I am a mite on the lazy side as of late. Something I am trying to remedy in the next week.

Something that I did do however was spend the gift card the Keeper of the Coin gave me for my birthday to the Wollie Ewe, my LYS. This Pirate did indeed swim in a sea of yarn. And to make things even better, the day we went all the yarn in the store was 30% off, so I managed to get a smidgen more than I would have normally. I didn’t really have an idea of what to get until I saw a pair of example fingerless gloves. Now, these gloves were knit and were really pretty [If the hooker could actually grasp the whole knitting thing she would knit them] but of course, I still haven’t even managed to grasp the basics well enough to even try something that simple. But the colors in the yarn were so pretty I had to know what they were simply because I wanted to be able to work with them. Turned out that the gloves used Louisa Harding yarns of various types. So I hunted for them. In the end the majority of the yarn I picked up that day was in fact Louisa Harding – but not all of it inspired by the gloves. This years birthday loot included:

2 skeins of Berroco Comfort in a gorgeous red color – color 9760

1 skein of Cascade Alpaca Lace in a beautiful light washed out blue – color 1409. This is the first time I have ever purchased lace weight yarn.

2 skeins of Lousia Harding Impression in color number 13 (which is a Tan, Pink, Lilac coloring) – this is the yarn from the fingerless gloves.

2 skeins of Louisa Harding Jasmine in color number 15 (Given color name – Puce,  it looks like a like a mauve/purple color to me) This is the same yarn that was gifted to my as a thank you in color #6 Pea)

2 skeins of Lousia Harding Jasmine in color number 13 (Given color name – Slate) It’s a lovely shade of dark grey with flecks of silver in it.

I have no idea what any of it will become…though the Impression will most likely be  gloves…I am happy with the birthday loot.

Some time ago I agreed to design a pair of gloves for a CAL. This is my offering for the July CAL for the Fingerless Gloves Fanatics group on Ravelry. It is a short fingerless glove that sports a lacy feel. Simple in their design they work up quickly and easily. I hope that you enjoy making these.  Before starting please read the entire post to familiarize yourself with the pattern.

[This pattern has not been tested by anyone other than me, please, if you find an error or are unclear about something let me know!]

Example yarn used – Spa by Naturally Caron

Hook used – G/6, 4.25mm

Stitch Notes: These gloves are made using a Chainless Single Crochet Foundation [CSCF] (tutorial found here)

Abbreviations: Single Crochet – sc, Repeat – rep, Stitche(s) – st, sts, Chain Space – ch sp, Beginning – beg

(make 2)

Base : 30 CSCF

~Foundation:  1 sc into 2nd sc from hook, *ch 1, skip 1 sc, 1 sc into next sc, rep from * to end turn.

Row  1: Ch 1 (does not count as st), 1 sc into first sc, *1 sc into next ch sp, ch 1, skip 1 sc, rep from * to last 2 sts, 1 sc into last ch sp, 1 sc into last sc, turn.

Row 2: Ch1 (does not count as st), 1 sc into first sc, *ch 1, skip 1 sc, 1 sc into next ch sp, rep from * to end, working sc at end of last rep into sc at beg of previous row, turn.

Repeat 1-2 until you have 28 rows.  Bind off.

Folding the rectangle in half (top to bottom), slip stitch across using the back loop of front row and front loop of back row only.  When placing the thumb hole the space should be 8-9 stitches. Bind off.

Edging:  Single crochet along bottom and top edge. Bind off.

Weave in Ends.

For those that work better with charts the pattern is as follows:

Basic Swatch Of Pattern

~If you simply cannot get the hang of the CSCF stitch — chain 30 then do the following for the foundation row:  1 sc into 2nd ch from hook, *ch 1, skip 1 ch, 1 sc into next ch, rep from * to end turn.

Note: By folding the piece from top to bottom the pattern stretches giving the appearance of lace (at least to me) if you find that the pattern is too tight [i.e. too small], simply add another row. If it is to big decrease rows until the pattern stretches to your liking. Also if you want the glove to cove more of your fingers increase the top edging  until you have the desired height.

One Final comment – I have not been able to take pictures of the gloves on someone (it’s kinda hard to take them when I am wearing them) but will hopefully in the next day or so be able to remedy this and provide you with actual samples.

Finished Example

[Please note that while this is a free pattern it is copyrighted by Pirate Hooker/Picklesnot Design and can not be duplicated without written permission. Items made from this pattern are for personal use only, do not sell them for profit. ]