Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Yarn along: practice runs


I finished the cardiff cowl I've been crocheting this week, and it's embarrassingly wonky. I'd thought it would be a gift, but I'm going to keep it for myself, as it's wearable, but clearly a beginner's project (the bottom half is all stretched-out with extra stitches and mistakes; the top half is straight and lovely.) I spent a ridiculous amount of time last night trying to figure out how to do a foundation stitch rather than a chain for the next one--I love everything about this cowl except for the tight chain in the middle. Now I'm hoping I have the skills to make the next one better (and much faster, as I'm now one gift behind where I thought I'd be!)

For a quick in-between project, I began work today on some crochet hair ties for stocking stuffers. I'm making some little flowers from a pattern in Crochet Adorned, which I plan to attach to hair elastics for cute ponytail decorations. My fingers feel awfully huge for that tiny hook, but I'm hoping I'll get the hang of it soon.

So I haven't actually created many gifts yet, but let's just call these practice runs for the real thing.

I'm reading The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow. I've just barely started it, but ooh, it's good so far! On our recent trip to Boston, we lucked out at the thrift store, finding a huge heap of good-looking books. I grabbed this one because I vaguely remembered reading good reviews of it, and because Barbara Kingsolver gave the blurb for the cover, but I didn't know anything more than that (the advantage of books under a dollar is you can judge a book by its cover without much risk!). A bad time of year to start a good book, though; I find myself thinking "read? make gifts? read? make gifts?"

See what others are reading and creating at Ginny's Yarn Along.

5 comments:

Erin @ Wild Whispers said...

The book looks great! And thanks for the idea for the pony tail bobbles... I am going to make some for my nieces!

Julie said...

Loving your advent countdown! You are so inspiring and motivating. It is wonderful to see all your experiences so far:)

Luisa said...

Read or make gifts both sound like good things to get excited about. I'm going check out the links almost afraid because it will add to my Christmas List. lol

Rosina {Rosy ~ Posy} said...

Ooh that book sounds interesting! I'm in between books right now after finishing The Red Tent so I'm going to have to see if our library has this one :)

heather said...

I just bought one of those tiny hooks and thread too. However, I wimped out on my project for now (it was a Christmas gift and the gift pile of work is overwhelming me, so I went an easier route). I need to spend some time getting used to the smaller scale!