Category / crocheting

by princesshotflash

Hello! It’s been a month . . .

I haven’t been feeling up to writing, and I haven’t been taking pictures. Could this be due to the COVID? Hmmm. The numbers have been very high in Hawaii, keeping me close to home for the sake of my parents and myself. The three of us have gotten our vaccinations, but it seems to be better safe than sorry with this new Delta variant.

crochet leaves for Joyful Return—Recover

I wanted to share this little side project I’ve been crocheting. It’s for a HOMA (Honolulu Museum of Art) exhibit, Joyful Return—Recover. They asked for handmade ʻōhiʻa leaves in crochet, knit, or sewn for use in this exhibit.

ʻŌhia Lehua, a beautiful native plant, is suffering the plight of rapid ʻōhiʻa death—killing millions of trees across the island. It is a fungal infection that once the trees are infected, they die, and there is no cure.

ʻōhiʻa from the trail

This plight makes me sad as the mighty ʻōhiʻa is one of the plants we see on the many hiking trails in Hawaii. We find them perched on the sides of the mountains trails, standing firm in the winds.

From wind sweep trail of Palehua

This community-based project creates fiber installations around the museum to bring awareness to the ʻōhiʻa’s plight and its recovery. It uses the handmade leaves from the community and pompom ʻōhiʻa to transform the space into an ʻōhiʻa lehua forest. Here’s the link to the Joyful Return Exhibit at HOMA: https://honolulumuseum.org/current_exhibitions/joyful-return/

I hoped to crochet more than I have. But my giant blanket project got in away. Hope this helps fill out their ʻōhiʻa forest. For more information on the ʻōhiʻa lehua, here’s a link to article: https://www.hawaiimagazine.com/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-ohia-lehua-flower/

My watercolor/embroidery of the beautiful ʻōhiʻa

Advertisement
by princesshotflash

Showing off

Woo hoo! I can’t believe I finished my Scheepjes CAL 2020 d’Historie Naturelle. This pattern was the most complicated piece I have done so far. I learned so many new stitches and new techniques. I’m so thankful I had that moment in my life that I thought I could make this blanket.

All done. 8/23/2021 As wide as queen size bed

Thank you, Christina Hadderingh of A Spoonful of Yarn , for your fantastic design. I don’t know who you came up with this design, but I’m so glad you did.

And oh my goodness, I don’t know what I would have done without Esther Dijkstra of It’s all in a Nutshell blog videos to get me through the entire piece, especially the lacy corner sections. Your voice (extremely calm) and helpful hints as if you knew where I would be struggling.

My blanket is nowhere close to perfect, but I don’t care. I think it looks great. Sometimes you have to say yes to a challenge.

  • shells, elephants, and leaves
  • the hardest part: lacy corners
  • flower center
  • border
  • butterfly
  • butterflies and leeaves
  • even the back is beautiful
  • Now the ends to be dealt with
by princesshotflash

Row 97

Yes, I’m still slogging away at my Scheepjes CAL 2020 blanket. I’m on row 97 out of 105. I probably wouldn’t call it “slog” if I wasn’t crocheting a blanket in the hottest part of summer. I see the end coming soon and have been pushing to finish each row I work.

This is row 97 of my CAL 2020 blanket.

D’ Histoire Naturelle is the most challenging pattern I have crocheted. I’ve learned many new stitch patterns and techniques. I was close to quitting around February, took a two-month break. And I was able to tackle what I perceived as the most complicated section.

  • start with a half double crochet (hdc)
  • Yarn over (yi)
  • move needle behind hdc
  • yo, bring needle to front (should have 3 strands on needle)
  • yo again
  • bring needle behind the hdc again
  • yo, bring needle to front, you should have 5 strands on needle
  • yo, then pull strand through the 5 loops

I took a few pictures of myself working the current new stitch–pearl stitch. I could see using it as edging. Pretty cute. Oh, by the way, please excuse the shots. I should invest in a tripod if I’m going to continue to do these types of images.

I’m shooting for the end of August to finish the blanket. I have eight more rows to go and MANY ends to weave in.

by princesshotflash

Row 80 out of 105

Phew! I’m on row 80 of my Scheepjes CAL.

Row 80: Two sides done, 2 more to go. It’s as wide as my double bed with 25 rows to gow.

Part 5 has been harder than the dreaded part 4 (lacy corners). Could it be the repetitiveness of these rows or is it that I’m not paying attention. Whatever it is, there has been lots of adding rows, counting, cursing, and ripping out, repeat.

I guess I need some encouragement to get me to the end. This is what the blanket look like so far. It’s much bigger than I thought it would be.

by princesshotflash

Do you see elephants?

I finally got back to my d’Historie Naturelle blanket and made it past part 4, attaching the corners. I was avoiding putting them on because I thought I my have made a mistake and need to rip apart what I had done and that just got me not wanting to do it.

To my surprise, I did’t ripe it apart.

corners attached, phew!
Started on the flames row, I thought they look more like flower bud.
I’m not looking forward to weaving the ends in.

Part 5

I thought I would never get pass part 4. Part 5 starts our simple and pretty straight forward. I get to the famous elephant rows, simple repeats and simple stitches. No crazy triple trebles (uk term) in the next two rounds. How bad can it be?

Bad! I shouldn’t crochet when I’m stressed out (Dad issue). It’s only two rows with an easy pattern repeat along each edges. Well it must be hard enough to make the exact same mistake–1/2 treble (uk term) NOT double crochet (uk term)-TWICE! And I had rip it out to the beginning of the first of the two row. Sheesh! Annoyed. I ripped out, bundle everything together and threw it in the corner fix later! Ughhhh!

I wake up the next morning and determine to make this right, and TA DAH!

No ears but I’m not ripping them out again!!!

I can see the elephants!

from a text from my sister

There are two per repeat, facing each other, eight in total. The original pattern has them with no ear and I did find a link in the comments of the video for elephants with ears but I wasn’t going to rip them out again just for the ear. I like how they look, cute!

I hope to continue on till I’m done. Working a little everyday till I can show you this finished project. I should slap myself for stopping during the cooler winter month to only start back up in when the weather has turn to almost summer in my neighborhood.

For my birthday, I picked up another crochet pattern for bag and both the yarn. Corfu bag from Outstanding Crochet and Catona yarn from scheepjes from Wool Warehouse.

There are other projects in the queue before this bag but I couldn’t pass it up. More projects to come. Stay tuned.