My Taste Is Sometimes Bizarre

If I were to dress the way that my inner me wants to dress then I think most people would find it a bit bizarre. As it is I dress like a normal 66yr old conventional woman does. Inside though I am still have hippy bohemian tendencies hence the name of my Etsy shop Urban Gypsy Crochet. I am not gypsy minded in the travellers kind of way but more the old Romanian gypsies as portrayed in the old movies. I love the flamboyant colours of the skirts and headdresses. I think this is why I love to crochet colourful things even though I don't actually wear them. I just hope that other people share my love of the colourful and unusual and want to buy some of my things. I am trying to give in to my inner boho self and actually wear some of the crochet that I want to wear despite knowing that people will view me as a little bit crazy. I just wish that I had more self confidence to be the inner me instead of the conventional me who dresses like people expect me to dress.

The red fingerless mitts in the centre are an example of my creativity running wild. I wanted a pair of gloves that hinted of the burlesque. They are lacy with a black fun fur edging and laced up the centre with ribbon corset style. The other mitts that I have designed are a bit more conventional to perhaps appeal to more people.

The hats are for the craft fair. What I call bread and butter crochet. The scarf pattern is Doris Chan's Sweet Lorraine and the is hat is one that I improvised to match the scarf. I added a flower to please my inner me. I think that I still have time to make a couple of lacy summer hats with flowers before Sunday.

I made this shawl from the Dudley Do Wright pattern that I bought from either Etsy or Ravelry. It is a very simple shawl to crochet but if I made it again then I would use finer yarn than the aran yarn that I used here. Whilst this version is a lovely warm shawl I think that it would drape better if done in a finer yarn. It is a top down shawl so could be adapted to any size of hook and any thickness of yarn just by altering the number of pattern repeats.

At the moment I am in the middle of crocheting another chunky shawl for the fair. I am also re-organising my yarn stash once again. I bought one of those shelving units with a cover designed as temporary storage for students and am using it for all my full balls of colourful acrylic yarns that I use for shawls, granny squares etc. Of course I underestimated my stash of single balls and so I have ordered another one today. I will post photos of  them both once they are in place and filled. I also bought a 4 tiered plastic vegetable tray on castors that I am using to store the part balls of yarns that I am working with. This idea works so well I am going to get another one to store the patterns that I am using at the moment as opposed to the ones that are stored away in boxes. I will post photos of those once they are all set up in place.

I do try my best to keep organised even though to an uncrafty eye my house is still untidy. I do feel slightly better about this when I watch the You Tube videos of the Cast Off Crew and Fresh Off The Hook as the backgrounds of their videos look equally as messy as mine. I know now that I am not alone in my crafty mess.

Today is nice and sunny although still quite chilly. The gardener has been today for the first time this season. I don't have her visit during the winter. It all sounds rather posh having a gardener but she just comes once a fortnight for an hour just to keep the lawn and the small  bit of garden tidy. I don't have a beautiful garden but at least it is neat and tidy when she comes. I just could not manage it before and I could not keep relying on the generosity of neighbours. I like to be as self sufficient as I can.

It will soon be the craft fair on Sunday and I need to sort out what I am going to take with me and make sure that things are labelled. I am not taking my baby things this time apart from a couple of newer items. I am trying out a different theme with the retro crochet items to see how they are received.

Thank you all for your comments. I do appreciate them. I am trying to blog more frequently after my long lay off but still not got back in the swing of things yet.

Am I being creative - or just making a mess?

I have been busy over the last couple of days trying to organise myself in the stash department. Maybe my ex husband's remarks stung a little or perhaps I looked at my house in a different light but either way I decided to reacquaint myself with my stash. I need to sort out some mohair for Ambermoggie. If you have any spare mohair look on her blog as she is doing a swop of mohair for one of her elementals. Even if you haven't got any take a look at her blog anyway!

I have discovered lots of wool that I bought for specific projects and put away and forgotten all about. Come on girls you have all done that, haven't you? Now I have to think of other projects as I can't remember what the wool was intended for in the first place. I sorted out some of the bits and bats into co-ordinating colourways which started me on crocheting the dreaded granny squares into a shawl. I made one many years ago and decided to make another one. I will ,of course, bitterly regret this decision when I come to sewing up the gadzillions of tail ends. As I am crocheting on the wing, using stash, the completed squares are pinned together on my dining table along with the half completed squares to give me an idea of where the shawl is going. What else is a dining table for anyway. There is only me and I can always eat at the computer desk! I have another bag of mixed shades of purples and greens ready for something similar. Help I am entering a granny square phase again! Thankfully I have another Sweet Pea shawl yet to crochet to save me from getting sucked in.

Vic's sock is progressing slowly. This is my first toe up sock and so far I like the neat way the increases are at the toe. I have yet to encounter the heel so the jury is still out on whether I will be a toe up or toe down knitter in the future.

The consequence of my stash tidying (ha ha) is that the house now looks much worse than it did in the first place and my mind is whirling with new projects for the stash wool that I have uncovered. My father used to say I had the mind of a butterfly as I flit from project to project, knit to crochet and in the old days when I had good eyes - sewing, and he wanted me to finish off one project at a time. Come on girls how boring is that slogging away at one thing until it is finished and then going on to the next?

The patterns I uncovered as well. They take me back quite a while. I never made bags or jewlery but I used to love Goldfingering. I hated crocheting with it as it used to cut my fingers to ribbons. Many a bikini I crocheted (not for me I assure you) that went from me to be lined and then sold in a boutique. I had a much loved vest type top in gold that I used to wear with my de rigeur long black velvet skirt whenever I went out clubbing. There was none of this "have something new everytime you go out" in my generation. We had a couple of good tops and a skirt and used to alternate. I was considered to be a bit posh as I had a few knit and crochet tops to dazzle my dance partners with. As you can presume I was quite a popular girl with the girls who wanted tops similar. My mother used to say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but I wanted to be an individual and liked the fact that no-one could look like me so I only crocheted for my best friend.

I am off to Bury market. Ivy, the trolley, and I will be catching the metro shortly. I shall try to resist having a peek at the wool stall on there. It has a siren call and it is right next to the fruit and veg stall that I am visiting. Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye!

Finished hats for B

These are the hats that I finished and sent to B. He got them yesterday so I can post them on here now he has seen them. See what I can make with 100 grams of Sirdar Country Style 4ply (plus a few oddments) I finished up with a ball of just a few yards as you can see.
I think that I misunderstood what he wanted though. My instructions were to make a hat that didn't cover his ears which I interpreted to mean a short beanie. He says these are too big so I think he meant more of a skull cap that just sits over the top of his head and not a small hat. He is going to send me a photo of what he means with measurements so I can make one the right size. I did think that the one he chose was a bit girly with the picot edge but made it anyway. I made the others more manly. His mum has finished up with the girly one (bottom photo) so all is not lost.

Last night I decided to make my friend Caroline a chunky mini cardigan as she was coming around today to touch up my roots. I finished it and managed to take photos before she took it home with her so will post those tomorrow. She liked the black crochet cardigan that I made for myself but would like one with shorter sleeves (as on the pattern). I might make her one later but at the moment I don't have any suitable wool to make it, as I think she probably wants it in black, and I have a few projects already in the pipeline that take priority.

Vicky also called around and brought some wool for a shawl. She took Perran's Sweet Pea shawl home and borrowed the way out Boho baby book as I won't be using it for quite a while (if ever). She brought with her the shawl that she has started crocheting ( see Vicky's blog) and the colours are lovely. I can see she is going to be a good crocheter very soon. She has already chosen a pattern from one of her knitting mags that she would like to start one day soon. I will teach the world to crochet one person at a time. I am infiltrating the knitters one at a time and converting them into crocheters! I don't know why crochet is considered to be second class craft by a lot of knitters as it is such a useful craft to learn even if it is only used as edgings and not whole garments. Today's crochet garments are nothing like the hippy granny square waistcoats of the 60's and 70's that gave crochet such a bad name.

I look at the "crochet" jewelry on Flickr. Some of the beaded bracelets and necklaces on there are just so lovely. Just take a look at this lady's work.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/roshana29/2500638266/

I unfortunately don't have the manual dexterity ( I have arthritic fat banana carpal tunnel fingers) or the eyesight these days to try to learn anything like that. Big Sigh. I look at the quilts on Ailsa's blog (not Enough time to craft) and would love to make something like those also. If someone hoists the sewing machine on the table for me I can just about manage to sew a straight line these days.

I am still at the starting chain stage of my purple Doris Chan sweater so that may be my crochet for tonight but then again I might just start another shawl. It all depends on how riveting the TV is tonight as I have to really concentrate on the "raglan" start to Doris's patterns. One wrong move and it throws the whole balance of the "raglans" out. The stitch markers have a habit of springing out of thick crochet which doesn't help until the pattern is well established.

I love having company as it is such a nice change to spending the day alone as I usually do. My son and daughter in law may call around this afternoon and possibly walk Buster which will be great for him as he really doesn't get walked as often or as long as he should and he is tending to put a wee bit of weight on ( like me !)

A new day - a new project

I have to use up as much of the wool I have for one project. There is something about me that cannot put the extra ball into stash. I had a full 50 gram ball plus a part ball left from my niece Vicky's jumper. ( June - I made the jumper in Sirdar Click DK sorry for not mentioning it last post) On
my niece's last visit she had expressed a desire for a scarf that was lacy and done in circles linked together.

I started this scarf but soon realized that not only did linking the circles together drive me nuts but that it was coming out too big and I would not have enough wool. I then remembered seeing a vintage crochet dress pattern in a lacy stitch in my stash and so used that stitch to make a scarf.

I am quite pleased with the effect and how much scarf I managed to make with so little wool. I crocheted a fringe out of chain as I knew there was not enough for a fringed one, I hope that she won't mind that it's not the circle one that she liked. I will maybe try that pattern out again in finer wool next time. I still have to use the part 100 gram ball left from my other niece's cardigan but think perhaps a knitted beanie would be more her style.

I went to the Salford Arms knitting club last night. We had a half hour delay in getting there as there appeared to have been a bad accident further up the main road. Lots of flashing lights and ambulances flying about. I hope that no one was seriously injured. Our visit was therefore quite a short one but I did manage to start the second Tiger sock and do a few rounds. The lady who knits with strips of plastic bags was there and she had a couple of finished ones with her. I might have a go one day as they make really strong bags for shopping and it's such a good way of recycling supermarket bags into something useful. She was making another bag out of brightly differently coloured bags for a beach bag. She said that she put one up for raffle and raised £50+ pounds for charity. Good idea. Another of the members has almost finished a knitted dalek. It is for a gift for an avid Dr Who fan and it looks really good now she has almost finished it. One of the guys from the bar came to us with his camera phone to take a photo of the dalek as he was so intrigued with it.

Today I started the crochet shawl destined for my sister in law. I made her one with a slightly different edging than the pattern for Christmas in black and she loved it so much that she hinted that she would like one in a different colour. I chose cream as that's another good all round go with most things colour. My sister in law has conservative tastes and would never wear a strong colour like I would choose. I will decide on the edging when I get to the end although the one on the pattern has a sort of collar effect and I doubt that she would like that. One reason I changed it last time. Her birthday is the 23rd so it's all sytems a go. Midnight oil will be burned.

I still have to finish Anna's soakers and Nikki's hat before the next Knitting Noras Knit Out - whew - mush mush Jan get those hooks a flashing!

I had a good night's sleep again last night so hopefully the bad dreams and wakefulness have gone away for the time being. Poor sleep affects my mood and energy levels for the rest of the day. Hopefully I will be able to get some more shawl crocheted today in between dog walks.

I just read the Panopticon (see link at the side) and I was rolling about laughing. If you have never read Franklin's blog then please just take a look at it just once - he is such a funny guy (as well as being a good knitter) I love Dolores the sheep (and Harry) and am a member of the Ravelry group named in her honour.

Gym ? Sorry I would rather be crocheting

Today was supposed to be my Gym day with the BEATS exercise programme but I got up late and tired and had no motivation at all. I am sorry to any gym nuts who might be reading my blog and are addicts but I would rather do some thrilling exercise than pedalling a bike looking at a wall. I could choose the bike with the view of 4 TV screens all with different channels and the sound turned down but I keep thinking any moment a pianist will come in and play as in the silent movies. Now that could be marginally more exciting! I look around and see the concentration on the faces of the others and then realise they are mostly plugged into IPods but as an IPod isn't high on my wish list I am one of the outcasts.

My idea of exercise is something that involves fun. I used to love my belly dancing until my back forced me to give that up. Horizontal dancing would be nice if I could find the right partner. I do get offers of the sexual kind but as the guys seem to think that because I have been without a partner for a long time that I am therefore gagging for it and they are doing me an enormous favour by asking. I am old fashioned. I want a bit of romance guys, someone who will ask me out for a drive, a picnic (well when it's warmer), the theatre etc. What I don't want is the furtive offers from other women's husbands for a roll in the hay when she isn't looking! As my father used to say "You don't look at the mantlepiece when you are poking the fire". I have no illusions that it is my beauty (ha ha) that draws them to me like moths to a flame it is more the fact they perceive me as being available at any time and they think they don't even have to pay for a room as I live alone! I am not flattered by this attention. I said to one guy "Please don't insult me by asking me and he actually did look shamefaced and admitted that was all he wanted from me - no relationship - nothing - just straight sex"

There must be some women who accept this kind of attention. I used to have a friend who had lots of different guys all the time and thought like a man. She called me a prude but I don't think I am. I just value myself a lot higher than that. I did try saying yes for a while thinking these encounters would lead to dating etc but I got very disillusioned. I even tried the Internet dating and got a wide selection of other women's husbands on that offering to come around to my house on first contact. One actually said "Why put an advert on a dating site if you don't want casual sex?" Needless to say I cancelled my subscription to that shortly afterwards.

Whoa - back to the crocheting topic that I am supposed to be writing about on here. I started another shawl, different pattern, last night. This one is crocheted from the narrow part upwards. I found it in a 1974 crochet/knit magazine (60p) when crocheting patterns were written simply and had no charts and no squiggly diagrams. Most of all, Bliss oh bliss, UK CROCHET TERMS. Yeah! Plus the added bonus of the fact it is a UK pattern so therefore no Mistakes or Typos. Hands up all the crafters out there who are sick of all the mistakes in the modern patterns. I wonder who proof reads these US crochet books I pay £12 plus for? Obviously no one who crochets that's for sure. The photos show my WIP, the finished shawl, and the front cover of the magazine.

Today I am going to try my hand at a pair of crocheted fingerless mitts as I gave up completely on the pair in the Stitch n Bitch Happy Hooker book. I am sure there must be a way of making a pattern with less ambiguous rows and a better fit. I could have crocheted 2 pairs in the time it took me to read and then re- read every pattern row. My poor yarn was almost threadbare with all the frogging I did even then. Other people have crocheted them with no trouble, I think I have trouble with her style of writing crochet patterns out plus having to always convert every line to UK terminology is annoying.

Oh by the way any guys reading this I have lost touch with my nympho friend so am unable to supply a phone number for her!

Shawl is 4 balls long

As you can see from the photo the black fine silk shawl is growing slowly and I have now crocheted 4 balls into it. Still slow going as I am now getting diverted by all this sunshine. I think every day that tomorrow it might all be gone and then I can do more crocheting!

I watched the programme called "How to look good naked" last night and I have to say I was really impressed. Anything that can make women feel good about the shape they have and not be made to feel a freak because they carry a little extra weight is OK in my book. Magazines who hold up stick thin people up as being style icons are truly evil in my books, thank God I grew up in an age when it wasn't a crime to have curves. I shall be watching avidly next week. The lady last night looked truly amazing in her basque on the catwalk. Oh for one of those. I have looked on the Vollers web site many times and positively drooled at the corsets and basques but unfortunately they are out of my pensioners budget. I may be 61 but I am not dead yet and would love to strut my stuff wearing one of those amazing garments (Vollers please take note!) I decided a few years ago to be happy with the way I look. So I have cellulite and many extra pounds but I don't look in the mirror any more and see ugly. It might sound big headed and probably a lot of people who look at me don't think I look good but do you know what - I don't give a flying f*** what they think. I think I look good for my age and that is all that is important to me!

The larger grow house has now arrived and is up and full of my broad beans (approx 8" tall now) and my lettuce. I have to say that I have been sneaking the odd leaf or two from my baby lettuce to put on my sandwiches so I can actually say I have eaten the first of my home grown veggies. The seeds are not showing much sign of life but then they only got planted less than a week ago. I am feeling quite motherly over the few tiny leaves that are starting to poke their heads up above soil and rush out every morning to see if any more have emerged over night.

I am still dog walking twice a day and still no weight has been lost but I am not deterred. I am out there in my vest top and shorts and don't give a hoot if I scare the neighbours with my white cellulite or not! I am going to start on the Holiday Skin Body lotion again and risk getting skin cancer out in the sunshine. Last year I went a really good colour and not from a holiday abroad. People kept asking me where I had been and I said my back garden. One of the perks of being retired. The hours are great but the wage is rubbish. I wonder if a change of government, if we get one, will increase my weekly pennies? I have grown a bit cynical in my old age and honestly can't see much difference between any of the political parties. I feel I have to vote as Emily Pankhurst chained herself to the railings on my behalf, but I do so without much enthusiasm. They all promise the earth and then forget it once they are in power.

Finished at last

The long sleeved shrug (see previous blog) is finished at last. Sorry no photo as my niece came to pick up her 3 crochet jackets as I was doing the last round on the front edging so no time to take a quick pic. My jiggery pokery on the front shapings worked out fine in the end. A novice crocheter could never have done it. There were no instructions on how many double crochet to pick up for the border along the fronts or anywhere all it said was make it divisible by 3 ! Sorry but an idea of what I was aiming for along each piece would have been nice. Also no instructions to increase slightly around the bends at the bolero fronts. Had I followed the instructions, such as they were, it would have pulled rather strangely as obviously doing the outside edge of a bend gets larger the more rows it progresses.

The more crochet I have done with recent patterns the more I am convinced I should take up pattern designing once again. I do design most of my own work but as I write them down in language only I could understand I doubt if any other crocheter could follow them. Good tip is lay a jumper or cardigan that fits you perfectly on a table and crochet your new garment to match it, adapting necklines and sleeves etc to suit the style you are designing. I have even made tissue paper shapes as you would for sewing patterns and used them as templates. You need to take into account the "stretchability" of the stitch you choose for your garment as if it is a rigid stitch then you will probably need to make your garment a larger size than your sample as it won't stretch whilst you are pulling it on.

I am lucky I suppose in that I have been blessed with a good eye for doing very good copies ( sorry people if you think it infringes your copyright I do vary it on purpose from yours!) of anything I have seen in a magazine or a shop. Most of the articles for sale are so much like patterns I already have I doubt if it would be possible to say they are originals anyway. My mother had a saying "old times with vinegar on it" meaning same as she used to wear as a girl with a slight variation and they call it new fashion that they have designed! I have seen many articles for sale as "originals" when I have the exact pattern in my mother's old 1940 and 1950's patterns. The only variation being that they use thicker yarn in the more modern patterns.

My niece was over the moon with her garments. I have found some Twilleys black fine silky yarn "Lystwist" I think it was called in my stash and she has a pattern for a fine semi circular evening shawl. She will have to send me the pattern book back or scan it to me via the e mail so I can make it for her holidays. It will be light and airy. Ideal for those summer evenings abroad.

Today I am going to iron in the garden (when the sun shines I do everything I can in the garden) before braving the Sunday gardeners and council workers at the tip. I have 3 bags of tree clippings and 2 old tv's (sets - not elderly transvestites!)I know that before the car's wheels have stopped rolling some official will come and peer in the car and start barking out instructions for which bay I am to put my "greens (no plastic bags)!" as if I can't read the instructions on the wall in letters about a foot high! They bellow stuff at me like I am a dumb child. Blonde I may be but perfectly capable of reading instructions thank you.

The dog has had one walk but will be there tail wagging for another this afternoon. I am not a lover of Sunday walks as every man, woman,child pushchair and dog in the town seem to be in there and I am rather more of an solitary dog walker. We prefer the dogs we already know and socialise with as it saves on a lot of barking, growling and menacing. The hours I normally walk him there is the same network of dogs and they enjoy meeting each other. Quite a dog club and it's fun - all tail wagging and bum sniffing etc - but weekends it all changes. This morning I met a lady with 5 little yapping dogs. Who needs 5 of them? They surrounded Buster and were nipping at him. Poor soul was very upset he didn't know which way to turn to get away from them. Small dogs are rather like small men. They think they have something to prove.