Early FO: Night Shirt with Crochet Trim

Later on I'll have pics from The Knitting Nest and my Big Baby Scarf, now frogged and restarted. But first, I found another Early FO at my parent's house tonight that I want to share.


You have to look closely to see the crochet. I debated counting it as a crochet FO at all, but I think it's an idea worth sharing.



Around the eighth or ninth grade, I got a set of ten white XXL shirts from Sam's with the idea of decorating all of them. I think this is the only one I actually decorated.



It took me a while to figure out how I did it. It looks like I (or maybe my Mom) went around the sleeves and bottom with the zig zag stitch on the sewing machine. I crocheted into the sewn stitches with a steel hook (I'm not sure which size) and white crochet thread.



After crocheting the trim, I added a bow, and then my parents helped me dye the whole thing with Rit Dye. It's a little discolored now. I wore it to bed a lot, and it got washed a lot. (Rit Dye isn't exactly the highest quality stuff anyway.)

Now it doesn't fit me (or at least not loosely enough to be a comfy night shirt), and it'll probably go in the garage sale pile. But I did want to document it first.

Parting Shot

I thought I'd post a picture of Mom's spice drawer in the kitchen. She recently organized it and put labels on top of the spices to make things easier to find. It's one of life's little victories. Like organizing your knitting bag before a plane trip.

Early FOs: Herrschner's Contest Entries

Are you ready for some more of my early work? My Mom found two afghans in storage recently.

This is the Cabbage Rose afghan by Sherry B. Raymer from Woman's Day Prizewinning Granny Squares, a book I got for Christmas one year. If I remember correctly I used Red Heart Super Saver. (In fact, I used Red Heart on both the afghans in this entry. Red Heart is the official yarn of my childhood.)

I think I crocheted this around 1993, a period when I had dropped knitting and but was into crochet. I was also really into rainbow colors. (The original pattern was in subtle pastels on a white background.)

I was drawn to the giant three dimensional roses in the pattern. It doesn't make it very practical for actual use, but it was fun to make.

Mom thinks the roses got squished during years in storage, but I think they look fine.

Here's a close up of the corner. I seem to vaguely remember going to Walmart and looking for the perfect rainbow colors.

Here is the cool part. My entry tag from the Herschners Grand National Afghan Contest is still attached. Back then, you could enter patterns that had been published by someone else. I read about the contest in a magazine I was looking through at Book Stop. (Do you remember Book Stop? Barnes and Noble bought them out a long time ago.)

I didn't win, but my picture and my afghan were featured in the Herrschners catalog because I was one of the youngest entrants. (A 12 year-old boy was also featured.) I still have the catalog somewhere.

I entered several times. I forget exactly what was entered when. I'm guessing this afghan was entered the following year. This time I designed my own.

I'm really proud of this one. Really, really proud. More so today than I was back then (circa 1994?) I wanted to crochet something that was similar to a quilt. I chose the log cabin quilt. My Mom talked about log cabin quilts a lot during that period (or at least that's how I remember it.) The center of each square is supposed to represent the hearth of the home. (At least I think that's it. If so, I got it wrong here because the hearth is supposed to be a warm color.) I also remember learning about the different log cabin layouts. This is Fields and Furrows.

When I first saw it on Monday, I remembered that I designed it myself, but I didn't quite believe it. The pattern holds up well today. I might change the color scheme and the size, but otherwise I'd keep it the same. I wish I had written it down. (Maybe I'll go back and try to record it someday.)

You'll notice entering Herrschners again is number four on my list.

PS - Squinty says hi.

Early FOs: Two Crocheted Belts.

Are you getting tired of my early FOs? I'm not. I find them endlessly amusing.

But if you are sick of them, don't worry, this is the last entry on them. At least until I find more in storage.

Here are two belts I crocheted. I'm not sure when. I think these were crocheted in elementary school, not middle school.

Attractive, I know. The only way this belt fit was by sucking in my stomach a little and putting it around the smallest part of my waist. (Which happens to be very high on my torso.)

It's crocheted out of some sort of cotton. It's a very simple single crochet pattern.

This belt is different. And smaller. It's not actually buttoned here. I'm holding it around my waist. Also, I used acrylic, not cotton.

I got this pattern out of a library book. I have no idea which one. I think it was an older, "experimental" crochet book with lots of unusual patterns. The library had a couple of those. I learned several variations on single crochet while crocheting this belt.

And of course, there's the awesome little pouch. It looks like it could hold a cell phone, which is ironic because this belt was made way before cell phones. (Or at least well before they would fit in a pouch this small.)

Early FOs: Amigurumi Before Amigurumi Was Cool

Back when I saw the Amigurumi issue of Crochet Me for the first time, I remember thinking about how the stuff I made in Middle School must have been ahead of its time.

Now I have proof.

For my next installment of FOs I found in storage, I present amigurumi. Of course back when I made it, it wasn't called amigurumi. They were just crocheted stuffed animals.

This first one is from a pamphlet of crocheted animals that I used a lot. I don't remember the name, but I think it had "egg" in the title. These patterns were supposed to be stuffed with pantyhose eggs. However, after the first elephant, I realized the bodies were too big for the eggs. So I just stuffed them with Polyfil. Then I realized my embroidery sucked, so I started using googly eyes. (Everything is better with googly eyes.)

The dog was just one of several patterns in the pamphlets. I think it was one of the first times (if not the first time) I did colorwork. (Look at the face.)

A while back I asked Mom what her childhood dog, Goober, looked like. For someone reason her description reminds me of this dog, even though she says Goober looked nothing like my dog. I think this dog has a new name anyway.

This turtle is from the same book as Goober. I was really proud of the webbed "shell" attached to the top of the body.

I'm pretty sure the pink yarn is Caron Simply Soft and the purple is the long discontinued Dazzleaire. But I'm not positive.

This is a very different type of crocheted turtle. This pattern is one of those freebie patterns they have in displays at craft stores. This one was crocheted with baby yarn. It was my first experience with popcorn stitches.

It's supposed to be a rattle. Inside the shell is a margarine tub filled with beans (or rice or something like that.) Like the pantyhose egg animals, the tub didn't quite fit. Apparently I had loosened up my gauge by then, but I hadn't learned t0 pay attention to my gauge.

And no, I don't know where the nasty brown stain came from. It came with age. The lesson: be careful when you store your hand knits (and hand crochets.)

(BTW - I took more pictures in natural light, but somehow the pictures in the kitchen turned out better. I think the cardboard box was reflecting too much light. Any tips?)

Early FOs: Slipper Edition

Today I unearthed even more of my early knitting and crochet as we were going through storage. I'm breaking up the projects into several blog entries. I'm starting with the slippers I found.

I know, right?

I think I crocheted both pairs of slippers in the sixth grade. The pattern came from on of the many pattern pamphlets I got at local craft stores. There was a basic slipper pattern and a whole bunch of variations on it. Both were crocheted holding two strands of acrylic yarn together.

These are the Bunny Slippers, obviously. These are pretty close to the original pattern. The fringe took a lot of time. Pulling the plies apart was especially time consuming.

I went a little off the pattern on this one. These are my Mom and Dad Slippers. The one with glasses is my Mom. The one with the mustache is my Dad. I'm pretty sure these were made from Caron Simply Soft, but I'm not positive.

I know I wore both pairs a few times, but obviously they didn't get a lot of heavy use. (And don't worry, I'm not getting rid of these.)