Arrows by Annette Petavy, and I've been tagged!

Arrows is finished and I'm in love with it. It was so interesting to make, and the Malabrigo was so soft, the colours so dark and intense, that I'm considering making another one just like it. But no: one more week and I'll be free to work on my own stuff again, which I miss terribly.


But wait! I've been tagged by Skamama! That was over a week ago, so here goes:

The rules; Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

1. What was I doing ten years ago?

More or less what I'm doing now! Living in this house which I love in this village which I love, only it was smaller then. Playing concerts, teaching and conducting. DS was five then so I was still in Mommy mode. I wasn't directing a school (oh, happy days...) but neither was I crocheting, so I didn't know what life was about.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list for today (not in any particular order)?

Take rugs to dry cleaner. (done.)
Pay for airline tickets to Toronto. (done.)
Take pics of Arrows Stole. (done.)
Update Blog. (doing.)
Prune front garden.
Laundrylaundrylaundrylaundry
Make sour cherry pie. My sour cherry tree has produced its first crop this year: about 25 cherries. Enough for a very small pie.
Choose a crochet project small enough to keep my mind healthy for just over a week.
Do NOT think about my to-do list for Monday.

3. Snacks I enjoy.

Olives.
Pa amb Tomaquet, the crowning glory of Catalan cuisine: Toast (or even better, grill) a slice of country bread. Rub lightly with a cut clove of garlic. Halve a ripe tomato and rub it all onto the bread. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, then drizzle with a bit of good olive oil. Unbeatable, addictive, very good for you.
Mmmm cheese. But not goat cheese.
Spiced sunflower seeds, another great Spanish invention. The shells are covered in salt and spices. You suck on them until all the good stuff is gone, then crack them and eat the seed.

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire.

No idea. I can't even imagine it. Classical musicians just don't become billionaires! It's like that joke, what's the least-used sentence in the English language? A: "Isn't that the banjo player's Porsche?"But I know what I'd do if I had 200€ to spare: buy a dressmaker's dummy.

5. Places I have lived.

Toronto
Barcelona
Here.

6. Jobs I've had.

Waitress. Worst waitress in the Greater Toronto Area.
Plant-Waterer in fancy office buildings.
Sandwich girl.
Picture Framer.
English teacher.
Musician.

7. Peeps I want to know more about:

All of these are fantastic crochet designers and bloggers from around Europe.

Annette Petavy, only once again I can't seem to access her blog.
Pyogazel (turns out she's already been tagged!)
YarnJungle
SylvChezPlum
Milobo
Since Pyogazel is already spoken for, I tag the talented Pimpampum!

Stayin' Alive?

By a thread. But Lord, what a thread! This is Malabrigo Lace in the VAA colourway. It's so perfect.
Life these days is simply horrid. Yes, it's just my old whinge about this job and its attendant stomachaches. What is a musician doing waging war against local politicians? Like this has something to do with me? The world of local politics is revolting, boring, shocking, and under normal circumstances any sane crocheter or musician would simply refuse to acknowledge it. Here's how I put it to myself so that I am still me: I'll be Saint George, pledged to seven years' service to the Faerie Queene fighting Evil. They can be the Dragons. I don't do reality!

Appropriately, I am making a piece of Weaponry. This stole is named Arrows, and is the masterpiece of Annette Petavy. The pattern can be found in her shop.


Absolutely no question of working on designs of my own. My brain is on hold!

Bootie-Blocking!

This design for baby moccasins by Sylvia Schuchardt is just delightful. It's available on her Etsy store. But:

How do you block a bootie? Being of inventive mind, I just devised this method:

1. Cut a bootie-sized potato in half lengthwise.

2. Shape cut half of potato to desired shape of bootie sole.

3. Cut top of potato to desired shape of bootie upper.

4. Insert potato in plastic bag. Important: do not omit step 4.

5. Insert potato in bootie. Spray lightly with water and let dry.

When these are dry I'll report back and show you how they turned out.




They turned out like this! Blessings on the humble Potato!
ETA:

7. Dice and fry up potato.
6. Remove potato from plastic bag. Important: do not omit step 6.

Thanks Amy!

Veritas, Equitas II, FO

Good. Now I can wash the other ones.

Actually, I have a sinking feeling about these. My best friend Meng has threatened to confiscate them for her own use, and I'm seeing Meng this evening. Which is why I had to take this picture one-handed and not wait till tomorrow when Mr.Croft could do some proper ones. If I do manage to hold onto them, I'll add more pics tomorrow.


And here they are. Farewell, Veritas Equitas II - you're going to a good home!

Vaasa is up!

Today the Spring issue of Black Purl magazine came out, and the pattern for Vaasa is in there, free for anyone with the courage to try it! There's a pretty melange cardigan by "LaVonne" Angela Best(seeing my name beside hers was worth the whole dpn ordeal!), and one of Wanda Blount's (funkycrochetdiva on ravelry) very funky hats. (Carol Ventura has a blog post about this fantastically creative tapestry crocheter, don't miss it.) There's also a good article on Korsnäs sweaters, and another one on the ethnography of Haitian ceremonial flags. This is a really interesting magazine, both scholarly and fashionable, and I have a great deal of respect for L'Tanya Durante, the editor. It's a privilege to be a part of it.

I really do feel for the poor brave souls who take on Vaasa. So I promise 2 tutorials here, one for knitters and one for crocheters. For knitters we will discuss how to do Crochet Jacquard with 3 strands: this is a lesson in Zen self-mastery, as Sriyana who works with 8 strands (!!) recently pointed out. For crocheters we will discuss Double Pointed Needles, Knitting Thereupon. It will be called "dpns and their puta madre".

This is what my blue Veritas, Equitas looks like to date before weaving in. And I still don't quite know how to explain the thumb gusset decreases in a written pattern.

All my green clothes are in the wash.

So I need a pair of Veritas, Equitas gloves to wear with jeans. I've been wearing the green ones practically every day, and they're now filthy dirty from driving while eating sunflower seeds. Anyways, I can't wait to have these done so I can finally wash the first ones. The thought of living for a couple of days without them is unthinkable. In passing, I'm rechecking the pattern for mistakes, and using up my crochet energies while waiting for my yarn to arrive from England...for my secret project. My secret project is a secret because if I can't pull it off I'll be embarrassed forever for having raved about it.

Vaasa

These are FO at last! No more knitting for awhile, thank you very much! This weekend I hope to send in the pattern.

The Unveiling!

The Spring preview of Interweave Crochet is up! I'm in it! If anyone wants to see Troubador Socks no.3: Chretien de Troyes, there they are. Alongside some truly lovely patterns: I'm in very good company. Congratulations to all of us!

I tried to write this post yesterday but I was sick as a dog and off to work as well so it turned out rather gloomy. Today I can really celebrate!

Vaasa, a.k.a Korsnäs Consolation Prize

Remember The Sweater? It's still hibernating. I need my Mum. She could do anything. Given a sewing machine, she could have Saved the World if necessary. Not me, I can't sew and I don't have a machine and I don't trust myself to steek that sweater without her.
But then I got this great gig. Black Purl magazine was looking for a pattern using both crochet and knit, and she contacted Carol Ventura who contacted me - thanks to my frustrated efforts of last summer with the Korsnäs Sweater! So this is what I'm making for L'Tanya of Black Purl Magazine, and in passing I'm satisfying my thwarted need for Korsnäs. They're like little mini Korsnäs sweaters that you wear on your hands!
Everybody will hate this pattern: the crocheters will hate it because of the stranded knitting on dpn's (heaven help us) and the knitters will hate it because of the very difficult 3-stranded crochet jacquard. Well, I can't help it if the Korsnäs girls are geniuses, can I?

Wasn't I supposed to be Not Crocheting Until July? Well...yeah...but as Cole Porter once said, "the best inspiration is a call from my agent."
As soon as these are FO I'll ask Mr. Croft very nicely to take some pictures of them!

The Choreography of Crochet Jacquard

In the last week or so I've been honoured to within an inch of my life. First I got a rave review in Lime&Violet! Crochetcompulsiv crept up behind me and wrote about me without telling me about it. She calls it "stealth admiration", so I'm warning all you crocheters that she is on the move and nobody is safe. Then I received an over-the-top compliment from Kathy Merrick, the brilliant designer of the Babette Blanket - not to mention all the totally over-the top compliments from many brilliant crocheters and knitters! Then I discovered a mention on another awesome site called Craft & Found. So here's me squee-ing all over the house and trying to decide how to return some of the goodness that's just been poured on me by the crochet community. The result is this tutorial, since I think a lot of crocheters are becoming interested in Jacquard technique. It's already published in Spanish along with the pattern for Bernat de Ventadorn on Tejemanejes. So this is the English version.

I used to get into the most horrendous tangles before I started working this way.


Added on March 1st:

OK, let's not write up any more laudatory reviews of Lara Croft, guys. It goes right to her head.

Look at this post. What was I thinking? Like, did I invent this technique? No. In the state of self-exaltation you guys left me in, I omitted to mention that I learned it from another blog. Whose blog? Why, whose do you think? Carol Ventura's blog, of course! To see where I learned this choreography, go to this page. My crocheting life is divided into a Before and After Carol's page on Tapestry Crochet in Finland!

IMPORTANT: WORKED IN ROUNDS!

1. Let's call red A and white B. Hold A in the normal manner, and B flat over the top of the work.

2. Insert hook in Back Loop of stitch. Pass hook under B and pick up A.

3. Draw through a loop.

4. Now change colours. Pass the hook behind A....

5. ...and pick up B.

6. and pull B through, completing the stitch.

7. Now insert hook in Back Loop of next stitch,
and pick up B from where it's lying over top of the work.

8. After drawing through a loop with B, change colours again:
pick up A....

9. And pull it through, completing the stitch.
Now you can start all over from the beginning!

I find that if I have to do a longer stretch (more than 3 sts) of colour B, it's more graceful to drop both strands and pick them up again with their positions reversed. The strand you hold in the normal manner is faster for most of us to work.

Doggy is optional but happy.

Veritas, Equitas FO!

All Done! Yesterday Mr. Croft and I went for a walk and he took great pictures for me, so I'm posting them all.

I'm so in love with these buttons I found! Actually, they're cufflinks. Miniature turk's-head knot cufflinks.

And now, I get to wear them!

SEX (Stash Expeditions!)

SEX, as anyone knows, is the best known cure for the existential malaise that arises from excessive dealings with politicians. Being a victim of said malaise, I felt in need of a cure, and hey: I'm cured! Double-cured. Yarn and a swift!