Spring is Here!
It’s the 2nd day of May and the weather is finally warming up to spring temperatures! It will be nice to be able to go out in the sunshine and crochet again, but that will have to be after the spring cleanup after the mess winter left in our yard. My favorite, in both spring and summer, is going to the lake at my in-laws house and sitting outside on a sunny day, with a bottle of iced tea, my iPod, and my crochet project, under the trees looking over the lake.
(Photo taken June 14, 2014)
Right now, I am in design mode again. A (hopefully) summery slouchy cotton hat. It’s actually based on a hat that I made (no pattern) about 7 or 8 years ago. I know I wrote it down, but I can’t find my notebook that I wrote it in, so I’ve been trying to recreate it from memory. I’m also trying different yarn/thread ideas for it for the look I want, because the yarn that I originally used, Bernat Cool Crochet, has been long discontinued. I think this might be kind of more of a “recipe” type pattern, because there will be some math going on in it for the crocheter to do to be sure of a good custom fit. I will have the start and the first few rounds written out, so then it will be up to the crocheter to be able to determine how many increase rounds total, by the diameter measurement that needs to be figured out at the start of the pattern, will be needed before the decrease to reach the needed size of the finished hat, then I will have how to decrease and the band/brim and finishing all written down. I would have all of the instructions on how to figure out the needed diameter and finished size. I’m also debating if it’s going to be a paid pattern or not. I hope to be getting many photos of all of the samples in the different yarn/thread ideas. I also told my husband that I need a “head” to be able to do that. I had found a Styrofoam “head” at Meijer, in their craft section, that I can pin cloth onto it I want.
I am also excited to say that my husband (ChaosRaven Cards) and I (by Midknight Designs) now have a showcase at Taylor Town Trade Center on Ecorse Rd in Taylor, Michigan! It’s not much at the moment, but right now I have a few crocheted items and he has a lot of Magic The Gathering cards set up for sale right now. I will be also putting in the case a few of my son’s crocheted roses, plus more of a selection of my crochet than what I have right now in the near future.
Nothing Really New, Yet
Well, I have 3 testers so far for my Daughter of Dragons Shrug, so I am now focusing on working on the shrug for my Grandmother, until I’m needed to do editing and stuff.
I have 10″ out of 15″ for the first sleeve done, 5 more to go, so there is a chance I may finish that tonight. Then I’ll work of the back and then the second sleeve after that. This shrug is actually working up faster than the 3 I previously made lol
This shrug I’ve modified a bit though, because I have it written for long sleeves (up to 20″ long) and she wants 3/4 length sleeves, so that could explain why it’s taking less time.
Last night, my husband went to a MTG booster draft at one of the local game stores and used his new pouch for the first time. When he came home afterward, it was filled with cards! He said he got a lot of comments on it from some of the other players last night too. I couldn’t get over how many cards he fit into it! LOL
I was also thinking that I should make up a bunch of necklaces for “ready to ship” for hopefully holiday sales too. I think I want to make at least a couple of the necklaces and a bracelet or two in the gold metallic thread I have.
Raven’s Dragon Skin Pouch
Completely finished!
I do have to say that I totally suck at lining a bag! Sewing is definitely not my strong point at all! I have sewn things over the years, hand-sewn, machine-sewn (my sewing machine broke down a few years ago), made things from fabric with sewing. I even had a sewing class waaayyyyy back in junior high! I can do it, but no matter how careful I am, it always looks messy. I try to make neat and even stitches, but it just does not happen. *sigh*
Annnnnyyyyyy who. Raven’s pouch! I am pretty happy with the way it turned out, despite the sloppy lining. He’s happy with it and that is all that matters. It’s going to be the home for a deck of MTG cards, dice, and tokens.
I do have to point out (again) that he chose the yarn, fabric, and button for this. He was quite pleased that it ended up turning out to have all 5 colors from Magic the Gathering incorporated into the bag. The yarn is green with blue metallic, the drawstrings are blue satin ribbon, the button is red, and the fabric is black with white and red in it 🙂
The written pattern is also ready for purchase: Lapis Dragon Skin Pouch
Dragon Skin Pouch, Almost Finished!
On Monday, my husband and I went to JoAnn’s and I had him pick out the fabric he wanted to line his pouch and a button. Tonight I’m going to work on lining it. He had also picked out the yarn that I used; Lion Brand’s Vanna’s Glamour in Lapis. He though the metallic would look cool in the Dragon Scales. Unfortunately, this particular yarn does not photograph well.
After that is done and more photos are taken, the pattern will be available for purchase 😀
This is the pouch so far, it’s sitting on the fabric my husband chose for the lining:
This will be the new home for one of his Magic the Gathering Commander decks, with some dice and tokens.
Finishing and Beginning
I have finished the dice bag order for my friend. The original order was for 2 small bags and 2 large, but he added on for another large,and will be picking them up on Saturday. I sent him this photo and he seems happy with them.
I also squeezed in an additional project, I made a necklace for my best childhood friends upcoming 45th birthday. It’s made from my Isabeau pattern. I hope she likes it 🙂
I’ve also been working on Keely’s Daughter of Dragons Shrug. I’m about halfway done with the second sleeve, then comes the seaming, the neckline, and the wrist-lace to match the 1st sleeve. The lace that will be on Keely’s will not be in the pattern for the shrug, she chose it from a pattern online that she liked. The lace I will be including in the pattern will be a simple honeycomb openwork design that I thought worked well with the scales of the shrug. (info for testing this pattern in THIS POST)
Keely’s chosen wrist-lace
~*~
Wrist-lace for the written pattern
I am still working on my grandmothers shrug too, but I haven’t any photos of that yet. Her’s will be a modified version of my original Dragon’s Scale Shrug. She wears a 16″ back, but wants looser “large” sleeves that are 3/4 length, in tan size 10 thread.
I also have a barrette order to make yet. Another friend of mine ordered it as a Yule gift for another friend of hers. I pre-purchased a wide black barrette for which I will be crocheting small thread snowflakes and gluing them to the barrette.
Still working on Raven’s Dragon (Scale) Skin Dice bag. It’s my “Purse Project”, I keep a wrist pouch with the project in it in the backpack style bag that I use as a purse that I take everywhere with me. I’m making it in Lion Brand’s Vanna’s Glamour in the Lapis (dark greenish teal with sapphire blue metallic) colorway. It’s very sparkly and shiny, so it doesn’t photograph well. I’m thinking about writing this pattern too when it’s finished. This one is going to be rather large, I’m almost done with 1 ball (202yds) of the yarn and I just bought a second to be able to finish it. I think he might want to be able to fit a deck box (Magic: The Gathering) in it along with his dice.
Yesterday, I was able to spend some of my yarn allowance and got 5 balls of Patons Lace Sequins in the Smoky Quartz colorway.
I want to make a shrug out of that for myself. I did up one pattern round in the Dragon Scale and, because of the sequins, I used the recommended hook size on the label and adjusted the stitch count for a size larger hook. The shrug is written for a size 3.25 hook for gauge, and the recommended hook is a 3.50, so it was easy to figure out. I think it’s going to be a cross between my original shrug and Keely’s shrug in design. I guess I’ll figure that out when I get to it. Now to put this aside for later when I have Keely’s shrug done and more on my grandmothers shrug done. I have a bad habit of needing a minimum of 2 project going at the same time.
Now on to a night of Crochet and MacGyver on Netflix 🙂
5-Color Spiral Dice Bag
This past weekend, while my boys and I were hanging out at D20 Cafe, I thought wouldn’t be fun to make a bag in 5 colors? How hard would it be? Well, It wasn’t hard, just a lot of twisted yarn, but the result was pretty cool. The co-owner of D20, John, absolutely loved it. I made it in the 5 common Magic The Gathering colors: black, red, green, blue, and white. I only had one complaint from a D20 customer/MTG player; the colors were in the wrong order, he said. Well, the next one I make I will have to look at the back of a Magic card to get the color order, I guess. This bag turned out a bit larger than the ones I was calling “large” in my last post, so those have been demoted to “medium” bags.
While I was at D20, I finished a 2-color spiral bag, then started and finished the 5-color one. The other co-owner, Jess (she and John are married), set up a spot in the display case and made a sign to sell my bags. Both she and John are very happy with they way they look, functionality, and the choice of sizes I made. They showed me the ones they were getting from a distributor and said they think mine are better.
We are going back there this weekend and I’m planning on having a couple more color choices, since all I had made at the time were blue, green, and white, with a single 5-color one. I have 1 of each small and medium in red finished and had started a green/black spiral, which I have a feeling my husband is going to want for his Ghave deck. He said almost asked for a 3-color green/black/white, because those are the colors of the deck, but he decided not to.
Of course while I’m there I’ll be making more bags while my boys play in the MTG tournament 🙂
I have been debating making a page in my shop for these bags too. They are useful for things other than dice and I can make them in other colors than just the 5 MTG ones.
by Midknight Designs 